Yusuf Muhammad of Veteran Freshman On Managing Desi Banks and Creating For a Living

Episode Transcript
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Jennifer Logue (00:10):
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode
of creative space, a Podcastwhere we explore, learn and grow
and creativity together. I'myour host Jennifer Logue. And
today, we have the pleasure ofchatting with Yusuf Mohammed,
aka Veteran Freshman, anentrepreneur, event curator,

(00:30):
talent buyer and manager who'sworked around the globe, on
music, festivals, brandedexperiences, and much, much
more. He's also an artistmanager, and currently manages
the super talented comedian andactor Desi banks. Welcome to
Creative Space. YUI.

Yusuf Muhammad (00:49):
Man, thank you for having me. Thank you for
having me. Really excited to behere.

Oh, my gosh.
It's an honor to have you onthis show. And yeah, I'm
thinking back. How did we firstmeet? Was it rockin Philly TV
back in the day?

Yeah, yeah. You talking about one at a time? I
mean, this was probably close toalmost 10 years ago. Most
likely. Oh, my gosh, we'retalking. Yeah, we're talking 20.
Probably that 2013 2014 2015time. Maybe even Lord earlier.
But yeah, I believe that's howwe met. I believe you were doing

(01:27):
journalism in Philadelphia, Iwas doing a lot of different
events. I don't know if someoneconnected us. I'm not sure if
you came to one of my events.
But I do remember that once wedid connect, we were connected.
I do remember that. Like it wasit was instant, you know, we
were connected. And that was it.
We were friends.

Yeah. Because you were always putting on
events in Philly. And, you know,just making an impact on the
city. And it was a pleasure towrite about. And, you know,

I appreciate it.
I told you I kept a lot of thethose writings, they still are
bare, you know, keepsakes ofmines, i, i It reminds me of a
time that I didn't realize whenyou know, it's so much time
really does fly. So it helps tohave those reminders of some of
the things that you've done, andsome of the places you've been

(02:16):
and, you know, some of the someof the impact that you've had.
And I'm extremely appreciativeof a lot of things that I was
able to do in Philly. So I usedto tell people all the time
that, you know, Philly wasPhilly was school, and the world
was my graduation years. And soI was able to kind of graduate

(02:36):
into the world, but Philly wasdefinitely my school.

For people who aren't familiar with you and
your work. Let's go way back.
Yeah, let's go. Um, I know whereyou're from originally. But for
everyone else listening. Whereare you from originally.

So I'm originally born and raised in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Iwas raised in southwest
Philadelphia. And I also havefamily ties all over Philly, so
West Philly, and North Philly.
But where I was really spent theinitial kind of younger years of
my life was in southwestPhiladelphia. My mother was from

(03:16):
New York, my father was fromPhiladelphia. And my mother, she
she did do a good job of givingme the balance of New York and
Philly, you know, as I wasgrowing up, but a large majority
of my time was spent inPhiladelphia, and learning and
experiencing Philly in the 80sand 90s. That was my that was my

(03:40):
upbringing. And it was, it wasgreat. It was a different city.
It was a different time. Youknow, it was I, you know, I used
to grow up. You don't reallyknow where you're from. It's
like, there's a there's a pointwhere you become conscious of

(04:02):
where you're from, right? But Iremember watching like, this Tom
Hanks movie when I was like akid. And I was like, that looks
like Philadelphia. It looks likedowntown Philly. And I remember
watching like Rocky. Like, wait,that looks like Philly. And then
I think I was watching. I eventhink they may have filmed some
of them. There was a film thatEddie Murphy I think it was

(04:24):
called trading place. Oh, I lovethat movie that they did with
elfia as well. So growing up,you know, I I knew that I was
from somewhere that you know,especially because I would see
it on my TV screen to see it inmovies, you know? And, and that
was a it was you know, when I asI grew up and I was watching you
know, the BTS and I was watchingyou know the M TVs and I was

(04:47):
just watching the kind of worldof music I realized very quickly
that Philly held a special placethere when there was a lot of I
always would see PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia was a place that
artists We're coming to. Soyeah, it was an interesting,
very, very interestingupbringing. But yep, that's,
that's where I grew up. I grewup in southwest Philly.

Cool. What did you want to be as a kid? Do you
remember?

So as a kid, I think, you know, I think we may
have spoken as in the past, butyou know, I had a very
interesting childhood,specifically from an educational
perspective, like I was, youknow, I was, uh, you know, dare
I say, I was, I was a prettyadvanced kid. And so, I was in

(05:32):
the first grade, I think I, youknow, I think they went to go
put me in, like preschool andkindergarten, but I was, like,
surpass that. So I went directlyinto like, first grade at like,
five, first grade, gosh, infirst grade. And it wasn't
because I was like, you know,I'm just like, the super, like,

(05:53):
intelligent person, I think itwas more so that I know how to.
I'm a formula driven purchasingformulas have always been
something that have driven me tomy formulas and systems. And I
think once you realize, when youunderstand formulas and systems
just in life in general, it justmakes navigating that much

(06:13):
easier. That's all it is. It'sjust, it's the control all the
neat delete to life. You know, Imean, it's the, it's the shift
into to life. It's, it's

Wow, you're blowing my mind right now. Like
the first grade.

So from when I was a kid, yeah, that was just
my thing. I was just a systemperson. It was, you know, I
remember that one of theearliest videos of me, like home
home recordings of me. They get,you know, they used to give us
like, you know, plates booze,and I removed the screen door. I
don't know how but I took thescreen door, like off the thing

(06:51):
and my camera, my dad's onvideo. He's like, Ah,
interesting. He's like, are yougonna put it? And I basically
like, I was like, as a kid, Ilike retrace my steps, and was
able to put the door back the,you know, the the bottom of the
doorbell. I was probably like, Ihad to be like five or six years
old. But very early, my dadrecognized that it was like, and

(07:15):
so education wise. I thinkthat's part of the question you
asked me, but education wise, Istarted off, you know, very,
very young. and work my way up.
And you know, eventually, youknow, the story goes that I went
to college at a at 14 years old.

Wow. I didn't know that about you.

Yeah, it's crazy. I just found, I just
found the certificate for it.
And I had been looking for itfor a very long time. Because,
you know, you tell people thatsometimes they believe you
sometimes Yeah, okay. Right. Butyeah, I actually just found this
certificate. And you look at thedate, and you look at it, and
it's like you said as theyoungest honoree to like inter

(07:59):
college, like 14 years.
Incredible. Signed by thesenator at the time. So yeah.

And you went to the Art Institute of
Philadelphia. Yes.

So I was saying that that's what I'm talking
about education. There you go.
Reminded me. I was saying Iwanted to say like, when I was
younger, originally, I wanted tobe an electronic engineering.
And, and I, I was able to, Ithink it's part of the reason
why I was able to, like, usesocial media so well, when it

(08:33):
first came around, and like, getthis large following. And like,
you know, I just knew how to useit in a different way is because
I literally watched the internetbe born. Like, literally, like,
I remember, when, see, like,DVDs, like when those first the
first ones, like when they firstI remember us being at like a,

(08:57):
we were at like a party. Andthis guy was like, I have this
new thing. It's called a DVD.
And he's like that, you know, heputs it into like this player,
and everybody was like,surrounding the TV. But I
remember that moment. Um, but Iremember when, like, you know,
when I remember when Wi Fi wasjust, you know, being used. I

(09:19):
remember when social media I wason Facebook way before most of
my peers. Yeah, because I was 14years old.

Incredible.

