Shawn Gee

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of course Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
All Right, well, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, this is a
special episode of course Love Supreme, as all episodes are
special episodes of course Love Supreme. You no seriously for
a long time fans of the show, Uh who already

(00:23):
know like how nerdy and informative we are, or at
least that we strive to be at least and putting
you on game. Uh. This is probably why our guest
today is the perfect example and know how um having
one ft being a well effective suit in the business

(00:44):
while equally having his other foot deeply rooted in creativity. UM.
It's 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. Um. He is the president of Live Nation
Urban Um and as a business manager for the last

(01:08):
twenty years, he's literally guided the careers of a bajillion
acts from Joe Scott, Scott Storge, Little Wayne, j Cole,
Nicki Minaj, even a certain unnamed presidential candidate Slash Nuisance Um,

(01:29):
not to mention Philadelphia Spinest, the legendary Roots Crew Hello hello,
but you know pretty much if you've been head scratching
for the last ten or fifteen years wondering how in
the hell does Questo? How can Questo match a triple
platinum artists going buffer buck with only a single going gold? Uh?

(01:57):
This man is really fully responsible. Uh he can answer
that question because lord knows, I've been in the game
since nineteen and there's not many of us left here
still swimming and and and and thriving, if you will,
and we owe that to our guest. I promised no

(02:18):
inside baseball talk. This is super manager Sean Gee, thank you, brother,
thank you. I'm waiting for my suprema. Yo yo do
that last night. We can't do it. COVID nine. But

(02:43):
that name, I'm like, we can get a feature then,
you know, break it down. This was no, I don't know.
Please let's you can start there, sell the story all right. Yeah, No,
shan Z's rap name was MC too cool, mellow cool melojy. Yeah,

(03:12):
shan shan is really responsible. I guess you know. I
mean it's no secret sharing Tarika cousins and actually a
lot of people don't know that, right, Okay, again, no
inside baseball from the question I'm treating you like a
regular ass guest. Um. Yeah, and so I guess the
legend is that the sibling rivalry nature of their of

(03:37):
their childhood. You know, Shan was like the star of
the family because he had a twelve inch single that
was profitent Philly and you know that that really lit
a fire into Tuik, like you know, wait till they
get a little to meat like that, that sort of thing.
And that's you know, so Shan is responsible for really

(03:57):
putting the fire under hold on, I see it's about
to happen here, you go ahead. So so Terka and
I are cousin's black thought is my cousin. Um, we
were sort of raised more like brothers because his mother
was my first cousin, so he was my second cousin,

(04:17):
but we were obviously around the same age range. And um,
you know his mom, you know, he saw always stay
at the crib like my mom was. The was the
aunt was the South Philly aunt who moved to Mount
Airy Um where all of the the entire South Philly
family would come up and hang and drop their kids off.
And Riek was always at the crib, always at the crib.

(04:39):
And uh, from the time we were four or five
six years old. We were super competitive in everything, right, Um,
whether it was riding our bikes, whether it was drawing.
Like Terka is a super dope visual artist. And you know,
I'm the older cousin. I'm two years older than him,
so I I especially in those at that time when

(05:00):
you're younger, two years is a big difference. So 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 in minds, looking like stick figures,
but I like, I want, I want, you know. So

(05:20):
you know I used to always be able to frustrate
them in in in different ways. And um, music was
another passion of one. So like we you know, grew up.
You know, I got my first record that I bought
was you know the Fat Boys, but their stick him
you know, from the sound of Market. You know, brought
it up to the crib. Reek was at the crib.
You know, we're playing a record. So you know, a

(05:43):
lot of the experiences that I had being the older cousin.
I would come back and and explain or talk to
him or about it, and he would sort of live
vicariously through me. Um. And then yeah, it got to
a certain point where you know, I started rapping and
and I started to get a rap in Philadelphia, and
UM used to travel around the city and got a

(06:04):
record deal quote unquote UM and put out a single. UM.
And at the same time, you know, Reek was always
an artist, you know, whether it was a visual artist,
whether it was a poet, 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

(06:28):
in high school, and um, I had I was shooting guard,
I had a record out and I was on the
basketball team. Played basketball then. Um no, no, not at all,
not at all, not at all. But but basketball basketball
took me away from from hip hop, like basketball took

(06:50):
me away from because it was like I started getting
college scholarship offers and things like that. So I stopped.
You were that good, Yeah, I got I got scholarship
Division two. I mean I wasn't didn't knew that you
were in Villanova. You weren't see nowhere. But you know,
I gotta I gotta college, Scott, So I got the ball,
like you know, google me Doug like mayor be Sean,

(07:14):
I know that's the thing. I'll send you some clippings
like you know, I don't know that life. So ye
wait Sean, you fast forward and can we take it back,
like take it back to like the kind of house
that you grew up in, like what your what your
parents did, and we can start there. We can start there.
So so, um, my entire family on my mother's side,

(07:37):
I was really close, you know, to my mother, and
father was in my life, but my mother raised us.
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 I'm not the
one that got in that. My mom. He was in
my life. But my mother raised She was she was
the visionary, she was everything. And my mother grew up
in the projects in South philling Um fIF projects. My

(08:01):
I have three siblings thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years older
than me. So they're much older than me. They were
they were born in the projects in South Fia. Um
my mom. Uh, she dropped out of high school in
tenth grade. She was pregnant with my sister when she
was in tenth grade, so she dropped out of high
school in tenth grade. Her my dad got married, they

(08:23):
had two more kids, living in the projects. UM. My
entire mother side of her family is from South Phili
the street projects of Seventh Street, you know South philist
the street, the seventh Street, UM. And you know that
was the sort of pre showing existence was all South Philly. UM.
My mom was a hustler, you know, she worked two
three jobs. She saved up, she bought real estate. UM,

(08:45):
and her dream was to get her children out of
South Philadelphia. UM. And she did that. She bought a
house in Mount Area and my closest sibling was twelve
years old, and they moved and we moved. They moved
to Mount Area, and I was in the Mount Area. UM.
So I I was born UM on Sharp next Street

(09:05):
in Non Area, 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 kids, my brothers and
sistants in school and we was ground and they couldn't
keep me. So my first six years in my life
I lived in South Philly with Tree's grandma, So until
I became until I was able to get become school age,

(09:28):
I stayed during the week in South Philly with Terre's
grandmam and my other aunt who lived like two doors
from each other, mynt many of my aunt Blanche, until
I turned six, when I was able to go to school.
That's when I moved to Mount Area with my mom
and my family for the entire you know, all week um.
So that was sort of my my early existence was
jumping between South Philly and Mount Area, um during the

(09:52):
week and then you know, sort of staying with my
parents and my family on the weekend, which at the
time it is the hood in the Burbs, it was
absolutely one thousand percent. This was this was Mount Area
at the time where there were white people, you know
what I mean, it was, it was predominant. It was
predominantly white when my mom moved there. I mean, now
you know that that doesn't exist, but that's that's the

(10:14):
Mount Area that we moved to when it's predominantly white.
But again, my existence until I became six, and when
until I became school age was still in South Philly
because my mom and dad didn't have you know, didn't
have no home healthcare, you know, kid money, money to
put me in some sort of uh some sort of
uh you know care. Wait, so I have a question

(10:37):
that 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 Sharp next Year area. That was the house
she saved up. You know, she saved two jobs. She

(10:59):
bought that house. Again. My mom was a hustler. Let
me tell you one more thing about my mom. My
mom was deaf, so she lost her hearing at sixteen,
so she dropped out of high school at fifteen, lost
her hearing at sixteen, and had three kids by the
age of twenty. Um. But she was a hustler and
and super smart and and understood how to make moves
and under and had a vision for her family. So

(11:21):
she got us out of South when we moved to
a house on Sharp next Street. We were there for
about I think four or five years. Then she saved
up and bought another house on Hoard Street, which is
the street around the corner and kept the sharp Next
Street as a rental property. Right, so we moved around

(11:41):
the corner, kept the sharp Nex Street as a rental property.
One of the first tenants in that sharp Next Street
property was Tarik 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 not I didn't,
not in South Philly. So the story is to Rek

(12:02):
lived in this house, to Rek and and and 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 or whatever. And then
I bounced and we were playing. I don't know if
you'll remember these little green army men. Yeah, that was
that was our thing. That was. We used to set
him up all around the crib and you know what
I mean. And again I'm the older cousin. I'm like,

(12:23):
ba ba bow, I killed you. I killed you. You
know what I want. But um we we we, you know,
we got into it the game and I bounced and
he continued playing. Um and you know, evidently the story
is he found a lighter and you know, the army
man was were stuck in one particular position. You know,
that's the position you bought them. And whether they're on

(12:43):
their knee shooting or on the ground shooting, um to read,
you know. Being the intelligent kid that he was, he said,
I think I can if I burned this army man,
I can change his position because it's going to be
you know, wax. So you know he clicked the lighter,
old school lighter, you know, I mean clicked the lighter

(13:03):
was burning the army man. Of course, the lighter got
hot and he flicked the lighter down um, 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 whole upstairs is on fire, and then
the house is um. So yeah, that's the that's the
that's the that's the ultimate story. But yeah, I mere
the house that the house that caught on fire was

(13:25):
actually my mom's rental property. Oh okay, how those ladies
in that house? Okay, the story that he just ran
downstairs like like you smell something, not at all, like

(13:48):
that's when it happens. So when you um 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 that's the crazy shi it is so here.
So let's you know, again unpacking a little bit. So.
My mom lost her hair in a sixteen her sister,
Terek's grandma. It was hard to hearing from the time

(14:10):
I knew her. I mean, she could hear when you
like yell um. 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 that in
the family. And and I just don't understand why I

(14:30):
don't know signlanguage. You know why? You know why because
my mom that didn't learn siglanguage. My mom read lips.
I mean, my mom never learned signing, but she and
what I did, I was her communicator. So my my
early business days was while she was doing and building
her real estate business. You know, I was just eight

(14:50):
year old on the phone translating with the electric company
or translating with the contractor. Like, Mom, he said, it's
gonna cost you know, six hundred dollars to put this
hot water heater in. And She's like, sure, I get
the funk out of here. Tell him it don't cost
four to four hundred dollars. And I'd be like sir,
and she'd be like, oh I heard her, but tell
her he could do four fifty. And I'm like, mom,
he said four fifty, She's like, no, four hundred. And

(15:13):
that's it, you know, Okay. For so I learned my
first sort of negotiating and and just handling business and
understanding the rhythm of those conversations because business translated over
my mom handling buying houses, buying property and negotiating with contractors.

(15:35):
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 something. What was the height of her
number of properties? A like height? Um? I think we had.
I mean she used to buy and sell, so it
was never like a buying hole like oh my mom

(15:55):
had fifty properties all over the city. It was it
was a buying sell thing. Uh. But I mean I
think she probably you know, across my through my high
school years, it's probably like ten fifteen you know, properties
around the city that she's eiven bought held. So whatever,
are you still in that business or have you just
let them on go? No? I know, I still have.

(16:16):
I still I still got some property and so you
know I'm still still collecting some rents. Great because that'll
come in case some some ship happened to me. Are
your parents today still alive? Show my mom passed away?
Um young. She was sixty four when she passed passed

(16:37):
away fifteen years ago. My father said, okay, got you? So, Um,
you also attended Millersville correct, absolutely, all right, the university
I got you, the one that introduced Malakin to read
to each other or yes it was, so you're asking
this question, I'm sorry. So it was me. Um. It

(17:00):
goes back to me and Tarik being competitive, right, So
like I was saying, um, basketball took me away from him,
Like you know, you weren't making the money back in
the day. You know, I was doing shows that the
y Street, you know, that was my trap. That was
the house of I did they Christian now South Philly
fifty two street. You know what I mean? I always
wanted I always wanted to be jazzy, just to see

(17:22):
like that was my goal in life. Right. Um it
was with a company called Pyhill Records. Um with label
was the label was a joint venture between mc breezes
and Belali B. Where is all right? So for those
who don't know, like Belali B is like mid hip

(17:44):
hop period, like between eighty five to about nine. One
be was like a legendary Philadelphia label CEO, Like what
was I always heard his name? But was he like
our was this? So it's funny because the label was
you know this is his dude name was Jim Hill.

