Joe Coscarelli

"New York Times" reporter Joe Coscarelli's "Rap Capital: An Atlanta Story" is the definitive book on today's rap scene. Whether you're a fan of rap or not, you need to read "Rap Capital: An Atlanta Story" to understand the culture, not only where the rappers come from, but how they make their impact and cash. This is the story of what is happening now!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is New York Times reporter Joe Coscarelli.
You've got a great new book, Rack Capital in Atlanta Story. Joe,
Why the book? What inspired you? You know, Bob, this
book really came out of my reporting at the Times. Right.

(00:30):
I'm I'm the music reporter here in the culture section.
I started in late you know, the sort of dawn
really of the streaming era, right. And and one of
the stories I kept coming back to, uh, you know
in my time as the beat reporter was rapp in Atlanta. Right.
I did an early story on artist by the name

(00:50):
of Little Yachti. UM that was actually a men's style
cover because he was, you know, sort of moving through
the fashion and influencer world at the beginning. Even more
southern music. UM. I did an early story, UM when
me Goos hit number one with Bad Embugie UM their
album Culture. I profiled them on that album. I around

(01:11):
the same time, you know, I did a story on
this label Quality Control U down there that was you know,
both Yaddi and and me Goos came from that label
and they were sort of the homegrown talent incubators of
the moment in Atlanta. And you know, just over and
over again, you would see as streaming sort of you know,
knocked down these walls, Uh, the for what kind of

(01:35):
music people really wanted to hear write. Billboard charts were
changing as a result of of YouTube and and Spotify
and Apple Music. Uh, and always bubbling to the top
where these sort of you know, very raw Southern rap
albums and songs. And this is something I grew up
on as well. This is the kind of music I
listened to when I was younger, growing up in the South. Um.

(01:56):
And so the combination of that with my Times reporting,
I was just coming into contact with all of these characters, uh,
these labels, these sounds, and and it was just over
and over again. And you know, I had a I
had an agent and and a book editor. Uh we
can get into that. He published Gucci Main's autobiography. Um.
The the editor who ended up acquiring this book. And

(02:18):
you know, they kept asking me what kind of book
I wanted to write. Rap music was something that was
obviously in the conversation, but I never really found the
right story. And after a handful of these Atlanta stories,
you know, they both came to me and they said this, like,
this is this is the book. Okay, So actually they
were looking unlike the usual story where an author is

(02:38):
pushing the book, you already had a relationship, and it
was their idea that they should be the book. Yeah.
I think that's right. You know, I I have been thinking,
you know, is a book the next step in my career? Uh?
You know, I, like I said, I started at the Times.
So now it's been almost eight years. Uh, this was
somewhere in the middle of this book was a really

(02:59):
long reporting process us. Um. But you know they they
saw a book in me before I saw a book
in me, I think, um. And it took some convincing honestly,
Like I wasn't sure what the story was, and I
didn't want to just retread the reporting I had already done. Um.
And I didn't want to just write a music book, right.
I didn't just want to write an unauthorized biography of

(03:21):
of an artist, which I think, you know, there's a
place for those, but that's you know, the music bookshelves
in in in any store are sort of overrun with
that sort of run of the mill like cradle to
grave story and so you know, I I wanted to
do something different. Um. I wanted to do a lot

(03:41):
of reporting, That's what I what I really like to do. UM.
And I wanted to track a story in real time.
So I think, uh, you know, a lot of a
lot of what ended up becoming the book was because
I wanted to to take what I had done in
the Times and then sort of spin it into something
that I could be along for, right. I wanted to
be along for the ride. And and I think that's
a through line that runs, uh through a lot of

(04:03):
the reporting I do at the Times. I like to
find people at the beginning of their career and and
see where it goes, whether it's you know, to the
top of the charts, or it's sort of founders like
I think both can be equally interesting. Now there's a
lot of reporting on the hip hop scene. And when
you wrote your first articles about Luyahti and quality control,

(04:26):
was there so much information in the pipeline that you
were up to speed or did this require reporting and
deep reporting by yourself? You know, there's a lot of
really good background, right like the Wrap reporting throughout the
nineties and early two thousand's. Uh, it is invaluable. Um,

(04:46):
you know, thinking of the Village Voice, thinking of double
XL later on the Fader. Uh. You know, ton of
ton of websites really covering regional scenes. But there's something
about hip hop media. I think that's a has been
very ephemeral um And and this goes for the music
as well, Right, there are hundreds thousands of mixtapes that

(05:06):
are sort of lost to time because they exist in
this liminal space between legality and illegality. Um. And I
think a lot of hip hop media has has followed
that path. You know, given how popular as music is, um,
how important these artists are, how interesting their their biographies
and their stories are, there's a sort of a real
dearth of serious reporting on these subjects. So you could

(05:29):
piece stuff together here and there, you know, YouTube and
invaluable resource, I think when it comes to comes to
rap music, um and so you know, you could you
could sort of piece things together, um, but there wasn't
a ton of extremely in depth, extremely rigorous journalism on

(05:49):
these subjects. Um. You know, they're a handful of books
as I started the research process. Um. But a lot
of these guys also become famous really quickly. Right, So
when I'm profiling Little Yati and sixteen whatever it was. Uh,
you know he he had been just a normal college
kid right like a few months prior, so, you know,

(06:12):
he had he had done a few quick hits here
and there. But the ability to spend a lot of
time with these people and put a lot of resources
into these stories and not just do a fifteen minute
phoner or you know, a twenty minute radio station interview
like that. That's the benefit that comes I think with
being somewhere like the New York Times where we're gonna,
you know, we're gonna put serious resources, serious time and

(06:33):
energy into these stories that you know, I think, especially
as in the culture section, in the music section, are
just as important as anything else the paper covers um
and we're going to bring that level of of rigor
to it. I hope, Okay. I found out about Little
Yati and Quality Control and Coach K from Steve Barnett,
who ran Capital Records until recently. I was completely out

(06:56):
of a loop. How Little Yadi start to fly on
your radar? When was it a story? And how did
you report the story? So Yadi was a Yeah, he's
a funny one because he's a sort of anomaly even
within the label. Right. Yadi grew up in the suburbs
of Atlanta. His dad, Shannon, was a famous hip hop

(07:19):
photographer in the scene, you know, photographed outcast, photographed pastor Troy. Uh,
you know, a lot, a lot of these sort of
early nineties figures. Ja made Duprie. He was in the
mix um and and was was known among some of
these people, including Coach K which is a story I
tell in the in the book and in the piece. Uh.
Coach k knew Yaddi's father, but didn't know that Yaddi

(07:41):
was his son. So Yadi came up independently on SoundCloud. Right,
this was really the beginning of of artists bubbling up
on SoundCloud low fi music. Uh, totally self recorded, self released. Um,
you know, he was he was, he was in college.
He didn't like it. He he liked dressing colorfully. He liked,

(08:03):
you know, being in the mix fashion wise. He knew
some Instagram influencers, but he didn't really consider himself a musician.
But he started making these these you know, sort of
silly People were referring to them at the time as
bubblegum trap. Right. They sounded a bit like nursery rhymes.
There's a lot of auto tune. You know, they're pretty
the jokes and the lyrics can be a little juvenile. Um.

(08:25):
And he was calling himself the King of the teens, right,
So this was really bubbling up on SoundCloud, on vine.
You know. He one of his one of his songs,
uh I believe called one Night soundtrack like an early
viral video around this time, and and and it was
still pretty novel, right for artists to take off this way.
You know, we'd seen it. Uh Soldier Boy was many

(08:48):
years prior to that. You know, they're they're there are
a ton of examples in between of dance crazes or
or viral artists and whatnot. Um. But but then being
signed to major label and turning into big stars like
that was pretty new, right. So and and then it's
funny when a kid like that who's totally of the
new generation links up with somebody like Coach K, right

(09:11):
who Coach K has these deep, deep deep roots in
the Atlanta rap scene, in the Atlanta music industry. He
managed Pastor Troy, he managed Gucci Man, he managed Young Jeezy.
You know, he's he's as responsible as anyone for the
sort of explosion of trap music and mixtapes in the
early to mid two thousand's. Um So, you have a
guy like that who's sort of keeping his ear to

(09:32):
the streets and finds out about this weird kid with
the you know, red braids and the and the beads
and calling himself the King of the teens. Coach told
me this story when I first met him, that he
was you know, he he would have he would have
people over right, he would he would host a dinner
party where he would invite young people from sort of
all walks of life around Atlanta, DJs, you know, street kids, kids,

(09:56):
kids doing illegal business in the street, A and R. So,
you know, he he would just bring together this sort
of network and they would play each other music. And
he said, you know, he heard he heard these little
Yadi songs and he was like his interest was peaked.
But then he saw a picture of him right, and
he had such a unique style, and he was like that, like,
I need to meet that kid. Um So he started

(10:16):
he started pursuing him, and it turned out not only
did he go way back with Yadi's father, but he
also went to school at a small HBCU with his mother. Um.
And not only that, but he had a message in
his I think maybe his facebok, his Facebook inbox UM
from literal Yadi himself, who said, you know I'm going
to blow up. I just need your help. Um. So

(10:38):
it's these sort of like small world coincidences and overlaps
in networks and stuff that I think make Atlanta such
an interance of interesting story and that I wanted to
tease out in the book. And I had just started
sort of picking them up along the way as I
was doing these one off newspaper stories, and then I
realized how interconnected everything was through the years, through the generations,

(10:59):
through the different sounds, there's always somebody who was involved
in the previous thing, um. And so I wanted to
really tell that story. Okay, when you talk about a
little Yadi in the book and he ultimately has success
in the traditional record chart, you whip out this amazing

(11:19):
statistic of double digit millions that he made within a
year eighteen months now, and you said it was not
primarily recordings, So could you talk about how much money
that was and how he made that money for those
who were out of the loop. Yeah, so Yadi, I'd
have to look up the exact, the exact the figure,

(11:43):
you might have it in front of you. Um. But
one of the things that was amazing about him was
that Coach right away I think saw him as a
as a brand. Right. They wanted him to be Will Smith.
They wanted him to be, uh, you know, the fresh
Prince of bel Air. I think I have it here.
They said he made thirteen million dollars in sixteen months. Right.

(12:07):
And even from the first time I met Yaddi, we
didn't interview at like a little Caribbean restaurant in Brooklyn
after going shopping. Um. You know, Coach's friend owned it,
and they shut down the place so we could sit quietly.
And you know, he was like a surly teenager. He
didn't really want to be talking to me at that point, um.
But he knew that he wanted to be famous, right,

(12:28):
He wanted to go viral. He didn't even know he
wanted to make music. That that part was a sort
of side journey for him. Um. But he also realized
the importance of being a brand, right he was. He
was very young at that time. He didn't drink, he
didn't smoke, he was he was very adamant that. You know,
he wanted his career to last as long as possible.

