August 6, 2025 • 40 mins
In this special Best Of episode, Jeffrey Sledge celebrates the first 25 episodes of Mixed and Mastered by revisiting three unforgettable moments that capture the soul of the series. From Faith Newman’s raw, hilarious, and inspiring stories of being one of the first five employees at Def Jam, to Joseph Patel’s emotional journey from Sundance to Oscar night (yes, that Oscars), to Grace Harry’s behind-the-scenes insight into managing Usher during a pivotal career transformation—these are the stories that show just how much grit, vision, and vulnerability it takes to shape the music industry from the inside.
If you've been riding with us, thank you. If you're just tuning in, this episode is the perfect place to start. Welcome to Mixed and Mastered.
Mixed and Mastered is produced and distributed by Merrick Studio, and hosted by music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to the discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @MixedandMasteredPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://mixedandmasteredpod.buzzsprout.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Jeffrey Sledge, and I just want to start by
saying thank you to each andevery one of you who has been
supporting these first 25episodes of Mixed and Mastered.
When we started this show, Iwanted to sit down with people I
respected and never got to heartheir side of the story Execs,
designers, producers, writers,people who have shaped the
culture with some of the biggestartists in music and the love
(00:23):
we've gotten back, man, it'sbeen overwhelming.
In the best way, you've let meknow that these conversations
matter and they resonate.
Recording these episodes havebeen so much fun Laughs inside
talk, old stories being droppedand hearing from my colleagues.
Today we've done something alittle different.
It wasn't easy, but I've pickedthree of the many moments that
(00:45):
have stuck with me, startingwith Faith Newman.
She takes us back to the wildearly days of Def Jam, where she
was one of the first fiveemployees.
Joseph Patel relives the chaosof the slap heard around the
world, which was the night hewon an Oscar.
And finally, grace Harry dropsthe story of stepping into
Usher's world and helping makehim the superstar that he is
(01:07):
today.
This is Mixed and Mastered Bestof.
Welcome to Mixed and Mastered, apodcast where the stories of
the music industry come to life.
I'm Jeffrey Sledge, bringingyou real conversations with the
people who have shaped the soundof music.
We're pulling back the curtainon what it takes to make it in
the music business.
(01:28):
These are the stories you won'thear anywhere else, told by the
people who live them.
This is Mixed in Master.
So how did you get to Def Jam?
You came up to be a student.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yes, I came up to be a student.
Yes, I came up to be a student,but you know, my goal was to be
in the music industry, you know, like not as an intern, but
full, you know, and I started by.
This is a weird story.
Ok, so I I modeled when I firstcame to New York.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And you know some print work, advertising stuff,
whatever.
And I did a show.
I did a fashion show at Studio54, which wasn't like it was in
the old days, but they werestill having events there and
this guy my mom was there withme.
And this guy comes up to meafterwards and he's like you
(02:27):
know, my name is steve kipico,I'm a music attorney, because,
oh, they had asked the girls whoare, who are in the show, what
they wanted to do with theirlife and I said I want to be in
the music business.
So he said, if you ever haveany questions or whatever you
know, come to me and I'll youknow.
And it wasn't like I didn't geta skeevy kind of vibe from him,
which turned out to be correct,cause he never was, because we
(02:51):
stayed friends for many years.
He got me an internship atselect records.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Wow, fred Mineo.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Fred Mineo.
So that was you know.
Whistle UTFO Real Roxanne.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Was Kidding Play there at the time.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Not yet.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Okay, they weren't there yet Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Okay, this was like.
This was like the summer of 86.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Okay, I want to say Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Um, so I did that, and then Steve, and then, and
then there's such weird stories.
I go to a party with Steve forBilly Ocean's Platinum Record
Party.
It was a Jive Records party.
(03:38):
And so Barry would have beenthere.
I don't know if Clive wouldhave been there.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And that's where I met gary harris.
And gary harris was, like youknow, we just started talking
about music and he was like Idon't even know, like where do
you come from?
Like you know, I don'tunderstand, who are you?
You know?
And um, he said you know, youshould, I I'm looking in.
My internship at Select isending, I'm looking to get
(04:06):
another internship, and hesuggested that I reach out to
his friend at Columbia Recordswho was doing promotion.
At the time.
I turned 21 and I had this bigparty and Houdini was there and
Run DMC was there and theBeastie Boys were there.
(04:28):
It was pretty awesome, yeah.
And so I started an internshipat Columbia Records, which was
very enlightening.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And now, who did you work under?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I worked under a woman named Gail Bruzwitz who
did a dance club promotion.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Okay, and just give me a little brief overview how
you liked it.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
You know, I stuffed envelopes and I kept my ears and
my eyes open.
Yeah, no, I mean the companywas run by, you know, white men
strictly, and women wererelegated to assistance or PR,
and Gail was the only woman inthe promotion department, and so
(05:13):
I can't even imagine what shehad to deal with.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
yeah, yeah, it was.
It was a different when I, whenI um, I left Wild Pitch and I
went to Chrysalis Records, whichwas Billy Idol and Pat Benatar,
and it was a pretty much a rocklabel yeah but it was the same
thing.
It was like white dudes.
It was the same thing rock androll like white dudes and the
women were assistants.
And there was a woman in PR andI still remember her name,
(05:37):
frances Pennington, becauseFrances actually was the guy
from Tia Sophia's girlfriend butit was the same energy that
that was the record business.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
back then it was like that was totally the record
business back then and I had todeal with getting hit on by the
you know the 40 something guysin the, you know, in the promo
department and he cause youremember you got to think that
those guys started out in theseventies, right, cause 86 is so
like 10 years apart from 76 andyou could just you know, like
(06:07):
they, whatever was going on back, that they carried it through
okay they're through exactly,and uh and walter yetnikoff had
actually just left when I gotthere, so I'm sure that would
have been interesting yeah, sotell me how you get from that to
now.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Let Let me tell the people, because I don't know if
you want to say this, but youwere one of the first five
employees of Def Jam Records.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That's, yes, that's literally insane.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
They're like no, you were there, you were like Crush,
groove or whatever.
Like you were literally thereat the beginning, like when all
that you know what they show inthe movie, like in the, from the
dorm room to the, to the thingand all that.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
You were like literally there for all of that,
so tell us about that um, so I,so you know, just to backtrack
real quick, I, you know, I, I myinternship was was ending with
with columbia, and my last daymy internship, gail took me in
her office and said you know, doyourself a favor and get out of
(07:07):
this business.
It's no place for women.
She was crying, I mean it's justlike she's like, they'll like
eat you alive, and you know?
Try to find something else todo with your life.
Wow, I'm like.
You know, I'm 20 years old.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I'll be, I'll be alright.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I'll be alright, don't worry about me, I got this
, I got this yeah you know so.
So then, like Steve camethrough again and he said look,
I have got you an interview withCharles Huggins at Hush
Productions.
Wow, interview with CharlesHuggins at Hush Productions wow,
charles and Bo Huggins.
(07:49):
Charles and Bo Huggins.
So I think it was to be anassistant to Hank Talbert.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I didn't know Hank Talbert and so I went.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I did the interview.
They wanted to hire me.
The day before I was supposedto go back to meet Charles.
Um, I came home from class youknow, I was still at NYU.
I came home from class.
There's a note on therefrigerator said Rick Rubin
called wow.
I was like.
(08:23):
I said to my roommate I waslike, is this a joke?
And he said no, I don't thinkso.
He said it sounded for real.
So I called the number slowlyand rick, you know how he has
that way of speaking.
He's like uh, hello.
And I'm like this is you know,faith Newman?
(08:45):
And you know I called.
He said yep, we need some morepeople at Def Jam and we want to
hire you.
I was like OK, you bet.
Ok, yeah, you know.
And he said do you want to knowhow much you're going to make?
I don't care, like OK you.
(09:06):
And he said do you want?
To know how much you're goingto make.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I don't care, I'm like, I'll pay you Exactly I was
broke, but I was like I'll payyou what was out.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
at that time, my dad sent me $50 a week.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That was like my Was LL out at that time Was the LL
out.
At that time Was that album out, the first album.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
The first album.
The first album, yeah, but theBeasties no the Beasties had
just put out License to Filmjust okay, wow, wow, that's
crazy and Public Enemy the firstalbum, the first album.
So it's funny.
So he's like well, come see meat the office and we can talk
(09:46):
about what you're going to bedoing and stuff.
And so I go see him and youknow he's like I was talking,
you know, because I was I wasalso, you know, club kid.