So Facebook was only for college kids at a
certain time. So I was on a lotof these things very, very
early. So my first love was intwo electronics. That was my
first love. My first love wasthe road of electronics. I
wanted to do anything in thatspace. And as life kind of kept
going forward. My second mysecond love, which became kind

(09:52):
of like one of my more passions,and I'm still very passionate
about it was films andfilmmaking. I believe that the
ability to just Take an idea orconcept and turn it into a
movie, or cinema, or a story wasjust really, really intriguing
to me. And from very young, Iremember I would always watch

(10:15):
like the making of I lovewatching the scenes of how films
were made. I don't think a lotof kids today don't know that,
that used to be a part of therollout for the movie was that
they would show you the behindthe scenes on Entertainment
Tonight and weekly, like theywould do these interviews, maybe
on set, and they'd beinterviewing the actors and
they'd be like, this movie comesout, you know, at the end of the

(10:37):
year, but we're over here, youknow, there's explosions going
on, you know, back in the back,you know, and I was captivated
by that. I just loved everythingabout, you know, the behind the
scenes, again, formulas, youknow, and strategy and how you
build it out. You know, it wasintriguing to me. So, yeah, I
ended up I was I remember, likeit was yesterday, I was in my

(10:59):
apartment. At the time, I wasworking at a place called Penn
Children's Center. I was a I wasa I was a assistant, I was an
assistant. Like teacher, as anassistant teacher, teacher, like
tutor there. And I saw acommercial on television that

(11:24):
said, you know, do you want tobe a filmmaker? You know, do you
want to make movies, you shouldgo to the Art Institute of
Philadelphia, I'd never heard ofthe Art Institute ever. And
being as you know, as, asdetermined as I was at that age,
I still don't know. But being asdetermined as I was that age, I

(11:45):
just called the number. And Iwas like, hey, you know, I would
like to go to college, you know?
And she was like, Okay, well,you know, have you been before?
And I was like, Yeah, I went tocommunity. So this woman that I
ended up speaking to, I mean,talked about just the universe,
but that person that I ended upspeaking to, she ended up
literally just helping methroughout the whole process.

(12:06):
Wow, helped me yeah, she wasfrom that first conversation on
the phone. She was like, I'mgonna help you get into the
school. And she helped me getinto school. And it was it was
great. And then from there, itjust my life changed. Yeah,

who your biggest film inspirations.

So some of my biggest film inspirations off
the top is in Spike Lee, forsure. So somebody whom from
very, very young, I watched allof his films, studied his films.
I believe his name is WesAnderson. I wanted to say his
name is Wes Anderson, justbecause of his extremely unique
style of storytelling has justalways been incredibly unique to

(12:48):
me. And I feel like he makesfunny movies for intelligent
people. Like he makes moviesthat like anybody, no matter
what you find funny he makes hemakes films that speak to
everybody. So big fan of WesAnderson. I'm sorry, my daughter
just walked in on me as we weretalking. I try my best after it.

(13:10):
You know, I thought I could findsome, some actual free time to
do this. But it's just yeah,fortunately, it's not working
out as good as I wanted it to.
But you can battle with me,hopefully even better with me.

That's a slice of life. It's a slice of life of
a beautiful life. So yes, youknow, yes.

Which is great, though. Like I had a lot of time
to myself. So now I have now Ihave to say I get to share it
with these blessings. So it'sawesome.

So how did you transition to the you to the
events side of entertainmentfrom film? And you're doing
photography to I think,

yes. So all right, I can tell the story.
I'll try not to be too longwinded. So I am at the Art
Institute. Very quickly, Irealized that there was a couple
of things that all happened atone time. So I get to the Art
Institute. And one thing that mydad used to always tell me was

(14:09):
that when you go somewhere, heused to say make friends with
all the older people. That was athat was a intentional goal was
that if you go somewhere, thedon't try to impress the people
that are your age, they have nopower. impress the people who

(14:30):
who actually have power and canactually help you as you are
motivated. And as you have ideasand people that are your age,
they'll come as you continue toextend. Don't pursue that he
used to always I don't know why,but that was his thing. He's
like, Don't pursue that pursuepursue wisdom. Basically, that
was the lesson that my dad, youknow, instilled in me and I

(14:51):
would say my dad like hedefinitely that was something he
put in me easy to say makefriends with everybody who was
older, you know, they are theones that are going to be able
to actually look at Help foryou. So I was very intentional
about that. I was friends withthe financial aid department. I
was friends with the counselors,I was friends with the president
of the school. And it was verysimple. I would, before I would

(15:13):
go to my classes, in themorning, I had, like, set up a
route that I would take, I wouldwalk through the school, I would
walk them to financial aid area,I would say Hello, good morning.
I hope you have a good day today. Oh, it's so good to see
you, man. I hope you hope you'regood. Man, I hope your kids are
great. Man. I hope everything'sfine with you. It was like, you
know, I was basically saying Iwas like, you know, how would

(15:34):
you you know, how's your kids?
Then I'll walk through thestudent affairs area, I say
hello to the young lady who waslike a security secretary
person, I'd say hello tosecurity. I'd go in and say
what's up to the President? Hey,President, you know, great,
great seeing you, man. You know,I appreciate the know you the
FBI, and I just keep moving.
doing that over and over andover again. Eventually, they

(15:55):
recognize me they're like, Whois this kid like that just keeps
his walk? And he's always askingus questions. And he's always
very jovial. And he's alwaysasking us how our day is. So one
day, you know, just from doingthat, I asked the woman who was
working at the desk, she'salways coming here and talk to
her and I was a new student. Sothey wanted to like be nice and
help me. I just asked, I say,you know, do you all ever need

(16:18):
help here? Let me know if youdo? And she said, Yeah, we do.
And she said, What do you donow? I said, Well, I currently
have another part time job. Andwe're, you know, with kids. I
said, But you know, you know,just let me know if you ever
need help. So she said, Well,you know, you should come work
in the office. I said, Really?
She said, Yeah, come work in theoffice. So I ended up working at
the Student Affairs Office parttime. So now I have the part
time job of Student Affairs, Ihave a part time job off site at

(16:41):
the University of Penn at thispinch ocean center. sitting at
that desk, was the bestnetworking tool that I can add
met, everybody met all the coolkids, I met all these top leads
of Otter, all of theorganizations, I met all the any
any of the donors that will comeand meet with the President,

(17:04):
when he would come in, theywould have to say, hey, you sent
and I say, Hey, how are you? AndI'm like, my name is Yousef. And
he's like, Oh, nice to meet you.
And I'm like, Well, what are youdoing? And I'm like, Oh, why Oh,
my God, I'm here to make a donordonation to the school Great
meeting you. And I would justmeet all these different people
besides the fact that I was alsoin film school. So a lot of film
directors and film people wouldcome into this to come into the

(17:24):
office, I would just meet themall the time. So I began
networking that way. Andeventually I met the person,
they recommended me to be an RA.
Okay, so I said, Okay, wellshoot, cool. I will be an RA. I
didn't know what an RA was. Butagain, I worked with kids
already. So I was like, this isjust working with grown kids.
So, so I, I ended up leavingPenn children and I ended up

(17:50):
having a part time job and astudent affairs, I'm still going
to school. And I'm an RA now,one of the things about being an
RA was that they said you had tocreate one of the one of the
rules was that you had to createthree events, oh, events per
quarter for your, for your, foryour students. And I

(18:10):
immediately, I don't know why.
But I was like, instead of mecreating the events for them,
why don't I just go create theevents that they want? So I
called a meeting. And at themeeting, they started telling me

(18:34):
to type of events that theywanted. And I say, oh, okay,
cool. I got that. That's easy.
That's great. Okay, cool. I cando that. But I couldn't figure
out my third event. My thirdevent, I cannot figure out my
third event had to be somethingthat brought the community
together. So I was like, huh, soone thing as an RA you had to do
was you had to do your rounds,and you would go your rounds,
you go to every apartment, justto make sure that they were you

(18:56):
know, not doing crazy stuff.
Even though I was the most leanarray of all time, like of all
time, I did not, I never toldhim. It's like, I used to tell
them, like don't make me do myjob. They said, That's what I
used to say to them. So tryingto wrap the story up, but, um,
but it's it's just a unique waythat I fell into this world. So