(18:05):
He was like your traditional you know, corporate guy, non musician,
non you know probably what what what y'all thought I
was when you first met me, you know what I mean,
like corporate, no creativity. So it was his label. He
did a deal with mc breese, who was an artist.

(18:26):
This combobilated later and and and you know all of
that until like bree did a sub deal with Balalib,
who also was an artist. So my label was run
by two artists. Um and deal with production deal exactly exactly.
I'm like, where's my royalties? Dog? I'm about to about
to hit you off for that, but um but yeah,

(18:47):
so so so you know I had that. Then I
started playing ball college and started calling I'm thinking about life.
I'm like, let me take this college scholarship. You know,
I stopped rapping um. And I start playing ball, so
I go up to Miller's. But I'm so you know,
you're still wrapping. You're still freestyling, right, You're still in
the car being come on you still you never stopped
sucking rapping when you wrapped. Um. And you know, I

(19:09):
come home Thanksgiving of my sophomore year, and you know,
reeks over the family. We haven't Thanksgiving dinner. You know,
we're in the basement or whatever and me and we're
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 even

(19:30):
when I lost, I won. But he's just start getting
It was like a right around the time he met you.
And we were like you just started getting better and
better and better. And when I came home from college, Um,
we was in the basement. He was like, yo, you
want the battle and I was like you go first,
and he was like all right, and I don't whatever
he said. I was like, oh no, I don't rap

(19:50):
no more. That ship the suckers, you know what I mean,
Like I said, but but listen, but I said, look
you might be good, you might be better than me,
but I'm playing ball man. I said, there's this dude
that miller's Ville named Malik. Like, Yo, you can't funk
with Malik b You can't. He was like who. I
was like, Yo, he's from Philly, he from West all Wayne.
You cannot touch Malige be And you know, that was it.

(20:11):
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 Millersville and they ended up you know,
applying and getting accepted to Millersville. They're going to the
summer program. Um. You know, I'm up there working in
the summer. I was the first weekend that they're up there.

(20:34):
I go to the you know, off campus party or whatever,
and they're like, yo, yo, I just met your cousin.
Your cousin go here. I didn't know you had a
cousin here. I just met your cousin. I'm like, yeah, yeah,
he's like he's in the kitchen. I'm like, what are
you doing? He's back there rapping and I'm like all right. Cool.
So I walk in the kitchen and it's Tarik and
Malik battle and Malex says to me, like, yo, your

(20:55):
cousin came in the party and asked who I was,
so Tarik in his mind, you know, from the time
when I said, Yo, you're this kid Malick in Millersville.
You're not better than him, it was like a missile.
He was like, let me find this kid mall like
Sean 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,

(21:17):
you know, from him from a rat perspective, that was
That's when the you know that side, that portion of
the roots were formed in that kitchen that summer in
Mostville University. Wait, there's the question you you will be
the perfect person to um to answer because normally our
guests are New York UH based guests and they always

(21:40):
have a Latin Quarter experience. However, the Philly Latin Quarter
was a spot called after Midden, and I never had
a guest on the show that could really explain why
the after Midnight was so important. Even though I'm of age,
I was not allowed to the After Midnight? What was

(22:03):
What was it like in there? Now? I know After
Midnight's building as the Spaghetti Warehouse because it's shut down,
But like, what was was the after Midnight the the
pinnacle or the top place where you could see hip
hop shows at that time? Was that our house of blues?
Was that ore? Or was it the fifty street wide? Like?

(22:26):
Where was Philly besides block parties? Where was Philly in
terms of seeing a show that wasn't at the spectrum? Right?
So there were sort of two levels to it. You know,
you had your sort of i'll call it the local
reasonal level, but for certain shows you still had some

(22:46):
national acts. But that local reasonal level, which is means
which means you can on any given Thursday, Friday, Saturday
and Sunday you can go to a party. Right. Um,
you had the y m c As, you had the
In out in in Winfield. You had Circus City. You know,
there was this circule of clubs that rocked every week.

(23:08):
But you gotta understand that Philly back then, the stars
wasn't the rappers. The stars were the DJ's, 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.

(23:28):
You know, you were going to see DJ jazz Jeff,
you were going to see DJ cash Money, you were
going to see Lightning Rich, you were going to see
DJ Spembad. Like those were the names on the flyers
and when at all of these clubs, those are the
people who sort of made those rounds, and as young teenagers,
we were like, we gotta go see the DJ. It
was almost like you know, who cared who was actually

(23:51):
rapping for them. Um, Like jazz Jock said earlier, I
always wanted to be jazz Like Jazz Jeff is a
god to me, Like it's it's amazing that I can
call him a friend. But 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 I see,

(24:11):
he had all these random mcs, but it really didn't matter.
So you know, you had your DJ surfing and philly
around all of these clubs that all of the DJs
were the starts also being one of them, right, what's that? Well,
Grand Master Vick Victor do play you know, yea Master

(24:32):
Vic and the super mcs, you know what I mean,
Like he was he was 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 not come back, and he'd be
walking through the halls in high school and I'm like, oh,
that's Master, you know. Um. But yeah. So it was
just sort of energy and Philly around the DJ's and

(24:54):
this was and that was the club sir. What After
Midnight brought was this sort of national um look from
a national recording artists perspective, All of the New York
people came down to play after midnight. You know, you
gotta figure even on the club DJ circuit, it was
still neighborhood. Right when you went to the fifty second Street, why,
ninety of the people was from West Philly, you know

(25:16):
what I mean. When you went to you know, I
mean the Christian Street, will ninety percent of the people
in South Philly. When you went to the After Midnight,
it was people from all over the city and you
had performers from that you were listening to on Ladyb's
Hip Hop Show and and and Mimi's Hip Hop Show
on d AS. So it was like that was like
our house and blues. That was where the national acts

(25:37):
would come and play and you would see all of
the people in the audience from all over the city
at one place where we would all congregate. Would your
life be in dangered like live Latin Quarter? Yeah, your
life in danger at all of these places. But you
know that's just part of that's part of the culture.
You know what I mean, girls like girls would get

(25:59):
there snatch and you know, guys will get there. You know,
the Sixist Jackets taken and you know what I mean,
their name belts and all that ship. But yeah, I
mean that's you know, that's that's that's that goes along
with with the culture. You don't want if you don't,
if you don't want to experience that, stay home. Well
okay I did anyway, Wait, why weren't you allowed to go?

(26:20):
I don't understand that. Yeah, come on, dog, I didn't
the first Route show at Princess Lounge. I wore birkin stocks.
Now oh anyway, yeah, so okay, now how you enter

(26:44):
my life? Was you? You started my first ever bank account, Like,
at what point are you realizing that that basketball might
not be your future? And when does finance enter? And
when you were entering finance, were you thinking of entertainment

(27:05):
finance or were you just thinking like, I'll be a professional,
you know, make loads six figures a year and 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. Um? Well, what I was I

(27:28):
was looking and laughing in my mind, Sean was just
about to say, Darren, but I'm gonna basketball stopped becoming
important my freshman year when my girlfriend at the time
and at Millersville told me she was pregnant. Um and
at that point I had to grow the funk up.
So it was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had

(27:52):
November of my sophomore year, my oldest son was born.
I was nineteen years old, a father. I was a
quote unquote statistic, a teen age 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 um her mother, her mother

(28:15):
and father. They both looked at both of us and said,
all right, cool, you know y'all got this. But we're
gonna take care of this for the next couple of years.
We're gonna take care of this kid for the next
couple of years. You'll both gonna graduate. And that's one
thing that's not gonna happen. You're not gonna drop out
of school. So that support UM a lot. But but
also my mom said, but you're gonna get you you know,

(28:35):
I'm I was always a worker anyway. UM, He's like,
but you know you're gonna take care of him. To like,
this isn't all on us, So you make sure you
get your answer job or two if you need it.
You know, you know you gotta you gotta take care
of it. So at that point I stopped playing ball.
Stopped playing ball. I literally worked two jobs for my
sophomore year to to my senior year. Uh One one

(28:56):
was at a bank in Lankas to Pennsylvania. One was
Kellogg's facility. Uh up there on the weekends, I would
they would shut down the the serial uh whatever that
is not treadmill. What do they call the assembly shut
down a serial assembly line, you know, on the weekends,

(29:18):
and they bring people in and all we do is clean.
We clean from ten at night to ten in the morning,
twelve hours, two days a weekend and get paid doing it.
So I had two jobs at school, UM and graduated
in four years. UM. I was an accounting major, so
you know, I didn't know what the funk I wanted
to do. Like. It wasn't like I was like, I
want to do finance. You know. I was an accounting major,

(29:40):
so I you know, it was like all right, you know,
let me I guess numbers are or where I'm where
I need to be. UM. I started working for the
phone company. UM. It was Bell Atlantic at the time. UM,
but it's it's Verizing now. Uh. 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

(30:03):
want to do, that makes sense. So worked in the
finance the phone company. I was like, oh, this is
where I'm supposed to be. Once I got in there,
I was like, oh, no, this ain't for me, you
know what I mean. Um. After after the finance department,
the phone company was like, oh, people were going to
get their NBA. Like, you know, there's a I can
get another degree and that's going to help me make

(30:24):
more money. Let me go get my m b A.
You know, so I went to move to Washington, d C. Um,
I went to George Washington University full time. While wait,
wait wait wait wait wait her to your parents are
still like, okay, so you want to get your m
b A. Sorry, Sean, go ahead and move to to
d C. I moved to d C, but by that
time I had graduated college. She had graduated college. Darren

(30:47):
was living with her and her parents, but he was
with me every weekend. 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 a d C. He'd be with
me on the weekends. I take him back, drive back
um to d C. So he was with me pretty
much every of not every other weekend. But yeah, she

(31:08):
was living with her She was living with her parents
at the time. Um. So you know, when got my
degree NBA 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 City Bank, moved to New York.