So I was at Black Quarter and Iwas at Union Square, I was at
Rooftop and I was at all thoseplaces and I used to go to Music
(10:06):
Factory to get my records.
And he was just like where's Igoing with this?
Oh yeah.
So I said I was talking aboutlike new hip hop stuff that was
coming out and he was like, yeah, I'm not really, I'm in a
different place right now.
I'm more into like rock stuffright now.
(10:26):
So that's what.
Like he, like we had already,like he was such a visionary I
gotta say I mean this was, youknow, this was early 87 and he
was already like moving on tolike Danzig and Slayer and all
the stuff that he was doing atthat time.
(10:47):
Wow, yeah, Wow.
So this was April of 87 and myfirst day at Def Jam was June
1st 1987.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And who were the other four employees?
Do you remember?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Sure yeah, dave Funkin Klein Dave.
That was my guy.
That was my guy, man I lovedhim.
George Solmers.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I didn't know him.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Bill Steffning, lindsay Williams.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
And Don Greco Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I didn't know her.
I know three out of the five.
Okay, so how was it likestarting a small label like that
?
That became obviously apowerhouse.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
It was amazing.
I mean, we worked in a shittylittle office like on the second
floor, 298 Elizabeth Street,which had no heat and no air
conditioning, and I wouldcomplain to Russell I'm like
it's so cold in here I don'tknow what to do.
He's like go home.
That was still Russell, yeah,but it was like the time of my
(11:58):
life.
I got to say it was funny,because people would come from
around the world to def jam um,and they would walk into our
little office and be like, oh,this is it yeah, right thinking
it's gonna be some big old likeconglomerate, you know rush rush
(12:19):
.
Management on the ground floorwas much more impressive than we
did.
Wow you.
It was like we shared desks andphones.
There weren't enough foreverybody.
Oh, did I mention GeorgeSolmers?
Speaker 1 (12:31):
You did.
I didn't know him.
What did he do?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Mention George.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
What did?
What did George do?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
George did like he did stuff with getting
sponsorships from late.
You know from troop did stuffwith getting sponsorships from
you know from Troop, from someskateboard company that I can't
remember the name of.
He did like that kind of stuff.
And Dave Klein did promotionand marketing stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So I'm thinking about my first experience at my first
record company job.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Did you even know kind of what you were doing, or
you were just kind of doing shit?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I just kind of did whatever needed to be done.
Exactly, and I remember none ofthe artists had signed up for
the PRO, so I took everybody ona field trip to ASCAP and got
them all signed up.
So even though they had moneyout there because they were in
sign up, yeah, yeah, yeah, theywere leaving money on the table,
so that was one thing that Idid.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Did that start your interest in publishing?
I'm sorry, did that?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
start your interest in publishing.
Actually, it did, it, did, itdid.
It was funny, I mean.
And the way you had to dothings back then in terms of
copyrights was like getting acassette and getting a lyric
sheet and mailing it to theLibrary of Congress.
I mean, you know, wow.
(14:08):
So I, I I remember like beingwith flav and I was doing don't
believe the hype.
And I was typing out the lyricsand he said, no, g, I can do it
.
And he's like, starts typingwith like one finger.
So great, yeah oh wow.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
No, let me ask a question.
What was your?
What were some of your favoriterecords during that period,
from from Def Jam and just ingeneral?
Do you remember?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Oh yeah, well, Slick Rick Great Adventures.
I mean, come on.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I used to have that record the other day.
Yeah, it still holds up.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It holds up Crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And PE, nation of Millions, just genius.
And then later on, you know,third base, like the cactus
album.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
LL when he did that.
Like I, you know I wasn't ahuge fan of Panther, but I
thought that mama said, knockyou out.
It was like a yeah, yeah, Iwasn't.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I wasn't a fan of the Panther album but there were a
couple of records on there.
I just thought like I stillremember that record fast peg.
Yeah, there was a couple ofrecords on there.
That was amazing, like as thealbum was kind of, but then.
But then you look backwards andit was kind of visionary.
You know, the album wasn'tgreat because he was working
with West coast people, right,so he was kind of you know, know
(15:31):
, pushing the line and doing it.
You know doing things thatpeople do now, like take for
granted, he was doing that backthen, you know right and and
marley turned everything around,so yeah which is great, because
I did a deal with him here, soit's all full circle full circle
.
I'm sure you got a lot of fullcircles I got a lot of full
circle moments give me.
Give me one before we move toColumbia and Nas and everything.
(15:51):
Give me one crazy Def Jam story.
I know you got a billion ofthem, but give me one that
doesn't incriminate anybody, orsomething like that, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Oh man, I might have to come back to you on that.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Okay, we can do it after, we can do it later.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, I'll come back to you.
I'm trying to think do it after, we can do it later.
Yeah, I'll come back to you.
I'm trying to think there's somany okay, yeah, fine.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
So as def jam started to grow like what was that like
watching you know this companythat you started, you said five
people and you guys have no airand no heat and it's cold and
it's probably mice in there andall kind of shit yeah to grow
into, like becoming what youknow become, come in a legit
powerhouse record label.
What was that?
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Um, for me it.
You know, I'm a purist and Ifelt like what?
What happened was is that Rickleft, as you know, he just moved
, he just said to me he wasgoing to LA one day and he never
came back, and so Russell wasmuch more interested in starting
(17:00):
a modeling agency and talkingabout a clothing line at that
point, and there was this powervacuum there at Def Jam.
And that's when Lior stepped in, and that was difficult for me
because we had the RushAssociated Labels situation
(17:20):
where everybody was getting alabel you want a label, you want
a label, you want a label andslapping the Def Jam logo on it.
And I thought that it was, youknow, diluting the label,
because if you went to MusicFactory or you went to Town
(17:42):
Records or you went wherever youknow, if you saw a Def Jam
label, you bought it.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Immediately.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Immediately, and that wasn't the case anymore and I
felt like we were becoming too,too big and too unwieldy and
that was kind of like you know,and when I made the decision,
yeah, I remember that erabecause that's kind of when I
started.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I mean, it was like so everybody got a label and it
was like bitches with problemsand it was like all these kind
of small kind of, or the um theafros and all this kind of stuff
and it was and it was cool, butit wasn't like.
It was like where's the heat?
You know the?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
heat.
Right, it wasn't it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It wasn't death jam anymore, right.
So after you leave death jam,where do you go next?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Columbia Records.
Right back to Columbia.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Full circle.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Full circle, not as an intern this time, but as an
A&R person.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
And we'll be right back, Ready to launch your
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And now back to our show.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I'm going to ask maybe a silly question, but I've
never met anybody else that wonan Oscar but you.
How does it feel to win anOscar, bro?
Speaker 6 (19:03):
Yeah, man, you know, never in my wildest dreams did I
think that was going to happen.
We never aimed for it, we neverthought it was possible, we
never talked about it.
And then, you know, we justwant to make a movie that we
loved and that we thought ourfriends would love and our
parents would love.
And we did, and then, and thenwe bring it to sundance.
I get I remember getting thecall it's going to sundance.
(19:24):
I'm like, oh my god, it's thegreatest day of my life.
A movie I I made is going toSundance Film Festival.
Then it's virtual that year.
Then we screen it, people loveit.
Then we win Sundance, not onlythe audience award but the grand
jury prize.
I'm like this is the best it'llever get.
And then, three days later,there's a bidding war between
(19:45):
Barack Obama's productioncompany and Netflix on one side,
and Hulu and and searchlight onthe other.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
What the hell is going on.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
And then we, we, we, we partner with, uh, with Hulu
and Disney and Onyx collectiveand searchlight.
They're like we're going to putit out in theaters, it's going
to be on Hulu.
I'm like this is the greatestthing in the world, this is the
greatest feeling in the world.
Movie comes out, people love it.
I'm waiting for the bad reviews.
There's no bad reviews.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Like people, you know it's still got like a 99% on
Rotten Tomatoes or something.
It's amazing.
There's no flaws.
Five micrometers, I would sayno, I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
I realize and I say this with all humility, like we,
because it came from a genuineplace I think it's one of the
best music documentaries evermade.
Right, because I think it's astory, for it hits on so many
different levels and it's a.
It's a.
It's a story about blackhistory and how black history is
American history.
It's also a story about memoryand the things that we remember
(20:46):
and the things that we cherishand like who gets to determine
what's remembered and what's not?
Right.
It's at different levels andnone of it was accidental.
It was very all of it was veryintentional.
It just it, just it just keptgetting better.
To get nominated for an oscar.
I cried.
My mom was up at like five inthe morning, her time and like
watching, and it just validatedso many.