(12:49):
And and this was something Coach instilled in him, right.
I think he had that instinct already as a child
of the Internet. But then, you know, Coach told him
brands last longer than songs. He said, you know, I
tell every artist we signed him, I'm real with them.
He said, you have an expiration date on you as
an artist. Let's turn you into a brand. Right. And
so even when Yaddie's debut album on Capitol sort of

(13:10):
you know, didn't have a huge first week, didn't have
a smash single, he had a lot of success, as
you know, as a guest star. He had a lot
of success, uh in in bits and pieces, uh musically,
But what he really got good at was he was
in a Target commercial. He was in a Sprite commercial.
He you know, partnered with this brand, that brand. You

(13:30):
can go to the grocery store now and find a
little Yaddi frozen pizza. You know, he had a he
had a serial, he had a nail polished line. And
this was all happening super quickly. He's in a you know,
he's in a made for made for TV movie. Uh,
sequel of you know, famous famous hip hop film How High.
You know, they just immediately saw that what brands wanted

(13:54):
and what corporations wanted is access to cool, right, and
what's cooler than rap music? Uh? And Yadi was a
particularly colorful figure. Um and and they all saw this
vision very clearly, um and and it just took off.
And still you know, you you probably see more Yadi
commercials than you hear Yaddi songs. But that was all
by design. Okay. So if we talked about today, you know,

(14:18):
insiders would think that little Yadi has faded, but there's
mind share in the public and there's also monetary uh
considerations as a student of the game, where where's little
Yadi at? And what is his future as a career? Now?
You know, Yadi has had such an unpredictable career. He

(14:39):
did this very amazing thing, which is, you know, when
people were sick of his music and they, you know,
would make fun of his album for flopping or say
he couldn't wrap or whatever. You know, oh he's only
in commercials, he really buckled down and he got really
good at rapping. And not only that, but he sort
of located what the next big rap scene was going

(15:01):
to be. Um, he found these guys in Michigan, you know,
in Flint, in Detroit, that we're really doing a style
that comes a little bit from the Bay Area, a
little bit from the Midwest. Um, you know, rapping really quickly,
really comedically, really sharp, really funny guys. Um wrapping. You know,
people call it scam wrap. You know, they're they're rapping

(15:23):
off in about about you know, clothes and material games,
but specifically through you know, fraud and financial crime and
and and you know it's just this this extremely witty
new sound and subject matter. And he really embedded with
these guys. He like, you know, he he would spend
a ton of time there. He made he made an

(15:44):
album called, uh, you know, uh Michigan boat Boy, which
was you know, which was him sort of using his
celebrity to put on all of these regional artists from
a totally different place. Um. And along the way, like
he got really good at wrapping, and he just kept going,
and you know, he put out some mixtapes that sort
of re establish his credibility. He you know, he found

(16:08):
other artists and other regional scenes, uh you know, some
Los Angeles trappers. He fell in with um some New
York guys. He he just has proven himself to be
like a real chameleon um and just a really savvy operator.
And I think like people like hanging around him and
they like, uh seeing him sort of stretch his talents
in new ways. Um. And I think he's had a

(16:30):
lot more longevity because of that than anybody ever imagined.
Not to mention, you know, as Discuss made a lot
of money along the way on the corporate side of things.
So I think because he was making money from brand deals,
he could sort of do whatever he wanted musically. Um.
And I think that's benefited him in the long run. Okay,
you said you're from the South. Where are you from? So?

(16:51):
I grew up all around Florida. Um. I went to
high school in Orlando, Florida, but I lived all over
the state. My family moved around a lot. And when
I moved to New York at eighteen, my family moved
to Atlanta, Georgia. So my sister went to high school there.
I spent a lot of time there as my as
as as my little sister was going through school and

(17:13):
as I was as I was doing college. Um, so
I was back and forth between the North and the
South for the last fifteen years. But the my sort
of you know, my core adolescence was in central Florida. Okay,
So you and the publisher have this idea, how do
you then approach the players and what do you say?

(17:33):
And do they embrace you or do they are they
you know, weary at first? You know, I think I
had proven myself, um at the New York Times and
in the stories that I was doing along the way.
I think, you know, when when people see themselves reflected
accurately in a platform like The New York Times, especially
in genres that you don't think of as traditionally at

(17:56):
home in a prestige media place, you know, I was,
I was taking real care to say, this is the
most important music in the world. You know, I am
a relatively young person for this building at this time
and in this beat. Um, and I want to accurately
cover you know, what's going on among the youth, which
tend to drive you know, music and culture trends for

(18:18):
all of time. UM. So I think, you know, there
comes some credibility with that. Um And Yeah, I had
done I had done the work, and I had you know,
built the built the source relationships with a lot of
these people. Um. You know Little Baby, who's another big
character in the book. Uh, you know, I've I've followed
him on this, on this journey, and I knew that

(18:40):
I wanted him to be a character in the book because,
as I said, I sort of found him at the
right moment, right I did one of his first big
major interviews as part of this larger quality control feature
I did. Uh you know, he was the sort of
artistic centerpiece of that, in addition to the executives who
were guiding his career, Coach K and P from Quality Control. UM.

(19:01):
And I think people remember, right when you're there at
the beginning. UM. So every time I would see him
along the way, you know, I would say, I want
to keep doing this, I want to keep seeing where
you're going. And I remember pretty distinctly, you know, when
when the book was was being floated, and you know,
I had an offer to write it. I went and

(19:22):
I met Coach K and P and Little Baby at
the Spotify office where they were playing whatever his new
project was. Maybe. You know, he was putting on music
so quick at that point that I don't even remember
which one it was, but I think it was the
mixtape after the one I wrote about UH, and he
was there playing it for them, you know, trying to
get promo and and I sat in with them on
their meeting. And then you know, after I sat down

(19:44):
UH with Coach and I said, you know, I want
to I want to make this book. I want you
guys to be a big part of it. There's no
way to do this book if it's going to be
based on the present day without you. You know, not
only are you guys the ones breaking all the artists,
but but you're the you know, you open the doors
in this town, right, They're the they're the they're the biggest,
the biggest names in town at that moment and beyond

(20:06):
UM and you know, you just said let's do it.
So along then I followed, you know, various artists both
connected to them and not along the way. Not everything
in the book is about quality control. There's a ton
of tangential characters. Um. But like I said, because there
it is such a small town, because it is a
music scene, right, I think that that gets overlooked a

(20:27):
lot um when you're thinking about this this rap music
that goes internationally. But it's a music scene, just like
Seattle grunge was in the nineties, or just like you
know Athens indie rock was, or you know Laurel Canyon
or any any music scene like these are overlapping groups
of friends, collaborators, enemies, family, you know, and all of

(20:49):
the same creative stuff is coming out of there. So
one person would lead to the next, even if it
wasn't within the same label or within the same exact
music orbit. So the book really has two sides. It's
got the music side and it's got the raw cultural side.
So many people would say, because you depict a scene

(21:12):
where almost everybody involved has been to jail, there's a
lot of crime, what was it like being a middle
class white ball boy in these situations? And did they
accept you? Uh? I think they did accept me. Um.
I mean, you know, I think the proof is in
the reporting. I think, you know, I got myself into

(21:34):
rooms by being trustworthy and being open and straightforward with
people about what I was doing. I said very clearly,
you know, this is culture, right, this is what's moving markets,
what's what's moving records, this is this is what people want, right.
What you guys are doing is important. Um, and I

(21:57):
want to preserve that for history, right. I want to
show people where this music comes from, and the reality
in the music, in the videos and behind the scenes
is that a lot of this music comes from poverty, right,
It comes from necessity, It comes from bad neighborhoods. And
you know, there's a character by the name of Marlowe

(22:19):
in the book, and you know he he came up
with a little baby. He did not make it to
the same heights that little baby did, but he was
open about where he came from and how he'd grown up.
And to me, that was as important as the music side,
because he was the real deal, you know. He he

(22:39):
was rapping about things you hear on the radio, even
though they may be maybe extreme, but he was also
living it right. And and by being there every step
of the way for his career, I think he saw
that I really wanted to see his life and where
he came from and how he lived on a daily basis,

(23:01):
and and he was keen to show it to me.
You know, we would every time I would go to Atlanta,
I would try to get in touch with him. He
would pick me up and we would just right around
all day. Right. He would just take me to to
whatever he was doing, right, whether that was you know,
getting a haircut at the barbershop or going to a
block party or going to the recording studio. Um. And
you know, we just we we built a rapport um

(23:24):
and and we built a relationship of trust. And I
think he got it, you know what I mean, he
knew that it was worth it for people to pull
back the curtain and sort of see a layer of
things that you don't always see. Right, even even in
rap music, if it comes from struggle, and it comes

(23:44):
from poverty, then it very quickly becomes about you know,
the the material gains or you know, the success or
what I made it out from. UM. But you know,
I think whether talking about Marlow or you're talking about
Pe or you're talking about Little Riek, another artist in
the book, that I spent a lot of time with
her in his neighborhood. Uh. You know, they were they
were I think excited that somebody was engaged. Uh. And

(24:10):
I wanted to learn right. I wanted to like be
able to use whatever platform I had to shine a
light on the reality of the situation in a city
like Okay. You depict dangerous neighborhoods. Did you ever experience

(24:31):
danger personally? I don't. I don't think so. Um. You know,
I it was very clear that I was there as
a music reporter, right I was. I was hanging around
with musicians. Uh they are used to you know, this
is where they grew up. It's it's not dangerous to
them on a on a day to day basis. Uh.

(24:54):
You know, sometimes I would be in cars going really fast.
Uh you know, like young kids in fast cars like
to test the engine. Um. You know. Sometimes I was
like gripping, you know, my my arm rest a little hard. Um.
But you know, I think it's it was it was fun,
you know, it was it was mostly uh lighthearted. Like

(25:17):
even if if these are neighborhoods where you know there
there there can be higher rates of crime or whatever.
Like people are just living their lives, right, they wake up,
they go to work, they hang out with their friends.
On some level, that's true, but you depict mostly single
parent households. You depict a lot of these people end

(25:41):
up raising themselves. A lot of people are involved in
street crime, a lot of people involved in drugs, and
those illegal things usually come with violence, death, etcetera. So
let's talk about little baby, and you talk about someone
ultimately segues out of the family unit and finds their

(26:04):
own way, mostly in illegal ways to get ahead. And
then you also depicted in the book a lot of
people are doing so well on the street, they don't
want to focus on music. So what is really going
on in the street, in the neighborhoods that these people
you talk to live in. I mean, that's the reality

(26:25):
of the situation, right, Like these are places that of
America and state government, city government has forgotten. Right. These
are places with school systems that are decimated, with police
forces that are you know, antagonistic or or decimated. Uh
you know. There there's their food deserts. You know, there's

(26:48):
very limited economic opportunity, uh you know, and and and
everybody is doing their best right to to to get by.
And and the thing about my my subjects and the
people I spoke to, you know, they were honest, right,
they were They were saying, I'm trying to better my life,

(27:09):
trying to better my family's life. I'm not always doing
the right thing. Uh you know. They someone like Marlow,
like you know, he he was very clear about when
he was doing wrong. Um, but you know I didn't.
I didn't. I wasn't embedded with them on a twenty
four hour a day basis. Right. A lot of this
stuff was described to me. You know, there are a

(27:31):
ton of footnotes in the book. You know, there are
documentaries about this stuff, other articles, books, whatever, you know.
I'm I'm cobbling together a sort of portrait of these things. Uh.
But look, this is this is the reality of of
of life in America. Right. This is the guns, their
guns everywhere, right, there are guns and white neighborhoods. There

(27:52):
are guns and black neighborhoods. Uh. Drug dealing, you know
what what the drug the money that comes out of
the illegal drug market, like comes from somewhere, you know, somebody,
somebody's benefiting. Uh. This is just this is just everyday life.
And I think that's part of the reason this music
is so popular. Right. Uh. At one point, you know

(28:13):
p P one of the quality control executives who also
comes from from this world. You know, he said to me,
there's more people in the street than anything. Right. The
reason so many people want to listen to this music
is because most people are struggling. Right, And and even
if it's a overblown version of this and artistic version, right, uh,
composite of all the good and the bad that come