(31:28):
I was a private banker at City Bank, you know,
working with high net worth individuals. I had an office
in New York. I had an office in Zerk, Switzerland.
I was spending probably two weeks out of every month
and in Europe two weeks out of every month in
New York living the dream, right, I didn't know, but
I quickly realized I wasn't living my dream, you know again,

(31:50):
eliminating ship that I didn't want to do. That's that
was my that point in my life. That was four
or five years. It was less about finding my direction.
It was more about a limiting 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, yeah,
I'm trying to be with my kid, Like, this ain't
the life that I want to be that I want
to have. Um. This was nineties seven into So you

(32:15):
were in Europe at the time when we were grinding.
I was in Zurich. Yes, I was in Switzer. Damn Okay,
did you see two weeks after two weeks out of
every month? Now we never we never can never, you know,
so that we never connected. Are you are at this time?
Are you talking to tread y'all? Like talking about your lives?
And yeah, I mean I mean in American attested this

(32:37):
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 and hang. But then I was male
D called the original male D Cole. But I would
bounce because I had to work in the morning, you

(32:58):
know what I mean, where I had school in the morning.
But you know, yeah, I was definitely you know, still
communicating and and and you know I always say I
was because of that, because of me and Tarik, because
of the Tarik Malik introduction, you know what I mean,
all of that I was, I'm part. I was, I'm
a roote, you know, I mean I was a root
at that point. I just was a root in grad
school and the rout in Wall Street. But I think
we we met. I think the first oh, distortion I

(33:22):
forgot you're the eye and distortion and static or not. Yes,
I am was the story. I was the star. I
was the star of the first two routes today. Yeah,
you know, I forgot about distortion. I know you were
in proceed, but I forgot that sor I is the
eye that if you just right that I totally forgot

(33:49):
that joint. So okay. So at the time when me
and Tarik are sort of elevating this thing past just
being a high school rap group and name only and
trying to get joints at the gallery making like the
early organic ship, are you taking that seriously? Like when

(34:12):
teris playing you like past the popcorn and like early
organics things. Is is there anything sparking in your head,
like all right, he's doing something or did you just
think like they corny? Nah? Absolutely taking it seriously, you know,
absolutely taking it seriously. When Teren told me he was
gonna drop out of school and and and come back
to Philly with you and concentrate on this group and

(34:33):
he's taken Alek, 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 wrapping
but It was at a time where nobody wasn't making
money and it wasn't a you know, traveling. It was
just like, you know, a professional hobby for lack of
a better term. Um, So for me to see y'all

(34:56):
at that point, you know, focusing, committing, elevating, you know
what I mean, I was the one on the phone
fucking calling Kobe a power NIGHTI now like, why don't
you play the roots? Why don't you play the roots?
You know, even before I work, I work with yall,
you know what I mean. So it was I was
I was absolutely taking it seriously and I was absolutely
sort of believing in, you know, the future of the vision,

(35:20):
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
you are right now? So I know that my correct
Are we your first clients? Yeah? I mean I can
tell you. I'll give you too messy worry. At the
time when you came a forwards as to how I

(35:43):
got into this business, the words are Richard Nichols. Okay.
So while I'm being the cousin that's smoking up, y'all,
weed and drinking, y'all liquor used to know what I mean,
Me and me and Rich on the side with arm
in a relationship because I'm also the cousin that's in
grad school and you know what I mean, handling his business,

(36:06):
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're just
talking and arguing about ship, and he's schooling me about
life and you know why, you know, nbas don't mean

(36:27):
ship 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 Um, I was that uh. I
was at the bank and he called me. He was like, yeah,
where you at? And I was like, I'm at the
band at my job. He was like, yo, come by

(36:48):
the studio after he was at some member Sony Studios
is fifty fourth Street. My my my bank was um Alex.
So I walked up there, walked in the studio with him,
and I think it might have been like Axel or
somebody back in the they one of the engineers actually honest, Yeah,
and Puffy has been got. He had, you know, two
bottles of red wine, you know what I mean. We

(37:09):
sat there, drank a little bit, smoked a little bit,
and nobody was was in there. I think he was.
He was. He was mixing like a jazzy fan nasty
song or something like that, and uh, he was like, yo,
I hate this ship. And I was like, okay, what
you what do you what do you hate? And he
was like it is fucking management ship, like I hate it.

(37:29):
And I'm looking at him like what is he talking about? Um?
And he was 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 and all of
that ship. He was like, I fucking hate it, Like
I that's the part of my job that I hate.
And anyone who knows rich, you know, was He's the
ultimate visionary, the ultimate creative, you know, the fifth beetle

(37:51):
to you know, to to to to the really the
you know, the third and fourth beetle to Tarik's first
and second um from a creative perspective and a visionary
respective um. 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? You know
what He's like, all right, that's what we're gonna do.
You know. He gave me Carrol Lewis's number. I remember

(38:12):
he gave me Carroll Lewis's number. He gave me somebody's
number at the label, and and and and he gave
me Yoshi's number and um. And he was like, YO,
call these three. I'm gonna tell him you calling them,
and then you can take this ship over. And I
was like, but Rich, I don't. 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 gonna figure it out.

(38:33):
You're gonna 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 back to my mom right. I
knew the rhythm of a negotiation and the rhythm of

(38:55):
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 some what I'm
dealing with the label. So I sort of fell back
on the experience that I had my entire life, and
and Rich gave me the opportunity to figure it out.
And it was months of me figuring it out right.

(39:17):
And you know, at a certain point it went from
me doing two hours of ruse work and ten hours
of bank work, and then at a certain point, I
you know, be in my office to ten at night
and realized, like you I haven't done shipped for my bank.
Like I just wanted the phone negotiating toward deals and
figure it out. You know, my ledge from from London
to you know whatever. You know, what's the my lege

(39:38):
and what's the gas called? 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. Um.
And I had to make a decision. You know, I

(39:58):
was making six figures at the man was twenties is
the nineties seven. I was twenty five years old. Twenty
five years old, Um, making six figures at the bank,
you know. Um. And but I went and talked to
my mom again, you know, my my rock, and I said, Mom,
I'm I'm gonna work with I'm gonna work for Tarik
and his group, you know what I mean. My mom
was like, oh really, and she's like it's like yeah,

(40:19):
He's like what you're gonna do? I said, I don't know,
Like you know, I'm gonna be richest partner and we're
gonna figure this out. And you know, my mom being
an entrepreneur that year, she was like, look, as long
as you can take care of that boy talking about Darren,
don't can take care that boy. You can pay your
rent and go ahead, do you you know? So I
said a prayer and jumped out on face. And I

(40:39):
remember my first year I was making six figures with
in the bank, and my first year with the Roots,
I made twenty seven thousand hours. Um. And uh, you know,
took a huge freak. But I always said, last day
that I worked, the last day that I worked in
my life. The last time I work the job was

(41:01):
that last day at the bank, you know, 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 when I left the bank.
The thing is, is that, all right? Can you explain
to our listeners what does it entail? Now? I'll give

(41:26):
the pre story at least with us, the way that
we were living very hand to mouth. Um, you would
do a show nine times that attend we you know,
we get paid in cash um. Even though our system
was a little bit different. It was more of a
socialist system, like you get to really you get to rempy,
you get to you know that sort of thing. And

(41:46):
had like a little allowance. But you know the first
time I got my advance, you know you you would
have killed me, like I I spent that ship in
three weeks, my man. Um about let's see seven thousand

(42:06):
dollars worth of records. Yeah, a bunch of pumas you know.
I was, I was Billy Jean, I was I sorry
you said he was giving bones money like a hundred bucks,
trying to watch it. One's like glow in the dark,
like you know, I was just you know Showan hates
this story, but that he's pissed. He's already, man, it's

(42:31):
the truth. You just you don't think about like I
wasn't thinking about like am I like back in three
like seemed like the future like we won't be here
or that's that's sort of thing, you know. Even coming
back from the proceed video, my dad was still like

(42:53):
you gotta get a real job. Like I didn't see
this as a sustainable future. So can you, yes, can
you explain how an organization with at least thirteen people
because we rolled like you know, there's a band, there's

(43:14):
you know, staff and all those things. Can you just
basically because a lot of people do want to know
how the Roots been able to be a thing when
on paper we technically shouldn't. Yeah, like what were those
first changes that you made? Sean? Like you came in,
he was like, oh no, we gotta do this, we gotta.

(43:35):
We also would threaten the fire me if I ever
fucked up. I don't know if we'll going to his
clients that have no if you I'm sure, don't ask
me shell shock, Like if I spend anything over like
my budget, I'm still like, can buy this bicycle? Or

(43:57):
you know, I'm certain I'm a good interesting because again,
coming into this business, I didn't 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

(44:18):
when I started working, we're rich, you know. I remember
we had a conversation. We were in the studio one
day and I asked him, I said, you know what's
my title? And he was like, I don't know, you
know what's my title? You know what I mean? And
I was like true, like facts, um, And we sort
of settled on these titles of creative manager and business manager, right, um.

(44:42):
But it extened 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

(45:03):
interacts with your tax accountant, interacts with your investment team,
and interacts with your insurance team and your bank and
you know, all of the financial activity around your business.
He's your CFO. Um. For me, that was an easy
sort of title because that is the that is similar
to the role that I played at the bank as
a private banker. That's what I was doing for high

(45:25):
networth individuals. I 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 where it was more. You know, I
was also the person that was was responsible for touring,
you know, towards strategy, toward budgets, towards execution, um, you know,

(45:46):
every aspect of a tour. You know. Rich sort of
handed that to me, and again that that's not your
traditional business manager, you know what I mean, it's sort
of part of the management job. So where me and
Rich sort of had our 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 management, recording budgets and and and that

(46:09):
type of thing, while Rich was dealing with making the records,
you know. So so those first couple of years was
a period of adjustment for both of us because I
came in on my flat shoe, ignorant to the business
ship and Rich although he was the you know, upon

(46:30):
first sight or if you're getting an argument with them,
you know what I mean, you think he's the roughest, toughest,
you know dude in the room. Rich was a softie
like Rich was like doctor, yes, Like anybody can get
anything out of Rich, you know what I mean. So
for me it was like I was like, dog, why
do we have all of these people around? Like He's like, oh,

(46:51):
because we're developing this and this and that and this
and that. We literally argued back and forth about the
usefulness of individual or why are we paying this out
of the roots core money? Like why is this person
getting their rent paid out of the roots store money?
Like are they not self sufficient? Like is this? Do

(47:11):
we have a deal with these people? So I came
in and sort of instituted traditional business structure and a
non traditional business at least try to institute traditional business
structure and a non traditional business. And it was the
ying and yang of richest creative um vision as well

(47:33):
as socialist mentality mixed with my more capitalist mentality and
hardcore vision that sort of form this nice sort of
pocket that we ended up there, right, We ended up
with the roots crew, But I also made sure that
the roots were cool. You know what I mean. If

(47:53):
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 root crew, you know
what I mean, which is, you know, planting seeds for
a lot of other people. But I'm gonna make sure
that the roots are cool as well, because that is
the bus that we're all right. And it was that

(48:13):
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 two thousand to
two thousand three when we start sort of rolling post uh,
post things fall Apart, post Grammy. That sort of allowed
us to take this, you know, this, this beautiful journey
that we've been on for the last couple of decades.