(21:08):
You know my parents didn't wantme to do what I was doing.
I didn't understand it.
Suddenly, you're very proud.
Right, that came full circle.
Really getting to experiencethe whole thing with the mirror
was incredible because, like youknow, working with your musical
hero was like yeah, and then sothe oscars themselves.
And then what happened at theosars is insane.
(21:29):
Right, we were there.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
The.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
Will Smith slap.
That was our category.
That was Chris Rock presentingus the Oscar.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
That's crazy.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
And then the next day I hear Chris Rock say something
disparaging where he's like thewinner is Summer of Soul, amir
Questlove, thompson and fourwhite guys right, which is just
such a shitty thing to say when,like only a dozen people had
ever won oscar, south asianpeople had ever won oscars.
And he knew better, like youknow.
You know he knew better.
Yeah, he said.
(21:59):
He said the same joke on as onstage at the root show two
nights earlier.
I I, in hindsight I cut him alittle slack now because he
probably was traumatized in themoment, didn't know what to do
but, also fuck him yeahum, but in.
But you know, and the oscarprofessionally changes your life
, but real talk, it's.
It's great to be, it's greatthat it's happened.
(22:20):
I feel like I don't have toexplain myself now when I want a
meeting or in the roomsomewhere.
Yeah, um, the powers that be,like I can get any meeting that
I need to.
That's a really great um cardto have.
But, honestly, my, the thingthat makes me proudest is that
we made a great movie.
(22:41):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Like, really, it's nice to havethe oscar, it's nice to be in
the history books.
It's nice to never have toexplain my, my ability to
somebody ever again.
It frees me up to do the otherthings that I want to do.
Where's your trophy right now?
it's downstairs on a shelf youknow on where my record player
(23:05):
is?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
like yeah, I should have told you to bring it on.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
Yeah, I mean it used to be in the zoom shot because I
wanted to make sure no one evergot it twisted in a in a pitch
meeting.
But I moved recently so I'mstill a little still unpacked.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
It's organized, yeah but tell me, tell me how you got
from that accolade to doing thesly stone doc yeah, so sly also
amazing, thank you.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
Sly got announced after sundance, so before the
summer of soul even came out, Iread in hollywood reporter that
amir has signed up to direct asly the family stone documentary
.
And I call him up, I'm like yo,congrats, do you want me to
work on this with you?
And he's like yeah, of course.
And I'm like okay, cool, I needto be a part of the
conversation next time.
Yeah, I am not a hired handLike I am.
(23:53):
I'm part of the announcementnow.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
And I didn't know what I was going to do after
Summer of Soul.
I didn't know how this businessworked, so I didn't.
I didn't know Summer of Soulwas going to be that successful.
So I was like, yeah, I'd loveto do this.
It took a while to get thatproject started because we had
to sort of like I didn't workfor like a year.
Because what no one tells youis if your movie comes out and
it starts through the awardcircuit, you weren't expected to
(24:18):
promote it.
You don't get paid to do that.
That I'm doing sly promotion nowand it's taking away from the
thing I'm actually getting paidto do yeah so I spent a whole
year before we even started Sly,after it got announced, but
that was really because Amirwanted to do it and I didn't
know a lot about Sly.
I just knew the music reallythrough hip hop and what I heard
(24:40):
on the radio, but I didn't knowthe story.
And so, you know, I spent thefirst few months really just
trying to get some fluency abouthis story together.
And then the way Amir and Iwork is I, I ask him, we have a
conversation, what kind of storydo you want to tell?
And he kept talking about notonly you know so everyone knows
his ups and downs a slide story.
(25:01):
But like he's like how do weapproach it with some empathy?
And and then it's really thebigger idea is that you know.
And then it's really the biggeridea is that you know a lot of
(25:24):
these are a lot of black artistsin America have a unique burden
.
And he's like white audiences,white critics, the record label
power structure.
He's like he has no template,he has no one to follow, he's
doing it for the first time howsome of those same issues that
he dealt with had reverberatedin a decade since.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, I thought that was an interesting angle that
you guys took like the kind ofblack genius thing with him and
D'Angelo and Andre 3000, andlike people who get even Q-Tip.
You know, people kind of get tothat level and Prince, you know
, maybe we can go on and onMichael, we could mention 40 of
them and like you get to thatheight and like how do you do it
?
How do you do it?
(26:06):
It gets crazy.
And like you're, you're soremoved from who you were
because you're so high up theladder.
Now it's kind of like he wasn't.
The guy from the radio DJ fromSan Francisco was like way in a
in the fucking rear view mirror.
So yeah, that was.
It was a very and I was happythat you guys had tapes of him
(26:29):
being a radio DJ, cause I stilldon't know how many people knew
about that part of it and howhow influential he was when he
was doing that, you know.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
Yeah, and it's funny because, you know, if you think
about it, he's on the radioplaying black and white music
together and in a way he's sortof like seeding his audience
that he would play to us for hisband a few years later when Sly
and Family Stone comes out.
There's a whole bunch of peoplewho are primed to hear that
kind of mix of styles becausethey listen to him on the radio.
(27:00):
And you know, I think, Amir,you know we got D'Angelo and
Q-Tip and Shaka and Andre asproxies for Sly.
Yes, Because we couldn't talkto Sly.
He's alive, but just not in aplace where you should put him
on camera.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Not healthy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
And we wanted him to have his dignity right.
We didn't want to like hang himout there like that.
Yeah, that's what the wholemovie is about.
It's like this man has given usso much.
Let's just let him live inpeace, right?
But you know, d'angelo Amir wasa witness to D'Angelo facing
the pressure on the voodoo tourevery night, having to be in
(27:43):
perfect physical condition everynight so he could take his
shirt off and do how does itfeel to a room full of screaming
fans and how it got harder andharder for him to do that.
Andre, everyone wants him torap.
He did.
He saw what this did to otherpeople.
He says I don't want anythingto do with this, I'm off, off
the radar, don't think about meI'm gonna go play a flute in
japan.
You just walk around you knowwhat I mean in tokyo.
(28:04):
He has this line in the filmwhere he's like when you're
black and you're innovative,they may look at you like you're
odd, like can you imagine, likeyou know how many people call
q-tip gay back?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
in the day right or if you're just a little
different.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
They're like, oh, he's gay and that was like 20
years ago, 30 years ago, whenthe homophobia was at an
all-time high.
Now it's just just like oh,this dude's weird, or you're
alt-rap.
That's the thing, I think, thatBlack artists have had to deal
with in this country that otherartists haven't had to.
I think women have their ownunique issues.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Even with Nina Simone .
Now you look back at a lot ofthe things that she was fighting
for and talking about.
It makes fucking perfect senseyeah, isn't that crazy.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
You guys are trying to jerk her, and she wanted to
be respected and paid for herwork.
She wasn't a nut at all.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
And who's?
The other one for ourgeneration is Lauren, right,
right.
Lauren didn't participate inthe film, but when we were
making the film she had thatviral clip of her in la where
she's like do you know how hardit is for me to get prepared
mentally to come on stage everynight and perform for you?
And people took it out ofcontext, but her whole rant is
(29:20):
actually the theme of our film.
It's like you think you know?
Like yeah, it's, it's, it's aninteresting thing.
And then also, post oscar zamirwas like feeling guilty about
being successful, that wholeidea that success, like be
careful what you wish for.
I was a morse kind of thing,here he is.
(29:40):
He gets an oscar right out thegate his first documentary and
he's like is my band gonna treatme the same?
I feel bad that tariq wasn't apart of this.
This guy I've been with on myjourney for 30 years.
Like you know, are people gonnabe like, oh, that's just a
mirror being a mirror, you knowwhat I mean.
Like yeah, you know, that's hegot.
He ducked away after the oscarsfor a few months because I
(30:01):
couldn't get a hold of him,because he was just trying to
like reset and like deal withyeah yeah, so yeah, I think what
makes the thing that thatconnects both films is that I
think what amir and I are reallygood at is how do you tell a
very specific story thatactually resonates to a bigger
idea?
Speaker 1 (30:21):
yeah, and, and I think both these films are that
tell us, let's wrap it up andtell me about the next project
you're working on.
I know, bob, but you, you breakit down.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
Yeah, so we I'm not working with Amir on earth, wind
and fire, I didn't work withhim on SNL, but we're doing a J
Dilla documentary.
We've been trying to put ittogether for three years.
I am directing that one.
Amir is executive producingthat one.
Okay, it's based on Dilla Timeby Dan Charnas, our friend, yes,
(30:50):
very thoroughly researched book, very.