(28:37):
out come from places like this. Like it's it's true,
and it rings true to people, and it rings true
to their struggles, and it rings true about their their
aspirations and their ambitions. Um. And you know, I think
I think I don't. I don't think the book is
heavy handed in terms of you know, whether this is uh,

(28:58):
whether this works every time? Right, their rap is salvation,
whether you know you can everybody's gonna become famous on
on some talent. Uh. You know, I think I think
it tries to paint an honest portrait of that. Right.
Some people make it, some people don't. Like you said,
there's there are people who make more money illicitly than

(29:18):
they do legally. Uh and and that's a hurdle, right.
And there are characters in the book again who are
open about that, um, just like there are people in
the real world who are open about that. Um. So
you know, I I just wanted to I just want
to pay an accurate portrait of the people I met
in the way they described their lives. Okay. I think
it's little peace Mother, a little baby's mother who grows

(29:40):
up in a very strict household, enters the military, ends
up having a child, seems pretty intelligent, ends up working manually,
extremely intelligent, extremely intelligent, and yet still yeah, making minimum wage,
you know, cleaning the courthouse, working at the post office.
You know. She she's a single mother. Uh, as you said,

(30:03):
a veteran, uh you know, a marine veteran, extremely bright woman,
well traveled, spent time in Japan, you know, just an
inspirational figure all around, and like you said, yeah, still,
you know, raising three children by herself on a minimum
wage salary. Like that's that's America for you, Okay. And

(30:26):
then there's another line from one of the people in
the book. They're talking about education, and the person says,
I can point all these people in the hood who
have a college education and work in minimum wage jobs.
Why is this the case? Man? That's that's that's above
my pay grade. I We'll have to ask my my
economics colleagues about that. But yeah, you're referring, you're referring

(30:49):
to offset who uh you know, was was part of
the megas that the rap trio, one of the you know,
the first major act for quality control, one of the biggest,
one of the biggest rap so the last decade. Um.
And yeah, he said that to me, you know, in
the basement of his mansion and the Atlanta suburbs. You know,
he was like, he had his first child when he

(31:09):
was a teenager. He was very open. He took to
crime to try to provide for his child. And he said,
you know, I could have I could have been on
the straight and narrow, But who's to say that that
would have worked for me? Right? And look, this is
this is racism. This is uh, you know, a lack
of economic opportunity. You know, you can trace this back
through through redlining and you know, mortgages and you know,

(31:33):
hiring practices of of people of color. Like again, this
is this is a bit beyond my purview. Um, but
I think the idea that you know, not everybody is
starting from the from the same place, and not everybody
has the same opportunities, um, based on where they grew up,
where they went to school, what color their skin is. Like.
You know, I think reasonable people can disagree, but you know,

(31:57):
I think that that that this is not exactly a
controversial I yeah, right, Uh, income inequality in America, Uh,
you know, last time I checked, is uh it's out
of control? Okay, just drilling down one more time. Is
it the people you talked to that to pick a
dangerous lifestyle with drugs, shootings, gangs, etcetera. Or is everybody

(32:22):
affected in these neighborhoods, you know, a certain neighborhoods you
have to not in Atlanta maybe, but you have to
choose side. You have to be in a gang to
be protected. Are there people just living normal lives I'm
talking about? Of course? Of course, of course this is
not monolithic, right, This is this is a small subset
of people who felt like they had no choice right

(32:47):
and got involved in some sort of a dangerous lifestyle.
You know. Uh, Marlowe grew up in Bowing Holmes. Right,
this is a this was an infamous project in Atlanta
that was that was since has since been knocked down.
You know, his father grew up in a project in
in Philadelphia. There's you know, quotes from him in this book. Uh.

(33:09):
He was, you know, living between households, father in and
out of jail. You know, Uh, mother having her own issues,
living with family members, living with friends. Uh, in a
dangerous place. Right, And this was the example he saw.
You know, there's there's some there's a scene in the book. Uh.

(33:30):
You can find this on YouTube. Actually a little Baby
did a panel right about uh, reintegrating from incarceration right
with alongside other businessmen, you know, guys who got out
of jail and became truck drivers, open their own business,
that sort of thing. And he says, you know, if
if if you're around drug dealers, odds are you're going

(33:52):
to think that that's what you do? You become a
drug dealer. He didn't know any doctors, he didn't know
any lawyers. You know, he didn't he didn't see that
example or stand. Um, are there people who grow up
in these neighborhoods and become you know, uh, doctors, lawyers,
philosophers of course, engineers of course. Uh you know, but

(34:13):
but it's not easy. Um. And so much of this
rap music, I think that's the point, right, Like the
rap music that is coming out of Atlanta on the
largest scale, is is about these things, right, It's about
this struggle. Uh. And so it is created by people
who have seen it up close, right, or people who
have been through it themselves. Um. And so of course

(34:35):
it's a it's a self selecting group. But what I
wanted to tease out was why this music. Right, trap
for lack of a better term, is the sort of
umbrella genre of it within within hip hop. Just those
who don't know defined trap please, So trap comes out
of what are referred to as trap houses. Right. Trap

(34:56):
houses are places for you know, the making and the
selling of drugs, usually abandoned houses. Uh in in four neighborhoods. Um,
this you know came from Gucci man, this came from
Young Jesus, came from t I. These are people who
became you know, mega stars in the early two thousand's. Uh.
You know there's early mentions of of trapped in uh

(35:18):
Dungeon family songs, you know, Outcast, that sort of thing. Um.
And you know Big Boy of Outcast says like that.
You know that's why they call it the trap because
you're trapped, right uh. And and this music is about
that lifestyle, right that that that world, and it's dramatized
of course, it's art, of course, um, but it's also

(35:41):
in places, and especially with certain artists, autobiographical. Um. So
this is this is like an extremely niche, extremely local
culture that became popular culture. Right. This became the biggest
music in the world over the last ten fift twenty years. Uh.
And it comes from a small group of people. And

(36:03):
that's that's what the book is, okay. But almost to
a person, not a little yahni, but almost to a person.
All of the people in the book have been to jail.
So not not not quite true. I would I wouldn't
say that true. I mean, I mean the you know,
the book is about lawyers. The book is about people's friends,

(36:26):
The book is about people's mothers. Um. You know little
Rieck Marlowe who you know it was a self proclaimed
you know, drug dealer and career criminal. He never went
to jail. He didn't have a felony on his record
at all. Um. But you know, I think I don't
have to tell tell you the rates of incarceration of

(36:48):
black men in this country are completely disproportional to the population. Um.
So again that's a The prison industrial complex is the
subject of many other better, uh, more in depth books
than mine, which focuses more on the music. Um. But
I would, but I wouldn't say that that everyone here
has been to jail. Well, let me put it a

(37:10):
different way. Many people, especially those not interested in hip
hop believe that these judge these rappers in a negative way.
Where to use the same word we just talked about
when you read one your book, they literally seem trapped,

(37:30):
and that you also talk about the cops in one
town out to get the rappers were being up one
being a parole going back. So you end up with
a sympathetic portrait. You have these people who are reasonable
sort of caught in their lifestyle as opposed to just
who are just gangsters from minute one, Yeah, look, these

(37:54):
are not these are these are not you know, as
as far as I can tell by on sociopaths, these
are people who grew up in tough circumstances with very
few opportunities, who then found their way out and then
you have a target on your back in a totally
different way. Right, And that's like, you know, Drew Finling

(38:14):
is a character in this book. He's a he's a
defense attorney in Atlanta, currently in the news, uh, you know,
helping to defend Donald Trump in the in the Georgia
election probe, which is a whole other story. Um, but
but Drew, Drew has become very close with a lot
of these guys, right. He found himself becoming a lawyer
for Hip Hop Royalty basically through early representation of various figures,

(38:39):
including including Gucci Man. And you know, he he said
this to me over and over again. He said, like,
I can't believe the target that's on the backs of
these guys, right, Like, these are guys who who made
their way out of what would have been a dangerous
criminal lifestyle, and yet they're still being harassed by police

(38:59):
for opposite right, for having fancy cars or or jewelry
or you know, smoking weed, which if you've walked down
the street in New York City or where you are
in l A, you know everyone's smoking weed. Uh. And
yet you know this is often often the pretense to
to to lock people up. Um. So yeah, I think
you know, the the the weight of American oppression and

(39:25):
in all in all senses um sort of bears down
on these guys. And and that's why they're you know,
they're they're resilient. Uh. And I think that's why the
art is often so so vibrant and so visceral and
people can't get enough of it, right, Like that's that's
the other thing. Like I was talking before about peace,
saying people want to listen to this music because it

(39:47):
reflects their reality. But it's not only them, right, Like,
rich white kids in college also want to listen to
this music because it's cool, because it's dangerous, because sexy. Right.
The same thing that that uh, you know, popular music,
and especially black popular music has always been um and
so so there's the voyeuristic component of it just as

(40:07):
much as uh, there's the sort of autobiographical uh you
know component of people seeing themselves in the music. There's
there's people who just want a glimpse, right, people who
want to try on blackness or or or get a
taste of it or what they assume to be, you know,
a certain certain type of blackness. Um. So you know
that that cross generational, transracial, you know appeal the hip

(40:33):
hop has has been shown to have over the last
almost fifty years now is like it's it's fascinating, right,
and there should be countless books about about this. It's
not only it's not only Atlanta, it's not only trapped music, um.
But but this is you know, this is the story
of popular music going back to you know, I don't
know if you saw the Basil Erman's Elvis movie, Um,

(40:55):
but but it's it's it's the same thing I see
shaking your head, you know, which this is off point,
But Basil Rman Elvis movie, like his other movies, figure
has got to be more Basi Lerman than I'm I'm
I'm I'm mostly joking. But but you know what I mean, right,
But um, the other thing that is fascinating in the book,

(41:21):
you know, people know a lot about the inner workings
of the music world at this point in time, and
you hear these people at age five, they start making music,
their parents are spreading the demos. In this particular case,
you have a couple of examples where from reading the
book it sounds like they were drug dealers, and quality

(41:43):
Control seems to say, well, you have such experiences, you'd
make a good rapper. Is that how it went down?
That's the story of a couple of these guys. I mean,
you know, if you think back to to to young Jeezy,
who you know in early discovery of of Coach K,
he was a hustler, as as he described it, and

(42:05):
he was trying to fund other rappers and Coach met
him in a recording studio and said, no, no, you're
the rapper Like you have the star power, you have
the voice, you have the clothes, you have the cars,
like you're you're the guy. Uh. And then he recreated
that right with little Baby. Little Baby was known as
a gambler. Right, Little Baby was selling weed and gambling.