(48:35):
You know, you'd be the bad cop to Richard good cop.
I'm sorry, I mean at times I was. Most of
the times I was the more I was the financial
bad cop to Richard's good cop. But I also was
the creative and business good cops sometimes to Richard bad cops.
Like we played Yng and Yang really well, especially with
you know, the the label side or promoters or you know,

(48:59):
create lives, you know what I mean. We played we
we played our our good cop back cop really well.
But definitely because of my background, you know, I played
the financial bad cop, and and and Rich played the
you know, good cop just because he was doctor. Yes
a lot of times. But but we we 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

(49:21):
I just said business manager without knowing that business manager
was actually a role in the music business. I just like, Okay,
I handed the business, handled the creative, um, so I
ran with that. But I think that's that that's the
reason why we were able to lay the foundation for
the roots. And and and I said this before another
in the in other interviews. You know, we were we
were also realistic, yea, Like at the end of the day,

(49:43):
our goal was can these guys make enough money so
that they don't have to go get a day job,
you know, and and and make money and live off
of their art, you know, I mean, that was our goal.
It wasn't like let's let's let's make sure that American
job around in the may box and Tarik can have
twenty five cribs around the country. It was like, Yo,
can they pay their rent? Can they give their moms

(50:05):
some money when she needed for a light build? Can
they take a lady out on a date? You know
what I mean? And and and then can we go
and do it all again? So it was like having
realistic goals, understanding what a blue column musician is because
again rich come from the rich came from that jazz
world where it was you know, blue collar musicians, you

(50:26):
know what I mean. So understanding that, you know, a
blue column musician is, you know, living off of his
his or her art and they're enjoying that versus going
and having a substitute teach and you know, playing the
jazz clubs at night when they can you know what
I mean. So it was that that sort of mentality
that we always had. And obviously those goals increased over

(50:49):
the as we got more successful, you know those, but
we've always even to this day. You know, I'm you know,
it's funny. I'll be in these rooms and like I
love the roots, I really do love the roots, and
I'm like name fucking three roots song. You love the
concept of the roots, you know what I mean, same
three roots songs, you know what I mean. But again,
for us, that's always been our goal was, how can

(51:11):
we take these virtuoso you know, performers, you know, Tarak
and a mirror, 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
right ever in life, but that shouldn't define, you know,

(51:32):
their future and their ability to earn a living off
of the absolutely. So you mentioned the socialist system versus
the capitalist system, of which, you know, I think people
think I'm super exaggerating when I said, like we we
really didn't start as far as mean trek, like really

(51:53):
put ourselves on payroll until like later later or later
in life, whereas absolutely before or it was very socialist
like okay, again, your rank gets paid in your car
bill gets paid, and that's how and you kind of
came in and cleaned up shop, like okay, well why
are we So do you in hindsight do you feel

(52:14):
as though that I think the socialist position sort of
kept us pure, But did you agree with it? Because
the thing was that I agree with aspects of it,
you know what I mean, I agree with aspects of it,
but I think I think the way that things were
set up Um, people were taking advantage of it, and

(52:37):
people were taking advantage of rich Um, and I think
he and I think he realized that too. I think
that's why I got that call that night from the
bank Um. But I I agree with 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 you know, sort of musical movement,

(53:03):
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, you know, creative he's just doing right.
It's not a community or a movement without any infrastructure.
And what rich had was the vision to to say, okay,

(53:24):
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, nineties seven to two thousand four, Um,
where all of this ship you know, really sort of
took off. Um, it wouldn't have it wouldn't have existed

(53:45):
without Richard Richard Nichols, you know, creating that infrastructure. However,
the problem when you have, you know, infrastructure without structure
is that infrastructure would have would have eaten itself alive
because they would have been too many people eating at
that same apple, you know what I mean. At some
point you gotta be like, I'm cutting this apple in half,

(54:06):
Tarika the Mirror, this is your half, everybody else, this
is y'all. If y'all can't survive off of this, oh,
so be it, you know what I mean. Um. So
that's where you know, the balance of me and rich
at least in that time was was that I provided
the structure for the infrastructure. But if it if it
were just my way, it probably wouldn't have survived either

(54:28):
because I was too hardcore. You know, this is about
Tarika the Mirror, and I think that that without the coming,
I think y'all thrived off of the community as well.
Think that there would have been no Black Lily. And
think about people black Lily, even the you know the whole,
you know, qually kind of like all all of that.

(54:50):
Not that they were core, but they were part of
the orbit that that everybody sort of you know, revolved around.
So I think, you know, to your point of mare,
I think this. I agreed with a portion of you know,
the socialists you know ideas, um and I think they
they were part of the reason why we've been able
to survive. But you know, if we just would have

(55:12):
stuck with that, um, I don't think we'd be where
we are to that. Okay, you talk about the growing
I guess the first two ventures that we really put
our eggs into those baskets was Okay Player and Black Lily.
Now remember the beginning. I think I had to really

(55:32):
sell you and Rich that this was going to be
the future. I don't think Rich really saw, you know,
what the hell me and and was doing, you know,
in the bedroom trying was the easier sell. Which was
the easier cell where because you know, I I was

(55:54):
done before it was Black Lily was the jam sessions,
and so you know the second third week, you know
what I'm saying, like really, I'm not exaggerating, like Beanie
Seguel 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,

(56:17):
you know what I'm saying. But just at the time,
they're regular people using my living room as the hub.
And I gotta live on the block of neighbors looking
at me like I'm crazy, Like why y'all jam until
two of that sort of thing. So I you know,
I went along with Chet he checked out of the
jam session. Yeah, I called the police on us. I

(56:38):
was caring. My heart was with Okay Player simply because
like I just envisioned a future where there was a
virtual playground that I could contact and so but it

(56:59):
was a hard sell for Rich and Sean, And there
have been many times where like they were just like, dog,
let's just go, like let it die. And so at
what point did you get that this might be something future?
So we're talking Okay Player, we're talking Black Walk first,
either or because I feel like that was so intral

(57:19):
to your story. Yeah, so for let's talk Black Lilies first.
Black Lily Amor told the story a thousand percent correct,
Like Black Lily started off as the jam the Roots
Jam Session. The Roots Jam sessions are epic, you know,
have been done for years, you know, in various places.
Started in the Mirrors living room and you know sort

(57:39):
of grew from there. Um when the Roots Jam sessions
started happening in clubs, um, I forget the club that
Malik Yilba used to have in New York. Remember we
did that that club set. You know, we went from there,
then we went down to to the wet Lands and
but the problem was would be it became uh all

(58:02):
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 that that the Roots
had formed. You know, there were a female artists, most
notably the Jazzy Fannasties, and they would either never get
an opportunity to get on stage or they'll get on

(58:25):
and you know sing you know, four bars of a hook,
while some random rappers you know bars or they 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 um, you know, came up with

(58:47):
the idea of doing their own Jam session. Um, and
you know Black Lily. I remember it was you know,
sort of a play on Lila Fair because Lilia Fair
was that thing back then. It was sort of like
a little fair. They came up with the name and
the jazz and Fat Nasty was also signed to the
reach label Motive Records and rather than you know, and

(59:07):
it wasn't a huge like marketing budget that that 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 pull this money
and again back to the C word, create this community.

(59:29):
You know, let's build this this this brand, let's build
this event, this weekly event that started off in New York. Um,
this weekly event so you know, called Black Lily, which
builds from the energy and style and and and and
aura of the Rooti Jam sessions. Right. Um, So Black

(59:50):
Lily was built off of that. It was you know,
here is the next iteration of the Root Jam session.
And it was funded by initially by the Jazzy Fat
Nasty's marketing budget. And I remember that first that first
event we had was at the Wetlands and it was
probably like people there, you know what I mean, But
it was dope. It was dope, you know. And we

(01:00:12):
just continued on the weekly basis and the crowd started
coming and people heard it. But it was free. That
was the That was the other part of it. Early on,
it was free, you know what I mean. We just
had the markets pre social media. It's like market you know,
to to get people there. But it was free, and
that free event just started started growing um and then
it you know, eventually moved from New York to Philly
to the five Spot, etcetera, etcetera, and you know, it

(01:00:35):
grew to become you know what what people know is
black willing, but still never was more than ten dollars.
And it became and it became you know, at a
certain point, so post Jazzy Fat Nasty's um budget funding it,
you know, Richard Nichols commissions were funding it. Because again
you got to realize, this is the post, this is

(01:00:56):
post Shaun g coming into the fold, right, So it
wasn't like we are using this roots money to fund
this black Lily thing. You know what I mean, Um,
you know, we got enough, We got enough things that
the roots money are 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

(01:01:17):
that five spot version of the Black Lily. And to
your point, like we would, you know, we charged at
the door ten dollars, but that was barely you know,
covering back line, you know what I mean. Um, so
it was we lost a lot of money. But you
know a lot of a lot of big musical movements
if you look at him in history, Um, 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

(01:01:39):
profit center. It's like we got Jasmine. Yeah yeah, absolutely
absolutely so, so that that's the history of sort of
black Absolutely they held us down, like the Family Soul.
We went on the Okay point, so Black Lily was popping.
Then we built an Okay player tool and we took

(01:02:01):
all of the Black Lily artists on the Okay Player too.
So then what happens to Black Lily when they're all
out on the road for two three months? Kindred the
Family soul be Teen in Asia and their band, which
you know at the time, again, they ain't handle money
at the time, so they just picked musicians that were
passionate about the you know what I mean. And at

(01:02:23):
the beginning, you know, I remember me and Richard look
at them like they sloppy and ship like not for
teen and Angel, but they're band. It was just sloppiness.
But after four or five, six, seven, ten weeks, you
know what I mean, everybody comes back off the road.
They owned Black Lily, they defined black the routes would

(01:02:46):
come and perform at Black Lily, and people would be like, oh,
that's cool, that's cool. Weirds where is you know what
I mean? And they still I mean again shout out
to both of them because they still one of my
fair regroups, like I love I love them. Um. But yeah,
so that's that. That's the Black Willy story. I mean, okay, player,
you're right, um you and you and and Chad Vision. Um.

(01:03:09):
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, a mere starting this
business in his bedroom and you know he's gonna eating
to 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. Um,

(01:03:30):
But what y'all built was immediately special. Um Again, the
community that that that that that that formed around Okay
Player absolutely absolutely, and and the relationships and the music

(01:03:50):
and the artists and you know, I think Will i
Am was like, Yo, y'all would have y'all would have
first Facebook, you know what I mean, Like he said
something like that, y'all would have first Facebook. It was
it was all about the community. It was less about
you know, artists 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 you and uh you and and

(01:04:13):
your participation and Angie's you know sort of vision and
and craziness, you know what I mean. We were able
to were able to attract this sort of community that
that that you know has has continued to to to
grow and build. So how did what were the first
steps into you really building coming outside of just keeping us,

(01:04:39):
you know, keeping the lights on for us, and then
you next there's two there's two phases your your empire
right lest as far as um tour managing other artists,
Like what was your first worate in tour managing artists
that weren't roots ba so so businessman, I don't again,

(01:05:05):
I don't. And this this is and this is a
a study in my life. Like the title, you know
my title, I don't know what it is. Like I
called 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 man. Anyhow.
My second client was a young lady out of Philadelphia
that I haven't known since high school, but the name

(01:05:26):
of Jill Scott. Um. Jill and I went to brothers
sister high schools. I went to Central, she went the
girls High. Um I knew her in high school. Um
we uh, we went on a we went on a
we're even going to prom together. But yeah, okay, because
she's already told the stories that we needed to sound
the same. She went on a prom with a guy.

(01:05:49):
I went on the prom with a young lady. After
the you know how after the prom you go to
great eventions. Um, 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

(01:06:11):
third wheel and whatever you wanna call it. So, you know,
we 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 Joe
UM and I remember um having a cassette to read,
giving me a cassette with the original You Got Me
beat and Hook, and on the cassette was written the

(01:06:33):
Jail song. I don't remember this something here we used
to be called the jail it was, And you know,
I just ignored. I was like, oh, the Jill song, Yo,
that jail song, banging like yo, that Jil song. You
gotta do that Jil song. Anyhow, at 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 Fante that's right across the

(01:06:54):
street from Fenway Park. Uh, it's not the it's not
the Middle East. It might have been the middle of
I don't know what it's right across the friend Way Park.
I remember we were we were in the sound check
and um, I heard this voice from the stage and
it was Jill singing you do you got me hooked? Um,

(01:07:16):
And I walked out and I'm looking at her and
she's looking at me, and I'm like, Jill Scott, like
you are the jail song and she was like sho,
you know what I mean. And that was like the
first time we connected was at sound check when she
came out, you know, doing something, doing some shows with
the Roots. Um. And you know, her husband or ex
husband now was managing her at the time, and she

(01:07:38):
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 ship Like
I was like, yo, sweetheart, like do you understand what

(01:08:00):
this is? Like I'm gonna give you this amount of
money and this is how we try, like you know
what I mean. She's like she needs to fly between
each other. And I'm like, yeah, we're playing House of Blues,
Like what are you talking about? But because Jill was
my friend, because she was my friend or you know,
I hadn't known her, I called her Alzel and said, Yeo,
I'm just gonna give you a piece of advice. Like