We just started about two weeksago, hope to be done by this
time next year, which will bethe 20th anniversary of Dilla's
death.
Wow, it's been 20 years, wow.
And really it's about how andit's a.
It's a passion project, butit's like you know, it's about
Dilla and what he did to musicand also why we celebrate him
(31:14):
more in death than in life, andalso it's about time.
It's about the way Dillamanipulated time, but also about
the way artists or the waypeople live their life when they
think they have all the time inthe world, and then what they
do when they realize they don'thave any time at all.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, the clock is, the sand is running out.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
I mean for me, covid was that right, I think.
During COVID I realized, oh,there's not a lot of time left.
Like you will not catch medoing anything, I don't want to
do anymore because time isvaluable.
Being here with you is becauseI wanted to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I appreciate it.
I wanted you on here.
I mean, you know, look at us,we got gray hair.
Now we're still rocking.
You know, man yo, I reallyappreciate this.
This is a great interview bro.
Yeah, thank you, yo, I reallyappreciate this.
This is a great interview bro.
Speaker 6 (32:06):
Yeah, thank you, man.
I appreciate you asking.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I feel like we could talk for five hours.
Honestly, I know we could, Iknow we could.
Speaker 6 (32:13):
Listen, I will say this I never thought I'd be in a
position where people wouldwant to hear my story and I'm
appreciative of it.
I'm appreciative of people wholearn lessons from it.
I spend a lot of my time postOscars, honestly mentoring
younger kids not even youngerlike, even like people my age
too.
You know I'm part of SophiaChang's mentorship program.
(32:34):
I'm part of Joey Badass'smentorship program.
You know I meet young SouthAsian filmmakers or creatives
and they ask for time.
I'll give them time because Ijust feel like, um I'm, I got
blessed.
It's a result of a lot of hardwork, but if I can make that
path a little easier for otherpeople, just by because no one
(32:56):
taught me about the industry, Ihad to find out on my own if I
can make that path easier forsomebody else.
So there's more time creatingand less time trying to figure
the bullshit out.
That's my purpose on here onthe planet, while I'm still here
.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
That's what sparked me doing this podcast.
Yeah, I think people that Iknow and respect, that I've had,
you know, success but maybeeven had the pivot, you know,
and kind of go here to figureout the next steps and
everything, and hopefully peoplelistening will hear these
stories and be like, oh okay,and oh, that's the guy who did
(33:34):
the slide, doc.
You know, like that's the wholepoint of this.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
I can't wait until it flips around and someone gets
to interview you, because I knowyou got stories.
Yeah, I got some stories andactually one story you told me
has never left me.
I remember you told me thestory of when you signed the
pack and you were like I'm theguy that signed Tribe Called
Quest, and they're like who?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Who, who the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 6 (33:59):
And I will always remember that story because it
taught me it was one of thethings that taught me that
something dreamhampton taught mea long time ago hip-hop is
whatever little black and brownkids say, it is.
Yes, they are not tied to yourhistory, they are making their
own making their own.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
You can't fight it.
You can't be like yo, hot, likeI remember.
Um, we'll wrap it up.
I remember a couple months agopeople were on kai sanat because
he didn't know who Big Pun was.
Right, I'm like he's 22.
Yeah, you can't be mad at thatdude.
He's been dead about that long,sadly, like he might not know,
he's a kid, he's a child, andwhat hip-hop is for him is, you
(34:38):
know, drake and Playboi, cartiand whatever's popping now?
It's not Biggie, it's notBiggie, it's not Biggie man.
Yeah, no, and I can't be mad athim for it not being that for
him and his generation.
Yeah, and we'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
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Speaker 1 (35:12):
So what now?
Was that your last industry job?
Def Jam correct.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
So what had happened was this everyone was so
obsessed with artists at thatplace that's the one thing we
signed Janet Jackson anddifferent people and Mariah and
I ended up doing a lot ofprojects that weren't so fun and
I was just starting to gettired.
And my team.
Now, because I was talking somuch, she grew and I was now the
EVP of creative marketing anddigital and I really had no
business doing marketing at allbecause I really didn't know it.
(35:40):
I'm not good at that.
You have to be a verydetail-oriented person, but I
could.
Also, I hired Karen Veazey andsome other people, but by that
point, maybe I wasn't fuckingthe right people.
So everything I did started tobe bad.
So now I'm in these marketingmeetings where I'm getting
slaughtered by LA Like it wasbrutal.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I've heard about those meetings.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
But literally like slaughtered, and so I was
getting sick and tired of it.
I'd had some complicated thingswhere people had crossed the
boundaries with me in ways thatwere not okay.
So I was already pissed.
And then my love Shakir waslike battling a lot of stuff.
The way he was being handledwas disgusting.
So when he took his life, I hadsome very strongly worded
conversations and I was out andat the same time there was this
(36:21):
artist who, whatever, but hebrought in this kid he'd signed
and this kid was 14.
His name was Justin Bieber.
So, and he brought this manager, scooter Braun, and I wasn't
going to just trick out moneythis is not the 90s, like.
I didn't operate that way.
The way I operate with all newartists, as you know, is I'm
going to take a tiny budget, I'mgoing to do some small things
(36:43):
and see where we go.
So I wanted to do a video and aphoto shoot for Justin Bieber
to see what he needed.
Does he need training, does heneed whatever?
And Usher was furious and wasbattling me about it and I think
Scooter was more open to kindof this.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Justin was signed to Usher at this time, correct?
Speaker 5 (36:57):
And signed now to Island Def Jam Mercury.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
To Def Jam.
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
I think to Island, actually, okay, to Island
Mercury, but I ran the creatorfor all Island Def Jam and
Mercury group Mm-hmm.
When that whole thing happened,I started working very closely
with Scudo and Usher and Usher'scareer was not going so well at
the time.
It was post-Tamika.
He made a lot of stances.
He was a little bit ahead ofhis time in that now it is so
(37:24):
cool to be about a relationship.
Then it wasn't.
He was a heartthrob.
It was weird.
He did that weird tear-offthing and he kept asking me to
help him and I was like I have acontract, I cannot be helping
you.
And frankly, I'm not a fan.
You know I'm not.
I know I like two songs.
He took my iPod.
At the moment I had two songson there Love in the Club and
(37:45):
you Got a Bad.
That was it.
But then when Shakir passed, Isaid to him and Ciara and I
because at one point Rihanna wasblowing up and she really
needed dedication and there wasa lot of people who had the
Chris Lighty thing where I onlytalked to the head, which I'm
not about that Talk to him isthe best person.
So I had Mariah and Jay andJanet and Kanye.
(38:06):
It was a lot.
At the same time I think it'sstrong.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
That's a lot.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
I introduced Rihanna and Ciara and there's a girl who
was doing the Justin Bieberstuff, gabrielle Schwartz and I
was like I think you two wouldbe the best Rihanna team and put
them together.
So now me and Ciara are goingto form a company to work with
Usher possibly Kanye in someconversations and Usher.
(38:34):
So I started this littlecompany, we started a company
called Pire and we started doingthings with them.
But I couldn't have imaginedhow much work that was going to
be.
So I was working with LionelRich maybe at the time, and I
met Randy who was his manager,and he was bragging.
He had another carve-out and Irealized that what Janetta did
with Usher at the time was tryto bring his touring back to
females and did it for aladies-only tour and that was
wonderful in concept.
But you know how touring is.
(38:55):
So once you're a stadium orarena, if you go to theater, the
promoters think you're theater.
So I had this challenge now.
So I brought Randy in.
I was going to just kind ofhelp, you know, and now there
was some funny businesshappening.
So I'm kind of like agirlfriend-ish, so I was trying
to just not be in the thick ofit, and so Randy came in and
that was fantastic, but itneeded so much more.
I just didn't know.
(39:16):
I was so inexperienced I had noidea.
I think not knowing really whatmanagement really needed was
good for me at the time.
And then I went into fullmanagement when Usher and Mandy
just imploded and that was hardand I did a kick-ass job.
I told you I called Barry.
Barry had always been achampion of mine and I called
(39:37):
him about this opportunity andhe shit all over my dream.
He's like no, you're not goingto be a good manager, don't do
this.
And that fueled the shit out ofme and I was like I'm going to
make this happen.
And that changed his filmbusiness, got him in movies.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
The voice you know rearranged helped him figure out
how to start writing songs.
Climax is the first song hereally wrote, west and Salon
Remy and you know his style outof that for multiple years.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
You really did a great job at really reinventing
his, reinventing him.