(42:27):
He would come by the studio, hang out with me,
goes take their money after they came back from from touring,
right with a little bit of cash in their pocket.
And and he he would shoot dice with them, right
and and he had such star power right like this
is this is a timeless story, right to go back
to to to Elvis or one one story I tell

(42:48):
in the book, Uh was Jermaine Duprie discovering Criss Cross.
These were not drug dealers, these were kids in the mall.
And Jermaine dupre said, they have it right, star power
like whatever. That ineffable quality is star power, And in
raps specifically, it often comes with authenticity or the appearance
of authenticity. Right. So when Coach k would see someone

(43:11):
like little Baby, he would say, you know, other people
are out here wrapping your story. You should do it right.
You have a look, you have some money in your pocket,
you have you know, the carriage like the swag for
lack of a better term, like you know, just just
give it a shot, right, and Baby would say no,
like that's not for me, that's not for me. Baby.
You know, he told me straight up, and his friends

(43:32):
told me to Like we didn't we didn't look up
to rappers. We thought they were corny and we thought
they were faking. You know, we didn't know. We didn't
know rappers like we knew whatever other hustlers were on
our block. Uh, people were more immediate to us. Um
and and for Baby, you know, it took it took
going to prison for for him to say, you know,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this, Like there

(43:55):
there's a safer way, there's a there's a better way.
Um and ah do people try it and they're not
only good at it, right, But this is someone like
him put in the work, had enough of the sort
of natural skill, the natural charisma, stories to tell, and
then put in the work to get good enough that
people wanted to hear his music. Uh. And you know

(44:15):
this is again this is like a fraction of a
percentage of people who can pull this off. But it's
not no one and and every day, the barrier false right,
like the bar of of what it takes to be
able to put out music. Right. I think, you know,
maybe we'll get to this. But the distribution channels that
it used to It used to be expensive to record, right,

(44:36):
It used to be expensive to print a c d
uh and have it put in best buys around the country.
Right now, record on your laptop, put it on YouTube
for free, and all of a sudden you have a
million dollar deal. You know, we see the story over
and over again in rap and and outside of wrap. Um.
But I think as these technological hurdles have fallen, uh,

(44:58):
you know, there's there's more and more or opportunity for
somebody with a you know, a local following, a story
to tell and and a little bit of drive and
star power to be able to make it. There are
frequently depictions in the book of large amounts of cash.

(45:22):
One person, I think it's a little baby, it's gonna
shoot his first video in the studio shows up with
thirty thousand dollars cash, so I think it might have
even been three hundred. Whatever it was, it was a
staggering stump thing. Then also there's another one where the
money goes out the window, never recovered. How much is that?

(45:44):
I think that was? That was sorry. Someone told me
about Shardie Low who rest in piece of Shardi Low.
He was He was a rapper from the mid two
thousands again you know, big reputation as as a drug
dealer and a hustler. And one of his one of
his right hand men, told me a story, yeah about
being on a car, you know, being in a police
chase and CHARTI love throwing you know, fifty grand out

(46:06):
of the window to just not be caught with the
proceeds from whatever it is they were doing. So, I mean,
first and foremost, to shoot a video in the studio,
it's almost hard to spend three hundred thousand dollars, and
so I should I should cut in here and say
this was not a music video. This was just a

(46:26):
video for Instagram of showing people that he was rapping,
right saying, this guy who you might follow or no,
from the neighborhood, like we're going to start rapping. It's
just an in studio video. It wasn't. It wasn't a
music video. It was just you know, here I am
pressing pressing record on my phone to show you what
my friend is up to. Okay, then what's the three

(46:48):
hundred k about? He just had that in his pocket? Yeah,
it's too it's to show off with. It's a you know,
it's a trophy. You're saying he just wanted to show it.
Did he show the three hundred k on screen? Yeah?
Oh yeah, yes, But did he really have the three k?
And you know, etcetera. Look who who this cash belongs

(47:14):
to at any given moment? Uh, it's impossible to say. Um,
I think you know, part of this fast money lifestyle
that that's depicted in the book, and that these guys
you know, live and rap about. You know, there's a
quote in the book, you know that's how Atlanta goes.
You're up, you're down, you're up, you're down, you're up,
you're down. Uh. And and that's a you know, that's

(47:37):
that's an endemic I think to to being in the
street in this way. Um. And look it's a problem, right,
it's a problem. It's the same as a car, a necklace. Um.
You know, there's an Instagram trend these days of rappers, uh,
you know, bringing trying to bring a million dollars to
the hood, right, to bring a million dollars to where

(47:58):
they grew up with as a way to say, you know,
this world told me I wasn't never going to be anything.
And and look at me now, And not only look
at me now in Beverly Hills or you know, in
a midtown skyscraper, but look at me now where I
came from, right where where the police were throwing me
against the wall, and you know, telling me I'd never
be anything. And my teachers, you know, didn't care about me,

(48:21):
and you know, told me I'd grew up to be
in jail. And and and it's a you know, it's
a it's a it's a it's a talisman, it's a trophy,
it's a it's a statement to say, you know, look
what I became. Okay, stories are legion of all musicians
people the music world being ripped off. It's even worse

(48:43):
for black people. You depict the successful people having a
great amount of money, Is it more transparent, more equal
in it land in the world that you investigated, or
in reality a lot of money as much money as
they have, a lot of it's going somewhere else. Look,
what is a record label if not somebody reaching into

(49:04):
your pocket to have a piece of of what you're
what your talent rot you know, I think the music
business is unfair, right, like these contracts. Look, maybe it's
not unfair. Maybe the labels put in the research and development,
maybe they do the marketing and they take on all
the risk, like, uh, whatever it is. But traditionally we

(49:28):
have seen, you know, the people who have been brave
enough to talk about what their contracts are, like, what
their royalty rates are, what their advances. You know, I
talk about for people who don't know. I think anybody
listening to your podcast knows this. But but advances are
are not free money, right, They're they're they're recupable, right.

(49:49):
You know, you don't see another dollar until you earn
back that money that they advanced to you. It's credit. Um.
So look, I think that that's happening in this world
as much, if not more than it's happening everywhere else.
These not only not only are these artists young, but
they're really you know, these are they're rappers being signed

(50:11):
for millions of dollars that are fifteen years old. You know.
There's a chapter about about A and R people in
Atlanta in the book where you know, uh Ray Daniels.
This this This executive in Atlanta says, I just got
back from you know, giving giving a fifteen year old
a million dollars Like that's and he's like, that's crazy, right,

(50:32):
like on its face, like that's a it's a crazy proposition. Um.
But but that artists are earned back that money, right,
And there's managers to pay, there's lawyers to pay, there's
early investors, right. I talk about the sort of the
culture of you know, uh, street guys putting money behind
an emerging artist, whether it's to record a video or

(50:56):
get the money or excuse me, to get the song
played at the strip club or whatever it is. You know,
everybody wants their piece. Um. And and that's the same
I think across genres. Um. This just happens to be
the most lucrative and the most popular genre right now,
so the amounts are higher. Um. You know, we saw
this sort of gold rush of of deals around the

(51:20):
streaming era as the record companies you know, rebounded after
the dark times of of the post napster years. Um.
So you know, this is not primarily a book about
recording contracts, So I didn't get two into the nitty
gritty there um, and I think a lot of these
guys are doing well, but just as many of them are,

(51:42):
you know, signing bad deal, signing horrible deals. Have have
have no experience, no guidance. Uh. And and when a
label comes to you and says, you know, here's grand
for the rights to your smash viral single on TikTok,
and you know your mom needs to pay the rent
and you know you have no career prospects at the moment,

(52:03):
like if you're going to sign you know, so that
that's where the that's where the uh, the exploitation, I
think really comes in here. Now they talk about income.
We talked about little Yahdi, but he had his own
look using my air Quotes brand. But in the traditional
mainstream music business, which is now becoming you know, this

(52:24):
is the mainstream business. What I'm trying to say is
you have the record contract, if you have an endorsement deal,
it's publicized sponsorship product. Your grosses are in poll star.
You talk about these guys going on the road, maybe
dropping in multiple gigs a night, just making a two

(52:45):
track appearance, like it's a whole another subculture that's not reported.
So what can you tell us about that? Look, I
can't speak to how this stuff is reported on taxes, right,
and how this income is is logged. Um. Again, that's
beyond my pay grade. I'm not an accountant. Um. But

(53:07):
but look, yeah, this is there's a cash business here, right,
whether it's like you said features right, a rapper pay
is another rapper ten grand, twenty grand, fifty grand, a
hundred grand to to get on the track with them
for extra attention. You know, you make a club appearance.
You know you you hear a lot of rappers these days. Um.
You know, getting getting a little wonky with economics talking

(53:27):
about the back end, right, So you get a get
a certain a certain amount of the of the payment
to show up and wrap two songs at a club
in the V I P. Section. Uh, you know up
front when you sign and then you go, and then
as you're walking out they hand you the rest in
cash and that's the back end, right. Um. So yeah,

(53:48):
I think just like this culture comes from mix tapes, right,
this this this world this is and I think this
is why. One of the reasons why rap music was
so quick to adapt to streaming, right is it was
you too moving quickly. It was used to being a
volume business. It was used to being about market share, right,
And these were homemade recordings, tapes, c d s uh

(54:10):
sold out of the trunks of cars, so that flea markets,
at barber shops, you know, covers printed on a ink jet.
You know, beats taken from online and not cleared, um
cash changing hands like this is ah, these these are
these are underground economists uh and and there's a ton
of them that overlap I think uh in in in

(54:33):
wraps specifically. So yeah, you know, whole star is one thing,
but you know, good luck to good luck to them
and and the Forbes list to really get to the
bottom of how a Southern rapper makes money on the
club circuit. Okay, another thing you talk about is how
really it's not gag oriented. And then a game comes,

(54:55):
I believe from Detroit and really permeates Atlanta and Florida
until it's ultimately busted. And you're talking about today the
flourishing of strip clubs. To what degree is at a
side show? To what degree does that have an effect
on the flourishing of rap in Atlanta? So you're you're

(55:16):
referring to be a meth black mafia family. This is
you know, this is a a well known story. At
this point, I don't I don't spend too much time
on it. Um. You know, there's a there's a great
book about BMF, there's television series about BMF. Countless documentary
is Amelian YouTube videos. Um, but this is yeah, this

(55:36):
is street lore right of a big meache coming down
to Atlanta after building his his cocaine syndicate uh out
of Detroit with his brother. The two brothers run run
the business together. One of them moves to Atlanta and
he decides he wants to get into wrap right. And
they they have an artist Blue Da Vinci, who never

(55:59):
comes in anything. But they also have a sort of
off paper alliance with young Jeezy who really really makes
the most out of out of this association, um and
becomes a big star even though he wasn't technically signed
to their label. But you know, they have a they
have a magazine. As you said, like you know, according
to everybody, the clubs were flushed with money. The nightlife

(56:22):
was crazy. Uh you know this this was It's the
same thing you saw in Miami, right, cocaine cowboys. You
know you even going back to prohibition, right, this is
what Boardock Empire is about, which is you know, money
trickles down right from from illegal enterprise when it hits
a certain level and and everybody wins, right the restaurants,

(56:46):
the clubs, the recording studios, the you know, uh, the
luxury stores at the mall. Um. So yeah, when you're
talking about what you're talking about Atlanta. You know, the
the first wave that I that I talked about in
the beginning of the book. You know, that's that's Jermaine
dupri that's Outcasts, that's the Face Records ELI read baby Face,

(57:09):
you know TLC not really not really street wrap uh
as as as we know it now. Um. But but
when when trap takes over right in the in the
late nineties, early two thousand's, a lot of that comes
from B m F and the lifestyle that they were,
you know, propagating around the clubs, around the venues um

(57:31):
and people were either affiliated, uh you know, tangential. They
wanted to keep up, they wanted to be in the mix.
You know. I think so that that I think is
is extremely influential, um, both economically, but also culturally and
and stylistically. This idea of of you know, glits and
flash and Glamour. Um. You know people wrap about it

(57:52):
to this day, right, Big meatch having tigers at his
birthday party. Um. And I spoke for the book to
to this party planner, Hannah Kang, who's still the biggest
best you know, black celebrity party planner. And she she's
she's a Korean woman. But but she she says in
the book, you know, I've never worked for a white
person in my whole career in Atlanta, which I which

(58:14):
I just which I loved, and I think really gives you,
you know, a portrait of this place as as Black Mecca,
black Hollywood, whatever you want to call it. Um. But
but yeah, you know, the BMF legend just sort of
looms really large to this day. You know everybody I
talked to her like, oh, it'll never it'll never be
like that again. Um. And and you know, whether that's

(58:36):
whether whether that's completely accurate or not, Like, that's that's
how that's that's how myths build and and and carry on. Right. Okay,
you depict the strip clubs, you say, when the the
the Mafia family ultimately gets taken down, strip clubs get

(58:57):
taken down, but still you know they're cutting track they'll
go to the strip club to demo it. Then you
have another guy at the strip club talking about the
right way to make it rain to this day, what
is the status of strip clubs and how much influence
do they have visa VI the music and the culture.

