September 29, 2024 • 38 mins
Text Beyond the Threshold w/ your thoughts or questions!
In this episode of Beyond the Threshold, host Sidney Evans is joined by Jahi Whitehead, currently lead Podcast Producer at Urban One Podcast Network.
As Jahi highlights his two decades of media/audio production experience, they discuss:
- His early experience as singer, DJ and engineer in the music industry.
- The pursuit of a career in radio and the transition into podcasting.
- The difference between networking and building genuine relationships.
- How his unique skillset led to his opportunity at Urban One.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jahi Whitehead (00:00):
Let's say, if I'm headed HR at somewhere, you
know how many messages I mightget about someone wanting a job,
like it's going to be that oneperson I always see that's going
to stick out.
Like I keep seeing this person.
Let me reply, because if Idon't, that person is going to
continue to hit me, keep hittingme back.
So let me reply.
Sidney Evans (00:20):
Tune in as we give flowers to black men and women
making waves in the audioindustry.
I'm your host, sidney Evans,and this is Beyond the Threshold
.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcometo Beyond the Threshold.
(00:45):
I'm your host, sidney Evans, anaward-winning audio editor,
mixer and producer.
For those of you who don't know, on this show I interview Black
men and women working in theaudio industry to highlight the
lessons and experiences it takesto achieve success in the field
.
We got another amazing episodein store for today and I will
(01:06):
introduce today's guest shortly,but before I do, I just wanted
to take the time to say thankyou to anyone who has listened
to the show so far.
I appreciate your support and Ihope you continue to support as
we continue to grow theplatform.
All right, so today's guest isactually someone that I did not
(01:28):
know prior to the interview, buthe was introduced to me by
Dante Hodge, who I had on aprevious episode of the podcast.
So immediately I reached out tohim and, because of the
relationship that he and Dantehas, we made it happen pretty
quickly and he was happy to comeon.
So to give a little bit of abackground on him, he is a
(01:54):
Howard University alum,originally from East Orange, new
Jersey, now living in theAtlanta area.
He has over two decades ofmedia and audio production
experience, ranging from DJing,studio engineering, audio book
recording and editing, radioproducing and podcast producing
and editing.
He's the current podcastproducer at Urban One Podcast
(02:19):
Network.
So I'd like to introduce ourguest for today, jahi Whitehead.
Welcome to the show, brother.
Jahi Whitehead (02:27):
All right, thank you.
Appreciate it, sidney.
I'm glad to be here.
Glad to be here, man.
Sidney Evans (02:32):
Yes, sir, I'm glad we were able to make it happen
so quickly.
So we're going to jump rightinto things.
Man, could you share a littlebit about your background and
what were some of theexperiences that led up to you
discovering your passion foraudio production?
and then we're gonna get intothe nitty-gritty
Jahi Whitehead (02:51):
So would say that probably started with, uh,
the movie Juice.
Are you familiar with juice?
I am okay cool, so I'llprobably.
That's probably where, like Ibelieve, it probably all started
.
I was a big fan of that movieand particularly I wanted to DJ.
So if you watch that movie, thewhole DJ battle, that sparked
(03:12):
my interest in wanting to be aDJ A little known fact, I don't
want to say a little known fact,but the thing about me when I
was growing up I was a singer, Iwas a singer, so that was the
other thing that always got mepretty much involved into music,
arts, studios, all that stufflike that.
(03:40):
So process fast forward till Igot to the age of 13, I bought
my little equipment and buildingthis makeshift studio at my
father's house, which I had noidea what I was doing.
I promise you Zero.
I had no idea as far as reallydoing it.
I had this eight-track taperecorder that we used to record
(04:01):
stuff on.
This is before we had a lot ofdigital stuff, before we had a
lot of that.
I'm probably dating myself bysaying all these things, but it
was around that time.
So after that started actuallyrecording with local groups
around the city, one group.
So I actually got to like Iwon't say like it wasn't a real
(04:23):
studio either, it was stillsomeone's basement, but they had
Pro Tools, started seeing that,then stopped messing with them
for a little bit and then gotalong with this other group and
we actually signed a deal.
It ended up not working out butwe was working with some people
.
But in the process of that wefinally got into a studio studio
(04:44):
so working with Big Boaz, theSSL and finally working on Pro
Tools.
I remember there was this bassplayer who was also the
engineers.
He was the one that reallytried to teach me about
engineering and plugins, likethe first one that initially
started teaching me.
Then I started working with myboy, the producer of the group,
tyree, and he got this programcalled Cubase and we started
(05:07):
recording at his house and Istarted learning how to do that
and I began to start running thesession because I had a knack
for audio just because of my DJstuff.
So I was also DJing around.
So I still had a knack foraudio.
Ended up buying an MPC 2000right after him.
Working on that, started doingproduction Fast forward, going
(05:30):
to school, started DJing atHoward, started working at the
radio station and while doingthat, I think that's when I
realized that I can take thisaudio production thing, just
audio in general, and actuallybe a professional outside of
just making music or just DJing.
I can use this as a career pathif I wanted to.
Sidney Evans (05:53):
Let me pause you real quick because I got a
question.
So did you actually study mediaproduction when you were at
Howard, or was your major insomething else?
Jahi Whitehead (06:03):
So my initial major?
Well, I was initially winningthe Undecided, so then I
switched to I was going intomusic business.
It was more so music businessalong the lines of being a
performer and being able tomanage yourself as a performer,
(06:24):
not necessarily the business ofthe music business.
So it was a little bitdifferent than what I was trying
to do at the time.
More along the lines of what Iwas trying to do was more in
communication and media.
So my degree is actually inmore so broadcast media
production.
So I did get a lot of hands-ontraining with ProTube, even
(06:46):
Final Cut writing in general,script writing, broadcast
performance.
Learning how to actually speak,public speaking was definitely
a class that we had to take.
Sidney Evans (06:56):
Okay.
So first off, let me say when Iwas in college and I found out
I had to take public speaking, Iliterally considered changing
my major because I don't knowwhat I thought.
But I didn't think takingpublic speaking was going to be
a part of that process.
So let me just say that firstand second.
I hated taking the writingclasses when I was in college.
(07:19):
But now, looking back on it,I'm glad that I did take them
and I kind of wish I would haveput more into it.
But in knowing what I know now,the writing part was probably
the most important out of allthe classes I took.
So for those of you who aremaybe in college or you're early
in your career, or maybe evenif you're later in your career
(07:42):
and you don't think your writingchops are up to par, I would
recommend you take some courses,do whatever you got to do to
increase that skill, because ifyou can write well, you'll be
more valuable than most of thepeople working in the industry,
especially those who can't write1000% Me being able to write,
(08:05):
or learning how to just scriptwriting classes, or learning how
to write just various thingsscripts for advertisers those
things have helped me, taken mefurther than some of my peers in
the same situations, justbecause I have that skill.
Jahi Whitehead (08:20):
To be able to write along with producing
Writing is super important.
It's super, super important.
Sidney Evans (08:26):
So yeah, All right , so you end up at Howard.
You touched on your major insome of the courses that you
took, but we all know the mostimportant thing are the
activities that you involveyourself in.
So what were some of the thingsthat you got involved in at
Howard and how did that help youmoving forward in your career?
Jahi Whitehead (08:48):
Oh man, it was great because, see, at Howard we
have WHBC, which is our collegeradio station, but we also have
WHUR, which is our terrestrialradio station, which is like our
bigger station, which is ourcommercial radio station.
Steve Harvey's on there andstuff like that.
So they do big numbers right,but those are our counterpart.
(09:10):
We would have to go and prettymuch intern with them.
So when I was the musicdirector at WHBC, I would have
to go intern with the musicdirector at WHUR.
Vice versa, same thing with theprogram director.
When I was program director atWHBC I had to go intern at the
program directors at WHUR.
So at the same time, and usinterning there when this is
(09:33):
only for the managers primarily,but us interning there it
wasn't a situation where we'rejust doing like grunt work and
they just wanted to do stuff.
We were really learning how torun a radio station, no
particular job.
So when it comes to schedulingmusic for entire radio station,
I have done that already beforeI was 20.