(19:22):
all of this is simultaneous thatat the same time that I'm doing
this community event and I'mdoing my rounds, and I walk into
every dorm. I'm seeing artpieces that are phenomenal. I'm
seeing stuff. I'm seeing art,I'm seeing fashion designs, and
I'm like, Who made this who didthis? And they're like I did and

(19:43):
I'm like, where are you? Are youlike, like, What is this for?
Like, are you selling it andthey're like, this is a project
I just got bored one day and Ijust painted this mural and I'm
like, yeah. So I took thatinformation with me. Okay,
that's one part of it. The otherpart of it well I was, I'm in
film school. And when you're infilm school, usually you have to
rent your equipment. But I gotto the point where I was like,

(20:06):
You know what, I cannot keeprenting my equipment, I have to
own a camera, I'm gonna have toget a camera. So at the same
time, it just so happened thattechnology is meeting me in
school at the same time, and thefirst DSLR camera dropped, which
was called, yes, it was like aCanon TS one. The DSLR. It
allowed you to shoot at highresolutions, you can only shoot

(20:26):
for a short amount of time. Butit allows you to kind of do
these like one minute clips, andlike the best high resolution
anyone had ever seen before. Andat that same time, I'm doing Ra,
I ended up getting my own camerafrom a friend of mines, he
loaned me some bread and shotsto shouts to IQ, I kill helped

(20:49):
me get my first camera, I get myfirst camera, and I'm using this
ra job to pay off this camera.
So then I'm like, Okay, I needto get money. So I just find
myself to like live. So I said,Well, why don't I start doing
freelance with this camera. So Istarted doing freelance,
filming, and photography forartists. And some of these

(21:11):
artists are like big artists.
Now, the time wow, they were notat the time. They were just dope
buzzing artists from theircities. But I went on Facebook,
and I put up there and I toldthem, I said, Listen, I will
film you for free. If you justgive me the access. So they

(21:34):
would give me the access, I willgo film for free, I would then
take that film work, bring itback to school, get an A then
you know. So all of these thingsare all happening at once all
these things are happening ameeting different artists, music
artists, and people in the filmphotography world. I'm getting
access, I'm gettingrelationships to the school, I'm

(21:56):
connecting with my students, Ihave to do events. And one day,
I'm in my dorm room. And I comeup with this event called whose
art is this anyway, whose art isthis anyway, was the first ever
event I ever curated. The rulesto the event was this how I
promoted it was everything atthe event no matter what the

(22:19):
event, no matter what it was, nomatter what medium it was, you
could only price it from $1 to$20. The reason why I did that
was I knew that it would sellsomebody's going to buy it
whenever we went out. And what Iwould tell them what is you set
the price, one to go. Sosomebody comes up to you and
they ask you how much it is, younow have to negotiate with them.

(22:41):
Almost like a bartering style tobe able to sell your artwork.
And you have to talk to them.
First event we did, it wasactually pretty successful.
There was about 300 people thatcame and it was a mixture of
everything. It was a mixture ofart. It was a mixture of music,
it was a mixture of a DJ, youhad poetry, it was any medium
that went under the term art. Iactually still have the poster

(23:04):
somewhere. I wish I could findit, I would pull it up and show
you but it's a hilarious,amazing. It's like my first ever
event. So the second one washuge. The second one, after the
success of the first one wordstarted getting around. There's
this art show that's beingthrown at the Art Institute

(23:29):
downtown. And at that point, I'dhad a lot of relationships, I
was just connecting with peopleI was telling on different
organizations in my school.
And 650 people showed up. And Iwas like, whoa, I'm like, okay,

(23:49):
like this is a lot of people.
And it was actually you knowwhat, let me circle let me go
back. Memory mix you pat alittle bit. It might have been
150 for the first event 350 forthe second event, not 653 50 for
the second event, but this iswhere the kicker is. This is
where this is the reason why Igot that a 650 number. For the
second event, like 350 peoplecame but like 650 people RSVP

(24:14):
Oh, this was the time back inback when Facebook when people
RSVP and they were actuallygoing yeah.

I remember those days.

And maybe they were actually going you know and
so, um, for the third one, therewas like 2000 RSVPs Oh, wow. And
the school was concerned becausethey were like, there's going to
be like 650 people here likethat's way too many strangers
that you're bringing to theschool right like this has

(24:51):
started off as a school eventand now this is something that
like people are coming to sothey shut my weight my shut my
vent down. Thanks. Got my beddown? Oh, no. It was no, I had
to. I had. I had everybody. Iwas devastated. And so my career

(25:13):
in concert started from oneFacebook post out of my anger,
that my event got shut down,right due to politics. That's
what I use. I use the wordpolitics, right? Because, you
know, I was just a student, Ididn't have any control over the
venue space, I didn't have anycontrol over, you know, who

(25:35):
attended who didn't attend. Iwent on Facebook, and I said, my
school just shut down my artshow. I was expecting, like,
2000 people. And I'm like, Man,this is like messed up. I said,
I need to have an own my ownspace for my own events. A guy
responded to that thread. And hesaid, there's a spot called the

(25:55):
Blockly. Wow, that I am friendswith. There's the guy named
Chris over there that I'm reallyfriends with. You should let me
introduce you to them. He said,I've heard about the art show,
you should let me introduce youto them. And that was my career
from there. From that moment,that moment of the universe
coming together. of me being anRA, of me going to school for

(26:20):
filming photo of me meeting thespecific people that I've met
during that time inPhiladelphia, who are all
superstars. I mean, these guysare all over the industry all
over the world right now. Thatwas the launch of veteran
freshmen. And my career. Iremember. Once I got the venue,

(26:41):
my goal was to throw a birthdayconcert. That was my goal. I had
knew all these different people.
I was meeting all thesedifferent artists throughout the
year. And I wanted to throw abirthday concert. And I was
like, What can I name it? Andthis is, again, me being this
kind of like very, like militantkind of, you know, kid named it,
I came up with veteran freshmen.

(27:03):
And the goal was to basicallysay, because I felt like, people
were treating me as a freshman,but I used to say I have veteran
relationships. So I was like,I'm a veteran freshman. Like,
imagine that, you know, theperson that is a veteran, you
know, you know how to do this,but you're in freshman
circumstances. I see. That wasthe whole idea was that, you

(27:26):
know, I was like, I want toshowcase veteran talent that
people know, but they might be afresh face to you. And that is
literally how veteran freshmenwas born. I called all my
friends. I said, Yeah, I gotthis great name, freshman
veteran. And you're like, Idon't know. I was like, What is

(27:47):
freshman veteran? I wasexplaining. I'm like, Yeah, you
know, it's freshmen. But theywere like, and then I just was
like, Well, what about veteranfreshmen? And they were like,
ah, that's, that's like, that'sit? It sticks.

No, has a nice ring to it.

That was how my career started. So sorry for
that very long winded answer.
But that is how my career.

No, it's so fascinating to hear your story.
Like, the way things happened,everything was so organic.

Yes, I am big on, I paid attention to a making
B happen, that makes C happen,that makes B happen, that makes
e happen. That makes F happen.
That makes G that makes H I payattention to that. And I think
more people should pay attentionto that. It allows you to
appreciate the moment, but knowthat this moment is only going

(28:37):
to lead you to something elsecoming next.

Unknown (28:41):
Yes,

you're so excited for what this could lead
to that no matter what happenswithin this moment. It's already
a success. Because that nextmoment, it's only going to lead
to something next, it's eithergoing to lead to you never doing
it again. Are you doing itbetter? Are you doing it in a
different way or a differentlight. And so that was a lesson

(29:06):
that I started learning veryyoung and I used to you know,
being a promoter is it is it'slike, I'm trying to figure out
what you can describe it as Iimagine, I imagine you are it's

(29:29):
the longest it's it's it's anit's a it's an everlasting
checklist. Right? Mixed with thereality that anything can happen
and that you can lose it all.
And there's so many factors thatcan lead to that that have

(29:52):
nothing to do with you. There'sthe right before the door opens
generous. where there's beenshows where there were two
people standing outside. And theshow ended up selling out. And
then there's been shows wherethere's a line outside, and the
show ended up taking a loss. Andthen there are shows where it's

(30:16):
sold out. But a water mainbreaks and the entire show is
canceled. And

oh my gosh, and you just got to roll with the
punches and just go through it.
So

many stories of just, you have to roll with the
punches. You have to roll withthe punches. I was at one show.
And it was an accident. It wasin Atlanta. The show was
happening. Everything was goinggood. The venue, the club was
one of these older clubs andornament from the ceiling fell
down, hit the performer andhead. Oh, what she was oh, he

(30:53):
was okay. Oh, she was, Oh, God.