(59:18):
So this is again something that that's been written about
many times over the years. I didn't want to linger
on it too much in the book because I felt
like it's pretty well established. My my close friend and
colleague John Carmonica did a great story about Atlantic strip
clubs as a as a proving gun for records. Another
one of my colleagues, Richard Fossett, did one uh when
when when he was at the l A times I believe, Um,

(59:40):
but but this has happened for decades at this point,
which is uh, you know, this is like I said,
this is a proving ground, right, This is this is
party music often right, This is music for dancing to.
This is music for that you know, makes people want
to spend money. Um, and it's its own economy, Like
we were talking about the illicit economies. You know. You
you go, you slip the DJ a little money, he

(01:00:03):
plays your track. If the dancers like it, they dance
better to the track. That then makes customers spend more
money on them. Right, and then they want to hear
your song again, so they requested again. Uh. And and
you know it's it's this whole it's a whole economy.
I I spent a night um at a club called Follies,

(01:00:23):
which no longer exists, uh, with with this guy DJ John. Uh.
And this didn't make the book. This could be its
own book. Honestly. DJ John Uh, amazing guy, big white guy,
started djaying and strip clubs. You know when they were
not allowed to play rap music, right, he said. When
he started at Folly's, it was it was a rock bar. Right,

(01:00:45):
it was like a bon Jovi motley crew, you know,
the you know, airport workers would go there and and
rap was banned. Right. DJ John worked in Follies every
week for more than twenty years. Right. I wanted to
call him the cal Ripken Jr. Of Atlanta strip clubs

(01:01:06):
because and and he guts to see the whole thing change. Right.
By the time I spent a night with him at Folly's,
he was managing a rapper himself. He had no interest
in in rap music when he started there, but he
would he would take money to play whatever songs people
wanted to hear. Usually that means their own song, but
it could just be a request, right if if Bob,
if you rolled in and and you wanted to hear

(01:01:28):
uh you know, uh shake your tail feather by Nelly,
you could you could send John uh money on PayPal
and he'll play it right then and there. Um. So
people do it as a as a promotional tactic because
I think you know, one of the things that makes
Atlanta so special, uh is that there really is a

(01:01:48):
local scene and things break on the ground before they
break nationally. Right. And that's something that's like an age
old tale in the music industry, but has has been upended.
Right now. You can be from Singapore and you can
drop a song it sounds like Atlanta rap on YouTube
and maybe you get big before anybody even knows who

(01:02:08):
you are, right, your song goes viral on TikTok or
whatever you know. Uh. And yet these artists and these
labels in Atlanta, like they still see the value in
building an audience, right, building a groundswell of people, because
because that's how you build careers, right instead of one

(01:02:29):
off hits, uh, you you you you get a loyal
fan base. And and this happens in nightlife, right and
so whether it's whether it's a strip club or a
club club or somewhere in between. You know, they want
their music to work there first because they feel like
once they have the neighborhood behind them and then they

(01:02:49):
have the city behind them, that that's going to serve
them well when they break nationally. Okay, on the other
side of the fens from the artists, you talk about
quality control, talk about Coach K and you talk about
p and you talk about where they came from. What
is so special about them that they can engender success.

(01:03:15):
I mean, I think they're really really, really really bright
business minds right first and foremost, I think they also
make a great pair, a really complementary pair, right Um.
Coach you know, Coach grew up in in Indianapolis. Uh.
He he came to Atlanta, you know, as a young man,

(01:03:35):
drawn in by Freaknik, which is the sort of big
black college spring break thing that really you know, put
put put Atlanta nightlife on the map. Uh in the
early nineties. Uh. And he spent a lot of time,
as I've mentioned, sort of you know, working artists after
artists after artist as a manager, building these relationships with radio,

(01:03:59):
with their labels, with other artists, with producers, you know,
just years, decades right of groundwork, and you know, grew
into a godfather of of the scene. Right. Everybody knows him.
Everybody respects him, They respects a year, they respect the
way he does business. Um, and and piece of pieas different. Right,

(01:04:21):
he didn't start as a musician. He started in the
streets like he'll he'll, he'll tell you that, you know.
And and he's one of these guys who saw music
as a way out right. He wanted to invest the
money he'd made. He had some real estate, he bought
a studio. He tried to make it work. He wasn't
sure what to do. I wasn't finding success. Realized you

(01:04:44):
know that as as much money as you can make
in music and rap music, you can lose it just
as quickly. Right, total gamble um. But when he partnered
with Coach and they discovered megas, they just both bring
something different at the table, right. Coach coaches plugged, coaches
plugged in in the boardrooms and the radio stations. And

(01:05:06):
and he's a talent scout, right, He knows. He knows
what's going on in in these neighborhoods. He he he
meets young kids, artists, people who you know, show him
what's happening. And he's a motivator. Right. I saw him
do it over and over again. I saw him do
it with a little baby firsthand. I saw him do
it with Marlowe firsthand. He's the one who can say

(01:05:28):
I've been where you've been, right, I've seen what you've seen.
I've gone through these things, and I promise you you
listen to me and you follow what I tell you.
Not only are we going to make a lot of money,
not only are you going to be able to help
your family, but you're going to be safer. Right. And
he's he's really taking it upon himself, I think too.
You know uh mentor these artists right, and what they

(01:05:51):
talk about is is artist development, Right, This is something
that is nearly extinct in the record business. And why
we see you know, one hit wonder uh every day
right on TikTok or you know a half a hit wonder,
like sometimes they're not even making the billboard chart. Um.
And and one funny story, I think it didn't didn't

(01:06:12):
make the book might be in a Times article. Um,
but they had to they have to stop themselves right
from going after some of these viral things. There was
a moment when I first started reporting on these guys
when I think he said, you know, uh, there was
the girl known as the catch me outside girl, right,
she became she became bad baby. She went viral on
a Dr Phil clip, and they were like, maybe you know,

(01:06:34):
she started rapping, because you know, what do you what
do you what do you do after you have a
viral moment, Maybe maybe you start you start rapping. And
you know, I think I think it was p one
of them was like, maybe we should go after her,
like maybe we should do this and and and coach
said like no, like that's not what we do. Like,
let's keep our eye on the ball, right. What we
do is we build artists, we build careers, we build brands. Um.

(01:06:57):
And yeah, they're with these guys. They're with these guys
every day right there, constantly sending new music back and forth,
constantly pushing them do more shows, record more, another mixtape,
another video. And yeah, it's just a it's a it's
a unit a yang duo um that you know everybody

(01:07:18):
on the label responds to either. You know, they may
be closer with one, they may be closer with the other,
but they respect both of them. And I think, you know,
at this point, they've turned out so many artists who
again don't have a hit song, but have real careers. Uh,
you know, I put them up there with you know,
uh no limit or cash money or a G unit whatever,

(01:07:42):
you know, whatever. These rap crews and labels over the
last twenty years who have been able to make more
than one star, like to do it once as a miracle,
right to do it five times. It's like it's a
it's a it's a system. Now. Another thing you depict

(01:08:02):
in the book that is different from traditional conception of
the music business is the recording. Now, traditional music business,
you know, maybe you'll have pre production to work on
the song, and I said, well, we have ten songs
when we record them, you know. But here people are
running around with hard drives and you know, depict one thing,

(01:08:23):
Oh there's a famous studio in New York. Well let's
you know, we got an hour free, let's go record.
So you know, they're constantly recording, and a great percentage
of the stuff never even comes out right so yeah,
it's how much do these people alter. Let's say you're wanting,

(01:08:43):
you know, one of these guys in quality control, how
much will you record before they release something? Dozens, hundreds,
thousands of songs, probably on hard drives. Right, This is
it's a it's a volume business. It's you know, they're
putting out a ton of music. Right if you look

(01:09:03):
at look at Little Babies discography, the first whatever, it's
been five years of his career, right, stack that up
against you know, of course they're there are rock bands
that that put out a ton of music whatever I
guided by voices or you know, some something like that. Sure,
but traditionally a major label chart topping artists, right, what

(01:09:24):
they're going to put out twelve to fifteen songs every
eighteen months? Will Baby put out five mixtapes in ten months? Right,
each of them probably between fifteen and twenty tracks. Um,
this is what the audience wants, right, they're responding to
they're responding to the audience. They're there, they're churning at

(01:09:44):
this rate. And and it's an artistic choice as well, right,
Like the guys that they are emulating, the guys who
who started this, uh, this practice of recording in this
way improvisationally, uh, putting a ton of music out. This
is this Gucci Man, this is Little Wayne, Uh, this
is young Thug. These guys are all We're putting out many,

(01:10:10):
many mixtapes a year. Guci Man was putting out three
mix tapes on the same day at one point, at
the peak of his career. Um. And there's just there's
a lack of preciousness um about the art. Um. But
I think the important thing to realize is, like that
doesn't necessarily make it worse, you know what I mean? Like,

(01:10:33):
I think the the the the audience, like the it
showed like people people care about this music as much
as you might care about a Beatles song, right that
they spent six months working on, Right, we see it
and like they get back music video. But but that
doesn't that's not like a one isn't necessarily better than

(01:10:58):
the other, right, And I think that that's you know,
there's a there's this idea that it's that it's disposable, um.
But it's only as disposable as as as the audience
wants it to be. Right, Like I I think I
think we'll be playing bad em bougie at weddings in
in fifty years, right, Um, and maybe you know it

(01:11:19):
was made in one take in offset spacemen, but uh,
you know, I think it's it's incredible to watch also,
just the the way they sort of start and stop
without writing anything down, uh, and sort of creating these
these melodies, these flows, these rhymes, uh, these jokes, these
stories in real time. So I feel truly, truly blessed

(01:11:41):
to have been able to to to see it in
person as much as I have. Okay, so you have
all these rappers, where's all the where all the beats
or of the music coming from? You know, That's something
I wish I got into more in the book. Right,
there's a whole other book to be written about Atlanta producers. Um.
But they're working at a similar pace, right. You have

(01:12:02):
you know, guys like Metro booming, Um, guys like Murder Beats,
Guys like Zethoven. You know, a classically trained pianists who
who played in church with his parents. He's you know,
instrumental to the careers of future Gucci Man, Negosh and
and and they're working similarly, right, They're making hundreds and

(01:12:25):
hundreds of beats, dozens of beats maybe you know, thousands
of beats over the course of their career, and and
they're spreading them around their network right there. File sharing
so easy, drop box, you know. I remember being in
the studio with Marlowe who's trying to find something that
inspired him. He just pulled up a Gmail, right. I
guess you know you post looking for beats posted Gmail

(01:12:47):
address on your Instagram story. Dozens of kids will hit
you, you you know, with with a beat within five ten minutes,
just clicking around attachments, trying to find something that inspires him,
trying to find something that that catches the year. Um.
There are guys who make very bespoke versions of this right, Um,
people who will work months on the same beat, you know,

(01:13:10):
get getting the high hat just right, getting the base
just right. And then there are people who will just
you know, make three beats in an hour. Uh, and
there's no telling which one is gonna become the basis
for a hit song. Right, So it's like it's a
grab bag. Yeah. Like I said, you know, the producers
were not as big of a role in this book.
I spoke, I spoke to a lot of them, and

(01:13:31):
I saw a lot of them work. Um, but they
just didn't fit as much with the narrative. But you know,
i'd gladly, gladly read that book to you know, I
I get into some of this um in the video
series I do for The Times Diary of Song, which
is about about the making of tracks, and you know
how how stuff is created and then it's made marketed
and it goes viral sort of uh in this era. Um.