I was able to have a leg up ona lot of people which honestly
(09:54):
didn't bear fruit.
So later on I thought thatwould help me out right when I
graduate, right out the gate andit didn't necessarily work that
way for me, so I had to useafter graduation I used other.
There were other means to, youknow, to financially support
myself.
I definitely took other jobsoutside of audio, but one of the
things I did.
I started engineering at astudio in Maryland while I was
(10:17):
finishing my last semester andthat taught me more about just
the music side of likeengineering, because before at
Howard and that school, we weredoing more media production and
broadcast and stuff like that.
While I'm engineering, there'smore music side, more emphasis
on music, even though I've doneit before.
Now I'm strictly an engineer.
(10:38):
I'm here to mix, master, record, mix and master all your stuff
like that, and now helpingputting records together too,
because it was like master allyour stuff like that.
So, um, and now helping puttinglike records together too,
cause it was like an A and Rposition as well, and it was, it
was good, it taught me a lot,it was fun, it was able, I was
able to um didn't make a lot ofmoney, um, going into, going
into do this.
That's the one thing I willlearn.
(10:59):
I will teach anybody, or tellanybody that's in the audio
space and in this media space.
Learn how to use your skills tofind other ways to make money.
Go back to how I met Dante.
The reason why I got intoaudiobooks in the first place is
because out of college, while Iwas still looking for certain
things, I got a job at Audiblein New Jersey.
(11:20):
Their main headquarters is inNew Jersey, north New Jersey,
not too far from where I'm from,and I worked there for about
two years.
Once that contract ended, Ikind of I moved.
That's when I moved to Atlanta.
So one of the first things whenI thought when I got here, when
I couldn't find work like Ithought I would be able to find,
(11:41):
was I couldn't really find work.
One of the first things I sawwas an audio book engineer
position.
I was like audio books, okay,cool, I did audio books before.
I'm familiar.
You know I worked on this.
Cool, let me do that.
And that's how I was able tosurvive survive until I was able
to find some steady work.
Sidney Evans (12:01):
So yeah, so that's , that's how I inevitably got
into that Cool.
So you're in Atlanta, you gotthe audio book gig.
That's providing some decentwork for you.
So did things take offimmediately afterwards, or was
there still like a waiting ortransition period to where you
could find something morefull-time and more stable?
Jahi Whitehead (12:24):
Um, yeah, it was .
I was working there for about,like I said, I worked there for
about three years.
But in the process of workingthere, uh, I believe after the
first year and a half or so, Istarted working in radio,
part-time and sports.
Uh, sports radio, whichinitially I was trying to get to
.
Um, if you're familiar withAtlanta, initially I'm not even
(12:45):
going to lie about this Now Icould take this if my ex-boss
ever hears this Sean, initiallyI was trying to get to V103,
which is the urban, the hip hopstation out there, one of the
bigger hip hop stations out inAtlanta.
A friend of mine from collegeknew someone at 92.9 the Game.
So fast forward, that's when Iwas at.
So I went to 92.9 the Game.
(13:05):
Their radio station isliterally the floor above V103.
So I thought eventually I'd godown there.
But I got into that 92.9 theGame because at the end of the
day, rather, I did all thismusic stuff, audio stuff through
high school and all that.
I also did sports.
I played football, I wrestled,I ran track.
So, yeah, I was like a sportshead too.
(13:29):
So it wasn't necessarily a hardthing to adjust to.
All of that.
Radio is radio.
I want you to learn how you canproduce.
So the radio aspect of it wasnot the hard part, it was
actually getting my bonestogether and like producing
putting together a whole radioshow talking about sports.
Because when you're in sportsradio and your sports talk radio
in particular, like for thathour block, or you, you got a
(13:53):
show for four hours, you'retalking predominantly for those
four hours, like, or someone'stalking for those four hours.
So you got to make sure that wegot enough thick stuff to talk
about within those four hours.
So putting that show together.
So that's really where that'swhere I got my skills at there a
little bit better.
Even with the writing stuff.
I was starting to write betterthere.
Working with that or not, thatwas a real goal.
(14:16):
I was the executive networkproducer for the Hawks and the
Falcons so I did all theirfootball and basketball games.
I had my own show on theweekends with Sam and Greg.
Shout out to those guys Lovethem.
Even still still working anotherjob, so I'm still probably
engineering for someone else,like doing audio editing.
I was working with this company, which I'm not going to say
(14:37):
their names, they don't need tosay their names, but pretty much
it was a company that did Siri.
It was the initial company thatrecorded Siri editing that
stuff right.
So I saw to.
I saw the landscape of radiowhile I was in radio and I saw
that I should probably leaveradio.
But the natural progression ifyou're doing talk radio,
(15:00):
obviously it's podcasting right.
So, and quite frankly, whilewe're there, while we're there
at 9 to 9 Game, we're producingpodcasts as well, like on the
side, like for our digitalwebsite.
So, even while there, we'restill working on podcasts and
this is one thing I tell peopleand because of radio, because of
(15:21):
the people that I've met, I wasable to parlay that and to
network with other people andable to get jobs easier after
that.
After that, I was recommendedfor a job at Georgia Public
Broadcasting to edit podcasts.
Now it's like all right.
So we're really putting theseaudio documentaries together.
(15:43):
For the most part, even thoughit's for an interview, it's
still like an audio documentary.
And now I'm really learningthis podcasting world, not just
this free form.
We're just talking and we'rejust recording something.
Now I'm getting a fulllandscape of how to really put
together a podcast and all thosethings, and from there I just
(16:07):
got better and got better at it.
Sidney Evans (16:08):
Um, real quick.
I want to dive into the radioand podcasting thing, especially
the differences between the two.
So obviously there aredifferent mediums but the
skillset is somewhat of anoverlap.
But can you really pinpoint,based on your experience, the
differences between working inradio and then transitioning
(16:32):
into the podcast industry?
Jahi Whitehead (16:34):
Okay.
So the thing about radio whenyou do local radio, your topics
are generally localized, soyou're going to do topics based
on pretty much where you're at.
When it comes to podcasting,you're a little bit more.
You got a little bit morefreedom to talk about a wider
range of topics and you canexpand a little bit more on
(16:58):
particular topics.
You don't have to worry aboutgoing to commercial break.
There's nothing to hurry uphere.
We can talk, we can flush thistopic completely out till
there's no more to talk aboutand then we can move on to the
next thing.
We can flush this topiccompletely out till there's no
more to talk about and then wecan move on to the next thing.
I think sometimes in radio,regardless of what format you
have, there are times whenyou're talking about a topic and
(17:18):
you cannot completely talkabout it the way that you want
to because you have therestrictions of the commercials.
You have restrictions of FCC.
You have a lot of differentrestrictions that you have to go
through.
The only restrictions that youhave in podcasting are the
restrictions that you put onyourself.
So the restriction that you puton your show, the restriction
that you put on your network.
So those are the restrictionsthat you have.
(17:39):
So once you abide by thosethings, you have a free range to
do as much as you want as faras a particular topic, a
particular subject, whatever thecase may be, and you have your
niche audience.
That is going to like you,because with terrestrial radio
that's always on.
They're going to be onregardless.
(18:01):
So I can just if I'm in my carand people say radio is dying
which it is, but radio is stilllistened to a whole heck of a
lot.
So if you go into your car andjust push something, it's just
always there.
I'm not searching for thatnecessarily.
When it comes to podcasting, Ihave to search that out.
That is something that I I'vebecome a fan of now, like it
(18:21):
doesn't just pass my day now.
I have to search out for that.
You a little bit more communitybuilt in the podcasting world
than in radio.
Sidney Evans (18:34):
That makes a lot of sense and, surprisingly, I
never actually thought of itthat way.
So I'm glad you pointed thatout.
But I wanted to back up alittle bit and touch on
something that you said as faras building relationships, or
highlighted as far as buildingrelationships or networking,
depending on what you want tocall it.
But I call them two differentthings, because I feel like
networking is more of the go toan event with the intent of
(18:57):
meeting a lot of people, haveyour business cards ready, being
ready to shake hands, you know,give you a spiel about what you
do and how you can help people.