I thought he was

Unknown (31:00):
like, Oh my gosh, the next time I go on stage will be
like, No,

this show was over. He was fine. He flew off
the stage a couple of feet. Butyou know, he was fine. He was he
kept performing. That washilarious that he kept rapping.
Even on the ground. He's stillrapping

mark of a professional. Oh my God,

just professional dancing.

So what led you then to artists management? Yes.
You you initially were managingdistorted. Lee visual artist?
Yeah. Then you manage a fewartists after that.

After that, yes.
Let's do it. Artists managementwas something that I used to run
away from vietnamese Viet Minh.
I used to run away from it,we're just gonna use that word.
Yeah, sometimes you got to use areally intelligent word, but you
lips don't work with me all thetime. But for anyone who's
listening to it, I ran far away.
So I ran far away from fromartists management for a very

(32:09):
long time, because I just didn'twant to be solely responsible
for the advancement of someoneelse's career, I felt like that
was just not the way that itshould work. I you know, and a
lot of times a lot of the, the Alot of it's telling you is so
crazy. Because I'm not going tosay her name. But there's one
artist who's buzzin. She's huge.

(32:32):
Now, she's huge and filthy. Andat that time, she used to ask
for you to manage her, but Ijust was not ready. I was not
ready to be a manager at thetime, you know, and I was, I
really did feel like, you know,management is something that you
should do. You know, when youwhen you're able to, you know,
when you when you know how youknow, it's something that you
should do when you're whenyou're confident in your

(32:52):
abilities. It's just notsomething that you take for
light because it really isanother person's career. So Anya
distorted and I refer to asAnia, because that's how I met
her as on Friday, she wasdistorted. I was throwing a
camera on concert. And at thetime used to sell tickets by

(33:18):
hand, you would, you wouldliterally get a group of
stalking tickets. And you wouldput it on Facebook, you would
say hey, you can either buytickets online, or you can meet
up with me, and I'll sell youtickets. Oh, cool as the
promoter. So I sold a bunch oftickets that week, we were
trying to get together. But wefinally found a day, she pulls
up on me. And she's like, um,you know, she wanted to get two

(33:41):
tickets to camera. So but itjust so happened, that we shut
up a conversation, like wealready knew of each other, but
kind of struck up aconversation. And she's like,
Yo, I'm gonna be fan of yours.
I'm like, Yeah, I'm a big fan ofyours. Like, you know, tell me
about, you know, kind of tell meabout yourself. She's like, Oh,
well, you know, I'm an artist.
My name is distorted. I mightwant to steal. I'm like you. I
feel like I've heard about yourwork. I've seen your merch.

(34:02):
She's like, where she's like,well, you know, you should
definitely check me out. She'slike, you know, currently I work
with, she also worked with kids.
So she's there. I work withkids. And that's the word she
said, Yes. She said, My art is alittle, you know, a little
freaky. So she's like, I can'treally, you know, I don't really
show it to the kids. She's like,because it's a very unique style
of art. She's like, but it'svery creative. And I feel like
it go places and I say, Oh,good. I said, Well, you know,
it's really, really dope. And itwas great meeting you. And she

(34:24):
said, yeah, it was really goodmeeting you. And she said, you
know, the only thing I'm reallymissing right now, is I really
need like, you know, I reallyneed like a manager. And I'm
like, Oh, well, you know, goodluck with that. I hope you hope
you find the manager. You know,God bless you. You know, so we
do the camera on show camera andshow was great. She was there.
But then I kept seeing her. Likeshe can chew and she would

(34:47):
continue. We kept seeing eachother at places and every time I
saw her, she would tell me youneed to manage. You should be my
manager. She's like, Why do youlike why don't you just manage
manager and I'm like, I don'twant to be a manager. I'm like,
Look, I you know, I appreciatethat you think I am, but I'm a
promoter, like, you know, Idon't manage. She said, No, I
really believe that you couldmanage me. So she would, she

(35:09):
would just constantly liketelling me that she would text
me she would see me at party,she would send messages to other
people. She was very, like,adamant that she felt like I
could be her manager. So oneday, in like a fit of like,
frustration, I was like, youknow, what, could you just come
meet me, I was like, comedowntown today, you can come
down today, come downtown andmeet me. And I said, we will

(35:32):
talk about partnership. I said,I don't I can't be a manager. I
said, but I can be your businesspartner. So she came down. And
that day, I feel like we met forlike nine hours. By the time she
left that meeting, we had theentire year planned out of

(35:52):
everything we wanted to do witheach other. And we went off, we
started doing art shows westarted doing March, her
following started growing andgetting bigger and bigger and
bigger, incredible. We starteddoing shows we put together
because I was in concert where Iput together art show for us, I
said, Listen, let's do an artshow. That's part art show, but

(36:15):
also a concert. So we used to dothese things called Art parties,
where we would go from city tocity, and whoever was the
popping artists from there, theywould come and perform on her
art show. So you got the musiccommunity, you got the art
community, these shows areblowing up. And we did like a 12
city tour, you know, it's justended her is just an independent

(36:37):
kind of artists. And it wasgreat. And it went very, very
well. You know, we did a lot ofphenomenal things together.
We're still in touch, we stillhave you know, great
friendships, even the themanager that she has now is a
friend of mines. He's someonethat, you know, once I stepped
down as her management, he endedup kind of stepping in. And I
don't say that in a in anegative way. I just say that.

(36:58):
And like, that's a beautifulthing. And you know, if if, if
you you believe in the talent somuch that even once you get to a
point where you feel like youcan't take them to that next
level, you automatically sayabsolutely, to whoever else,
like wants to step up and workwith that talent. Oh, for sure.
And I handed everything over,you know, I mean, I didn't hold
anything back any connections,relationships, anything he asked

(37:19):
for any data, I handed rightover because I wanted to still
see or become a success betweendistorted and going into music,
I did manage a few musictalents, but they were like
hearing, they were hittingmisses. And that's another thing
like a lot of managers, youknow, we have hit or misses you
have you know, before you getthat, that one client, you know,

(37:41):
perfect, I use a perfectexample. You know, DoDEA cats
current manager, at one pointwas a co manager with me for
Krishna combs. And which istough son, you know why I ended
up managing, I ended up managingpuff son, and so long story how
I ended up getting that job. Butonce I ended up getting that
gig, that guy who is nowcurrently those accounts

(38:04):
manager, at one point wassupposed to be my co manager, we
both kind of left thatsituation, and we moved on to
you know, our next situations,but now he's managing dosha cat,
you know what I'm saying. And soand I say that, as as a as an
amazing, you know, that's anamazing, amazing accomplishment
that you can go as you kind ofkeep moving forward. So

(38:26):
sometimes when it doesn't workout, it doesn't necessarily mean
it's a negative, it just meansthat you know, you two weren't
able to create together and youjust have to move on to the
next, you know, the next thing,usually when you see people
falling out with theirmanagement, and it's like really
negative. A lot of times theydidn't really start with the
purest intentions, you know, I'msaying. And I think you do have
that relationship that doesstart with real intentions of

(38:51):
partnership, not this idea thatI'm your boss, or that you're my
boss, but more so this ideathat, you know, you take what
you do well, and I take what Ido well, and let's just do that
together. And let's just seewhat happens.