(01:13:55):
But you know you think of something like Old Town Road,
which funnily enough was know was recorded in an Atlanta
studio um by Little nos X, but the beat came
from a Dutch teenager who he never met before, who
sampled the nine Inch Nails song that he'd never heard
before that he pulled off YouTube you know, um so

(01:14:17):
and and then sold or least even for what like
fifty seventy five bucks. Um. You know, they are endless
sites for free beats, for cheap beats, for you know,
beats you can lease for a month, see if it
takes off six months. Um. And you know, the business
of the stuff gets gets super naughty when it comes

(01:14:39):
to to clearing and samples and rights holders and publishing
and all of that. Like I don't know, you know,
I don't envy the people behind the scenes who have
to clear all this music. Um, but it's a it's
an extremely fascinating and fast paced way to to create. Now,
you make the point you referenced earlier that these guys

(01:15:01):
in Atlanta a great degree are recording differently from people
previous in rap in that they're literally doing it. Not
sometimes we're by we're but usually phrase by phrase. They're
not starting up with a whole thing. Can you amplify
that a little bit? Yeah? Correct? So so, I mean
jay Z famously, you know, says he never writes his
lyrics down, right. But but the amazing thing about jay Z,

(01:15:24):
according to you know, people have seen it. I've never
I've never watched jay Z record other than in you know,
The Fades of Black documentary and in various YouTube videos.
But he's wrapping whole verses at a time, right, things
that he comes up with in his head and remembers.
Um And and I think little Wayne uh Is is
the same way. Um. He another one I think, having

(01:15:45):
learned from jay Z, you know, it's a point of pride,
right that he never wrote down his lyrics. But you
think of you know, some people might think of rap
as you know, a guy with a with a black
and white journal pad right scribbling down stands as like
they're a poem, and then wrapping them into a microphone.
But the Atlanta style, especially over the last ten years,

(01:16:06):
um following the footsteps of those guys that I named,
is extremely improvisational, and it happens directly into the microphone, right.
Sometimes you know, some little baby said. You know, every
now and then I'll get hired to do a feature
for a song or whatever. I'll have an idea, I'll
write something down, but almost always they're just playing the
beat on loop and wrapping their ideas directly into the mic, right.

(01:16:29):
So they'll they'll often start with like a gibberish sort
of thing, which I've seen pop top liners do as well, uh,
sort of syllabic melodic uh, you know, get a rhythm
down with just a just a nonsense phrase, and then
they start to fill in words, and then they start
to fill in phrases, and they start to fill in lines,
and they'll just go sort of like you know, piece

(01:16:51):
by piece by piece, um. And you know I described
I described me goes doing this in the book and
their their relationship with their engineer, right, has to be
like basically basically telepathic. Right, the engineer knows when they
want to go back, uh and do something, over keep something,
you know, move on to the next thing, um and it.
And it's the sort of this lego block process, whether

(01:17:13):
they're just building and building and building um and then
all of a sudden you have sixteen bars and and
and you move on to the next one. Now, historically
popular music has not been about the lyrics. The lyrics
are secondary and the success of these songs, how much
of it is the beat? How much of it is
the lyrics in terms of the appeal? I think it

(01:17:38):
really depends. I think you know, Southern rap gets a
reputation for being non lyrical. You know, there's the term
mumble rap that was in vogue a few years ago,
talking about people like Yaddi and future um and me
goes um. You know, I think that's sort of in
line with biases against Southern people, and especially southern black

(01:18:01):
people throughout history, right, this idea that you know, they
have a country accent, therefore they're not as bright as
you know, someone like Naz or whatever, who's a you know,
northern storyteller. Um. But I mean to me, like, most
of these guys are lyrical geniuses, right, and that's you know,

(01:18:24):
from Gucci Man Too Young Thug to two Little Baby.
Like I think if you you see the way they
play with language, you see the way they they they
describe an image, right, there's often economy in the writing. Um,
you know, the way they're putting phrases together, the way
they're birthing new slang. You know, someone like Future I
think is like completely unparalleled when it comes to like

(01:18:48):
lingo and just the way he's inserting new idioms into
popular culture, right, Like this is a skill. This is
not like, this is not anything to be sneered at. Um.
And I think you know, people get turned off by
the auto tune, but if you listen to even someone
like Little Baby, I think it's just a really sneakily lyrical,

(01:19:08):
intricate rapper. Um. You know, his his his phrasing, his timing.
He's so wordy. You know, you go see him in
concert and in the and the breath control is amazing.
He's just you know, these these sort of run on versus.
Even even the choruses are often extremely wordy. Um. And yeah,

(01:19:29):
there's just there's so many different flavors of this um,
even within Atlanta, even within guys who might sound the
same uh at at first at first glance. But you know,
of course the beat is important, right, This is a
this is like a music that is made to be
felt often. You know, you you feel that you feel
the baseline, you know, the melody, the high hats, um,

(01:19:54):
the cadences, the patterns. Like you know, I think it
wouldn't be as popular internationally uh as it is without
a lot of that stuff. Um. You know they people
in other markets might not even be following the slang
in the lyrics. UM. But I think you you get
out of it what you put into it. Like I
think if you invest in these guys, you see sort

(01:20:15):
of how they're how they're building uh stories, characters, narratives,
not only within a song, but sort of over time
on mix tapes, uh, you know, on albums, on guest
versus you piecing together um, a story, a mythology and
narrative sort of you know, internal um world right there.

(01:20:37):
You know characters that recur um. You know, street names, geography,
it's a you know, it's it's like a it's a
folk tradition. Um. I think in a lot of ways.
Now you recite essentially thirty years worth of history in
the book, and from those who are not deep in
the scene, it appears that a lot of these acts

(01:20:59):
had a commercial and social peak and then it's past.
Now the music business, to a great degree, that's the
way it's run, but since to a degree it's an
underground economy, some of it's not monetized. Are these people
peak peeking and disappearing or are they being kept alive
in this subculture and able to continue to monetize their

(01:21:23):
quote again, Brands, I think you're seeing a lot more
longevity these days, right, I think music industry in general,
um but in in raps specifically, there wasn't often the
super long tale for these things, right you think of
you think of the the the early New York rappers, Right,

(01:21:46):
they didn't rap into their forties or even into their thirdies.
You know, they were not celebrities in the same way
that that you see Now you have guys who you know,
put out their their best album twenty years ago who
are still on the blogs and in the clubs and
on TV every day. Um So, I think there is
a there's a longer shelf life for these people, for

(01:22:09):
these artists, especially as celebrities. UM. But I think rap
music is still very much a young man's game, right.
There's always somebody fresher, There's always somebody doing something slightly different,
something new. There's always somebody you know, SEXI or more dangerous,
more experimental. Um and and these cycles go really quickly, right,

(01:22:31):
I think even you know, you look at quality controls
existed since uh you know when when when Mega started
to blow up, and and and then you look at
someone like Little Baby who's now in the A list himself,
and they have many many rappers that have come after
that that are you know, on their way up, like
the churn, even within one label, uh, and you can

(01:22:52):
see sort of you know who who's peaking at any
given moment or or or who's coming from behind. Um.
You know, I think the audiences are always in search
of the next thing. Um But I think the idea,
right is that at a at a label like this,
and if if if you put out enough good work,
even if it's in a quick period of time, and

(01:23:14):
you sort of build your quote unquote brand, and you
establish your relationships and your fan base, you can continue
to tour. You can continue to get endorsements, you can
continue to you know, be on television and show up
at a word shows. You know. Luckily, I think for
a lot of these rappers, the sort of mainstream mono
culture uh in American popular culture is still pretty slow. Right,

(01:23:37):
So even if you're considered a little bit uh passe
a or you know, no longer the hot new thing
and wrap, you're still going to be on network television. Okay,
So music in general in this sort of grows out
of what you're saying is overwhelming. You know, the hits

(01:23:57):
and the Spotify top fifty never meant less used to
have a hit in the old days, everybody knew it
something you mean number one people haven't even heard of
the act. So if one has not been following this
music and an uneducated it just looks overwhelming. First their SoundCloud.
There are mixed tapes continuing to come out, never mind

(01:24:20):
the history. There's a lot of people in the game.
Does one follow it without making it a full time job?
I think this goes for any culture, right that you can.
You can say the same thing about TV. Right, I
might be watching a show that I think is is
the best thing in the world on one streaming service
and you don't even have a log in for that one, right,

(01:24:43):
and you have no idea what I'm talking about. We
think of, you know, I think you've written about this
in the newsletter. You think of something like the bear, right,
The bear in my world was a huge hit right
among people in the media in you know, relatively young
something like industry or the bear is like, that's what
people are watching, that's what people are talking about. If
I go home and see my parents, they don't know

(01:25:05):
what the bear is, you know, or or maybe they
clicked on it on Hulu and they accidentally found it.
They didn't know it was trendy. Right, Um, Look, I
think the monoculture that I just referenced, like it barely
exists anymore. Right with you? On that, I would say
it doesn't exist at all. But okay, Yeah, Like, you know,
they're a handful of things that breakthrough, right, Rihanna is

(01:25:27):
going to play the super Bowl, Like that's a monoculture event,
right Arguably, you know, maybe the Beatles documentary that Peter
Jackson Beatles tument. I feel like that that broke through
as much as I'd seen anything breakthrough in years right. Um,
going back to two me goes, I think that Embouge
was a number one song in the world. Did my

(01:25:48):
grandparents know it? Probably not. I think it had a
huge amount of permeation into into the mainstream. Um. And yet,
like you're saying, and was that was five years ago,
it's only gotten worse. Um. I think people choose their spots, right,
they know what they're interested in, they know what Spotify
serves them. They either listen to the radio or they don't.