And then there's therelationship building part of it
where it's kind of more organic.
Like you have jobs, you connectwith people for those that are
(19:17):
for you, y'all buildrelationships and you stay in
touch and continue to nurturethose relationships.
Or it could just be you goingto a social event and by
happenstance, you kind of hit itoff with somebody and you start
a relationship or building arelationship that way.
So what is your approach towhether you want to use the term
(19:39):
networking or buildingrelationships, and which
approach has been more helpfulfor you?
Jahi Whitehead (19:47):
I will say, sometimes just going out,
handing out out business cards,like depending on and now, when
you go and do that, if you gointo networking, you're going to
hand out business cards andstuff like that you have to be
going somewhere where that is,where that's the goal.
Like, if you're going to like asummit or a conference or
something like that, that's thegoal at some of those places,
(20:09):
right?
So when you're going there,you're actually going there to
network.
People are coming there knowingthat you're going to network
with them and the ones that aregoing to stand out they are
going to take interest in.
There have been goodexperiences with that.
There have been bad experienceswith that.
Everything is not the same, butwhat I will say, my networking
came from.
A lot of that came from work.
(20:29):
And when, like when I say whenI was at a 92, nine the game,
they got me to Georgia publicbroadcasting.
That was literally the personthat I worked with on a show.
I, we were taught, we werehaving conversations, we, we
went to a uh, to a baseball gameand I was telling them some
things that I wanted to do.
As far as podcasting and thingslike that, next thing I know is
(20:50):
hey, give this person a call,there's a job open for
podcasting.
I told them about you.
They're interested.
Simple as that.
Two days later, I got the job.
No real big interview nonothing.
Two days later.
Simple as that, I got the job.
Part of networking is youactually going out working, and
one of it is being persistent,like even with the job at the
(21:11):
radio station my first job in aradio station after college that
I had to be persistent with,that.
I had to keep caught.
Like hey, it took me about afew months for that to happen.
You do have to be persistent.
Persistent to the point whereyou're almost at a point where
they are tired of you.
So they're like you know what?
I'm tired.
This person just hit me up.
(21:31):
Let me do something about this.
Be respectful but be persistent.
If you got to DM someone, ifyou got to go on their LinkedIn
page, be respectful but bepersistent.
Like, let's say, if I'm head ofHR at somewhere, you know how
many messages I might get onLinkedIn or whatever the case
may be, about head of HR orabout someone wanting a job.
(21:53):
Like it's going to be that oneperson I always see that's going
to stick out Like I keep seeingthis person.
Let me reply.
Let me eventually reply,because if I don't, that person
is going to continue to hit me,keep hitting me back.
So let me reply.
That is something that's reallyimportant in networking Doing
good work.
I can't stress that enough.
(22:14):
Doing good work, because if thehost of my show can't vouch
that I do a good job, he's notgoing to.
You know what I'm saying.
He's not going to put his neckout there for someone that's not
like that.
You know what I'm saying.
He's not going to put his neckout there for someone that's not
like that.
You know what I mean.
Your work has to speak foritself and I'm going to answer
(22:34):
your question even before weeven get to there.
This is part of Urban One,because it's the same situation
that happened.
I never had a job interviewwith them the official job
interview.
I started working with themmainly because I got laid off as
a podcast producer for anothercompany whose name I won't
mention.
But I got laid off there andwhile I'm getting laid off, one
(22:56):
of the people that worked there,one of my co-workers, called me
up and said hey, heard you justgot laid off.
I'm starting somewhere new soon.
I'm about to give them my twoweeks notice.
Anyway, I'm starting somewherenew.
I think you'll be a good fitthere, and that was urban one.
Sidney Evans (23:14):
So the most important thing to me that stood
out about what you just said isletting the work take care of
itself, because essentially,it's the only thing you can
really control.
No matter what career fieldyou're in, you have to deal with
things like politics andunfortunate circumstances, as
maybe you're getting laid off orflat out fired or you're going
(23:37):
through an interview process andyou get far along in the
process but you don't ultimatelyend up getting hired and you
start kind of stressing outabout and reflecting on why
things happen and didn't happen.
And a lot of this stuff istiming.
Man like you might have theskill set, you might be the
(23:58):
perfect candidate, but thingsmay not work out for you, but
you can't control those things.
But if you spend as much timeand effort as you can't control
those things, but if you spendas much time and effort as you
can and just perfecting thecraft and letting the good work
that you do speak for itself, Ihonestly feel that you'll end up
where you're supposed to end upand things will actually end up
(24:19):
working out for you in the longrun.
Jahi Whitehead (24:21):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I agree with thatwholeheartedly, because I tell
you that situation was just likethat.
I was like, man, I don't knowwhat I'm going to do, I'm
getting laid off.
It was so crazy.
I got laid off on a Wednesdayand the next day someone told me
it's like hey, you should go tothis.
They gave me a free ticket tothis concert.
(24:41):
I was like hey, you can go.
I was like I shouldn't go, butI'm like, nah, I'm going to go
Because it was my favorite.
It was Nas.
It was Nas and Wu-Tang.
I'm a big Nas fan.
So I was like I'm going to go.
The next day, literally whileI'm at the concert, I get a text
(25:03):
like hey, this is blah, blah,blah from Urban One.
I want to hire you full time.
That process right there, likeit literally was just it's one
of them things that again thatwas something that was out of my
control, but again it wasnetworking and just being a good
person.
Half of that like that's theother half of networking being a
good person.
Like no one wants to work withsomeone that's just not a good
(25:25):
person, that you don't like towork with, that you're not cool
with you, don't mesh with youdon't work well with.
Have a good attitude.
It's okay to be a good person.
You don't have to try to snakeeverybody, or snake everyone and
get ahead.
It's not important.
Sidney Evans (25:40):
Be a good person 100% agree, because people focus
so much on climbing the ladder,progressing their career, that
they ignore all the people thatthey encountered along the way
(26:03):
and the way that actuallytreated those people that they
did encounter.
You never know how that maycome full circle, and when it
does come full circle, youactually want it to benefit you
and not hurt you or hinder yourchances of achieving success and
(26:39):
, at the end of the day, justjust scrap all the.
You know that you did thingsthe right way on, and could you
highlight the things that y'allare currently working on or
producing that people can lookforward to?
Jahi Whitehead (26:52):
Absolutely so.
I've been at Urban One as thepodcast producer for our network
for a year.
It's been officially.
It's been a little bit over ayear, but it's been a year doing
that.
It's been a little bit over ayear, but it's been a year doing
that.
Like I said, I was workingthere previously freelancing,
but as their main sole producer.
Actually it's been a year.
(27:14):
Some stuff I worked on it was apodcast.
The initial podcast that Iworked on when I first got there
, which was the Undressing Roomwith L'Oreal and Claudia Jordan.
We did great numbers for that.
Once that ended, moved on tosomething else.
But before that, even that, wego back to what you were saying
about radio shows and turn thoseinto podcasts.
(27:35):
We made plans to turn a lot ofour shows, a lot of our assets
that we already had, intopodcasts, which is Ricky Smiley,
dl Hughley, the Morning Hustle,get Out Mornings with Erica
Campbell, amanda Seals.
So I've managed all of thoseRicky Smiley.
We're well over a milliondownloads before our first year
(27:57):
doing that.
Also.
I work with our TV One stuff doFailure Attraction Also worked
on.
Black Health 365 was one of theother podcasts that I worked on
while I was there.
I'm not doing that anymore.
That was one, maria Moore'sMind, body and Business.
I was working on theirproduction for that for a while.
Right now I just created a show, co-created with our leader
(28:19):
there, called she Said it First,with Lene Monet and
Indescribable aka Gerilyn Lake.
Hello ladies, I'm a secondproducer for that and that's
going well.
We are probably we're going inour second or third month.
We're going into our thirdmonth actually at this point and
uh, we've been doing reallygood.
(28:41):
Uh, within the first few fewweeks we thought we already hit
the top 200 like 30 times in thecomedy podcast.
That podcast is doing great andwe're just trying to develop
some new podcasts over there.