You can catch Mixed andMastered on Apple Podcasts,
spotify, iheart or wherever youget your podcasts.
Hit that follow button, leave areview and tell a friend I'm
your host, jeffrey Sledge.
Mixed and Mastered is producedand distributed by Merrick
(40:25):
Studios.
It's Jeffrey Sledge, and I just want to start by
saying thank you to each andevery one of you who has been
supporting these first 25episodes of Mixed and Mastered.
When we started this show, Iwanted to sit down with people I
respected and never got to heartheir side of the story Execs,
designers, producers, writers,people who have shaped the
culture with some of the biggestartists in music and the love
(00:23):
we've gotten back, man, it'sbeen overwhelming.
In the best way, you've let meknow that these conversations
matter and they resonate.
Recording these episodes havebeen so much fun Laughs inside
talk, old stories being droppedand hearing from my colleagues.
Today we've done something alittle different.
It wasn't easy, but I've pickedthree of the many moments that
(00:45):
have stuck with me, startingwith Faith Newman.
She takes us back to the wildearly days of Def Jam, where she
was one of the first fiveemployees.
Joseph Patel relives the chaosof the slap heard around the
world, which was the night hewon an Oscar.
And finally, grace Harry dropsthe story of stepping into
Usher's world and helping makehim the superstar that he is
(01:07):
today.
This is Mixed and Mastered Bestof.
Welcome to Mixed and Mastered, apodcast where the stories of
the music industry come to life.
I'm Jeffrey Sledge, bringingyou real conversations with the
people who have shaped the soundof music.
We're pulling back the curtainon what it takes to make it in
the music business.
(01:28):
These are the stories you won'thear anywhere else, told by the
people who live them.
This is Mixed in Master.
So how did you get to Def Jam?
You came up to be a student.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yes, I came up to be a student.
Yes, I came up to be a student,but you know, my goal was to be
in the music industry, you know, like not as an intern, but
full, you know, and I started by.
This is a weird story.
Ok, so I I modeled when I firstcame to New York.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And you know some print work, advertising stuff,
whatever.
And I did a show.
I did a fashion show at Studio54, which wasn't like it was in
the old days, but they werestill having events there and
this guy my mom was there withme.
And this guy comes up to meafterwards and he's like you
(02:27):
know, my name is steve kipico,I'm a music attorney, because,
oh, they had asked the girls whoare, who are in the show, what
they wanted to do with theirlife and I said I want to be in
the music business.
So he said, if you ever haveany questions or whatever you
know, come to me and I'll youknow.
And it wasn't like I didn't geta skeevy kind of vibe from him,
which turned out to be correct,cause he never was, because we
(02:51):
stayed friends for many years.
He got me an internship atselect records.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Wow, fred Mineo.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Fred Mineo.
So that was you know.
Whistle UTFO Real Roxanne.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Was Kidding Play there at the time.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Not yet.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Okay, they weren't there yet Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Okay, this was like.
This was like the summer of 86.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Okay, I want to say Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Um, so I did that, and then Steve, and then, and
then there's such weird stories.
I go to a party with Steve forBilly Ocean's Platinum Record
Party.
It was a Jive Records party.
(03:38):
And so Barry would have beenthere.
I don't know if Clive wouldhave been there.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And that's where I met gary harris.
And gary harris was, like youknow, we just started talking
about music and he was like Idon't even know, like where do
you come from?
Like you know, I don'tunderstand, who are you?
You know?
And um, he said you know, youshould, I I'm looking in.
My internship at Select isending, I'm looking to get
(04:06):
another internship, and hesuggested that I reach out to
his friend at Columbia Recordswho was doing promotion.
At the time.
I turned 21 and I had this bigparty and Houdini was there and
Run DMC was there and theBeastie Boys were there.
(04:28):
It was pretty awesome, yeah.
And so I started an internshipat Columbia Records, which was
very enlightening.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And now, who did you work under?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I worked under a woman named Gail Bruzwitz who
did a dance club promotion.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Okay, and just give me a little brief overview how
you liked it.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
You know, I stuffed envelopes and I kept my ears and
my eyes open.
Yeah, no, I mean the companywas run by, you know, white men
strictly, and women wererelegated to assistance or PR,
and Gail was the only woman inthe promotion department, and so
(05:13):
I can't even imagine what shehad to deal with.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
yeah, yeah, it was.
It was a different when I, whenI um, I left Wild Pitch and I
went to Chrysalis Records, whichwas Billy Idol and Pat Benatar,
and it was a pretty much a rocklabel yeah but it was the same
thing.
It was like white dudes.
It was the same thing rock androll like white dudes and the
women were assistants.
And there was a woman in PR andI still remember her name,
(05:37):
frances Pennington, becauseFrances actually was the guy
from Tia Sophia's girlfriend butit was the same energy that
that was the record business.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
back then it was like that was totally the record
business back then and I had todeal with getting hit on by the
you know the 40 something guysin the, you know, in the promo
department and he cause youremember you got to think that
those guys started out in theseventies, right, cause 86 is so
like 10 years apart from 76 andyou could just you know, like
(06:07):
they, whatever was going on back, that they carried it through
okay they're through exactly,and uh and walter yetnikoff had
actually just left when I gotthere, so I'm sure that would
have been interesting yeah, sotell me how you get from that to
now.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Let Let me tell the people, because I don't know if
you want to say this, but youwere one of the first five
employees of Def Jam Records.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That's, yes, that's literally insane.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
They're like no, you were there, you were like Crush,
groove or whatever.
Like you were literally thereat the beginning, like when all
that you know what they show inthe movie, like in the, from the
dorm room to the, to the thingand all that.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
You were like literally there for all of that,
so tell us about that um, so I,so you know, just to backtrack
real quick, I, you know, I, I myinternship was was ending with
with columbia, and my last daymy internship, gail took me in
her office and said you know, doyourself a favor and get out of
(07:07):
this business.
It's no place for women.
She was crying, I mean it's justlike she's like, they'll like
eat you alive, and you know?
Try to find something else todo with your life.
Wow, I'm like.
You know, I'm 20 years old.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I'll be, I'll be alright.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I'll be alright, don't worry about me, I got this
, I got this yeah you know so.
So then, like Steve camethrough again and he said look,
I have got you an interview withCharles Huggins at Hush
Productions.
Wow, interview with CharlesHuggins at Hush Productions wow,
charles and Bo Huggins.
(07:49):
Charles and Bo Huggins.
So I think it was to be anassistant to Hank Talbert.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I didn't know Hank Talbert and so I went.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I did the interview.
They wanted to hire me.
The day before I was supposedto go back to meet Charles.
Um, I came home from class youknow, I was still at NYU.
I came home from class.
There's a note on therefrigerator said Rick Rubin
called wow.
I was like.
(08:23):
I said to my roommate I waslike, is this a joke?
And he said no, I don't thinkso.
He said it sounded for real.
So I called the number slowlyand rick, you know how he has
that way of speaking.
He's like uh, hello.
And I'm like this is you know,faith Newman?
(08:45):
And you know I called.
He said yep, we need some morepeople at Def Jam and we want to
hire you.
I was like OK, you bet.
Ok, yeah, you know.
And he said do you want to knowhow much you're going to make?
I don't care, like OK you.
(09:06):
And he said do you want?
To know how much you're goingto make.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I don't care, I'm like, I'll pay you Exactly I was
broke, but I was like I'll payyou what was out.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
at that time, my dad sent me $50 a week.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That was like my Was LL out at that time Was the LL
out.
At that time Was that album out, the first album.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
The first album.
The first album, yeah, but theBeasties no the Beasties had
just put out License to Filmjust okay, wow, wow, that's
crazy and Public Enemy the firstalbum, the first album.
So it's funny.
So he's like well, come see meat the office and we can talk
(09:46):
about what you're going to bedoing and stuff.
And so I go see him and youknow he's like I was talking,
you know, because I was I wasalso, you know, club kid.
So I was at Black Quarter and Iwas at Union Square, I was at
Rooftop and I was at all thoseplaces and I used to go to Music
(10:06):
Factory to get my records.
And he was just like where's Igoing with this?
Oh yeah.
So I said I was talking aboutlike new hip hop stuff that was
coming out and he was like, yeah, I'm not really, I'm in a
different place right now.
I'm more into like rock stuffright now.
(10:26):
So that's what.
Like he, like we had already,like he was such a visionary I
gotta say I mean this was, youknow, this was early 87 and he
was already like moving on tolike Danzig and Slayer and all
the stuff that he was doing atthat time.