(01:26:11):
You know. I think look radio, like some of this
music trickles up onto the radio usually after finding success
on streaming. UM, sticks around for a long time, right.
We see like the charts are pretty stagnant, especially the
airplay charts. UM. But someone like Little Baby, He's found
a ton of success on you know, what's referred to
as urban radio, like many, many, many number one songs there,

(01:26:35):
which means, you know, people driving home from work, they
know the sound of his voice, even if they don't
know his biography. UM. But I think that there remains
this question of like superstars, right, is there a next
generation of superstar? Who is who is the next superstar?
You know, I'm I'm looking at a little Baby's career.
Now he has an album coming out right ahead of

(01:26:56):
this book, and in mid October, he's you know, he's
the he's in the theme song for the World Cup.
Is he's he has a Budweiser sponsorship, right, It doesn't.
It doesn't get much bigger than that. And yet if
you ask you the average person on the street, depending
on their age and where they're from in Times Square,
I still don't know if they if if they know
who he is? Right Like, it's a it's a dice

(01:27:18):
roll um. But I think, you know, if you want
to pay attention, you can just pick a city, pick
a YouTube account, pick a pick one artist, listen to
the artist featured on their song. You know, I think
there's there's a million different paths to follow, um, and
you can get a decent picture of of where hip

(01:27:39):
hop is at, where regional rap is at. But I
agree in terms of you know, the what what what we?
What I grew up on and certainly what you grew
up on. That idea of like a discreete a list
of artists, Uh, that doesn't exist anymore. You know, I've
I've I've written about someone like NBA Young Boy who

(01:28:00):
one of the biggest trappers in the world. You know,
more YouTube streams than Taylor Swift, you know, and yet
no radio play, zero television appearances. Nobody under the age
of thirty knows who he is, and certainly not white people.
Um So, you know, I think, I think it's a
different world, but I think that applies across all media. Okay,

(01:28:22):
but let's go back to your TV analogy. You're talking
about hipster's media people knowing the bear. I hear from
a lot of people regularly, and there are not many
students of the game of streaming television. So they'll have
watched the same shows even though got horrific reviews. They'll

(01:28:43):
watched the offer, They'll watched ted Lasso, etcetera. You start
talking about Borgan, even one of the legendary and foreign shows,
they have no idea what you're talking about. Sororitive organ obsessive. Right,
that's another that's another podcast. But staying with the concept

(01:29:05):
of music, theoretically you could pay attention to the Spotify
top fifty. That could be your thing. And even narrower
than that is terrestrial radio. At the other end of it.
In the book, there's multiple people creating a plethora of

(01:29:26):
product outside it looks like a lot of people are
in that deep is the truth that there are a
lot of people and this is just their passion or
really there's a limited number of people who are very
passionate about it. That's a great question, you know, I

(01:29:47):
think because this is a local scene, right that that
I'm writing about, Like there's a way to be famous
in Atlanta specifically, where you're only famous in your city,
right I can. And there are there a handful of
artists at any given moment who if you went to
the mall there down on the West End, like that's
a celebrity, you know what I mean, that's a that's

(01:30:09):
a that's a hero that's getting played out of cars
in the parking lot. And yet there's no even in
the Spotify era, even in the YouTube ere, there's no
sort of permeation outward. Uh. And I think I think
that exists in in most American cities. I think like
there are still subcultures there, especially in music. There are

(01:30:31):
still local scenes. There are you know, hometown heroes. Um.
And that's one of the things that draws me so
much to to wrap. I don't know, you know, if
the same thing happens in rock, right, I don't know
really definitely there. I I agree with you. I think
you know, as much as we used to say, like

(01:30:53):
you could find a punk scene, you know, in any
any metropolitan area or even a small town. I think
they're fewer and further between now. But I think rap
works in that local and I think you do a
very good job of depicting that. Let's talk about you specifically.
This year you were beat. You wrote a book about Atlanta.

(01:31:15):
But Atlanta is not the only epicenter of hip hop,
if it might be the most prominent at this point,
To what degree do you listen to the mix tapes
of hip hop artists in New York l A never mind? Before?
Do you keep up on all these people or go on?

(01:31:36):
I keep up less than I used to write. I'm
I'm getting I'm getting old, right, this was I'm I
grew up file sharing, right. I grew up on the Internet.
I was downloading music on Napster when I was you know,
ten eleven years old. I'm the problem, you know. But
I also was an obsessive fan. I was discovering music

(01:31:57):
on message boards. I was, you know, on every social
network that that that that was growing. Um And and
I prided myself on keeping up right on knowing what
was hot, on knowing what was going to be big
before it was big. And that's you know, part of
the reason I end up getting the job that I
did is because I was honing those skills as a
as a fan first, um and then you know, you

(01:32:20):
learned about the industry, you read, you you develop an
ear um and that's really helped me on my beat.
But look, I mean I had a book to write,
you know, I I have I have a dog, I
have a life like I'm not spending as much time
sort of um trawling the internet for obscure regional artists

(01:32:40):
as I used to. But I think I keep up
more than people. Okay, let me ask the question a
different way. Prior to the Internet, anybody in the music
business knew every record on the chart. We may not
have literally heard it, but they know about it. Whatever
anybody today says, they especially the album start. Anybody who

(01:33:03):
says they know every album, they're just lying. Nobody does.
There's always stuff there you don't know. John Parrellis knows. Well,
we'll leave it to that, but not only don't debate
this issue right now, I continue. So when I look
at hip hop, is it the same thing that really
they're different people in different things. Or is there a cadre,

(01:33:27):
whether small or large, who literally have their finger on
the pulse in the nation about hip hop? Oh yeah, man,
I listen to all the mixtapes. Does that even exist? Look?
There are a few people you know that I could
point to online who are younger and better than me,
who I read, who I feel like, you know, they

(01:33:47):
they really really really, you know, have their eye on things. Um.
You know Alphonse, that Pitchfork you know, writes a weekly
rap column. I'm continually continually blown away by his ability
to keep up right, his ability to to find these
these scenes, whether it's you know, Jersey Club or you

(01:34:10):
know these Flint guys or you know San Jose and
go down that rabbit hole. You know, there's wrap websites,
you know, something like Passion of the Weiss where you
know there's a new young, first time freelancer every week
who's uncovering, Uh, you know a scene I've never heard of. Um,

(01:34:31):
But I think even those people have to pick their
spots right. You know what you like? You follow, you
follow a rabbit hole, uh in in a direction it
leads you, you know to maybe various scenes that are
in dialogue with with the one you're into. Um. But
I don't think there are completest. I think there's just

(01:34:52):
too much music, right. And there's the thing that's interesting
about rap is that in some of these these streaming sites,
some like SoundCloud, like it's affecting the aesthetic right there
there artists that flocked to specific places that have a
specific sound, right, and that sound is only growing in
this one ecosystem. Um. And and you know that's that's

(01:35:16):
now regenerated. A couple of times we had what was
referred to as SoundCloud rap in is not the same
thing we we we talk about now when when you
say SoundCloud rap um. But but you know, the idea
of a completest, it's it's it's just not I just
it's just not possible right with the with the amount
of stuff coming out, Okay for the uninitiated to find

(01:35:38):
the difference in status between Atlanta and New York and
l a rap or any other scene that I might
have overlooked. So New York right has come back around.
Actually New York is the birthplace of hip hop, you
know very much the initial arbiter of you know, authenticity,

(01:36:01):
of lyricism, of of beat making. Uh, you know, the
the legacy is here. Um and and then for the past,
you know, two and a half three decades, it's been
what happened to New York rap? Who's the next savior
of New York rap? Right? You you had a moment,
you know you you you had a moment with pop

(01:36:23):
smoke um and the and the Brooklyn drill stuff. And actually,
you know, the drill rap coming out of New York
now is very much at the center of things. Right,
Even even kids in the deepest undergrounds in Atlanta are
now making songs that sound like New York drill. But
of course New York drill comes from Chicago, comes from London. Right,

(01:36:46):
This is a sound that traveled all around the world
before New York sort of took it back and put
their own spin on it. Um l A obviously vibrant
through all time, h through through the history of hip
hop New York versus l A. The sort of you know,
the traditional rivalry of of nineties rap, you know, or

(01:37:07):
you do you like Biggie, do like tupac Um you know,
a huge renaissance UM in in recent years. You think
of someone like Kendrick Lamar, one of you know, one
of the biggest stars of our era, UM and and
a ton of people under him. You know, someone someone
like Draco the Ruler really was putting l A on
the map again before before he was killed a couple

(01:37:29):
of years ago. UM. The thing that's amazing now is
that it's not just Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Detroit, the
Bay Area, right, Memphis, the sort of traditional hip hop
strongholds like you have scenes in tiny towns in Florida.
You have you know, scenes in North Carolina place it

(01:37:52):
was notoriously uh barren with of of stars. Um. You know, Arkansas,
you can find a hip hop see like the proliferation
of regional hip hop right now and places doing original, amazing,
extremely distinct things. Milwaukee, you know, places that have never

(01:38:15):
traditionally been in the conversation are now as vibrant as
anywhere else. I think the reason you continue to hear
about New York, l A, Atlanta, to a lesser extent, Chicago,
maybe you know, New Orleans, Memphis is that there's an
infrastructure there, right, and that's that's The other thing that
you know, the book really tries to. The argument I

(01:38:38):
tried to make in the book is that the explosion
of Atlanta and the streaming era was really prepared for
in the nineties, right when places when labels like l
A La Face Ela reads l face maybe face so
so Deaf Germaine dupre outcasts and the Dungeon family, you know,
when they were opening studios, they were bringing the record

(01:39:00):
business to them, and that lays the groundwork right for
for there to be places for these kids to go
to to record music and and make videos and meet executives.
And it's still not in New York or l A,
where the where the majors are based. But compared to
a lot of these smaller regional scenes which you know
don't end up breaking through on a national level unless

(01:39:21):
you're really paying attention. A lot of that is because
because of the physical infrastructure, right, whether it's venues, studios, clubs,
strip clubs. As we discussed. Um, So I think there's
music coming out of all out of all of these
all of these towns, all these these little crevices, um,
but not all of it is reaching the radio. Okay,

(01:39:49):
used to Peo, we have a new scene prior to
the Internet every three to five years. So have we
run even though everyone's making music. Ah, we're running out
of the highway on hip hop and something else will
come in? Or is there really so much innovation there's
mills to go. I think people have been you know,

(01:40:14):
uh predicting the end of hip hop's reign for twenty
five years now, right, but it's always almost about to end. Um.
But you know, I think we've seen the slow, sad
death of rock, right, Like I don't I don't know
about you, but like it's just so hard for me

(01:40:34):
to imagine us like guys capturing chart topping rock band
that's for white guys playing analog instruments. Uh, you know.
So look, it had a good run. I think I
bop has proven to be more adaptable, um, at least

(01:40:55):
in recent years. Uh. You know. I think when you
think of people who are succeeding in pop or or
rock or whatever, they're often drawing from a rap tool
kit right there. They're borrowing, whether it's uh, you know,
trap high hats and drums or the release schedule. Right,
the sort of more is more than Morgan Wallans of

(01:41:15):
the World putting out thirty track deluxe albums that that
comes from rap music, you know what I mean? Uh,
not to mention his his his sound in places, um So,
I think you know it's been it's been picked over
for parts. Um. But it's extremely, extremely resilient. Um. And

(01:41:35):
I think a lot of that is is about where
it comes from, right, Like it comes from people who
are struggling. Right. The basis of hip hop is is
in economic despair, right Uh. And and it comes from
necessity and in a lot of places and and in
a lot of cases. Um So I think like you
can never you can never count it out because it's

(01:41:57):
always it's always regenerating because people need it. So how
did you get your job at the New York Times?
You know, I started out writing about music when I
was a teenager because it was the thing I knew about, right. So,
I think a lot of people default to music writing
when they when they first start because it's the thing
that they're into the most. Um. You feel like you

(01:42:17):
have some ownership and expertise um over it. But I
very quickly realized I didn't want to be a critic
um and that you know, I grew up in the
sort of blog Era and P three blogs, Pitchfork, you know,
the proliferation of music criticism online. And I was like, WHOA,
Like this seems unforgiving, right, Like all these people are
writing so many words all the time with you know,

(01:42:41):
very little return. Um. All the magazines that I grew
up with were dying um as as they still are UM.
And I very quickly decided, you know, I should learn
if I'm going to write, I should learn how to
report um. I should learn a practical skill within this.
I'm not a critic um, even though I have a
lot of a opinions. Uh So I stopped writing about music.