Even your initial approach to distort it,
making it a partnership, likejust coming to the table with
that in mind. I mean, I thinkthat just set a foundation for
success. And because thecollaboration, it's it's it's a
creative collaboration at theend of the day,

man, managers are not miracle workers. You
know, that's something I used toalways tell people we're not and
I really believe that leadmanagers are not miracle workers
like we can't create a createout of thin air you know, we
need to know the things that youlike in order to bring the
things that you'd like to youknow, we need to we need to know
the things that you want to doin order to be able to go out
and hunt for those things andbring them back to you. But it

(39:49):
has to be a partnership. And andyet you know from there, I ended
up going into music. I you knowworked with puff and I ended up
you know managing Christiancombs for two years I was a part
of his man management team,which was a crazy, crazy
experience. I then ended upgoing over to Jim when a team
and managing in well being onthe management team for Jidenna.

(40:12):
And I was, you know, his day today manager as well. And then
the pandemic hit, so I leftmusic. And now I'm in comedy.

Yeah, and we're gonna talk about that a little

more, sir. Fast forward. Oh,

no, no, no, it's fine. Now you're managing does
the banks who's hilarious and sotalented. Oh, my God. It's

funny guy.
Really funny guy.

I mean, I, I actually started following him
because you were sharing hisstuff. I'm just like, Oh, my
God. He's so funny. And sotalented. So I'm a big fan.
Yeah. Thank you for sharing hiswork. Absolutely. But this is
creative space. And yes, I loveasking this question of

(40:59):
everyone. Because everyone has adifferent perspective on
creativity. But how do youdefine creativity?

How I've described it probably over the
last 10 years is that I tellpeople that your purpose is like
a tree, your purpose is a tree.
So your purpose is your center.
your passions are the leaves andthe branches that come from that
tree. Right? Each leaf that hitsthe ground allows you to be able

(41:38):
to create something from that,right. It's almost like you're
feeding the earth, you'refeeding the soil. And so
Creativity to me has beensomething that it's actually
interesting that you say thatbecause this is the first time
in my life that I've actuallywanted to teach this. Yeah,
wanting to teach this ability tobe able to create for a living,

(42:01):
yes, I am under the genuinebelief and I don't mean this to
be like too deep or anything.
But I genuinely believe that ifyou go back in time, your social
capital was based off of whatyou enjoy doing and what you
love doing. The Butcher wholefamily was butchers and they
enjoyed preparing and beingbutchers, the the the the
sewers, there was a school ofthat this was something that

(42:25):
they would teach the children,their daughters, their sons, the
grandsons, there was a family ofthat the fishers, they went in
they fish, the people who wrotethe books and subscribers.
That's what they did. And thatwas their rent, for being on
Earth. Their rent for being herewas what they enjoy doing.
Right? What they enjoy creating.

(42:46):
Well, mine, personally, is joy.
I enjoy creating joy for others,I enjoy creating spaces where
people can have memorablemoments and memorable
experiences. That is my payment.
My payment is that five to 10years later, I still get
messages, I still get emails, Istill get people to stop me

(43:06):
ministry telling me, I met mywife at your party. Oh, that was
the best concert I ever went toknow it's a blessing to be able
to, to be able to touch so manypeople and to be able to spread
joy and to be able to havepeople you know, give me so many
a lot of the memories that theypull from our from shows that
they went to or seeing artistsfor the first time or, you know,

(43:29):
like I said people telling methey met their wife at my events
or you know, people lifelongfriendships, you know, that I
even have from concerts andmusic events. And you know,
music is something thatgenuinely brings people together
probably more than anything elseon the planet, as well as
creativity. And so one of thethings that I like to just tell

(43:50):
people is the idea of doubt isdisregarding or disrespecting
you like the only reason Okay?
In order to doubt yourself, youhave to already know what you
want to do, but you don'tbelieve that you can do it. But

(44:12):
but the root of doubt is thatyou know what you want to do.
That's the root. You can't havedoubt without knowing what you
the only reason why you doubtyourself is you're telling

(44:32):
yourself that you can't do it.

It's because you do know what you want to do.

You know what you want to do? You know you
want to write that book, but youread

like you can I just read The War of Art by
Steven Pressfield. Highlyrecommend. Yeah, someone just
recommended this to me shout outto Sam Jones. Basically he has
this concept called Creativeresistance. And it's you know,
he describes it as like thatbarrier between us actually

(45:05):
doing the thing we're supposedto be doing, like,
procrastination, doubt, fear,all those things. It's creative
resistance,

sorry, that's my dog.

But all these inward things, the excuses, we
make doubt anything that keepsus from doing what we're
supposed to be doing. And heeven believes that manifests
into, like, mental healthissues. And, you know, I know
and I don't create,

Oh, absolutely.
And it's, it's, it's, I try mybest to, like, be as calm as I
can. about it. But it'ssomething that I'm very
passionate about, because, youknow, it's, it's, your blessings
are yours for a reason, thethings that you enjoy doing very
much can be your life. Sorryabout that, very much can be

(45:57):
your life. And you know, Ihaven't worked a nine to five,
since I was 23 years old, 2030Wow, was the last time that I
worked, you know, kind of astandard nine to five, my nine
to five now is just creating mynine to five now is just, you
know, coming up with an idea,creating the system or the
avenues to success. And then, aslong as I follow these systems

(46:19):
that I've learned, you know,through different processes,
through my wins, and through mylosses, and my lessons, I'm
sorry, not losses, my wins andmy lessons. I've now gotten to a
space where a lot of thesethings are automatic. So I say,
you know, creativity, to me is alife source. And it's something
that that is true capitalism,true capitalism is creativity,

(46:45):
you know, not not money, not,you know, your true payment is
being able to do the things thatyou want to create into this
world. And putting them outthere and just doing them and
trying everything, you know,trying everything that you can,
and not, you know, not to getdeep, but that to me, that is
how you capitalize off of yourexistence here. That's how you

(47:07):
capitalize off the blessing ofof you know, being in this time
that you're in is that is tocreate something so even this,
you know, even us having thisconversation, you know, taking
it from a concept of whereveryou were before the first
episode, and now we're sittinghere having this conversation.

Yes, it's the act of creation. Like, if I'm
called to do something, I haveto do it. Even if I don't know
where it's gonna go. One personmight hear this, and it might
change their perspectivecompletely. You want to
encourage them to make somethingwe just don't know how we fit
into the grander scheme ofthings.

So absolutely.
So it's important. Yeah,

I just found it's easier to just go go with
it. Yeah, you know,

again, the root of doubt, is that you already
know what you want to do. Yeah.
So remove the doubt, because youalready know that you want to do
it down is just down is just,you know, I always always say a
no just means I have to find adifferent Yes.

Ah, I love that.

That's all it means. One person has no just
means I have to find a differentYes.

On my wall. I'm gonna have a quote. Well, from
these interviews, all thewisdom, that's awesome.

There's a yes out there. You just have to find
it. There's a yes. You know, oneone No, just means you have to
find that other. Yes. So thatis, you know, to me, that's, you
know, creativity is, you know,again, you, you are the tree you
are the root, you know, andthose different leaves and
branches that you that you buildout. That's how you create and

(48:44):
find those different branches.
You know, don't feel like youjust have to be a one stop shop,
you know, do all the differentthings that you want to do and
it's lifetime.

Yeah, that's something else we'll touch on to
it. We don't let's bring it up.
Now. A conversation I've beenhaving a lot lately with some of
my artists friends, is like, youknow, let's say you're an actor
and a musician. From a managerperspective, being a jack of all
trades, master of none. Like doyou think there's truth to that?
But is it possible to like enjoyyour creativity, enjoy your

(49:19):
career and do it at a highlevel, even if you have these
different outlets.

I used to say, I am a jack of all trades, as long
as it's fun. As long as you'rehaving fun, you should do it.
Why talk yourself out ofsomething that is fun. It's fun
if you enjoy doing it and it'sfine. Then do it. You know it's
interesting. Jack of all trades,master of none, for some reason

(49:46):
does not apply to celebrities.
Interests, interesting.
Celebrities can do all types ofrandom stuff that they have no
qualifications for once.