(01:08:22):
this lawyer. She has no idea what she's talking about,
and she may ruin relationships. Like if it wasn't me,
if it wasn't me, I would be like, funk this girl.
Let's just you know, we'll figure out how we do this.
This girl was crazy, right, So I think her a
Lizel appreciated that, and you know, a few months, you know,
then you know, Jill became you know, she started putting

(01:08:44):
her record together and touch a Jazz and you know
all of that, and her record came out July of
two thousand and d I have two thousand 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

(01:09:05):
me to do again? It's almost like a Richard Nichols call.
I was like, what do you what do you what
do you want me to do? And they were like,
you know, I don't, 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 basically the basic premise of our relationship and
the call and the start of our relationship. So again
I came in leveraging what I knew finance, so you know,

(01:09:29):
I stepped in and lifted 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 two hundreds of
shows a year, like this is how you organize your touring, etcetera, etcetera.
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

(01:09:50):
of managers and then she's like, this manager ship ain't
working for me. You know, me and Sean we just
rocked together. We're business partners. But people called me our
business manager early, people to this day called on me
her manager but we're just business partners. We just we
just built right, we build together. So Jill was my
second client. And you know, thankfully both the Routes and
my first two clients I always say will be my

(01:10:10):
last two clients, you know what I mean, we've been together,
you know, multiple decades. Um. My third client though, is
the one who sort of, um 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 Um in two thousand and four when

(01:10:32):
Kanye had college dropout and wanted to do a tour.
You know, Um, he wanted to do a tour. He
wanted to do a college tour, and nobody on his
team had ever worked with a tour touring artist. You know.
His managers at the time, Gee Roberson, Who's hip hop,
al Branch hip Hop? They all at that point, they

(01:10:53):
all they managed was producers. They had just blazed. They yeah,
you know remember remember he 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 ship
about torn Um. The business manager that he had, Kellogg
and Anderson, I believe was the company in l A.
They were film and TV. You know, they didn't have
any music, so they didn't know much about Torn And

(01:11:15):
his agent was a lady named Carol Lewkes. Carol told
them you need to talk to this guy, Sean g.
Because he can organize, strategized, he'll have the ship. Right,
So they flew me out to l A. UM interviewed
like three people and they hired me on the spot.
Ask but because you mentioned that we did two shows
a year, where was that common knowledge? Like? Was that

(01:11:39):
common knowledge in the business of like how are the
roots keep like able to? You know, is that normal
for a music act to do that? Many shows like
what is a normal act do? In terms like what
is it? What does the gang star doing that time period?
So so you got to think about the time period

(01:11:59):
that we're in, the time period that we're in. UM,
touring wasn't sexy, you know what I mean. Touring wasn't
a thing, especially in black culture, you know, and in
the in the all rock world, which is you know,
all rock slash jam baron world, which you know, a
mirrors was our model. That's the model that me you
rich in Tarik sor the built around was like you know,

(01:12:21):
the alt rock or jam band models. Doing a hundred
and fifty two hundred shows the year was normal with
that world. Um 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

(01:12:43):
garage or wherever the funk they learned their music, their
favorite bands they experienced live, so it was live was
part of their culture, our culture, you know, as 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

(01:13:05):
hop tour was you know, uh that boy versus you
know what I mean, whatever, you know what I mean
it was. It was if you're not in the big
arena with with with Pyro and and all of that,
you're not really touring, you know what I mean. You're
going after like, yeah, you're going after your big publishing checks.
Are you're going after your Adida's deal or you going
to get another advance from a label. That's how you

(01:13:26):
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 anomaly and black music by
doing all of that. So from a from an overall
artist perspective and and fan perspective, they probably didn't recognize it,
but the business people in the music industry recognized it.

(01:13:47):
The label heads, the label exects, the the agents, you
know what I mean, they all realized like, oh Ship,
the roots, you know what I mean, they're they're doing
their thing and they're a live bang like you know.
So that's how I was recognized through Karen Lewis to
be recommended to Kanye because of the business that we
built by doing two hundred shows a year and making

(01:14:10):
sure it's organized, making sure we're you know again simple ship,
We're on time, you know what I mean. We're were,
We 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,
you asked one more question inside of this question. Um again,

(01:14:32):
like if you look at marketplaces and maybe this is
more of an agent question. Maybe this is the Carolers episode.
I don't know but if, as far as I know,
there's really around the world, what would you say that
there's maybe at the most twenty three markets for us
for the for the roots. Use us as an example,

(01:14:55):
like just how many are there? And a to the right.
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 when I had this conversation with

(01:15:17):
an agent um because again, you gotta think about the
time frame that we were in versus the time frame now,
like right now, it's you know, a lot of because
you know, I'm sure we'll get to the lot nation
side 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.

(01:15:39):
Why aren't I playing you know, Hammerstein Ballroom this tour?
And I want to be at Madison Square Garden by
my next album, you know what I mean? And I'm
like yo ya and tripping like yeah, you we were
from a roots perspective, we played the House of Blues
for fifteen years and we're happy about it. And how

(01:16:03):
we increased financial was instead of trying to reach too
far on venue size, we would just increase the ticket price.
Everything you can pay back, you know what I mean.
So that's how we went from ten thousands dollars to
show to twelve five New Year's each show. So so

(01:16:24):
that so that part of it, I mean, you know,
we don't you know we there are there are probably
you know, a good thirty to thirty five cities if
you're a popular hip hop artist in the US that
you can play. If you're if you're if you're Drake,
you know, you can go into Iowa and Oregon and

(01:16:47):
you know what I mean, Tallahassee, Florida, and you know
you can you can hit those forty and fifty if
you know, tertiary or whatever is beyond tertiary markets. But
for most successful artists, you're between twenty and thirty markets
in the US. UM in Europe, you know, you have
multiple markets in the UK, you know, depending on again
how big you are from a from a from a

(01:17:09):
pop culture perspective, um from a pop culture perspective, Depending
on how big you are, you have multiple markets in
the UK, and then you have a handful in continental Europe,
you know, in 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, you might hit like Helsinki, like

(01:17:33):
you might, you know what I mean, You're doing Germany.
You can hit two or three cities, you know what
I mean, you got motherfucking uh like maybe kind of
went up last time I went, but like you got Berlin,
could go yeah. Yeah. So so you know it's there's
there isn't a ton Now. What's what's opened the market.

(01:17:54):
It's festivals because you have festivals in these secondary cities
in Europe now where you can go to Leon or whatever, Tony,
or you can go to um 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 e commedy over the
last decade. But you know, there is a limited amount

(01:18:15):
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, and when 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
the office. Maybe you've got some help or are you
still yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, right around Jill, Right

(01:18:36):
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 Now I got a company. Um.
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 to Kanye, you know, I
never I never really stacked up to you know, a
thousand people in sixteen offices. There's always been a pretty small,

(01:18:58):
pretty small operation. But but but yeah, yeah, so by
the time I got to Kanye, you know, I had,
I had, I had some folks. It okay, So in
building your clientele, um, which you know, Drake is well,
I mean more than that, we name all your clients
because I know Latifa and again I know you don't

(01:19:19):
have a title, but as far as I know, if
money is coming down the pike to you, you are
in some you'r under that management. Unbro. Yeah yeah, yeah,
it was. It was. So that's what I said. So
with Kanye, I had this weird role of I wasn't
as manager, I wasn't as business manager. I wasn't his agent.
I wasn't as you know all of that. I was

(01:19:42):
just a consultant and touring. So I you know, I
worked with him. We we we worked on that very
first college tour, which was the school's spirit tour um
from college dropout. And you know, and when I say worked,
I mean I still it was more tour strategy, Like
I hired the tour man manager, I hired the production manager,

(01:20:02):
I hired the whole team, um. And I worked with
the agent and worked with you a on the overall strategy.
And you know, I started with him on colleges and
I think the last tour I did with him was
watched the Throne, you know, with with with 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

(01:20:24):
I learned the big business of touring through my experience
with Kanye West. As I started building that reputation other
art and building my relationships, other artists started coming to
me for that work. So G Robertson his next client
after Kanye in two thousand and seven was Little Wayne.

(01:20:47):
And again this is two thousand seven, two thousand and eight.
Little Wayne. You know, he released his Carter three, the
biggest records in first world, a million of first week.
So he's no longer some some hood as hip hop artist.
He's a driving culture. But his touring was on some
hood ship, like he was still getting brown paper backs
from the strip clubs, you know what I mean. So

(01:21:07):
Ge was like, Yo, my my guy just did the
Glow in the Dark tour with Kanye. We need to
bring him over here. Um. 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 paperbacks to you know, I AM Music tour,

(01:21:28):
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 artists that he was developing on
this random tour bus. And on that bus was Drake,
a young young gentleman by the name of Drake, and
a young lady by the NICKI Minaje, amongst others. So,

(01:21:50):
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, build with his agent, Rob Goods, helped build
his early touring career. I think the last tour I
did with Drake was Club Paradise Um when I had

(01:22:11):
you know, just just how the puzzle works. On the
first Europe to European tour that I did with Drake,
Drake chose an opener by the name of j Cole,
you know J 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 in in London. They called me
in their in their dressing room, was like, Sean, I

(01:22:32):
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 Lights period on up through his first arena tour.
I mean a lot of the roles that I played
with artists because I'm building their touring, I'm also educating
their teams. So I sort of worked myself out of
a job at certain points in times, you know what

(01:22:53):
I mean, Like you know when when when when when
Drake's contract was up with with with Cortez and gena
man It's and company, you know what I mean. And
his management team who came on a is as bright eyed,
you know, you know, sort of naive Toronto kids, but
but super smart, you know what I mean. They come
ask me questions, they see how to ship run like

(01:23:14):
it's not it's not rocket science. It's like if you're
smart and your attention, 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. Even Adam.

(01:23:36):
We would always talk about touring and vision and Rob
gives again their agent, and you know, at a certain
point they were like, oh, you know, your resources are
my resources now, right? I know I know a rigger
what a rigger does, and I know I can call
the rigger you know who hung my life's less tours.
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

(01:23:57):
legacy in the business. Is I am Tom. I am
teaching these young you know, super smart future executives the
touring gang. So I went from Cole to Nikki Um,
Wayne Cole, Nicki, Drake Um, you know, and a few others.
But that was sort of also I think that is
you teaching them how to do it for themselves, not

(01:24:19):
by themselves, but you know, teaching them like, yo, you
can do this for yourself. You know what I'm saying,
with the resources that are available to you absolutely now
without it being all got you journalism risk um no no, no, no, no,
no this what can you talk about managing expectations? You

(01:24:44):
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 four him a mirror
phone calls of what the fuck? All right? One time
I misread a price on very on a particular or
on a simple item a mattress and mats. Well, I okay,

(01:25:09):
I graduated from the W mattress. No rich put me
onto Hastens. I only want to Hastens mattresses and they're
extremely pricey. Google. The thing was, they saw me walking
in the door. They must have thought as a football player,
played with the Giants or whatever. I don't know. And

(01:25:33):
you know I came in like I will be the
person telling you sorry, you got a king, because I'm
just looking at a queen and I'm like, got that right?
So they take what kind of what kind of When
you go into Hastens, they they they you're supposed to,
they're supposed to. You try one bed and I still

(01:25:56):
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 what's that over there? And you're like, oh, that's
just you know, maybe two hundred more and you're getting
that one, and then they got you. Then they're like,
all right, let's go to next let's go to next one.