(01:43:03):
Basically I learned how to report um. I was a blogger.
I was a news blogger for many years. I worked
at the Village Voice. I worked in York. It was
a little bit slower. You left Florida, you went to
college where sure, I moved to New York. I went
to n Y U to what to greeted in while you,
uh push you forward in your career, it was four
years you would just go to college? Oh no, I

(01:43:25):
mean I always tell people like I would not have
the job that I have, especially when I got it.
You know, was still in my twenties. I would not
have that opportunity without having got the head start of
living in New York beginning when I was eighteen. You know,
I A lot of people moved to New York to
try to make it in whatever field after college, and

(01:43:45):
I was here first. So for me, n y U
was a very very very expensive path to living in
the city and having internships. And you know, I took
on a lot of student loans and you know, fortunate
enough that my my parents could help me out. UM.
But I was. I was working from right when I

(01:44:07):
got here, right, I was writing for free magazines around
the city, UM, websites earlier. Some of the earliest music
reporting I did was for an Australian website that doesn't
exist anymore. UM or for tiny mixtapes for free. You know,
I was. I had a blog spot, UM, I had

(01:44:27):
a tumbler. I was just trying to practice basically, UM.
And and as I was finishing school is when I decided,
you know, music writing seems like a very very very
unforgiving space. And that's when I branched out. Did you
study journalism at n y U? I did. I studied
journalism undergrad although I did like a media criticism track.

(01:44:47):
So I was more reading a door now than I
was out on the street like beat reporting. Okay, and
it was at the end of your education or did
you get a master's or anything. No, that was the
end of my education. I was, you know, as I said,
I was working throughout all of undergrad as much as
I could. I was starting to get paid here and
there for freelancing online mostly um. And you know, if

(01:45:12):
I've figured I would learn more and not rack up
any more student debt just doing it as opposed to
go into grad school. So you graduate from n hyle
U in the next step is graduated into her session. Uh.
You know, was not a great time to to try

(01:45:32):
to be in journalism. Uh. You know, this was this
was the dark days, especially for for print media US.
The Internet was taking over and they hadn't really figured
out what to do yet. But I was really good
at being online. I could, you know, write fast, I
could spot trends. I knew what was you know, going

(01:45:53):
to go whatever proto viral um I And I really
marketed myself as a sort of ex generation uh internet journalists.
You know, I could get on Facebook and find somebody
you know, both quicker than you know a reporter who
was not native to those spaces. Um and so you

(01:46:15):
I tried to really use that right. And it was
also a real time of like democratization among writers, right
like Twitter was starting. I was on Twitter very early,
um tumbler, like I said, blog spot, this is a
way for me to like interface with writers who I admired,
uh in a in a pretty direct way, right Like

(01:46:37):
you could reblog them, you could retweet them, you could
add commentary, you could chime in, you know. So I
was I was annoying. I was like I was in
the face of people who I think, you know, I
looked up to or whose careers I wanted um and
and yeah it was it was. It was like a
much more innocent time I think online Um, the pool

(01:47:01):
felt smaller. UM. So I made some headway that way. UM.
And then, like I said, I became a blogger. Right
people needed content for their websites. So I was writing
eight ten posts a day um for the Village Voice,
first on the weekends while I had a day job. UM.
Then then as a full time news blogger, um, you know,

(01:47:23):
offering metro stories. What was your day job. I worked
at Life dot com. So Life dot Com was a
partnership with Getty Images. It was what remained of Life magazine.
And I ran the homepage photo carousel. So I would,
you know, with the help of an editor, pick seven
to ten photos that represented the news of the day,

(01:47:44):
something from the archives for an anniversary, something from a war,
tragedy abroad, something more lighthearted, and then I would write
a you know, two word caption for it. Um. So
I was running the homepage of Life dot com, which
I don't know if anybody an I don't know if
anybody was visiting Life dot com. But we were updating
the homepage every day, um and then and then on

(01:48:05):
the weekends, I was Saturday and Sunday. I had control
of the Village Voice website for whatever reason, because they
needed content, you know, they needed traffic. So um, that's
when I started. You know, I wrote a little bit
about media. I wrote about politics, I wrote about crime,
metro stories, um, pop culture. Sometimes they would give me

(01:48:27):
the keys to the music blog as well. UM, so
I would keep up with that a little bit. Um
and yeah, I was just writing a lot. I was
learning how to how to write quickly, how to write cleanly,
how to pick up the phone sometimes, how to make
a little joke, you know. You know, uh, aggregation was
less dry back then. It was about sort of like

(01:48:48):
adding voice. Um. So I was trying to develop developed
that way. Um and I just got a lot of
reps in. You know. I was just I was meeting people,
I was making waves when I could. I was making
fun of the New York Times for not printing curse
words from the Village Voice website. You know, just just
just being pesky, um and working my way up from there. Um.

(01:49:11):
So after the Voice, I did this a similar thing
in New York Magazine. I worked for their Daily Intelligence
or blog, uh as a news blogger. You know, school shootings, terrorists, attacks,
covered Benghazi, you know, covered media, covered the New York Times,
covered Conde nas covered internet culture, just a real grab

(01:49:31):
bag of stuff. And I wasn't doing a ton of
culture reporting. But I always had my eye on that.
And when I first started contributing here and there for
the magazine, Um, I would you know, I did a
piece about Angie Martinez, a New York radio figure. You know,
I had I still had sort of one eye on
music and culture because I knew that was my main interest,

(01:49:53):
even though I was on the news side of things. UM.
But I think that ultimately being functional in both worlds
is what allowed me to get my job at the Times. Right,
because when when The Times is looking for a music reporter,
they're looking for a reporter first and foremost. Right. Anybody

(01:50:13):
has can have an opinion about music. Um. We have
no shortage of music critics online, amateur and professional. UM.
But I think the fact that I knew how to
do a public record search. I knew how to pick
up the phone. I knew how to like get on
the street and and and interview someone, how to track
someone down, um, how to how to cover breaking news.

(01:50:36):
All of that really came into play. So a lot
of your working career was not actually music focused. You've
done this, You've written this book. There are people like
John Perellis who've continue to do with their whole lives
and at the Times, what do you see going forward
and what would you dream would go forward. I've gone

(01:50:59):
back on fourth on this a lot because I feel like,
you know, December will be eight years for me on
the music beat at the Times. On one hand, I
saw the book as potentially like a capstone to my
time on the beat. You know, I think I could
cover other things. I could write about other other stuff.
I don't know how many more Grammy Awards I have
in me. I don't know how many more rock star

(01:51:20):
obituaries or Beyonce album cycles. You know, there's something about
the music world that you know, as you well know,
it's very cyclical, uh, covering the same thing every every
every year, every few years. Um So part of me
saw the book as like a capstone project um to
my time on the beat, and at the same time,
like I feel like I'm I know the music world

(01:51:43):
better than I have. You know, the thing about about
being a beat reporter is you you accrue knowledge. You
you gain sources, You get how things work, you can
see things before they happen, you know the patterns. Um. So,
you know, I think it's all up in the air. Um.
I love the team that I work with, U Karen
Gans the music editor John Perellis who we've mentioned chief

(01:52:05):
pop critic John Karamonica, you know, uh, the other pop
critic has been a huge mentor friends, champion of me
since I was very young, helped to bring me in
here at the Times Ben's serio covers the music business
for us came it came over from the business section
works with us in arts. Now. UM, we have a
very very very tight and I think, you know, pretty

(01:52:27):
thorough team for for how few of us there are. UM.
And I love working with them on a day to
day basis. UM. But the short answer is, I don't
I don't know. I think you know. Times likes for
their reporters to move around, but they also like for
you to have expertise. So I've I've gained some expertise
on this beat. Uh. And I don't know how much

(01:52:50):
longer I'm going to use it, but hopefully hopefully a
little while longer at least. Okay, the New York Times itself, Hey,
you have the vilification denigration from the right of the
New York Times become a pejorative. Ironically, they use the
New York Times for all their factual news. Okay. You know,
if you can tune in, Fox are always saying getting

(01:53:11):
all the new they don't do any reporting. They get
it from the New York Times. So at one level,
the New York Times it's fact. You know, New York
Times sets the agenda for America. Brings up the issues.
But there's the issue of the right wing backlash, and
there's also concommitantly a smaller footprint. Used to be if

(01:53:35):
The New York Times weighed in on something like hip
hop music, everybody interested in that would read that article.
And it's not only the New York Times. You know,
in Los Angeles it's even worse. It was in the
l A Times everybody. So now people in l A.
Most people don't see it. So what is your experience

(01:53:55):
working for The New York Times said it opens doors
in Atlanta is generally a good thing or a bad thing.
And how do you feel writing articles in terms of
their impact? You feel like you have a big footprint.
You wish you had a larger footprint. What's going on
all there? I still think the platform is unparalleled, right,

(01:54:16):
it's still the New York Times. Even people who don't
read The New York Times know what the New York
Times is. They respect it. You know, there are people
in Atlanta who only know me as the New York Times.
You know it's New York Times this year, you know. Uh.
I think as far as a brand name, like it's
just in the news business, like it doesn't you know,

(01:54:36):
there's there's there's a few other places at this level. Um,
you know, do I wish more people saw some of
my stories, especially my more obscure culture stories, my non
Beyonce Taylor Swift coverage. Sure, but I think we can
still move the needle. And I think, you know, one
thing I really love about our team is that we

(01:54:58):
don't just cover the big stuff. Really do follow stories, news, passions, subculture.
We break artists. We often do first interviews that people
have ever done. You know. Uh, I wrote a big
feature about a you know, a young woman named Ethel Caine.
Recently she you know, was living in small town Alabama

(01:55:20):
putting out her first album. You know, people came up
to me at the show and said, I learned about
this from the New York Times. You know. Like that,
I think I think we can still have that impact.
We just have to pick our spots because we have
such a small staff. Um, you know, especially in music,
there's so much happening at all times. We can't cover everything.

(01:55:41):
I think, you know, and and this goes for the
paper in general. But I think like we often make
as much of a point in what we don't cover
as as in what we do. Um, you know, it's
it's it's an expert driven section, you know, very critic heavy,

(01:56:01):
the art section, movie critics, art critics, classical critics, pop
critics like I think, you know, we're still hopefully top
of the heap, uh in a lot of ways, and
and can set the agenda. You know, you think of
something like Broadway. Obviously not not a lot of people
setting that agenda more than the Times. Um. You know,
I think I think our our our culture covers coverage

(01:56:23):
is strong across the board. Um. But look, of course,
like the fragmentation of of media has has affected us all.
And you know, if you you put into Google any
topic of the day that you're going to find dozens
and dozens and dozens of seo garbage. UM, but I

(01:56:43):
think you'll probably still most of the time find the
best or the definitive or even the first story uh
from us. Okay, we've been talking to where I've been
talking to Joe Coscarelli has a new book, Rap Capital
and at Lanta story. Even if you think you're not
interested in hip hop or don't know anything, it is

(01:57:05):
very insightful in terms of what is the genesis of
this music? The people were making it, the people who
are marketing it. So thanks for taking the time to
talk to me in my audience here, Joe. It's been great.
I really really really appreciate it. Uh. You know, you
gave the book such a close read and and in
a lot of ways, you're my ideal reader. I didn't

(01:57:26):
want this to be a book for rapp aficionados, for
super fans, you know. I wanted I wanted to explain
this culture in a human way, uh in in a
way that sort of transcended people who would think they
would read a book about rapping. Six So, thank you
so much for for your time. Well you certainly succeeded.
Until next time. This is Bob left Sex