We've learned that I won't get political and

why? So ever?
You're just known by a lot ofpeople. So because a lot of
people know them, they just say,Hey, I am going to start a
worker company and people arelike, where are you getting your
order from them even asked,don't even ask me to get the
order. Put your name on it, youhave to work. Yep, you don't I
mean, and so if that if thatrule applies to them, then it
applies to us as well, that youcan do every and anything that

(50:24):
you want. There's no rules,anywhere, anyone who's telling
you that you can't do somethingas somebody that should not be
around you. One of the greatestlessons I ever got was something
I still say to this day. I wasin I want to say we were in
Arizona. And I was with pompson, tell the story, sometimes

(50:49):
the most hilarious story. And hewas doing something he was doing
something that was very, like,Puff Daddy, she was doing
something that was very, like,making progress. You're doing
something very Christian, wherehe can be free. And I said to
him, I said, Yo, man, come on,man, we can't do this. And he
pulled me to the side. And helike, grabbed like the front of
my shirt. And he was like, stopspeaking and can't stop speaking

(51:11):
you can you can stop speakingyou can we can do whatever we
want to do. And I say oh, okay,he's like, now, if there's
repercussions from that cool,but don't tell me that, like
don't even talk to me in Canada.
You know, we always can try.
This is a young 90 year old kidteaching me this, you know, oh.

(51:34):
And that was a great lesson thatI got from him whenever that day
and I and I keep it with me. Idon't speak in cane anymore.
There's no such thing as can't,

I'm not speaking in Canada anymore, either. And
I'm learning it and can't wait.

It's a language that you don't want to speak it.
And you just you just saidthat's a language that you don't
even want to speak. You justleave it alone, you know,
there's no rules to language,there's no rules to this. You
can make up language literallypeople don't understand this.
There's different dialects, youknow, you go to the south,
there's a certain way that theyspeak, you go to the West Coast,
there's a certain way to speak.
You go to Norway, there's acertain way that they speak

(52:08):
everyone has their own form ofslang. What is your slang what
type of speech where you speakinto your life and speak over
your life, you know. And sospeaking in can't speak in what
you don't think you can dospeaking what you've seen other
people fail that, you know, andyou apply that to yourself,
those are things that you haveto remove from your, you know,

(52:29):
remove it, remove it from yourspirit, remove it from your
mind, and just stop speaking atit and speaking can and speaking
will and speaking try, you know,at least try. And even if you,
you know, there's some things,it's funny that I said that now
I want to teach this. In 2016, Idid an event called curator

(52:53):
class. Okay. Now, almost 18years later, I'm finally at the
spacebar. I'm like, I want toactually teach this. So I
reached out to like somebodyUniversity and stuff like this
something that I really want toteach. Yeah, but it's my older
self speaking to my newer stuff.
I did it back in the day, Itried it once I was like, Man, I

(53:14):
put it down. But because I didit, I have the entire blueprint
on how to do it now. Yes. And Iwas able to just go back, pull
it right back up, and start it.
So that's another thing. Also,don't be afraid to later on in
life, start something that youmight not have been able to do
earlier in life. You know, don'tthink that because it failed in
2003 or 2013, that it can't workin 2023.

That's true. So you can always pick up the
project again.

That's something that I've learned to deal with.
And I enjoy that probably evenmore, because it's like almost
like your old self is guidingyour new self. So it's pretty
cool.

That is a great perspective to have. It's not
just because you close a chapterdoesn't mean you can't pick it
back up again. Absolutely. Andyou've come at it with more
wisdom

100%. And no more can't talk. So you can you
can pull it off

and get rid of all the cats. Yeah. So how does
creativity come into your playinto play in your work as an
artist, manager and an advance

and management, especially working with a
comedian, and an actor. This hasallowed me to tap back into my
love film, my love of directingmy love of coming up with
creative ideas and skits andsketches and my love of
structure, my love of you know,free creativity, to be able to

(54:43):
go into any space to be able togo into this room that you're in
right there and turn that into ascene, you know, whether it's
whether it's action, whetherit's comedy, whether it's
romance, you know, to be able totake that room and tell a story
with it is incredible andblessing that, you know, with
him that we have is it's apartnership, you know, he allows

(55:05):
me to bring to him the thingsthat I enjoy doing. And vice
versa, the things that he enjoysdoing, he puts on my plate to
help him kind of navigate. Andso that's how we work. And we're
going on our third year, andit's really been a blessing, you
know, working with him. And I'mreally happy that you know,
whether we continue to worktogether or not. And I say that
with all my clients, because younever know, that our

(55:29):
relationships are built off ofjust wanting to see each other
win. Oh, yeah. And that is theethos of like, that's the,
that's the, that's the core ofhow we work together. On the
event side, it's the creativity,there's endless the pandemic,

(55:52):
really kind of shocked thesystem, because it was the first
time since 2012, that I couldn'tdo an event. And I couldn't
bring people together, that Icouldn't. Um, it was Devis. I
mean, it was devastating. It wasI took it all the time, like, in

(56:13):
my life, my life's passion isbringing people together, I'm
like, I can't, you know, whenyou insert culture, you remove
color. And, and in this country,specifically, not again, not
getting to be because it's acreativity talk, but you're
taught that, you know, certainpeople, you can't hang out with

(56:37):
certain people that, you know,they have this culture, or they
have that culture. And the thingis, is that when you when you
bring coaches together, youknow, in a positive way, and you
allow people to to, to see thatand be a part of that and have
fun with that, on all mediums.
It removes that it removes allof that type of energy. Yeah.
And that's what I enjoyed doing.

(57:00):
That was probably the more ofthe reason why, you know, the
work that I did in Philadelphiawas so impactful to me, was that
I knew that I used to always,you know, it was more than just
coming in just coming to a showor concert is that I really
wanted you to have anexperience, you know, I used to
leave, and I still do it, youknow, after the show, I would

(57:23):
stand at the door. And I wouldthank people for coming. And
they didn't know who I was, Iused to think it was just some
random guy saying hey, you know,say you don't save Have a good
night. Thank you so much. Iappreciate you for coming. I
still do that even now with Desiwhenever I'm gonna roll with
him. I stand at the door. And Ithank him for coming. Hey, thank
you so much, because they haveno idea who I am just a random

(57:44):
guy, some Thank you. But it'sbecause I really appreciate
being able to be a part of thosespaces that bring people
together. So in the events,real, you know, the concert
world, the comedy world, if younotice that medium, that medium
is joy. And that medium for meis bringing people together as
long as those two things arethere, where there's going to be

(58:04):
joyful energy. You know, whetherit's laughter, whether it's
people singing their favoritesongs, nothing better to me than
seeing a dad with his daughterand the dad is literally singing
at the top of his lungs. We havethat moment. Nothing better to
me than seeing a room full ofyou know, black brown. You know

(58:25):
why? Anybody? All types ofpeople of different
nationalities, differentcultures in one room? laughing
their hearts out. lack that thatjoke, doesn't have any race on
it. That joke is just a joke,because life is hilarious. Life
is. No. So those are the thingsthat I enjoy being part of. So I

(58:49):
put creativity in everything Ido. Even my children, you know,
my daughter was a ladyboyyesterday. Oh, she want to get a
cute, my son. We do somethingcalled hip hop class where he'll
come in in the morning, and Iwill curate the different music
videos that I want him to watch.
I'll let him watch everythingfrom Janet Jackson to Paula
Abdul to MC Hammer to you knowTupac to Biggie to the Isley

(59:12):
Brothers to Marvin Gaye to TheBeatles to we just got we just
got to Led Zeppelin i I gave himmy top 10 Led Zeppelin songs and
they were in here my son's goinglike this. So you creativity, I
feel like you know, that's whatI want to teach my children. I
want to be able to teach themhow to create for living, not

(59:34):
work for a living. How to createfor a living, whatever you enjoy
doing whatever you appreciatewhatever you enjoy, turn that
into your life. Let that be yoursocial currency in this world.