(10:47):
Wow, yeah, Wow.
So this was April of 87 and myfirst day at Def Jam was June
1st 1987.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And who were the other four employees?
Do you remember?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Sure yeah, dave Funkin Klein Dave.
That was my guy.
That was my guy, man I lovedhim.
George Solmers.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I didn't know him.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Bill Steffning, lindsay Williams.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
And Don Greco Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I didn't know her.
I know three out of the five.
Okay, so how was it likestarting a small label like that
?
That became obviously apowerhouse.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
It was amazing.
I mean, we worked in a shittylittle office like on the second
floor, 298 Elizabeth Street,which had no heat and no air
conditioning, and I wouldcomplain to Russell I'm like
it's so cold in here I don'tknow what to do.
He's like go home.
That was still Russell, yeah,but it was like the time of my
(11:58):
life.
I got to say it was funny,because people would come from
around the world to def jam um,and they would walk into our
little office and be like, oh,this is it yeah, right thinking
it's gonna be some big old likeconglomerate, you know rush rush
(12:19):
.
Management on the ground floorwas much more impressive than we
did.
Wow you.
It was like we shared desks andphones.
There weren't enough foreverybody.
Oh, did I mention GeorgeSolmers?
Speaker 1 (12:31):
You did.
I didn't know him.
What did he do?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Mention George.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
What did?
What did George do?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
George did like he did stuff with getting
sponsorships from late.
You know from troop did stuffwith getting sponsorships from
you know from Troop, from someskateboard company that I can't
remember the name of.
He did like that kind of stuff.
And Dave Klein did promotionand marketing stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So I'm thinking about my first experience at my first
record company job.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Did you even know kind of what you were doing, or
you were just kind of doing shit?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I just kind of did whatever needed to be done.
Exactly, and I remember none ofthe artists had signed up for
the PRO, so I took everybody ona field trip to ASCAP and got
them all signed up.
So even though they had moneyout there because they were in
sign up, yeah, yeah, yeah, theywere leaving money on the table,
so that was one thing that Idid.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Did that start your interest in publishing?
I'm sorry, did that?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
start your interest in publishing.
Actually, it did, it, did, itdid.
It was funny, I mean.
And the way you had to dothings back then in terms of
copyrights was like getting acassette and getting a lyric
sheet and mailing it to theLibrary of Congress.
I mean, you know, wow.
(14:08):
So I, I I remember like beingwith flav and I was doing don't
believe the hype.
And I was typing out the lyricsand he said, no, g, I can do it
.
And he's like, starts typingwith like one finger.
So great, yeah oh wow.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
No, let me ask a question.
What was your?
What were some of your favoriterecords during that period,
from from Def Jam and just ingeneral?
Do you remember?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Oh yeah, well, Slick Rick Great Adventures.
I mean, come on.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I used to have that record the other day.
Yeah, it still holds up.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It holds up Crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And PE, nation of Millions, just genius.
And then later on, you know,third base, like the cactus
album.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
LL when he did that.
Like I, you know I wasn't ahuge fan of Panther, but I
thought that mama said, knockyou out.
It was like a yeah, yeah, Iwasn't.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I wasn't a fan of the Panther album but there were a
couple of records on there.
I just thought like I stillremember that record fast peg.
Yeah, there was a couple ofrecords on there.
That was amazing, like as thealbum was kind of, but then.
But then you look backwards andit was kind of visionary.
You know, the album wasn'tgreat because he was working
with West coast people, right,so he was kind of you know, know
(15:31):
, pushing the line and doing it.
You know doing things thatpeople do now, like take for
granted, he was doing that backthen, you know right and and
marley turned everything around,so yeah which is great, because
I did a deal with him here, soit's all full circle full circle
.
I'm sure you got a lot of fullcircles I got a lot of full
circle moments give me.
Give me one before we move toColumbia and Nas and everything.
(15:51):
Give me one crazy Def Jam story.
I know you got a billion ofthem, but give me one that
doesn't incriminate anybody, orsomething like that, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Oh man, I might have to come back to you on that.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Okay, we can do it after, we can do it later.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, I'll come back to you.
I'm trying to think do it after, we can do it later.
Yeah, I'll come back to you.
I'm trying to think there's somany okay, yeah, fine.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
So as def jam started to grow like what was that like
watching you know this companythat you started, you said five
people and you guys have no airand no heat and it's cold and
it's probably mice in there andall kind of shit yeah to grow
into, like becoming what youknow become, come in a legit
powerhouse record label.
What was that?
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Um, for me it.
You know, I'm a purist and Ifelt like what?
What happened was is that Rickleft, as you know, he just moved
, he just said to me he wasgoing to LA one day and he never
came back, and so Russell wasmuch more interested in starting
(17:00):
a modeling agency and talkingabout a clothing line at that
point, and there was this powervacuum there at Def Jam.
And that's when Lior stepped in, and that was difficult for me
because we had the RushAssociated Labels situation
(17:20):
where everybody was getting alabel you want a label, you want
a label, you want a label andslapping the Def Jam logo on it.
And I thought that it was, youknow, diluting the label,
because if you went to MusicFactory or you went to Town
(17:42):
Records or you went wherever youknow, if you saw a Def Jam
label, you bought it.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Immediately.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Immediately, and that wasn't the case anymore and I
felt like we were becoming too,too big and too unwieldy and
that was kind of like you know,and when I made the decision,
yeah, I remember that erabecause that's kind of when I
started.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I mean, it was like so everybody got a label and it
was like bitches with problemsand it was like all these kind
of small kind of, or the um theafros and all this kind of stuff
and it was and it was cool, butit wasn't like.
It was like where's the heat?
You know the?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
heat.
Right, it wasn't it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It wasn't death jam anymore, right.
So after you leave death jam,where do you go next?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Columbia Records.
Right back to Columbia.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Full circle.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Full circle, not as an intern this time, but as an
A&R person.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
And we'll be right back, Ready to launch your
podcast.
Merrick Studios offerscomprehensive services, from
concept development and seamlessproduction to strategic
marketing and monetization.
Let your story take the micVisit MerrickCreativecom slash
studios and let's get to work.
Let your story take the micVisit meritcreativecom slash
studios and let's get to work.
And now back to our show.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I'm going to ask maybe a silly question, but I've
never met anybody else that wonan Oscar but you.
How does it feel to win anOscar, bro?
Speaker 6 (19:03):
Yeah, man, you know, never in my wildest dreams did I
think that was going to happen.
We never aimed for it, we neverthought it was possible, we
never talked about it.
And then, you know, we justwant to make a movie that we
loved and that we thought ourfriends would love and our
parents would love.
And we did, and then, and thenwe bring it to sundance.
I get I remember getting thecall it's going to sundance.
(19:24):
I'm like, oh my god, it's thegreatest day of my life.
A movie I I made is going toSundance Film Festival.
Then it's virtual that year.
Then we screen it, people loveit.
Then we win Sundance, not onlythe audience award but the grand
jury prize.
I'm like this is the best it'llever get.
And then, three days later,there's a bidding war between
(19:45):
Barack Obama's productioncompany and Netflix on one side,
and Hulu and and searchlight onthe other.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
What the hell is going on.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
And then we, we, we, we partner with, uh, with Hulu
and Disney and Onyx collectiveand searchlight.
They're like we're going to putit out in theaters, it's going
to be on Hulu.
I'm like this is the greatestthing in the world, this is the
greatest feeling in the world.
Movie comes out, people love it.
I'm waiting for the bad reviews.
There's no bad reviews.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Like people, you know it's still got like a 99% on
Rotten Tomatoes or something.
It's amazing.
There's no flaws.
Five micrometers, I would sayno, I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
I realize and I say this with all humility, like we,
because it came from a genuineplace I think it's one of the
best music documentaries evermade.
Right, because I think it's astory, for it hits on so many
different levels and it's a.
It's a.
It's a story about blackhistory and how black history is
American history.
It's also a story about memoryand the things that we remember
(20:46):
and the things that we cherishand like who gets to determine
what's remembered and what's not?
Right.
It's at different levels andnone of it was accidental.
It was very all of it was veryintentional.
It just it, just it just keptgetting better.
To get nominated for an oscar.
I cried.
My mom was up at like five inthe morning, her time and like
watching, and it just validatedso many.
(21:08):
You know my parents didn't wantme to do what I was doing.
I didn't understand it.
Suddenly, you're very proud.
Right, that came full circle.
Really getting to experiencethe whole thing with the mirror
was incredible because, like youknow, working with your musical
hero was like yeah, and then sothe oscars themselves.