(01:26:17):
These motherfucker's actually just brought me to the top of
the line. Join I didn't look at the price because again,
riches like, yo, I think, I think you you know,
you have better circulation for your legs and d D
if you get this Hastenings bed. So I got in
the bed like you lay down for ten minutes and
then I said, yeah, I felt asleep. Okay, great, I'll

(01:26:39):
take it, and here's my office number and um 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 likes again, which was
expensive for W Hotel bed. I didn't realize that I

(01:27:02):
just purchased a six figure bed. It's like a hundred
thousand dollars. I didn't look at the price. This is
the whole night, this is bead like frame. Everything was
just over the egg over the right again, unbade Bill

(01:27:28):
said that Hastings has two dots over there. That's all
you need to know you're gonna down. It's like a
white person dots, there's like ship like whoa Anyway, So
cut to eight o'clock in the morning the next day, Yo,

(01:27:54):
you would have thought I ran everybody's mom over with
the car. They are like, really, it's come to this now,
like we we give you an inch and this is
what it is, like did you get the what the
calling me? And like come on, no, they were it
was heated. The thing was is that Sean's had some
other clients that he's not naming right now that have

(01:28:16):
done that ship, Like, you get your check and you
want to baul the funk out. And fifteen minutes into
this curse out, I realized that, oh, ship, I just
brought a one hundred thousand dollar bed. My bad, and
of course I got the price I can afford, or
that they told me where my budget was. But the

(01:28:37):
whole point was how do you manage expectations because you
are managing acts and dealing with their money post two thousand,
you know it's way it's way past that baller stage.
How are you are you having conversations with them at
the top of of your business relationship, will you tell

(01:29:01):
them like if you color within these lines and live
you know, dada da da da or you or is
it just like you just get the advanced money from
you know, Cincinnati, Ohio, and that's it. I'll see you later,
Like how do you manage? I? Management expectations is one
of the key things to being a manager, a successful manager,

(01:29:23):
and in music, I'm sure it's in film and TV
or or in any sort of creative genre, right, you know,
because when you're dealing with creatives and I but and
and again, I didn't come in knowing this ship like
I just learned it, you know, on the backs of
my clients, like dealing with you and dealing with Tariq

(01:29:43):
and dealing with Jill, you know, just understanding the motivational aspects,
the instant, the aspirational aspects that each of you have,
What inspires you, what motivates you, Um, what buttons can
be push? It's psychology, right, It's all psychology. That's that's

(01:30:03):
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 a mirror ended the
show with this song versus that song, Like how can
I have this conversation with him knowing that this is

(01:30:25):
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 compromised, like one
lesson that I learned and Kanye taught me, and I've
taken this throughout my career. Um, so again, this is
you know, two thousand six, I think seven whenever that year,
whenever we started to Glow in the Dark tour. And

(01:30:47):
again I'm four years in what 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. Um, So we're going
on this this this big tour, biggest service career, biggest
store of my career, you know what I mean? Um,
And I go out and specifically go and hire the

(01:31:10):
sort of logistics team. I put an all star team
together of people he had all his creator. I ain't
touched none of his creator ship, but he allowed me
um as did Wayne and others. So like, all right,
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.

(01:31:34):
And at that time, two thousand, six thousand seven, Eminem's
gonna fire. He's gonna stadiums and ship. So I'm like,
I got the top black tour 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

(01:31:56):
with the agent, you know, doing venue deals, calling the venues,
arguing with him over you know, our point, and everybody
went dark on me, like literally nobody would return my call. Curtis,
don't return my call. You didn't return my call, Like
nobody return 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,

(01:32:19):
you know, Miss West's mom. She's like, hey, Showing No,
I don't know. Everything seemed cool to me. You want
me to ask around. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna
get you into it. Let me figure it out. After
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, 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

(01:32:40):
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 is crazy and I'm like, yo, but what the funk?
Like how my sister's calls like I haven't talked to
nobody like and he was like, yo, I called everybody
and said if you talk to Showing G you're fired.
And I was I was like why. I was like,

(01:33:01):
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 gonna move this,
and not a lot. I got my full creative vision

(01:33:24):
out now, now tell me what you think about it,
and let's not just you know, and 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, a
mere fante to reek, you know, whoever it is, y'all
are the ones that's driving this car. You know what

(01:33:47):
I mean. I just got yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I
just got to make sure that it got gas in it,
it got oil in it, and they're gonna it's gonna
get to where it needs to get to and it
ain't gonna break down. And when you get there, you
got some money in your pocket. Right, So, because they're
not gonna holiday exactly, or even if the show is

(01:34:08):
good and you weren't able to do what you wanted
to do creatively, you're gonna be unfulfilled. And who you're
gonna blame for that? For being unfulfilled, You're gonna blame
Sean gi 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 the expectations,
but it's also a balance and making sure that look,

(01:34:30):
I mean that not that matchless. But we could tell
other stories of there 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 twenty three hours a day
to be able to do what I think is dumb ship,
but it's aspirational ship for you. So I can't I

(01:34:53):
can't give you know, I can't overlay my thoughts on
you know, your creative vision and what you know. I
just to put the barriers up, both creatively, business wise, money,
whatever it is. I gotta 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?
A Sean, can you tell us a time like when
it comes to the roots and jail, what was the

(01:35:14):
deal that you've made that really made you take a
step back and like past yourself on the show to
or really go fuck yes, like I'm finally doing what
I feel like it's fulfilling them and like we we've
done this ship. Nobody else has done this ship, Like
this is fucking phenomenal. I don't think there's you know,
I don't. I don't think there's one deal, you know

(01:35:36):
what I mean? Like, I don't think there's there's not
like one big branding deal or one bit even even
even the Tonight Show deal. Like I don't think it's
what I get it what I you know, Um, I
mean even the Who's Picnic, We're not there. Like the
thing about the roots is the thing that keeps us
going is we never fucking arrived, like you know what

(01:35:59):
I mean, right, We've never like arrived to whatever that
mythical place is that you think when you need to
get to, We're we're always motivated to either do more
or diversified, you know either When I say, but they
still had to be a moment where you went they
didn't think we could do this, and we did that ship.

(01:36:20):
Oh okay, okay, got you. Um for the roots, it
was the roots pect in New York. It was when
we did when we did. When we did Brian Park,
I 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 shot the rich
and I was like, yeah, look, look, what the funk

(01:36:43):
we did? You know, because you remember that night? Man,
we talked that night. Uh you know, we I think
I don't think what was on, but it was somebody
was on, but we was talking and you was kind
of giving me talk. He was like, yeah, man, like
this ship was worked, like he was on, like you was,
you was giving up? Like so I remembered up being
a big moment for y'all. Yeah, r Ruth Picknic New

(01:37:03):
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 were there. But again, I think, you know, overall,
it's it's the concept. It's the constant growth, like it's
the it's the what's the what's the towards versus the
hair men that we have that I'm happy when I'm

(01:37:26):
happy When Alicia Keys, twenty years into her career, makes
a fucking song called Jill Scott, you know what I mean.
Like that 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 djaying the jay Z

(01:37:49):
and Beyonce Oscar party and killing it, you know what
I mean. And everybody there is like, oh my god,
thirty years in Like it's just the constant ascension of
people that you know, over the years, everybody always turned it.
You know, who are these guys? What's up with her?
The girl from Philly? Uh? You know, but you know
they at the end of the day, as long as

(01:38:10):
we constantly ascend creatively, as long as we diversified 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 gonna work out, all right.
So I guess for you and me personally, you know,

(01:38:32):
two thousand and fourteen was definitely a turning point once
uh Richard died of of ekemia, and you know, I
definitely was going out in my mind during that time period. Um,
and you know, I realized that it was just it

(01:38:54):
was gonna 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 eight am phone
call that you have with Rich, which is weird because
Rich had eight a m phone calls with everyone. So
I'm trying to call every day with Rich. I don't

(01:39:16):
know how he did right exactly, Like in my mind,
it's like Rich wakes you up at like and then
you're off at eleven. But everyone has happen, so what
In my mind, I was just like, woll shit, Like
Sean's the suit to Rich is creative. Now Shan's gonna

(01:39:37):
have to be a creative and I'm gonna 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

(01:39:59):
that point you were you were you were developing sports
entertainment sc F s c F. Yeah, you had uh,
you know, basketball players, yet you were managing business, managing
all these people. Can you talk about the transition from

(01:40:19):
sort of amalgamating your your company into Maverick, which then
goes into Live Nation Like how does it? Yeah? Yea.
But before doing that, I want to talk about two
thousand and four teams because you're right, you know, at
that moment when we all realized that Rich was was
was on his way out. Um, the first thing is

(01:40:43):
Rich being rich, you know he was he was prepping
me for it. You know, Rich was prepping me for
for years. Um, just you know, thinking back on it,
just the conversations we were having and and and you
know ship that we were talking about, and responsibility is
that we're normally his and the creative side that he
would be like asking my opinion and I'm like, you

(01:41:05):
really want you are my opinion? Me? 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 that what which photo looked good? I'm like,
you are my opinion on that? You know. But he
was prepping me for two thousand and fourteen. Um. And
I don't know if you remember, I had a conversation
with you and to read Um, you know, I said, look,

(01:41:28):
I'm gonna step up and do a lot of ship,
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. You
and I can build this and you know, tours and
festivals and ideas and hire people to come build your dreams.
But I can't. I can't make reference. I can't do

(01:41:49):
vocal takes. I can't. That's just not who I am,
you know what I mean. And you guys are gonna
have to step up as well. It's not just me
stepping up, So you're gonna have to step up because
this is a big gas void that we both out
of film, and I think it is it is that
sort of combination of my growth in the two of
you individually growing. That is the reason why, you know,

(01:42:12):
six seven, eight, hopefully ten, fifteen, twenty years after rich
you know, we're still sort of building, growing and driving
um But as far as you know where I was
business wise, I mean, it's funny because two thousand fourteen,
two thousand of fifteen was the year that I sold
um my, a portion of my quote unquote management business
um into Live Nation, into Maverick, you know, and and

(01:42:37):
Live Nation was building this mega management company called Maverick
Um and Guyle Siri was the head of a Guile series,
the manager of You two and Madonna. He brought in
Clarence Falding, who was the manager of Jason al Dean
and Rascal Flats and Shania Twain. They brought in Adam
and Larry um Rudolph who managed at the time Miley

(01:42:58):
Cyrus and Brittanys Beers Folks, yeah, and 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, You got white
mans like yeah. So they went after my partner, Gee Roberson,
remember Jie Roberson from Kanye Then I met him with Kanye.