It's a mindset.
Absolutely. mindset shifts. Youknow, I think there's
generational Um, traditions ofworking a certain way, you know,
and, you know, some of us breakout of that. Absolutely. And
change, change the narrative foryour family for future
generations, you know.

Yusuf Muhammad (01:00:14):
And I hope that with all of the incredible
things that I've been able to doin my life, I mean, one day I
said, I was like, you know, ifI've ever did a podcast, I would
it will be, it will be a crazystories podcast, because no one
will believe some of the thingsI've seen no one, no one would
believe some of the rooms thatI've been in. But that's the joy

(01:00:37):
of being a creative is becausethe celebrity of it all doesn't
doesn't impact you as much as asmuch as the reality of it all
that Wow. Just because I amdoing what I love. I'm in this

(01:01:00):
room right now. Yeah, that isthe celebrity. That is what you
celebrate. You know, it's notnecessarily the people, you
know, I think that's why I'vebeen able to work and be trusted
by and have really good strongrelationships with a lot of the
like, quote, unquote,celebrities or people that I've
worked with, and and I've knownis because of that is because,
you know, as much as I'm in thatworld, I'm out of it. And I stay

(01:01:24):
grounded, and it's not fake,like I can, I'm okay with being
in the room and only having $100in my pocket, I'm totally fine.
Because guess what, I'm going toeat all this free rich food in
here and enjoy it. Oh my gosh,I'm gonna take a couple of kegs
home and put that in my Uber. Ihave no shame, okay, I'm gonna

(01:01:48):
take my water bottle, fill it upwith somebody rich wine and say,
like, I am, you know, with love,you know, but But I say that to
say like, I don't have that.
There's the celebration to me,is you know, is the creativity
celebration to me is seeingpeople win and then being able
to put people on and connectother folks. And, and just that

(01:02:08):
joy, you know, that's reallyimportant to me. So, you know,
thinking about getting back intomusic management. It's something
that it's above that's been inme, you know, I still love
music. And it's something thatI've been thinking about getting
back into, and I and I have atalent, I have somebody that I
have my eye on, I have a younglady actually shoot, it'll be my
first time, kind of going backand managing a young lady. But

(01:02:31):
there's a young lady that I havemy eye on. And she's really
talented. And I'm excited to seewhat we can do together.

Jennifer Logue (01:02:40):
Oh, that's exciting. Oh my gosh, don't get
me when you're ready toannounce. So what's the greatest
challenge you faced in yourcareer so far?

I have an associate's degree in parenthood
more only a few years in, not atmy bachelor's degree among my
doctorate and by my mastersanything, but the one thing that
has been the most challengingnow, for me, currently is time

(01:03:25):
management. And Balanced hasbeen the most challenging thing
for me. I'm sure it's somethingthat a lot of parents go
through. And a lot of parentsexperience, especially when
you're like, at the prime ofyour career, you know, you
don't, and we lost those twoyears in the pandemic. So it's

(01:03:48):
like, which we're kind of stillgoing through so. So I, you kind
of go into hyperdrive, becauseyou don't want to you don't feel
like you want to lose it again.
Right. So finding that balancehas probably been the most
challenging thing for me as aparent of being able to find,
you know, just just that balanceof time just to be able to spend

(01:04:09):
time with them. I miss them. Assoon as I leave the door, as
soon as I walk in the door, Imiss them, I'm only thinking
about them. When I'm on theplane, you know, you don't have
Wi Fi. And all I'm doing islooking at them from babies to
now, every single time I can't,like people caught me on the
plane and have been like, theylike you know, I've had federal

(01:04:30):
dads be like, you know, I dothis thing that you know,
scrolling, you know, I mean,because you just missed them so
much. So that's that's what it'sbeen as far as being a parent as
far as just being like acreative probably one of the
most challenging things thatI've ran into right now. Is um
ah yeah, it goes back to timewandering to do everything. Just

(01:04:58):
wanting to do wanting to,there's at this point in my
life, there's so many thingsthat I want to do. It's just
having the time to actually beable to execute and pull them
off. Yes, when I hear you there,I looked at my goal list. It's
funny, I put my goal list ofevery year. And I put my goal
out of stuff this year was like15 things on there, I'm like,
come on, you're like, of course,I tried to do all of them and

(01:05:22):
like the first five days of theyear, and then I'm looking at
today's date, it's the 16th dayof the year, it's like calm
down. 300 more days, there's noreason to rush, there's no
reason to rush. So that's kindof where I'm at now. But I'm at
a place where, you know, I said,this year is my Jordan year, I'm
not rushing the shot, I'm takingmy time with it. I don't care if

(01:05:44):
it's only two seconds left onthe clock. I know my skill
level, I know who I am, I knowthe championships that I've had,
I know the rings that I've had,and I know I can be in the Hall
of Fame, you know, my own Hallof Fame. So there's no, there's
no rush on taking that shot, Ican take my time, I can dribble
up to court, and I can get intothe right position, have the

(01:06:06):
right timing and be able toexecute sorry, and be able to
execute. And that's kind of justwhere I'm at now, I'm at that
space. So, you know, challengesare more so, you know, they're
like,

self imposed, with, like, having all the tools
and stuff.

I think I think something that, you know, a lot
of us have to do better of isjust giving ourselves grace.
Yes. Oh, it froze a little bit.
Sorry. But giving ourselvesgrace, I think is probably one
of the key things that I think alot of us need to do. And
especially as creatives, I thinkit's probably the core, and it's
really, really important for usto do is just take a breather,
since I'm calm down, you know,realize that, you know, you got

(01:06:51):
this, you know, even if youdon't got it today, or tomorrow,
and you'll be fine. And we welive under different rules than
the majority of other people do,you know, bills or bills,
they're going to always bethere, you know, but when you
when you when you put stressesand things on to it, you really

(01:07:16):
realize every time and it justdoesn't, it just doesn't work.
It doesn't just, it doesn't helpit, you know, so I think giving
yourself that grace, you know,Grace will always lead to coins,
you know, it'll always lead tosuccess. So I think that that's,
you know, I think that's thechallenge. The challenge is
finding, finding, you know,making sure that you give
yourself more grace, and findingthat finding that time to

(01:07:39):
balance the time.

Yeah, just like saying in peace no matter what's
going on around you. Absolutely.
You know. So what advice do youhave for aspiring creators? Who
want to make a living out ofthose who want to create for a
living?

Three part three part answer to that question. So
the first, the first thing I'mgoing to say, is, go into your
phone, right? Or, and I want youto take from A to Z on your
phone, take it take a day or twoand write down different people

(01:08:25):
that you know what they do andwhere you know them from. On
paper, I want you to be able tosee and look at the network that
you have. Just look at yournetwork, right. The second thing
that I want you to do is I wantyou to write down your goals, no
matter how big they are, nomatter how small they are, write
your goals down, and you canwrite them down in keyword form.

(01:08:49):
Keyword form, for me is alwaysthe best pretty create because
it doesn't force you to flushout all of your creativity at
once. Right? It allows you to beable to just say, I want to
paint, you don't have to talkabout what you want to paint,
you just want to paint so youput down paint, I want to ride
bikes, okay, just write down, Iwant to ride bikes, you know,

(01:09:09):
you went down in the keywordform. And then the third thing I
want you to do is I don't wantyou to take time to really look
at your network, look at thethings that you want to do. And
go have fun, and go create. Coola lot of times 99% of the time,
a lot of the answers to thethings that we want to do I

(01:09:30):
already write there, there arealready things that we know.
There are already people thatwere no there are already things
that are in our universe.
They're already places thatwe've been there already
experiences that we've had, andsometimes we need to see it in
order to be able to move on it.
Google is your best friendYouTube university does exist

(01:09:51):
YouTube university does exist.
Free education does exist. It'sright out there. There's
information is there. We live ina time now. Where Do anything
you want to do if right now Iwanted to learn how to make a
light bulb, I can go on YouTubetype in how to make the light
bulb, and I can go make lightbulbs. And there's no reason why
I can't. There's no reason whythat I should I shouldn't.