And then what happened at theosars is insane.
(21:29):
Right, we were there.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
The.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
Will Smith slap.
That was our category.
That was Chris Rock presentingus the Oscar.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
That's crazy.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
And then the next day I hear Chris Rock say something
disparaging where he's like thewinner is Summer of Soul, amir
Questlove, thompson and fourwhite guys right, which is just
such a shitty thing to say when,like only a dozen people had
ever won oscar, south asianpeople had ever won oscars.
And he knew better, like youknow.
You know he knew better.
Yeah, he said.
(21:59):
He said the same joke on as onstage at the root show two
nights earlier.
I I, in hindsight I cut him alittle slack now because he
probably was traumatized in themoment, didn't know what to do
but, also fuck him yeahum, but in.
But you know, and the oscarprofessionally changes your life
, but real talk, it's.
It's great to be, it's greatthat it's happened.
(22:20):
I feel like I don't have toexplain myself now when I want a
meeting or in the roomsomewhere.
Yeah, um, the powers that be,like I can get any meeting that
I need to.
That's a really great um cardto have.
But, honestly, my, the thingthat makes me proudest is that
we made a great movie.
(22:41):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Like, really, it's nice to havethe oscar, it's nice to be in
the history books.
It's nice to never have toexplain my, my ability to
somebody ever again.
It frees me up to do the otherthings that I want to do.
Where's your trophy right now?
it's downstairs on a shelf youknow on where my record player
(23:05):
is?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
like yeah, I should have told you to bring it on.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
Yeah, I mean it used to be in the zoom shot because I
wanted to make sure no one evergot it twisted in a in a pitch
meeting.
But I moved recently so I'mstill a little still unpacked.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
It's organized, yeah but tell me, tell me how you got
from that accolade to doing thesly stone doc yeah, so sly also
amazing, thank you.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
Sly got announced after sundance, so before the
summer of soul even came out, Iread in hollywood reporter that
amir has signed up to direct asly the family stone documentary
.
And I call him up, I'm like yo,congrats, do you want me to
work on this with you?
And he's like yeah, of course.
And I'm like okay, cool, I needto be a part of the
conversation next time.
Yeah, I am not a hired handLike I am.
(23:53):
I'm part of the announcementnow.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
And I didn't know what I was going to do after
Summer of Soul.
I didn't know how this businessworked, so I didn't.
I didn't know Summer of Soulwas going to be that successful.
So I was like, yeah, I'd loveto do this.
It took a while to get thatproject started because we had
to sort of like I didn't workfor like a year.
Because what no one tells youis if your movie comes out and
it starts through the awardcircuit, you weren't expected to
(24:18):
promote it.
You don't get paid to do that.
That I'm doing sly promotion nowand it's taking away from the
thing I'm actually getting paidto do yeah so I spent a whole
year before we even started Sly,after it got announced, but
that was really because Amirwanted to do it and I didn't
know a lot about Sly.
I just knew the music reallythrough hip hop and what I heard
(24:40):
on the radio, but I didn't knowthe story.
And so, you know, I spent thefirst few months really just
trying to get some fluency abouthis story together.
And then the way Amir and Iwork is I, I ask him, we have a
conversation, what kind of storydo you want to tell?
And he kept talking about notonly you know so everyone knows
his ups and downs a slide story.
(25:01):
But like he's like how do weapproach it with some empathy?
And and then it's really thebigger idea is that you know.
And then it's really the biggeridea is that you know a lot of
(25:24):
these are a lot of black artistsin America have a unique burden
.
And he's like white audiences,white critics, the record label
power structure.
He's like he has no template,he has no one to follow, he's
doing it for the first time howsome of those same issues that
he dealt with had reverberatedin a decade since.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, I thought that was an interesting angle that
you guys took like the kind ofblack genius thing with him and
D'Angelo and Andre 3000, andlike people who get even Q-Tip.
You know, people kind of get tothat level and Prince, you know
, maybe we can go on and onMichael, we could mention 40 of
them and like you get to thatheight and like how do you do it
?
How do you do it?
(26:06):
It gets crazy.
And like you're, you're soremoved from who you were
because you're so high up theladder.
Now it's kind of like he wasn't.
The guy from the radio DJ fromSan Francisco was like way in a
in the fucking rear view mirror.
So yeah, that was.
It was a very and I was happythat you guys had tapes of him
(26:29):
being a radio DJ, cause I stilldon't know how many people knew
about that part of it and howhow influential he was when he
was doing that, you know.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
Yeah, and it's funny because, you know, if you think
about it, he's on the radioplaying black and white music
together and in a way he's sortof like seeding his audience
that he would play to us for hisband a few years later when Sly
and Family Stone comes out.
There's a whole bunch of peoplewho are primed to hear that
kind of mix of styles becausethey listen to him on the radio.
(27:00):
And you know, I think, Amir,you know we got D'Angelo and
Q-Tip and Shaka and Andre asproxies for Sly.
Yes, Because we couldn't talkto Sly.
He's alive, but just not in aplace where you should put him
on camera.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Not healthy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
And we wanted him to have his dignity right.
We didn't want to like hang himout there like that.
Yeah, that's what the wholemovie is about.
It's like this man has given usso much.
Let's just let him live inpeace, right?
But you know, d'angelo Amir wasa witness to D'Angelo facing
the pressure on the voodoo tourevery night, having to be in
(27:43):
perfect physical condition everynight so he could take his
shirt off and do how does itfeel to a room full of screaming
fans and how it got harder andharder for him to do that.
Andre, everyone wants him torap.
He did.
He saw what this did to otherpeople.
He says I don't want anythingto do with this, I'm off, off
the radar, don't think about meI'm gonna go play a flute in
japan.
You just walk around you knowwhat I mean in tokyo.
(28:04):
He has this line in the filmwhere he's like when you're
black and you're innovative,they may look at you like you're
odd, like can you imagine, likeyou know how many people call
q-tip gay back?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
in the day right or if you're just a little
different.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
They're like, oh, he's gay and that was like 20
years ago, 30 years ago, whenthe homophobia was at an
all-time high.
Now it's just just like oh,this dude's weird, or you're
alt-rap.
That's the thing, I think, thatBlack artists have had to deal
with in this country that otherartists haven't had to.
I think women have their ownunique issues.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Even with Nina Simone .
Now you look back at a lot ofthe things that she was fighting
for and talking about.
It makes fucking perfect senseyeah, isn't that crazy.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
You guys are trying to jerk her, and she wanted to
be respected and paid for herwork.
She wasn't a nut at all.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
And who's?
The other one for ourgeneration is Lauren, right,
right.
Lauren didn't participate inthe film, but when we were
making the film she had thatviral clip of her in la where
she's like do you know how hardit is for me to get prepared
mentally to come on stage everynight and perform for you?
And people took it out ofcontext, but her whole rant is
(29:20):
actually the theme of our film.
It's like you think you know?
Like yeah, it's, it's, it's aninteresting thing.
And then also, post oscar zamirwas like feeling guilty about
being successful, that wholeidea that success, like be
careful what you wish for.
I was a morse kind of thing,here he is.
(29:40):
He gets an oscar right out thegate his first documentary and
he's like is my band gonna treatme the same?
I feel bad that tariq wasn't apart of this.
This guy I've been with on myjourney for 30 years.
Like you know, are people gonnabe like, oh, that's just a
mirror being a mirror, you knowwhat I mean.
Like yeah, you know, that's hegot.
He ducked away after the oscarsfor a few months because I
(30:01):
couldn't get a hold of him,because he was just trying to
like reset and like deal withyeah yeah, so yeah, I think what
makes the thing that thatconnects both films is that I
think what amir and I are reallygood at is how do you tell a
very specific story thatactually resonates to a bigger
idea?
Speaker 1 (30:21):
yeah, and, and I think both these films are that
tell us, let's wrap it up andtell me about the next project
you're working on.
I know, bob, but you, you breakit down.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
Yeah, so we I'm not working with Amir on earth, wind
and fire, I didn't work withhim on SNL, but we're doing a J
Dilla documentary.
We've been trying to put ittogether for three years.
I am directing that one.
Amir is executive producingthat one.
Okay, it's based on Dilla Timeby Dan Charnas, our friend, yes,
(30:50):
very thoroughly researched book, very.
We just started about two weeksago, hope to be done by this
time next year, which will bethe 20th anniversary of Dilla's
death.
Wow, it's been 20 years, wow.
And really it's about how andit's a.