We already bought well, it'snot part of me, but we have the
(29:02):
Fun House with Kid N Play overthere, just did Dear Future
Wifey with Terrence Whitfieldand we're bringing some other
podcasts along.
We're creating some neworiginal programming.
Trying to do that in the shortrun in the long run coming soon.
So, yeah, just trying to buildthat up to one of the preeminent
(29:25):
podcast networks.
Black Owned Black Ran Within ourfirst year.
We're already in well, I don'tknow if we still are, but we
already were in the top 20 ofpodcast networks.
So we are growing pretty fastand pretty quickly doing a lot
(29:45):
of hard work.
It's a small team that we havework.
It's a small team that we have,but it's a it's a great team
that we have.
We're able to build and we'reable to uh, you know, trying to
put out our stories and tryingto tell our stories the way that
we need to uh tell them superdope man.
Sidney Evans (29:58):
I'm glad that you all have incorporated podcasting
, and especially the podcastnetwork, into your content.
Kind of just made sense withalready having that name in
radio and kind of repurposingthe radio shows and creating the
original stuff as well.
So glad to hear that.
So that kind of takes me intomy next question.
(30:22):
Obviously, urban One is wellknown and there's a lot of
talent out there, a lot ofpeople trying to get their foot
in the door.
So what would be your advicefor you know up-and-coming
talent that wants to break intothe industry?
What are some of the thingsthat you look for and some of
the skill sets that can separatethem from their peers?
Jahi Whitehead (30:45):
the first thing I would say hone your craft,
like to, whatever you do,whatever, whatever you're good
at, rather as, uh, rather youraudio engineer.
That can separate them fromtheir peers.
The first thing I would sayhone your craft, like.
So, whatever you're good at,whether you're an audio engineer
, whether you are a producer,meaning like just because you're
a producer doesn't mean you'rean audio engineer, which is
something else I would say toobut hone your craft, be the best
.
Get your 10,000 hours in therewith that.
That's the first thing.
(31:07):
Now, the second thing is don'tbe one-dimensional.
Be able to do other things.
So, if you are an audio editor,learn how to produce.
If you are a producer for ashow, learn how to audio edit.
If you don't know how to write,learn how to write.
If you're bad at research, youcan research a little bit more.
If you're good at bookingguests, start booking guests.
Be able to do everything.
Be able to be a one-man show towhere that they can't fire you,
(31:30):
like they can't get rid of you.
Or if they get rid of you,you'll be fine because you can
do something else.
You can find another job easilybecause of your skill set.
If you're working and this iswith anything and this is with
any job market right now,especially in this climate, and
what we do as far as mediaproduction, audio production,
anything like that.
If you can only do one thing,you're not that useful.
(31:52):
You have to be able to domultiple things to be useful,
because I can get a college kidto do one thing, I can find
someone to do one thing and Idon't have to pay them that much
.
You have to learn your value.
Biggest thing when you learnyour value, you have to know
what you're good at and what youcan do.
When you learn your value asfar as what your capabilities
(32:13):
are, then you can take that alot further.
All those things, those are thethings that we are looking for,
or any company's looking forright now, because I don't have
the time not just me, and I'msaying I as far as if I'm a
company I don't have the time, Idon't have the bandwidth to sit
there and teach or train anyoneto do certain things that you
(32:35):
should be able to do.
Obviously, at the beginning wecan do that, but all the time we
can't do that, and then you'regoing to have to be able to do
more, because a lot of thesecompanies are doing a lot more
with a lot less, or trying to doa lot more with a lot less.
Urban One Podcast Network.
We have a small team.
That's because everybody on ourteam could do almost everything
(32:56):
.
It's a team of five, so becausea small team can do multiple
things.
That's why we can grow the ratethat we're able to grow, and
people have a lot larger teamsthan we have and they can't do
what we do.
Learn as much as you can and beindispensable.
Sidney Evans (33:12):
Thank you for sharing that man For all those
up and comers.
Hopefully you take heed to thatbit of advice.
All right, so we are gettingclose to the end of the show, so
kind of want to wrap things upon a much more fun note, not so
heavy, and I think you'reparticularly enjoyed this
portion of the show, based onyour experience in the music
(33:35):
industry.
So I got a few questions, andthe first one is your favorite
piece of equipment that you'vehad?
Jahi Whitehead (33:44):
Um, I had a Phantom G6, a Phantom G6
keyboard.
That was my favorite thing thatI ever had.
I used to love that thing, butoutside of that I would just say
Pro Tools.
Sidney Evans (33:56):
So I'm not a musician, so I'm not too
familiar with all that type ofstuff, but I'm going to assume
the Phantom G6 is a keyboard orpiano or something of that
nature and obviously Pro Toolsis the industry standard,
starting off in music and nowinto other industries as well.
So obviously that makes a lotof sense.
(34:18):
All right, so next questionfavorite album of all time I'm
going to do.
Jahi Whitehead (34:25):
Prince and the Revolution, purple Rain.
I'm going to do Stevie Wonder'sSongs and the Key of Life, and
I'm going to go with MichaelJackson Off the Wall, so
obviously just went with thecheat codes by mentioning Prince
Stevie Wonder and MichaelJackson.
Sidney Evans (34:41):
Your taste is your taste, but they are kind of the
cheat codes.
But obviously solid choices,all right.
Next one Favorite musicproducer.
Jahi Whitehead (34:51):
See, now you just did that, so I'm going to
go with Quincy.
Sidney Evans (34:56):
Okay.
So I see what you did there aswell, because we mentioned, you
know, being multi-talented andobviously he's a great music
producer in a traditional sense,but he's done music scores.
He produced first prince ofbel-air from the tv side, and
then he also did the infamoussan francisco theme song.
(35:19):
So, quincy jones, say no more,all right.
Jahi Whitehead (35:23):
Next favorite film score all right, so this is
gonna be interesting.
Uh, the prince of egypt.
Sidney Evans (35:29):
Yeah, not too familiar with that one, but who
did?
Who did that one, by the way?
Jahi Whitehead (35:34):
I don't know who did the score.
I'll I forget who.
I forgot who did the score.
Uh, I have to go back and lookat it.
But um, was it hans zimmer?
Yep, hans zimmer, just lookedit up.
Hans zimmer is my favorite, butum, but yeah, that that prince
of e Zimmer is my favorite.
But yeah, prince of Egypt is myfavorite.
Sidney Evans (35:50):
All right, cool, I'm going to have to confirm
that on my own time.
Next favorite TV theme song.
Jahi Whitehead (35:58):
That's actually easy and no one would probably
say this but Taxi, the themesong to Taxi.
Go back and listen to the themesong of Taxi.
Sidney Evans (36:08):
I don't think I remember that one.
Jahi Whitehead (36:11):
It's no words.
There's no words to it.
Go listen to the theme song ofTaxi.
One of the hardest theme songs,man, right now.
I would want to sample it.
That's how good it is.
Sidney Evans (36:30):
Okay, cool man.
Um, but yeah, I think that's it.
We had a uh, we had a greatconversation, man.
Definitely appreciate yousharing all your experiences and
giving you know helpful tipsand bits of information that
people can walk away with andyou know implement on their
journey into achieving audiosuccess.
So appreciate you coming on theshow, man, and yeah, I enjoyed
(36:50):
it.
Jahi Whitehead (36:51):
I appreciate that.
I appreciate you having me.
And to go back to what we saidbefore about networking, you
said a name.
You said Dante.
So I mean, once you say thatyou're like that's a person I
work with, that's a person Iknow that's legit.
So once you say a name that Iknow that's legit, I'm going to
have to, and he gave you my name.
So that means that he valuessomething, that that's legit
(37:11):
there.
Sidney Evans (37:16):
So I will have to.
That's.
That's a no brainer.
Definitely, definitely.
Well, yeah, that's a wrap fortoday's episode and for
everybody out there.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for joining us ontoday's episode.
Please don't forget tosubscribe to the show and leave
us a review.
If you'd like to work with meor connect, please go to
soundbysitcom and schedule acall.
There.
(37:37):
You can also check out the fulllist of productions I've worked
on.
If you'd like to connect onsocial media, my handle is
soundbysitcom on Twitter andInstagram and I'm Sidney Evans
on LinkedIn.