(01:10:12):
There's no reason why youshouldn't. It should be a goal
of yours. So push yourself. Noteven push yourself, to walk
yourself into your success. Itshould be a goal of yours. To to
to, and I know you're probablypicking up my toddler yelling
and screaming in the background.

Oh, no, I don't hear anything. No, you're fine.
But

I don't know what the listeners are willing.
But, but that's having kids.

Unknown (01:10:43):
Lice of life. Yes, yes.

And it is a blessing. You know, I think
sometimes children is like thisnegative thing. No, it's not, it
really is a blessing you, evenyour tone. Your tone may
sometimes be in frustration, butit's only because as adults, you
know, for some reason, we get toa point where we feel like we
stop learning. And you're you'vealways learned, you know, you
never stopped being a childrenof a child of knowledge, you

(01:11:09):
never stopped that. And that'sthe thing I want to teach my
kids is that, you know, we labelit as you know, child toddler
teenage adult, and we stop atadult is it as if that's it,
that's the last stage and as anyof us that are adults know, you
continue to learn. So that'sanother thing I want to tell us
creatives, like, you know, as Ikind of like, you know, in that

(01:11:33):
kind of three part is never justagain, never be afraid to learn,
you know, never be afraid tolearn, never be afraid to
continue to be a child of yourcreativity. And continue to, you
know, to try new things. Yourcreativity is like a, it's like
a well, you know, and the morethat you pull from it, the more

(01:11:53):
you'll be able to survive, themore you'll be able to create,
you know, you'll be happy,you're going to be happy, you
know, you'll be able to giveyourself that nourishment. So
continue to go into your well,you know, don't don't up
sometimes you're gonna go intohigh for a couple days, that's
cool. We'll get back out andkeep and keep digging, you know.
So that would be my advice toall creatives is, you know, do

(01:12:17):
not stop creating, you know,continue to follow your purpose
and create from your passions,and you will always see success.
As long as you're doing it.
You're successful.

Yes, that is so true.

redefine what success means to you. That's
something we have to do we haveto redefine it. Success is what
you say it is not what anybodyelse does.

Yes, exactly.
Setting your own goal, settingyour own parameters for what
success is.

Success, success. I remember for me, I
used to be at the venue and I'dbe celebrating and be like, Yo,
there was only 25 people heretoday. And I'm like, that's
amazing. 25 people left theirhouse. Yes. To come to some
concert that I'm puttingtogether. You know, I'm saying
dice to make me so happy. So Ithink we have to redefine what
success is. You know, Iappreciate social media. But the

(01:13:09):
thing is before social media,what were you comparing yourself
to?

Yes, that is so true up. It can be hard. Do you
see everyone's highlight reel,you know, but you don't see all
the sacrifice. You know, youdon't see me the missus, you
know, celebrating. I don't wantto say failure. I want to say
lessons. Like you said, I likewhat you said earlier, you have

(01:13:32):
wins and you have lessons,

that's it wins and lessons wins the lesson.
Social media, I believe was agood tool. But it did it hiding
that, you know, it had eaten alot of people's ability to not
realize that. Again, like yousaid, you're only seeing that
you're all you're seeing istheir highlight reel. Most
people aren't showing you thelosses, most people aren't
showing you the things thatthey're not doing. They're only

(01:13:55):
showing you the result, they'renot really always showing you
the work. So I always tellpeople, you know, before ancient
2009 You know, you didn'tcompare yourself to someone that
you saw, you did it because youenjoy doing it. And the people
in your circle knew about it andthey supported it and they loved
it because of that. So continueto do that, you know as

(01:14:17):
creatives don't psych yourselfinto believing that someone
else's success has to be yours.
Let your success be your own,and continue to pour into that.
Every success story that you'veheard. They all had to every
podcast had to start fromepisode one. If you notice, most
of the most successful podcastsunless they are a they were

(01:14:39):
already a celebrity. They are inthe ones now. They got like
these crazy backs. They're likean episode 300 something Yes,
yeah. 200 something 500 Maybe

more. Yeah,

maybe more than that. Yes. Didn't add one mm.
it. Okay, so don't just assumethat you know, outside of like I
said, just being a celebrity,you have to start at one, there
had to be the first McDonald's,there had to be the first
Wendy's there had to be you haveto start at one. So start at

(01:15:15):
your one, you know, start atyour one and make your way up to
your franchise

and enjoy the process as you're going along.
You know? Absolutely. And justdoing these interviews for me is
so fulfilling, because I'mlearning a lot. And I know if
I'm learning, people listening,I'm going to be learning,
someone's gonna appreciate it,and it's gonna help them. So,

yeah, but I hope so. I mean, yeah, I hope that
hope it wasn't too long winded,you know, I wanted to make sure
that I spoke in detail. So I

know, it was all valuable information. So no, it
was great. And I do have onemore question, though. What's
next for you? YUI. I love yourhashtag up, stay busy. So

next for me up, stay busy. So next for me is by
the time this probably airs, Iwill have my third child

congratulate.

Thank you. So you know, this will be something
I play back to my son. He'shere. But maybe maybe Leo is on
the way. Continued success withDesi banks is a big thing.
That's something I'm really,really excited about is, is
continuing to work with himcontinuing in the festival and
events world, I created afestival virtually called

(01:16:39):
advocate fests during thepandemic, pretty successful. And
I do want to, I want to bringthat to life, I want to burn it
to a physical entity. So that'ssomething that I want to do. I
do want to get to creating whereshows where I live, which is in
Las Vegas, I used to back in theday, and I want to kind of
really get back into doing that.
And then I think lastly is youknow, like I said, I want to

(01:17:02):
teach this, this is somethingthat I want to teach, I feel
like people need to know thatyou you can also work, you know,
working a nine to five is great,because it'll be your first
investor. Yeah, but, but, and inand also, we live in a world
where you just have to pay yourbills, you have to make sure
that you're taking care of butoutside of that your passions
and your purpose can be thingsthat can lead you to successes

(01:17:25):
that you've never even imagined.
And I want to be able to teachthat to creatives. And so if I
can hopefully put together thiscurriculum, I've never done it
before. But I'm going on youtubeUniversity to find out how cool
but put together thiscurriculum. I want to teach this
to people I want to teach thischaracter class, I want to teach

(01:17:46):
people how to do everything thatwe talked about, you know, in
this interview today, and yeah,I think those are the next
things for me, you know, justcontinuing to do cool things
work with great talent. I dowant to you know, do some of the
things I want to do mymanagement kind of career that I
want to continue to work on. Andand yeah, those are those are

(01:18:08):
some of the big things but yeah,I have some some really dope
blessings coming with Desi banksthis year. And I'm really
excited for those to come tofruition and and really excited
to meet my little guy, my newestlittle guy to try, you know,

little Leo. Oh my gosh, so many.

He's gonna have a lot of fun with John and
Zelaya, his, his, his olderbrother and sister and I'm
excited too. Excited to see you.

Thanks. Thank you so much for taking the time
to appear on creative space fordropping all this knowledge. And
yeah, this is such a greatepisode. And for more on UE, you
can follow him on Instagram atuse of YUI which I'll link down
below in the show notes. Andthank you so much for tuning in
and growing in creativity withus. I'd love to know what you

(01:18:59):
thought of today's episode. Whatyou found most interesting what
you found most helpful. You canreach out to me on social media
at Jennifer Logue or leavereview for creative space on
Apple podcasts so more peoplecan discover it. I appreciate
you so much for being here inthe beginning stages of this. My
name is Jennifer Logue andthanks for listening to this
episode of creative space. Untilnext time,

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Yusuf Muhammad of Veteran Freshman On Managing Desi Banks and Creating For a Living

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