It's a passion project, butit's like you know, it's about
Dilla and what he did to musicand also why we celebrate him
(31:14):
more in death than in life, andalso it's about time.
It's about the way Dillamanipulated time, but also about
the way artists or the waypeople live their life when they
think they have all the time inthe world, and then what they
do when they realize they don'thave any time at all.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, the clock is, the sand is running out.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
I mean for me, covid was that right, I think.
During COVID I realized, oh,there's not a lot of time left.
Like you will not catch medoing anything, I don't want to
do anymore because time isvaluable.
Being here with you is becauseI wanted to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I appreciate it.
I wanted you on here.
I mean, you know, look at us,we got gray hair.
Now we're still rocking.
You know, man yo, I reallyappreciate this.
This is a great interview bro.
Yeah, thank you, yo, I reallyappreciate this.
This is a great interview bro.
Speaker 6 (32:06):
Yeah, thank you, man.
I appreciate you asking.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I feel like we could talk for five hours.
Honestly, I know we could, Iknow we could.
Speaker 6 (32:13):
Listen, I will say this I never thought I'd be in a
position where people wouldwant to hear my story and I'm
appreciative of it.
I'm appreciative of people wholearn lessons from it.
I spend a lot of my time postOscars, honestly mentoring
younger kids not even youngerlike, even like people my age
too.
You know I'm part of SophiaChang's mentorship program.
(32:34):
I'm part of Joey Badass'smentorship program.
You know I meet young SouthAsian filmmakers or creatives
and they ask for time.
I'll give them time because Ijust feel like, um I'm, I got
blessed.
It's a result of a lot of hardwork, but if I can make that
path a little easier for otherpeople, just by because no one
(32:56):
taught me about the industry, Ihad to find out on my own if I
can make that path easier forsomebody else.
So there's more time creatingand less time trying to figure
the bullshit out.
That's my purpose on here onthe planet, while I'm still here
.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
That's what sparked me doing this podcast.
Yeah, I think people that Iknow and respect, that I've had,
you know, success but maybeeven had the pivot, you know,
and kind of go here to figureout the next steps and
everything, and hopefully peoplelistening will hear these
stories and be like, oh okay,and oh, that's the guy who did
(33:34):
the slide, doc.
You know, like that's the wholepoint of this.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
I can't wait until it flips around and someone gets
to interview you, because I knowyou got stories.
Yeah, I got some stories andactually one story you told me
has never left me.
I remember you told me thestory of when you signed the
pack and you were like I'm theguy that signed Tribe Called
Quest, and they're like who?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Who, who the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 6 (33:59):
And I will always remember that story because it
taught me it was one of thethings that taught me that
something dreamhampton taught mea long time ago hip-hop is
whatever little black and brownkids say, it is.
Yes, they are not tied to yourhistory, they are making their
own making their own.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
You can't fight it.
You can't be like yo, hot, likeI remember.
Um, we'll wrap it up.
I remember a couple months agopeople were on kai sanat because
he didn't know who Big Pun was.
Right, I'm like he's 22.
Yeah, you can't be mad at thatdude.
He's been dead about that long,sadly, like he might not know,
he's a kid, he's a child, andwhat hip-hop is for him is, you
(34:38):
know, drake and Playboi, cartiand whatever's popping now?
It's not Biggie, it's notBiggie, it's not Biggie man.
Yeah, no, and I can't be mad athim for it not being that for
him and his generation.
Yeah, and we'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
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Speaker 1 (35:12):
So what now?
Was that your last industry job?
Def Jam correct.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
So what had happened was this everyone was so
obsessed with artists at thatplace that's the one thing we
signed Janet Jackson anddifferent people and Mariah and
I ended up doing a lot ofprojects that weren't so fun and
I was just starting to gettired.
And my team.
Now, because I was talking somuch, she grew and I was now the
EVP of creative marketing anddigital and I really had no
business doing marketing at allbecause I really didn't know it.
(35:40):
I'm not good at that.
You have to be a verydetail-oriented person, but I
could.
Also, I hired Karen Veazey andsome other people, but by that
point, maybe I wasn't fuckingthe right people.
So everything I did started tobe bad.
So now I'm in these marketingmeetings where I'm getting
slaughtered by LA Like it wasbrutal.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I've heard about those meetings.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
But literally like slaughtered, and so I was
getting sick and tired of it.
I'd had some complicated thingswhere people had crossed the
boundaries with me in ways thatwere not okay.
So I was already pissed.
And then my love Shakir waslike battling a lot of stuff.
The way he was being handledwas disgusting.
So when he took his life, I hadsome very strongly worded
conversations and I was out andat the same time there was this
(36:21):
artist who, whatever, but hebrought in this kid he'd signed
and this kid was 14.
His name was Justin Bieber.
So, and he brought this manager, scooter Braun, and I wasn't
going to just trick out moneythis is not the 90s, like.
I didn't operate that way.
The way I operate with all newartists, as you know, is I'm
going to take a tiny budget, I'mgoing to do some small things
(36:43):
and see where we go.
So I wanted to do a video and aphoto shoot for Justin Bieber
to see what he needed.
Does he need training, does heneed whatever?
And Usher was furious and wasbattling me about it and I think
Scooter was more open to kindof this.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Justin was signed to Usher at this time, correct?
Speaker 5 (36:57):
And signed now to Island Def Jam Mercury.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
To Def Jam.
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
I think to Island, actually, okay, to Island
Mercury, but I ran the creatorfor all Island Def Jam and
Mercury group Mm-hmm.
When that whole thing happened,I started working very closely
with Scudo and Usher and Usher'scareer was not going so well at
the time.
It was post-Tamika.
He made a lot of stances.
He was a little bit ahead ofhis time in that now it is so
(37:24):
cool to be about a relationship.
Then it wasn't.
He was a heartthrob.
It was weird.
He did that weird tear-offthing and he kept asking me to
help him and I was like I have acontract, I cannot be helping
you.
And frankly, I'm not a fan.
You know I'm not.
I know I like two songs.
He took my iPod.
At the moment I had two songson there Love in the Club and
(37:45):
you Got a Bad.
That was it.
But then when Shakir passed, Isaid to him and Ciara and I
because at one point Rihanna wasblowing up and she really
needed dedication and there wasa lot of people who had the
Chris Lighty thing where I onlytalked to the head, which I'm
not about that Talk to him isthe best person.
So I had Mariah and Jay andJanet and Kanye.
(38:06):
It was a lot.
At the same time I think it'sstrong.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
That's a lot.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
I introduced Rihanna and Ciara and there's a girl who
was doing the Justin Bieberstuff, gabrielle Schwartz and I
was like I think you two wouldbe the best Rihanna team and put
them together.
So now me and Ciara are goingto form a company to work with
Usher possibly Kanye in someconversations and Usher.
(38:34):
So I started this littlecompany, we started a company
called Pire and we started doingthings with them.
But I couldn't have imaginedhow much work that was going to
be.
So I was working with LionelRich maybe at the time, and I
met Randy who was his manager,and he was bragging.
He had another carve-out and Irealized that what Janetta did
with Usher at the time was tryto bring his touring back to
females and did it for aladies-only tour and that was
wonderful in concept.
But you know how touring is.
(38:55):
So once you're a stadium orarena, if you go to theater, the
promoters think you're theater.
So I had this challenge now.
So I brought Randy in.
I was going to just kind ofhelp, you know, and now there
was some funny businesshappening.
So I'm kind of like agirlfriend-ish, so I was trying
to just not be in the thick ofit, and so Randy came in and
that was fantastic, but itneeded so much more.
I just didn't know.
(39:16):
I was so inexperienced I had noidea.
I think not knowing really whatmanagement really needed was
good for me at the time.
And then I went into fullmanagement when Usher and Mandy
just imploded and that was hardand I did a kick-ass job.
I told you I called Barry.
Barry had always been achampion of mine and I called
(39:37):
him about this opportunity andhe shit all over my dream.
He's like no, you're not goingto be a good manager, don't do
this.
And that fueled the shit out ofme and I was like I'm going to
make this happen.
And that changed his filmbusiness, got him in movies.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
The voice you know rearranged helped him figure out
how to start writing songs.
Climax is the first song hereally wrote, west and Salon
Remy and you know his style outof that for multiple years.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
You really did a great job at really reinventing
his, reinventing him.
You can catch Mixed andMastered on Apple Podcasts,
spotify, iheart or wherever youget your podcasts.
Hit that follow button, leave areview and tell a friend I'm
your host, jeffrey Sledge.
Mixed and Mastered is producedand distributed by Merrick
(40:25):
Studios.
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