Like to connect on social media?
My handle is soundbysetcom ontwitter and instagram and I'm
sydney evans on linkedin.
Don't forget to follow beyondthe threshold on instagram as
(37:58):
well.
I'll catch you on the nextepisode.
Let's say, if I'm headed HR at somewhere, you
know how many messages I mightget about someone wanting a job,
like it's going to be that oneperson I always see that's going
to stick out.
Like I keep seeing this person.
Let me reply, because if Idon't, that person is going to
continue to hit me, keep hittingme back.
So let me reply.
Sidney Evans (00:20):
Tune in as we give flowers to black men and women
making waves in the audioindustry.
I'm your host, sidney Evans,and this is Beyond the Threshold
.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcometo Beyond the Threshold.
(00:45):
I'm your host, sidney Evans, anaward-winning audio editor,
mixer and producer.
For those of you who don't know, on this show I interview Black
men and women working in theaudio industry to highlight the
lessons and experiences it takesto achieve success in the field
.
We got another amazing episodein store for today and I will
(01:06):
introduce today's guest shortly,but before I do, I just wanted
to take the time to say thankyou to anyone who has listened
to the show so far.
I appreciate your support and Ihope you continue to support as
we continue to grow theplatform.
All right, so today's guest isactually someone that I did not
(01:28):
know prior to the interview, buthe was introduced to me by
Dante Hodge, who I had on aprevious episode of the podcast.
So immediately I reached out tohim and, because of the
relationship that he and Dantehas, we made it happen pretty
quickly and he was happy to comeon.
So to give a little bit of abackground on him, he is a
(01:54):
Howard University alum,originally from East Orange, new
Jersey, now living in theAtlanta area.
He has over two decades ofmedia and audio production
experience, ranging from DJing,studio engineering, audio book
recording and editing, radioproducing and podcast producing
and editing.
He's the current podcastproducer at Urban One Podcast
(02:19):
Network.
So I'd like to introduce ourguest for today, jahi Whitehead.
Welcome to the show, brother.
Jahi Whitehead (02:27):
All right, thank you.
Appreciate it, sidney.
I'm glad to be here.
Glad to be here, man.
Sidney Evans (02:32):
Yes, sir, I'm glad we were able to make it happen
so quickly.
So we're going to jump rightinto things.
Man, could you share a littlebit about your background and
what were some of theexperiences that led up to you
discovering your passion foraudio production?
and then we're gonna get intothe nitty-gritty
Jahi Whitehead (02:51):
So would say that probably started with, uh,
the movie Juice.
Are you familiar with juice?
I am okay cool, so I'llprobably.
That's probably where, like Ibelieve, it probably all started
.
I was a big fan of that movieand particularly I wanted to DJ.
So if you watch that movie, thewhole DJ battle, that sparked
(03:12):
my interest in wanting to be aDJ A little known fact, I don't
want to say a little known fact,but the thing about me when I
was growing up I was a singer, Iwas a singer, so that was the
other thing that always got mepretty much involved into music,
arts, studios, all that stufflike that.
(03:40):
So process fast forward till Igot to the age of 13, I bought
my little equipment and buildingthis makeshift studio at my
father's house, which I had noidea what I was doing.
I promise you Zero.
I had no idea as far as reallydoing it.
I had this eight-track taperecorder that we used to record
(04:01):
stuff on.
This is before we had a lot ofdigital stuff, before we had a
lot of that.
I'm probably dating myself bysaying all these things, but it
was around that time.
So after that started actuallyrecording with local groups
around the city, one group.
So I actually got to like Iwon't say like it wasn't a real
(04:23):
studio either, it was stillsomeone's basement, but they had
Pro Tools, started seeing that,then stopped messing with them
for a little bit and then gotalong with this other group and
we actually signed a deal.
It ended up not working out butwe was working with some people
.
But in the process of that wefinally got into a studio studio
(04:44):
so working with Big Boaz, theSSL and finally working on Pro
Tools.
I remember there was this bassplayer who was also the
engineers.
He was the one that reallytried to teach me about
engineering and plugins, likethe first one that initially
started teaching me.
Then I started working with myboy, the producer of the group,
tyree, and he got this programcalled Cubase and we started
(05:07):
recording at his house and Istarted learning how to do that
and I began to start running thesession because I had a knack
for audio just because of my DJstuff.
So I was also DJing around.
So I still had a knack foraudio.
Ended up buying an MPC 2000right after him.
Working on that, started doingproduction Fast forward, going
(05:30):
to school, started DJing atHoward, started working at the
radio station and while doingthat, I think that's when I
realized that I can take thisaudio production thing, just
audio in general, and actuallybe a professional outside of
just making music or just DJing.
I can use this as a career pathif I wanted to.
Sidney Evans (05:53):
Let me pause you real quick because I got a
question.
So did you actually study mediaproduction when you were at
Howard, or was your major insomething else?
Jahi Whitehead (06:03):
So my initial major?
Well, I was initially winningthe Undecided, so then I
switched to I was going intomusic business.
It was more so music businessalong the lines of being a
performer and being able tomanage yourself as a performer,
(06:24):
not necessarily the business ofthe music business.
So it was a little bitdifferent than what I was trying
to do at the time.
More along the lines of what Iwas trying to do was more in
communication and media.
So my degree is actually inmore so broadcast media
production.
So I did get a lot of hands-ontraining with ProTube, even
(06:46):
Final Cut writing in general,script writing, broadcast
performance.
Learning how to actually speak,public speaking was definitely
a class that we had to take.
Sidney Evans (06:56):
Okay.
So first off, let me say when Iwas in college and I found out
I had to take public speaking, Iliterally considered changing
my major because I don't knowwhat I thought.
But I didn't think takingpublic speaking was going to be
a part of that process.
So let me just say that firstand second.
I hated taking the writingclasses when I was in college.
(07:19):
But now, looking back on it,I'm glad that I did take them
and I kind of wish I would haveput more into it.
But in knowing what I know now,the writing part was probably
the most important out of allthe classes I took.
So for those of you who aremaybe in college or you're early
in your career, or maybe evenif you're later in your career
(07:42):
and you don't think your writingchops are up to par, I would
recommend you take some courses,do whatever you got to do to
increase that skill, because ifyou can write well, you'll be
more valuable than most of thepeople working in the industry,
especially those who can't write1000% Me being able to write,
(08:05):
or learning how to just scriptwriting classes, or learning how
to write just various thingsscripts for advertisers those
things have helped me, taken mefurther than some of my peers in
the same situations, justbecause I have that skill.
Jahi Whitehead (08:20):
To be able to write along with producing
Writing is super important.
It's super, super important.
Sidney Evans (08:26):
So yeah, All right , so you end up at Howard.
You touched on your major insome of the courses that you
took, but we all know the mostimportant thing are the
activities that you involveyourself in.
So what were some of the thingsthat you got involved in at
Howard and how did that help youmoving forward in your career?
Jahi Whitehead (08:48):
Oh man, it was great because, see, at Howard we
have WHBC, which is our collegeradio station, but we also have
WHUR, which is our terrestrialradio station, which is like our
bigger station, which is ourcommercial radio station.
Steve Harvey's on there andstuff like that.
So they do big numbers right,but those are our counterpart.
(09:10):
We would have to go and prettymuch intern with them.
So when I was the musicdirector at WHBC, I would have
to go intern with the musicdirector at WHUR.
Vice versa, same thing with theprogram director.
When I was program director atWHBC I had to go intern at the
program directors at WHUR.
So at the same time, and usinterning there when this is
(09:33):
only for the managers primarily,but us interning there it
wasn't a situation where we'rejust doing like grunt work and
they just wanted to do stuff.
We were really learning how torun a radio station, no
particular job.
So when it comes to schedulingmusic for entire radio station,
I have done that already beforeI was 20.
I was able to have a leg up ona lot of people which honestly
(09:54):
didn't bear fruit.
So later on I thought thatwould help me out right when I
graduate, right out the gate andit didn't necessarily work that
way for me, so I had to useafter graduation I used other.
There were other means to, youknow, to financially support
myself.