(01:43:22):
They went after him and said, Okay, you manage Kanye West,
and you manage you manage uh little Wayne like you know,
let's do a deal, um, a little bit of a sidebar.
All of these tour deals that I was doing, you know, Kanye,
Wayne drey Nikki, I was on the other side of

(01:43:44):
the table from a company called Live Nation. So I
was doing these deals from with Live Nation, So they
knew me as the manager, the black dude that did
all of the big black tours. Um. The guy who
I was negotiating with on the other side was a
gentleman by the name of Haman al Hayman, the most
successful black concert promoter in the history of the game,

(01:44:08):
bar none. Um, and he sensed right now managers Floyd Mayweather,
and he's the most successful boxing promoter in the history
of the game, bigger than Don King and Bob Aaron
and all of him. Right now, was he the one?
Was he the one behind the super fess Rick James

(01:44:28):
Michael Jackson like Mary J. Blige. I mean, he's he's
he's the guy. Let's get him on the show. So so,
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've never dealt with a

(01:44:50):
young black man who knows touring like you do. Um.
So back to the Maverick thing. When Live Nation slash
Maverick goes and tries to buy g ro Brisson's company,
Al Hayman tells Live Nation, Well, Gee Roberson is great,
but this guy showing g over here, he's the operator,

(01:45:11):
you know what I mean. So if you're gonna because
at this time me G and Cortez had similar clients,
but we had three different companies. He had Hip Hop
in the nine eight I had sEMG Cortess at Brant Management.
So you know, in order to sort of complete that purchase,
they said, Okay, we're gonna buy Gee Roberson's company. We're
gonna buy Cortes Bryant, We're gonna buy Sean g because

(01:45:33):
that is the machine that makes all of this work,
and we're going to um merge them together and then
put them on the Maverick. So that was that deal
in two thousand and fifteen where I brought they brought
into my car, sold half of my company to Live Nation. Interesting, bedfellow, Sean,
I'm sorry, I was just thinking. I was like, so

(01:45:54):
you got management mixed in with live shows and product
just product ship. I'm just thinking again, we mean from
a Live Nation perspective, I mean, said Michael Repino is
one of the smartest executives in the business, you know
what I mean. For him, he calls it a Flywheel,

(01:46:15):
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, you know what I mean.
You had your guy in New York, you know what
I mean, and he had company. You had electro factory
concerts in Philly, you had cellar door concerts, and these
were just in the independent individual companies. What Repino was

(01:46:36):
able to do was merge all of these business It
was it was actually Clear Channel prior to Repino. But
you know what came out of the Clear Channel Um
divestiture was this merged entity of all of these individual
regional promoters that created this one megapromoter business. But with
a lot of people don't understand. On the promoter side

(01:46:58):
from the live show you you don't make no money,
you know I mean from a margin perspective, the artist
makes all the money, right, you know what I mean.
If I have Fonte coming performing, you know what I mean,
and I do a deal with him, ultimately in success,
he's gonna walk out with nine percent of the of
the money, you know what I mean, the promoter margins

(01:47:19):
of five to ten percent. So what what Rapino did,
which was intelligent, super super genius was he said, Okay,
I'm gonna build a flywheel around the shows. I'm gonna
have shows, which are the volume business, low margin but volume,
thousands of thousands of shows. But I'm gonna have venues

(01:47:42):
and when you pay for parking and peanuts and popcorn,
you know, at the shows, you know, I'm gonna make
money off that. I'm gonna have media and sponsorship that
sells sponsorship at the venues. I mean, so he built
a flywheel of business. It's that's almost like McDonald's, like
you know, the famous McDonald's Kobe. I'm not in the
hamburger business. I'm in the real estate business business, you

(01:48:03):
know what I mean. But the Hamburgers is what bring
you in, right, The shows bring you in. Yeah, so
so so so to your point, like you know, it's
your your hand is in different areas. But it's all
sort of a flywheel that works together. Um and you
know that. But again, I came in under the offices
of g Roberson's partner, UM and that was that was

(01:48:25):
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 Jie Scott.
But over time, you know, they start just like you know,

(01:48:48):
it's like I said earlier, like over time, you know,
the managers started to respect you know, oh ship the Roots, Yeah,
oh ship Jill Scott. And you know they start calling like, hey,
can I can cuss up coming? He'll produce this or
you know when I think the key that the pinnacle
of that sort of disrespect at the beginning but ultimately

(01:49:08):
led to respect was when uh you two called an
asked if the Roots can open for the or no,
if the Roots can guess on their set at Madison
Square Garden and you know they came out right in
the middle Masson Square Garden of yeah so uh but yeah, so,
I mean that was That's how I got into Live Nation.

(01:49:29):
It was through you know, y'all, y'all need some black managers.
And these are the three that you got to buy
time out though you uh cells out Manason Square Garden,
does she not? I mean that's one of the like
we have. We have sold out Madison Square Garden, yes, um,

(01:49:49):
but you know what I'm saying from that Neil sol
class of two thousands, Jill, Erica and Maxwell and Mary
are probably the three and and and believe it or not,
you know kem are probably the four miles. You know

(01:50:13):
they're not but even then, you know, if tickets are
going on Selle not for not to look Erica is
you know, I've been down from day one. But Erica
isn't going to sell at Manason Square Guarden by yourself
or you know, we We've never sold out by yourself.
It's it's all about strategic packaging. We sold it out

(01:50:33):
with Maxwell, you know what I mean. Jill and Maxwell
We did two nights in Masson Square Garden together, all right,
Maxwell and Mary sold out Masson Square. So it's about
you know, part of part of the sugar watering is
strategic package. Yeah. We sold about amphitheaters with sugar Water
with Jill, Erica and and and Latifa. You know, Erica
sold out Barclay's last year was Erica, Anthony Hamilton and

(01:50:56):
I forget who else it was. You know, again, strategic.
The the beauty about that that that that world is
you can strategically package and one plus one can equal
three or four, and that's where you get to fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen thousand. On their own, they're all probably like five
six thousand, but when 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.

(01:51:21):
I mean, you know, once I was in Live Nation,
um officially, you know, with the venture own management, I
just I just ear beat them, you know what 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,

(01:51:43):
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 me air beaten,
you know, the CEO and the chief strategy officer at

(01:52:05):
the time, Um, 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 besides the roots picnic, what did you build? Um?
The first three deals that that I did. Um. The

(01:52:26):
first deal was I flew to to Dallas. Um. I
sat with a gentleman by the name of Kurt Franklin,
and I said, Kurt, you are the jay Z 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 Kurb Franklin Exodus Music

(01:52:50):
and Arts Festival, which is the biggest, most successful gospel
music festival in the country. Um and I and I said,
gospel music Coachell, because I mean Bishop Jake's has you know,
the essence of gospel. But it's bigger than music, you
know what I mean, It's it's it's everything, So he
his is much bigger. But you know, we've had every

(01:53:11):
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 gonna expand it to multiple markets. So that was
deal number one. Deal number two is UM I called
a fellow Philadelphia by the name of Troy Carter, who
was running Spotify at the time. Spotify had this playlist

(01:53:34):
called Rap Caviar, which was driving. You know, at that point,
rap Caviar was what mix show DJ's were to us
UM back in the day where it's like, this is
how rap artists get broke. You know, you gotta get
on the Rap Caveo list. They had Troy Troy was
running the company and and uh to mobossa good friend
of mine was was he was rap Caviar. He was
the curiator. So I went to them and said, you know,

(01:53:56):
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 the live iteration of your playlist called
wrap cavir Live. So we built that venture between the
Live Nation Irban and Wrap Cavy and Spotify UM and

(01:54:17):
we took and 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 falsive culture. I had like this many sort
of smalleish festival um that they did, did like seven
eight thousand people, and it was called Broccoli City Fests
Brocoli City. And you know, I came on my radar

(01:54:39):
because as I was, as I booked the Roots Picnic
every year, of course I'm on my own ship. I'm like,
I'm the best curator, you know what I mean in
this in the space, you know what I mean. And
agents and artists started saying, well, I played the Roots
Picchnic as long as I can play Broccoli City. So
I went on a mission like what the hell is
Broccoli City? And I went and met with the two
brothers Marcus and Brandon, to really smart young brothers and

(01:55:01):
uh from North Carolina, both from from from yeah and
and and I invested in them, you know, I mean,
I didn't try to take over. I didn't try to
make a glad Nations urban festival. I said, look, you
guys got a vision, you got a finger on the
post of culture. You know your audience. What I wanna
do is build, put, get invest in, build the infrastructure

(01:55:23):
for you so that you can grow in scale. And
we went from seven eight thousand people to thirty five
thousand people. I moved into RFK Stadium and built and grew,
and this year we didn't go down. We probably would
have fifty thousand. It's that it's the largest gathering Black
millennials in the world because I'm the oldest person there
by far. It's it's eighteen thirty eighteen thirty, you know

(01:55:47):
what I mean, period um. And so that was the
third That was the third thing I mean. Since then,
I partnered with her uh Gabby, with the artist her.
We built a festival called lights On Festival in the
Bay Area. UM, you know, we've I've taken a start
producing the Miami Jazz and the Gardens Festival and and
and d C. I'll do some you know, smaller um

(01:56:08):
emerging artist platforms you know, Audio, MAC and others. But
those are the first three. Those are the first three
deals that I did. With those three, Can you explain
how you build a festival from the ground up? Like
one of the one of the times where I dread
the most as a Philadelphian is usually around March because

(01:56:32):
that's when everyone starts hitting me up, like yo, can
I get on the Roots Picnic? And I'm like the dog.
We start building the picnic two months after the Roots
Picnic like August. So can you just explain what goes
into building a festival, like the calls you have to make,

(01:56:53):
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 twelve months a year,
you know what I mean? Um, you know, if you
talk about the Roots Picnic can be talking about Brocoli City,
if you talk about some of the some of the
events that we have that that that I have it

(01:57:14):
there there's a 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, 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

(01:57:35):
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 uh with with us.
You know what we talked about. So so you know,
that ideation process never stops, but you know it starts

(01:57:56):
soon as the previous year ends. Then you go into
the booking process because as the festival economy and market
has gotten bigger, um, there's more competition in the space.
When we first started, we were we were the only
ones that we're looking for sort of alternative urban black
R and B himp hop like nobody else has no

(01:58:16):
other options, so we can 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 Banarus and these that yeah that
are that are now being tinted black. Between those and
then the other you know, sort of culture facing festivals.
Now there's a lot of competitions. So you start that

(01:58:37):
booking process, you know, nine, ten, eleven months in advance,
and you need to have you know, I gotta I
gotta team of young people that have their finger on
the post of culture as you know, a mirror. I
send out a group text to our entire team who
y'all listening to? Who y'all want to read? Tell me
who you want a mirror? Tell me who you want
you know, Dawn, you know anyone that's like you know

(01:59:00):
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 differs. Probably
your two story was napping. Uh, I'm things what's his name? Yeah,

(01:59:26):
we got back a little more right in the nick
of time of like I mean, yeah, there's a lot
of stories like we got kid Cutty, like you know
what I mean, super early week the weekend. Yeah, I mean,
but again, that's a team. That's a team based effort.
It's not just showing g or Mere Thompson sitting in
our rooms, you know, saying this is hot. It's a

(01:59:47):
team based effort, 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 fifteen year old
I'm like Sean who popping, Like, oh, you gotta get
young boy, gotta get this person. You gotta get that person,
you know what I mean, because it's a balance. So,
speaking of sons, can you just a quick call back
because we talked about your first son, but can you

(02:00:08):
just tell people what your your first son is doing now? Darren?
Darren's a sports age in the c there you go
living your dreams. Just move to l a from a baby.
But yeah, it's it's a never it's a non stop
processing there. It's just you know, it never stopped because

(02:00:28):
once you book, then there's the marketing, you know what
I mean, And you gotta put the marketing plan together.
You gotta understand what the marketplace is saying. You gotta
understand how you hit your audience. You gotta understand how
to break through the clutter. You gotta understand when other
festivals are announcing um 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 you're you're you're transforming empty fields into concert venues,

(02:00:53):
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 gonna place your vendors,
what are your prices? Who are your marketing partner, your
brand partners? What are your activation? Does all that go

(02:01:15):
out the window now? Because uh, I mean hell, but
we'll be back, okay, Well, all right, so it's April. Nah,
it's mad, it's May, Like how much gray hair are
you getting during this period? Oh? I mean, and you

(02:01:42):
know with the Roos pick Nic, how much work we
put into that second day like we had the first day,
which we booked the ship out of. Because part of
the strategy for us in the Mirror has been driving
this for years is how do we get the roots
out of the headlining slide? Because if we ever want
this to be Lallapalooza, we need the roots to ultimately

(02:02:05):
play the role of James addiction. You know, Perry Fell,
you know what I mean, Like, how do we get
the roots out of that? 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
Tarik a mirror myself. Um, we spent six months negotiating

(02:02:28):
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 creatives
and COVID hits, you know what I mean. And so
it wasn't just the Roots picnic. I had Brocoli City

(02:02:48):
Festival sold out. It was sold out two months in advance.
I had Miami Jasmine Gardens that weekend in March when
everything is shut down, headline by Mary J. Blige, Jill Scott,
Any Hamilton's Charlie Wilson. It was live crew. Yeah, we were,
we were. We were better than essence. We were better

(02:03:10):
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, ship, I was depressed, dog like, I
was fucked up, you know what I mean, because I
spent I spent the first four to six weeks of
COVID undoing my last ten months of work. It's like
building a house and you get to the front door.