I definitely took other jobsoutside of audio, but one of the
things I did.
I started engineering at astudio in Maryland while I was
(10:17):
finishing my last semester andthat taught me more about just
the music side of likeengineering, because before at
Howard and that school, we weredoing more media production and
broadcast and stuff like that.
While I'm engineering, there'smore music side, more emphasis
on music, even though I've doneit before.
Now I'm strictly an engineer.
(10:38):
I'm here to mix, master, record, mix and master all your stuff
like that, and now helpingputting records together too,
because it was like master allyour stuff like that.
So, um, and now helping puttinglike records together too,
cause it was like an A and Rposition as well, and it was, it
was good, it taught me a lot,it was fun, it was able, I was
able to um didn't make a lot ofmoney, um, going into, going
into do this.
That's the one thing I willlearn.
(10:59):
I will teach anybody, or tellanybody that's in the audio
space and in this media space.
Learn how to use your skills tofind other ways to make money.
Go back to how I met Dante.
The reason why I got intoaudiobooks in the first place is
because out of college, while Iwas still looking for certain
things, I got a job at Audiblein New Jersey.
(11:20):
Their main headquarters is inNew Jersey, north New Jersey,
not too far from where I'm from,and I worked there for about
two years.
Once that contract ended, Ikind of I moved.
That's when I moved to Atlanta.
So one of the first things whenI thought when I got here, when
I couldn't find work like Ithought I would be able to find,
(11:41):
was I couldn't really find work.
One of the first things I sawwas an audio book engineer
position.
I was like audio books, okay,cool, I did audio books before.
I'm familiar.
You know I worked on this.
Cool, let me do that.
And that's how I was able tosurvive survive until I was able
to find some steady work.
Sidney Evans (12:01):
So yeah, so that's , that's how I inevitably got
into that Cool.
So you're in Atlanta, you gotthe audio book gig.
That's providing some decentwork for you.
So did things take offimmediately afterwards, or was
there still like a waiting ortransition period to where you
could find something morefull-time and more stable?
Jahi Whitehead (12:24):
Um, yeah, it was .
I was working there for about,like I said, I worked there for
about three years.
But in the process of workingthere, uh, I believe after the
first year and a half or so, Istarted working in radio,
part-time and sports.
Uh, sports radio, whichinitially I was trying to get to
.
Um, if you're familiar withAtlanta, initially I'm not even
(12:45):
going to lie about this Now Icould take this if my ex-boss
ever hears this Sean, initiallyI was trying to get to V103,
which is the urban, the hip hopstation out there, one of the
bigger hip hop stations out inAtlanta.
A friend of mine from collegeknew someone at 92.9 the Game.
So fast forward, that's when Iwas at.
So I went to 92.9 the Game.
(13:05):
Their radio station isliterally the floor above V103.
So I thought eventually I'd godown there.
But I got into that 92.9 theGame because at the end of the
day, rather, I did all thismusic stuff, audio stuff through
high school and all that.
I also did sports.
I played football, I wrestled,I ran track.
So, yeah, I was like a sportshead too.
(13:29):
So it wasn't necessarily a hardthing to adjust to.
All of that.
Radio is radio.
I want you to learn how you canproduce.
So the radio aspect of it wasnot the hard part, it was
actually getting my bonestogether and like producing
putting together a whole radioshow talking about sports.
Because when you're in sportsradio and your sports talk radio
in particular, like for thathour block, or you, you got a
(13:53):
show for four hours, you'retalking predominantly for those
four hours, like, or someone'stalking for those four hours.
So you got to make sure that wegot enough thick stuff to talk
about within those four hours.
So putting that show together.
So that's really where that'swhere I got my skills at there a
little bit better.
Even with the writing stuff.
I was starting to write betterthere.
Working with that or not, thatwas a real goal.
(14:16):
I was the executive networkproducer for the Hawks and the
Falcons so I did all theirfootball and basketball games.
I had my own show on theweekends with Sam and Greg.
Shout out to those guys Lovethem.
Even still still working anotherjob, so I'm still probably
engineering for someone else,like doing audio editing.
I was working with this company, which I'm not going to say
(14:37):
their names, they don't need tosay their names, but pretty much
it was a company that did Siri.
It was the initial company thatrecorded Siri editing that
stuff right.
So I saw to.
I saw the landscape of radiowhile I was in radio and I saw
that I should probably leaveradio.
But the natural progression ifyou're doing talk radio,
(15:00):
obviously it's podcasting right.
So, and quite frankly, whilewe're there, while we're there
at 9 to 9 Game, we're producingpodcasts as well, like on the
side, like for our digitalwebsite.
So, even while there, we'restill working on podcasts and
this is one thing I tell peopleand because of radio, because of
(15:21):
the people that I've met, I wasable to parlay that and to
network with other people andable to get jobs easier after
that.
After that, I was recommendedfor a job at Georgia Public
Broadcasting to edit podcasts.
Now it's like all right.
So we're really putting theseaudio documentaries together.
(15:43):
For the most part, even thoughit's for an interview, it's
still like an audio documentary.
And now I'm really learningthis podcasting world, not just
this free form.
We're just talking and we'rejust recording something.
Now I'm getting a fulllandscape of how to really put
together a podcast and all thosethings, and from there I just
(16:07):
got better and got better at it.
Sidney Evans (16:08):
Um, real quick.
I want to dive into the radioand podcasting thing, especially
the differences between the two.
So obviously there aredifferent mediums but the
skillset is somewhat of anoverlap.
But can you really pinpoint,based on your experience, the
differences between working inradio and then transitioning
(16:32):
into the podcast industry?
Jahi Whitehead (16:34):
Okay.
So the thing about radio whenyou do local radio, your topics
are generally localized, soyou're going to do topics based
on pretty much where you're at.
When it comes to podcasting,you're a little bit more.
You got a little bit morefreedom to talk about a wider
range of topics and you canexpand a little bit more on
(16:58):
particular topics.
You don't have to worry aboutgoing to commercial break.
There's nothing to hurry uphere.
We can talk, we can flush thistopic completely out till
there's no more to talk aboutand then we can move on to the
next thing.
We can flush this topiccompletely out till there's no
more to talk about and then wecan move on to the next thing.
I think sometimes in radio,regardless of what format you
have, there are times whenyou're talking about a topic and
(17:18):
you cannot completely talkabout it the way that you want
to because you have therestrictions of the commercials.
You have restrictions of FCC.
You have a lot of differentrestrictions that you have to go
through.
The only restrictions that youhave in podcasting are the
restrictions that you put onyourself.
So the restriction that you puton your show, the restriction
that you put on your network.
So those are the restrictionsthat you have.
(17:39):
So once you abide by thosethings, you have a free range to
do as much as you want as faras a particular topic, a
particular subject, whatever thecase may be, and you have your
niche audience.
That is going to like you,because with terrestrial radio
that's always on.
They're going to be onregardless.
(18:01):
So I can just if I'm in my carand people say radio is dying
which it is, but radio is stilllistened to a whole heck of a
lot.
So if you go into your car andjust push something, it's just
always there.
I'm not searching for thatnecessarily.
When it comes to podcasting, Ihave to search that out.
That is something that I I'vebecome a fan of now, like it
(18:21):
doesn't just pass my day now.
I have to search out for that.
You a little bit more communitybuilt in the podcasting world
than in radio.
Sidney Evans (18:34):
That makes a lot of sense and, surprisingly, I
never actually thought of itthat way.
So I'm glad you pointed thatout.
But I wanted to back up alittle bit and touch on
something that you said as faras building relationships, or
highlighted as far as buildingrelationships or networking,
depending on what you want tocall it.
But I call them two differentthings, because I feel like
networking is more of the go toan event with the intent of
(18:57):
meeting a lot of people, haveyour business cards ready, being
ready to shake hands, you know,give you a spiel about what you
do and how you can help people.
And then there's therelationship building part of it
where it's kind of more organic.
Like you have jobs, you connectwith people for those that are
(19:17):
for you, y'all buildrelationships and you stay in
touch and continue to nurturethose relationships.
Or it could just be you goingto a social event and by
happenstance, you kind of hit itoff with somebody and you start
a relationship or building arelationship that way.