(02:03:32):
All you gotta do is put the front door, and
then the bulldozer comes and knocking knock it down. He
was like, fuck, you know what, I just spent eight
ten months building this ship. So it was it was
super super you know, sort of depressing. You know, I was.
I was depressed. I was upset, you know what I mean.
I was, I was hurt, you know what I mean?
It was all types of emotions. When when did it change?

(02:03:53):
When did that change? When? I'll be real, um, when
we we dove in on with the route we dove
in on our on our YouTube page, you know, we
sort of we sort of rolled up our sleeves and
and and got creative and started Quest Love Supreme Live,
Quest Left DJ, you know everything that you know Terik's

(02:04:16):
you know ste the Thought interviews, you know, our our
Emerging Artists platform, Like like we got the creativity is
the thing that that sort of was like, oh, ship, Okay,
this isn't a time to be depressed. This is the
time to roll up our sleeves and become entrepreneurs again.
Like I talked to Tarik a mirror Jill More during

(02:04:41):
that period because you gotta realize, like it was like
a well way machine with my management client. It was like, okay,
we got tonight show. I'm gonna stay six months ahead
of the guys. You know what I mean. I got
an execution team keeping Feina Ferris mnir. I got a
team that handles the day to day. My job is
to stay six months ahead so that we get there.
It's something there. So it was sort of like a

(02:05:02):
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, all right,
So what does that future look like now? And I
know people talk about man when we get back to normal,
but it's like, okay, so when, so all right? So

(02:05:24):
when when when the line finally gets flattened in the
United States and there's we're COVID free? Um Am I
still going to blah blah blah club to DJ YadA,
YadA YadA. You know what do I do with the

(02:05:48):
thirty thousand you know, audience members that I've gotten on
these six platforms virtual DJ? Yeah? Like is that a
monetary future? Like? How absolutely? I think? I think go
back or do you stay the course that we will
never in the live music space and the live entertainment space,

(02:06:11):
we will never return to February. That won't happen, That
won't ever happen again. What does that mean? What that
means is like the way that the routes Picnic look
when we last did it for the things for all
apart twenty what would be different? I mean, I think
live will return, and live will return at scale. I

(02:06:34):
think that part of it is going to be driven
by science and governments. You know, mainly science, meaning you know,
whether it's testing vaccine what 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,

(02:06:56):
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 lime Wire to Napster to that ended up,

(02:07:18):
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 when Naster was
in a live people were like, the industry has gone
record labels are never going to happen again. Why are
we doing this? These consumers will never buy anything because

(02:07:40):
they can trade files for free, all of that. But
what ended up happening was the industry embrace technology at
the end of it, and the business is bigger than
ever right now. And that's the same thing that's going
to happen live. What we're seeing with these live streaming
platform we're seeing with the consumer engagement. If you think

(02:08:03):
about the level of digital engagement from music consumers when Fante,
if I told you you were going to be sitting
on your fucking couch for two hours watching Patti LaBelle
and Gladys Night play music and enjoying it, if I
would have told you that in February, you'd have been like,
what my my my moment for that was versus was

(02:08:25):
the primo and uh, And that was the moment where
I was like, yo, the world has changed forever. Like
but that engaged my house, watching two dudes the house
and that's the most important 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

(02:08:48):
decade for us to get there. Happened in six months.
That's gonna transition out of COVID, and you're gonna 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 gonna take live away. It's gonna
add on to the live economy and you're gonna now

(02:09:11):
see a bigger industry. The pie is gonna get bigger
because now you have brick and mortar lies remember Blockbuster
in and I mean, uh, what's the what's Tower record?
You'll have You'll still have brick and mortar line, but
now you're virtual lie and together you're gonna the live

(02:09:33):
music industry is gonna be to three times the size
that it is now, just like recording music is bigger
than it was, you know during the during the Lime
wire is gonna be It's gonna be a it's gonna
be a point of uncomfortable two or three years where
you're gonna see big major players like Tower. You're gonna
see big major players that were the ship in twenty

(02:09:56):
nineteen and twenty in early and the live music industry.
If they don't adapt, they're gonna 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.
That's when I say it's it's that's the fun part.

(02:10:17):
The fun part is we are in the wild, wild
West with Erica came out and said, all of your platforms,
I'm gonna build my own platform. That's is that gonna be?
Is Erica gonna end up being Spotify? Or is she
gonna end up being Lime Wire? I don't know, you
know what I mean? Like like Twitch, Twitch you know

(02:10:38):
it's a huge gaming platform now has a music strategy.
Are they gonna end up being Spotify? Are they're gonna
end up being Master? I don't know. But that's the
great part. That and again depending on how I came
up in the show always and you know what I mean,
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

(02:10:58):
this game a route and we figured out how to
make this ship work. We figured out how to make
a twenty plus year, thirty plus year career off a
one and a half hit song. And when it's when,
when it's time, when it leaves right there, you know,
when it's time to roll the city to figure some
sh it out in a period of time where it's

(02:11:19):
discord and everybody's confused, you know, some people are gonna
fall off the wayside. I'm having fun. I'm coming up
with ideas, creativity. Let's figure this ship, Amirorland. Why don't
you dj? And you know from your barn in New York,
you know to read why don't He's This is the
part by here that is fun because I don't you
don't know what the future is, but you do know

(02:11:42):
it's not gonna be where we were, and you get
to create it. We're essentially create absolutely and and the
winner might be some kids that's sitting in you know,
his bedroom, homeschooling right now, like he might be the
next seed jobs of the next you know what I mean.
It ain't even be somebody that's the CEO or somebody

(02:12:02):
that's the president right now. It's gonna be some kid
that's sitting there home doing virtual school right now and
it's gonna come up with the answer. All right, man,
I just hope I hope your Roans whoever he is,
that's go be a fan of the root. So did
uh well, wait, I forgot there's one thing that we
forgot to mention you also going to a four array

(02:12:25):
of developing with two on five Entertainment. Um, you know, actually,
like what what is? I find myself trying to step
away from platforms and get less and less jobs. But
now that I'm listening to the story, you're actually quest

(02:12:46):
low like just between lot Nation two on five Entertainment
us developing these these movies, these plays, these television shows.
I mean, at what point are you gonna chef Gordon
the thing and just be like all right, Alice Cooper,
let's just right off into the sunset. And you know,

(02:13:09):
do you have 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 me? Is
he on that level yet where it's like which which what?
On the music side? You know, yeah, it's my it's
it's shown, it's my fifteen year old. Like he's he's
he's he's built for this. He's he's telling Yes, he's

(02:13:32):
telling me about you know, this person doing his bundle
and you know how it's super him 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 not not a proactive
thing for me teaching him. He's just I see it.

(02:13:52):
I smell it like Darren I smelled sports. Like Darren
wasn't into music and this my business. He took what
he learned for 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's that, you know. I
see it. I'm like, all right, dude, I'm gonna be

(02:14:14):
working for you, so you know what I mean. But yeah,
I don't. 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 gonna go
get my house in Hawaii chilling. Like for me, it's
about passion. Like if all the things I'm involved in,
it is because I'm passionate about it, Like their clients
that have fired me. You know, I'm, like I said earlier,

(02:14:35):
because I sort of work myself out of a job.
Their clients that I fired, Like if I don't fucking
wake up and and inspired by you, or you know,
every day isn't gonna be inspiration. Some days I wake
up and be like, man, what the nere? Come on? Dog? Alright?
So where's the first phone call start? Like when's the
first like when is your phone start ringing? Obviously you

(02:14:56):
have a rule in the house that no more phone
calls after bat block count because I could be imprisoned
somewhere and I knew you ain't gonna pick up the phone.
But that's part of that's part of hiring a team,
like he gonna pick it up, but fifteen years But
fifteen years ago, I was that dude that picked up
their phone, you know, Like you know, I was the

(02:15:18):
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 um, it's funny my phone calls.
I you know, now that I live in l A,
I ill usually start my phone calls around seven, Um,
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

(02:15:40):
my mind. As I've grown in this business, my mind
has started to work more like an artist, unless like
the suit. Like I know, y'all always used to say,
like you know, creativity don't start until after midnight, and
I'd be like, what y'all talking about? Like you gotta 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 ship like that, so I'm able
to I gotta wait to everybody else as a sleep,

(02:16:02):
so you can read exactly. But my my my day
usually start to seven, you know, seven seven thirty with calls,
and you know, especially during COVID, I'm able to work
from home, so I you know, between calls and my kids,
you know, the balance is good. I see, all right, Well,
I'll be hitting you about adding more acres to my property,

(02:16:23):
and you got a battle Jeff more acres. I'm about
his son Jeff in the second anyway, No, I think
you know something I had to learn some ship and
you know, we've been we've been business partners for what

(02:16:46):
twenty plus years already. We can definitely name this episode
the lesson like there's there's some lessons in here. Absolutely. Yeah.
All right, well you know, Sean Gee, thank you. I'll
be bugging you later tonight. Oh good, Well, make sure
y'all sent me that edit because you know I ain't
signed that, so I can dae any time about they

(02:17:11):
da yes, And I just and I'm sold. I told
you this before, I told both you and the mere this,
but it really is inspirational to just to watch and
see what your brothers are built over these decades. Man.
And you know what, I just think you have the opportunity,
you know, for bringing me into this and uh, you know,

(02:17:33):
you hit me and it was just like, hey man,
the mirror is doing this thing you on in And
I was like, all right, I mean, you know what
the shep was gonna be. But but you know, I
just I just you know, it might of work ethic
in the hustle, and you know, I know how hard
it is to build something on your home. So I
was gonna just you know, salute you man, just give
your flowers and just sit appreciate we all have our

(02:17:56):
own Sean g stories. I wouldn't have got my own
radio show back in Philly fifteen years ago if Kobe
cole wl't as Shan Ge who was the host for
the show. Wait, yes, that's how I got Sunday Morning
Soul because Kobe was on with Sean and he was like,
I want to do this specialty show about soul and
Sean he was like, who'd be a good heals? Right?
And how happened? Yeah? Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah,

(02:18:19):
I thought, you know, I mean and Sean had many
a morning conversations on the way to work and stuff
like that, like it was a bill. 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, like, you can
now put some money aside weekly for weed. Thank you
and yours. I regret telling the story because now that

(02:18:43):
was great. That's great. I'm gonna stop talking about you.
I would have love for you to say I took
it back, but that's fine. Dos No, I didn't take
it back, okay, because okay, good, all right, dude. This
this has been more more informative at so I already
learned from Alan Weeds that managers aren't going to do

(02:19:04):
the tell all ship on the fun So you know,
I feel that this show was effective enough without talking
about you know, artist Fuckory that is going down and
it wouldn't serve the episode. But I never said this enough.
You You definitely take on the gray hair that I've

(02:19:27):
successfully avoid it right now and I have a lot
of it. Any time I see my my my barometer
for how my life is going as big st on
how much gray hair short? Right, I'm like, all right,
all right, all right, it's a good month. All right,
Well on bealf of uh the team, Sugar Steve, we

(02:19:50):
still fail like Coustine right now. Yes, yes, I see you,
I see you baby Bill if I take a little
and right, yeah, thank you Shawn Gee signing off. We
will see you next week when the next turn around,
of course, Supreme, thank you, yo. What's up? This is Sponte.

(02:20:12):
Make sure 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, Peace Quarch Love. Supreme is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,

(02:20:32):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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