So what is your approach towhether you want to use the term
(19:39):
networking or buildingrelationships, and which
approach has been more helpfulfor you?
Jahi Whitehead (19:47):
I will say, sometimes just going out,
handing out out business cards,like depending on and now, when
you go and do that, if you gointo networking, you're going to
hand out business cards andstuff like that you have to be
going somewhere where that is,where that's the goal.
Like, if you're going to like asummit or a conference or
something like that, that's thegoal at some of those places,
(20:09):
right?
So when you're going there,you're actually going there to
network.
People are coming there knowingthat you're going to network
with them and the ones that aregoing to stand out they are
going to take interest in.
There have been goodexperiences with that.
There have been bad experienceswith that.
Everything is not the same, butwhat I will say, my networking
came from.
A lot of that came from work.
(20:29):
And when, like when I say whenI was at a 92, nine the game,
they got me to Georgia publicbroadcasting.
That was literally the personthat I worked with on a show.
I, we were taught, we werehaving conversations, we, we
went to a uh, to a baseball gameand I was telling them some
things that I wanted to do.
As far as podcasting and thingslike that, next thing I know is
(20:50):
hey, give this person a call,there's a job open for
podcasting.
I told them about you.
They're interested.
Simple as that.
Two days later, I got the job.
No real big interview nonothing.
Two days later.
Simple as that, I got the job.
Part of networking is youactually going out working, and
one of it is being persistent,like even with the job at the
(21:11):
radio station my first job in aradio station after college that
I had to be persistent with,that.
I had to keep caught.
Like hey, it took me about afew months for that to happen.
You do have to be persistent.
Persistent to the point whereyou're almost at a point where
they are tired of you.
So they're like you know what?
I'm tired.
This person just hit me up.
(21:31):
Let me do something about this.
Be respectful but be persistent.
If you got to DM someone, ifyou got to go on their LinkedIn
page, be respectful but bepersistent.
Like, let's say, if I'm head ofHR at somewhere, you know how
many messages I might get onLinkedIn or whatever the case
may be, about head of HR orabout someone wanting a job.
(21:53):
Like it's going to be that oneperson I always see that's going
to stick out Like I keep seeingthis person.
Let me reply.
Let me eventually reply,because if I don't, that person
is going to continue to hit me,keep hitting me back.
So let me reply.
That is something that's reallyimportant in networking Doing
good work.
I can't stress that enough.
(22:14):
Doing good work, because if thehost of my show can't vouch
that I do a good job, he's notgoing to.
You know what I'm saying.
He's not going to put his neckout there for someone that's not
like that.
You know what I'm saying.
He's not going to put his neckout there for someone that's not
like that.
You know what I mean.
Your work has to speak foritself and I'm going to answer
(22:34):
your question even before weeven get to there.
This is part of Urban One,because it's the same situation
that happened.
I never had a job interviewwith them the official job
interview.
I started working with themmainly because I got laid off as
a podcast producer for anothercompany whose name I won't
mention.
But I got laid off there andwhile I'm getting laid off, one
(22:56):
of the people that worked there,one of my co-workers, called me
up and said hey, heard you justgot laid off.
I'm starting somewhere new soon.
I'm about to give them my twoweeks notice.
Anyway, I'm starting somewherenew.
I think you'll be a good fitthere, and that was urban one.
Sidney Evans (23:14):
So the most important thing to me that stood
out about what you just said isletting the work take care of
itself, because essentially,it's the only thing you can
really control.
No matter what career fieldyou're in, you have to deal with
things like politics andunfortunate circumstances, as
maybe you're getting laid off orflat out fired or you're going
(23:37):
through an interview process andyou get far along in the
process but you don't ultimatelyend up getting hired and you
start kind of stressing outabout and reflecting on why
things happen and didn't happen.
And a lot of this stuff istiming.
Man like you might have theskill set, you might be the
(23:58):
perfect candidate, but thingsmay not work out for you, but
you can't control those things.
But if you spend as much timeand effort as you can't control
those things, but if you spendas much time and effort as you
can and just perfecting thecraft and letting the good work
that you do speak for itself, Ihonestly feel that you'll end up
where you're supposed to end upand things will actually end up
(24:19):
working out for you in the longrun.
Jahi Whitehead (24:21):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I agree with thatwholeheartedly, because I tell
you that situation was just likethat.
I was like, man, I don't knowwhat I'm going to do, I'm
getting laid off.
It was so crazy.
I got laid off on a Wednesdayand the next day someone told me
it's like hey, you should go tothis.
They gave me a free ticket tothis concert.
(24:41):
I was like hey, you can go.
I was like I shouldn't go, butI'm like, nah, I'm going to go
Because it was my favorite.
It was Nas.
It was Nas and Wu-Tang.
I'm a big Nas fan.
So I was like I'm going to go.
The next day, literally whileI'm at the concert, I get a text
(25:03):
like hey, this is blah, blah,blah from Urban One.
I want to hire you full time.
That process right there, likeit literally was just it's one
of them things that again thatwas something that was out of my
control, but again it wasnetworking and just being a good
person.
Half of that like that's theother half of networking being a
good person.
Like no one wants to work withsomeone that's just not a good
(25:25):
person, that you don't like towork with, that you're not cool
with you, don't mesh with youdon't work well with.
Have a good attitude.
It's okay to be a good person.
You don't have to try to snakeeverybody, or snake everyone and
get ahead.
It's not important.
Sidney Evans (25:40):
Be a good person 100% agree, because people focus
so much on climbing the ladder,progressing their career, that
they ignore all the people thatthey encountered along the way
(26:03):
and the way that actuallytreated those people that they
did encounter.
You never know how that maycome full circle, and when it
does come full circle, youactually want it to benefit you
and not hurt you or hinder yourchances of achieving success and
(26:39):
, at the end of the day, justjust scrap all the.
You know that you did thingsthe right way on, and could you
highlight the things that y'allare currently working on or
producing that people can lookforward to?
Jahi Whitehead (26:52):
Absolutely so.
I've been at Urban One as thepodcast producer for our network
for a year.
It's been officially.
It's been a little bit over ayear, but it's been a year doing
that.
It's been a little bit over ayear, but it's been a year doing
that.
Like I said, I was workingthere previously freelancing,
but as their main sole producer.
Actually it's been a year.
(27:14):
Some stuff I worked on it was apodcast.
The initial podcast that Iworked on when I first got there
, which was the Undressing Roomwith L'Oreal and Claudia Jordan.
We did great numbers for that.
Once that ended, moved on tosomething else.
But before that, even that, wego back to what you were saying
about radio shows and turn thoseinto podcasts.
(27:35):
We made plans to turn a lot ofour shows, a lot of our assets
that we already had, intopodcasts, which is Ricky Smiley,
dl Hughley, the Morning Hustle,get Out Mornings with Erica
Campbell, amanda Seals.
So I've managed all of thoseRicky Smiley.
We're well over a milliondownloads before our first year
(27:57):
doing that.
Also.
I work with our TV One stuff doFailure Attraction Also worked
on.
Black Health 365 was one of theother podcasts that I worked on
while I was there.
I'm not doing that anymore.
That was one, maria Moore'sMind, body and Business.
I was working on theirproduction for that for a while.
Right now I just created a show, co-created with our leader
(28:19):
there, called she Said it First,with Lene Monet and
Indescribable aka Gerilyn Lake.
Hello ladies, I'm a secondproducer for that and that's
going well.
We are probably we're going inour second or third month.
We're going into our thirdmonth actually at this point and
uh, we've been doing reallygood.
(28:41):
Uh, within the first few fewweeks we thought we already hit
the top 200 like 30 times in thecomedy podcast.
That podcast is doing great andwe're just trying to develop
some new podcasts over there.
We already bought well, it'snot part of me, but we have the
(29:02):
Fun House with Kid N Play overthere, just did Dear Future
Wifey with Terrence Whitfieldand we're bringing some other
podcasts along.
We're creating some neworiginal programming.
Trying to do that in the shortrun in the long run coming soon.
So, yeah, just trying to buildthat up to one of the preeminent
(29:25):
podcast networks.
Black Owned Black Ran Within ourfirst year.
We're already in well, I don'tknow if we still are, but we
already were in the top 20 ofpodcast networks.
So we are growing pretty fastand pretty quickly doing a lot
(29:45):
of hard work.
It's a small team that we havework.
It's a small team that we have,but it's a it's a great team
that we have.
We're able to build and we'reable to uh, you know, trying to
put out our stories and tryingto tell our stories the way that
we need to uh tell them superdope man.
Sidney Evans (29:58):
I'm glad that you all have incorporated podcasting
, and especially the podcastnetwork, into your content.
Kind of just made sense withalready having that name in
radio and kind of repurposingthe radio shows and creating the
original stuff as well.
So glad to hear that.
So that kind of takes me intomy next question.
(30:22):
Obviously, urban One is wellknown and there's a lot of
talent out there, a lot ofpeople trying to get their foot
in the door.
So what would be your advicefor you know up-and-coming
talent that wants to break intothe industry?
What are some of the thingsthat you look for and some of
the skill sets that can separatethem from their peers?
Jahi Whitehead (30:45):
the first thing I would say hone your craft,
like to, whatever you do,whatever, whatever you're good
at, rather as, uh, rather youraudio engineer.
That can separate them fromtheir peers.
The first thing I would sayhone your craft, like.
So, whatever you're good at,whether you're an audio engineer
, whether you are a producer,meaning like just because you're
a producer doesn't mean you'rean audio engineer, which is
something else I would say toobut hone your craft, be the best
.
Get your 10,000 hours in therewith that.
That's the first thing.
(31:07):
Now, the second thing is don'tbe one-dimensional.
Be able to do other things.
So, if you are an audio editor,learn how to produce.
If you are a producer for ashow, learn how to audio edit.
If you don't know how to write,learn how to write.
If you're bad at research, youcan research a little bit more.
If you're good at bookingguests, start booking guests.
Be able to do everything.
Be able to be a one-man show towhere that they can't fire you,
(31:30):
like they can't get rid of you.
Or if they get rid of you,you'll be fine because you can
do something else.
You can find another job easilybecause of your skill set.
If you're working and this iswith anything and this is with
any job market right now,especially in this climate, and
what we do as far as mediaproduction, audio production,
anything like that.
If you can only do one thing,you're not that useful.
(31:52):
You have to be able to domultiple things to be useful,
because I can get a college kidto do one thing, I can find
someone to do one thing and Idon't have to pay them that much
.
You have to learn your value.
Biggest thing when you learnyour value, you have to know
what you're good at and what youcan do.
When you learn your value asfar as what your capabilities
(32:13):
are, then you can take that alot further.
All those things, those are thethings that we are looking for,
or any company's looking forright now, because I don't have
the time not just me, and I'msaying I as far as if I'm a
company I don't have the time, Idon't have the bandwidth to sit
there and teach or train anyoneto do certain things that you
(32:35):
should be able to do.
Obviously, at the beginning wecan do that, but all the time we
can't do that, and then you'regoing to have to be able to do
more, because a lot of thesecompanies are doing a lot more
with a lot less, or trying to doa lot more with a lot less.
Urban One Podcast Network.
We have a small team.
That's because everybody on ourteam could do almost everything
(32:56):
.
It's a team of five, so becausea small team can do multiple
things.
That's why we can grow the ratethat we're able to grow, and
people have a lot larger teamsthan we have and they can't do
what we do.
Learn as much as you can and beindispensable.
Sidney Evans (33:12):
Thank you for sharing that man For all those
up and comers.
Hopefully you take heed to thatbit of advice.
All right, so we are gettingclose to the end of the show, so
kind of want to wrap things upon a much more fun note, not so
heavy, and I think you'reparticularly enjoyed this
portion of the show, based onyour experience in the music
(33:35):
industry.
So I got a few questions, andthe first one is your favorite
piece of equipment that you'vehad?
Jahi Whitehead (33:44):
Um, I had a Phantom G6, a Phantom G6
keyboard.
That was my favorite thing thatI ever had.
I used to love that thing, butoutside of that I would just say
Pro Tools.
Sidney Evans (33:56):
So I'm not a musician, so I'm not too
familiar with all that type ofstuff, but I'm going to assume
the Phantom G6 is a keyboard orpiano or something of that
nature and obviously Pro Toolsis the industry standard,
starting off in music and nowinto other industries as well.
So obviously that makes a lotof sense.
(34:18):
All right, so next questionfavorite album of all time I'm
going to do.
Jahi Whitehead (34:25):
Prince and the Revolution, purple Rain.
I'm going to do Stevie Wonder'sSongs and the Key of Life, and
I'm going to go with MichaelJackson Off the Wall, so
obviously just went with thecheat codes by mentioning Prince
Stevie Wonder and MichaelJackson.
Sidney Evans (34:41):
Your taste is your taste, but they are kind of the
cheat codes.
But obviously solid choices,all right.
Next one Favorite musicproducer.
Jahi Whitehead (34:51):
See, now you just did that, so I'm going to
go with Quincy.
Sidney Evans (34:56):
Okay.
So I see what you did there aswell, because we mentioned, you
know, being multi-talented andobviously he's a great music
producer in a traditional sense,but he's done music scores.
He produced first prince ofbel-air from the tv side, and
then he also did the infamoussan francisco theme song.
(35:19):
So, quincy jones, say no more,all right.
Jahi Whitehead (35:23):
Next favorite film score all right, so this is
gonna be interesting.
Uh, the prince of egypt.
Sidney Evans (35:29):
Yeah, not too familiar with that one, but who
did?
Who did that one, by the way?
Jahi Whitehead (35:34):
I don't know who did the score.
I'll I forget who.
I forgot who did the score.
Uh, I have to go back and lookat it.
But um, was it hans zimmer?
Yep, hans zimmer, just lookedit up.
Hans zimmer is my favorite, butum, but yeah, that that prince
of e Zimmer is my favorite.
But yeah, prince of Egypt is myfavorite.
Sidney Evans (35:50):
All right, cool, I'm going to have to confirm
that on my own time.
Next favorite TV theme song.
Jahi Whitehead (35:58):
That's actually easy and no one would probably
say this but Taxi, the themesong to Taxi.
Go back and listen to the themesong of Taxi.
Sidney Evans (36:08):
I don't think I remember that one.
Jahi Whitehead (36:11):
It's no words.
There's no words to it.
Go listen to the theme song ofTaxi.
One of the hardest theme songs,man, right now.
I would want to sample it.
That's how good it is.
Sidney Evans (36:30):
Okay, cool man.
Um, but yeah, I think that's it.
We had a uh, we had a greatconversation, man.
Definitely appreciate yousharing all your experiences and
giving you know helpful tipsand bits of information that
people can walk away with andyou know implement on their
journey into achieving audiosuccess.
So appreciate you coming on theshow, man, and yeah, I enjoyed
(36:50):
it.
Jahi Whitehead (36:51):
I appreciate that.
I appreciate you having me.
And to go back to what we saidbefore about networking, you
said a name.
You said Dante.
So I mean, once you say thatyou're like that's a person I
work with, that's a person Iknow that's legit.
So once you say a name that Iknow that's legit, I'm going to
have to, and he gave you my name.
So that means that he valuessomething, that that's legit
(37:11):
there.
Sidney Evans (37:16):
So I will have to.
That's.
That's a no brainer.
Definitely, definitely.
Well, yeah, that's a wrap fortoday's episode and for
everybody out there.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for joining us ontoday's episode.
Please don't forget tosubscribe to the show and leave
us a review.
If you'd like to work with meor connect, please go to
soundbysitcom and schedule acall.
There.
(37:37):
You can also check out the fulllist of productions I've worked
on.
If you'd like to connect onsocial media, my handle is
soundbysitcom on Twitter andInstagram and I'm Sidney Evans
on LinkedIn.
Like to connect on social media?
My handle is soundbysetcom ontwitter and instagram and I'm
sydney evans on linkedin.
Don't forget to follow beyondthe threshold on instagram as
(37:58):
well.
I'll catch you on the nextepisode.
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