July 9, 2024 • 43 mins
In this episode of The Loadout, host Ashanti Abdullah interviews Rakaa Taylor, also known as Rakaa Iriscience from the legendary hip hop group Dilated Peoples. They discuss the challenges and triumphs of life on the road, the growth of their tours over the years, and the importance of building relationships with promoters and fans. Rakaa shares stories of their first tours, their experiences performing at large festivals like Woodstock Poland, and the dynamics of touring with different artists. They also touch on the business side of touring, including the costs involved and the need for clear expectations and communication.
Takeaways
- Building relationships with promoters and fans is crucial for successful touring
- Touring can be expensive and requires careful planning and budgeting
- Performing at festivals and in different countries can be both exciting and challenging
- The business side of touring, including contracts and negotiations, is an important aspect to consider
- Touring requires adaptability and the ability to navigate different venues and audiences
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
02:15 The Challenges and Triumphs of Life on the Road
06:35 Building Relationships with Promoters and Fans
10:54 The Business Side of Touring
21:19 Performing at Festivals and in Different Countries
32:21 Adapting to Different Venues and Audiences
39:12 Memorable Tours and Moments
41:06 Conclusion and Appreciation
Produced by: @probablyashanti for @Ternwheel
Music by MMYYKK: @mmyykkvibes
Rakaa Iriscience - @therealrakaa
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rakaa (00:00):
Like, you want us on the main stage in Poland or a show
that has never done hip hopbefore? Let's see. Like, we I
was trying to talk him in, like,let why don't we just put go you
got 2, 000, 3, 000 people. Let'sjust rock the 2, 000, 3, 000
people. Let's just rock the 2,000, 3, 000 people.
Let's just rock the 2, 000, youknow, why are we trying to, you
know, change change Poland? Theydon't want to.
Ashanti (00:20):
What's good, everyone? Welcome to the very first
episode of the loadout. Thepodcast where we dive deep into
the world of live music,touring, and everything that
happens behind the scenes. I'myour host, Ashanti Abdula,
founder of Ternwheel, and aseasoned manager, tour manager,
and show producer with over 20years in the gang. In each
episode, we'll unpack the highs,the lows, and the in betweens of
(00:43):
the tour life.
From crazy road stories toexpert tips and exclusive
interviews with artists,managers, tour managers, and
industry insiders, we got it allcovered. Whether you're a die
hard music fan, an aspiring tourmanager, or just curious about
what goes on backstage, this isthe place for you. Today, I'm
thrilled to be talking to RakaaTaylor, better known as Rakaa
(01:05):
Iriscience from the legendaryhip hop group Dilated Peoples.
Rakaa is a rapper, brand andculture consultant, and founder
of the creative strategy agencyAngles. He's worked with top
companies like Supercell, RedBull, and ASICs, and even won a
Clio for work with Weeb Maps.
Plus, he's still razor sharp onthe mic. Full disclosure, I had
(01:26):
the pleasure of working withDilated day to day during the
directors of photographycampaign, and I've been their
tour manager from time to timeeven. We're gonna deep dive into
some wild tourist stories, thechallenges, and the triumphs of
life on the road with 1 hiphop's most iconic groups. Rakaa,
(01:48):
Rakaa Iriscience in the mix.Yes, indeed.
Man, it's good to have you hereon the show, especially as the
first person we have on theshow. I'm super excited.
Obviously, we know each other.We kinda go back a little bit,
at least a decade. Right.
But, you know, dilated goes backway farther than that, and you
probably got way more touriststories than actually, I know
you got more tourist storiesthan anyone that I know for
(02:09):
sure. Let's pick it back to 92.What was y'all's first tour,
man?
Rakaa (02:15):
Our first real tour, I think, probably would have been
word-of-mouth 1, and that waswith Jurassic 5 and the Beat
Junkies.
Ashanti (02:25):
Yeah. I was looking back at your tour history and
you got you know what's crazy?For someone who works with
y'all, you know, on and off forthe years. It's kinda odd. I
look back at your tour historyand y'all toured pretty steadily
from, like, 98 all the way to,like, 2, 009.
And then there's, like, athere's, like, a year pause and
(02:45):
then 2011, and there's eitherspot dates or a tour all the way
through, do you know what I'msaying, until until basically
now. So
Rakaa (02:55):
Yeah.
Ashanti (02:55):
Bro, you like, do you does it feel like that? Does it
feel like you've been on theroad that long?
Rakaa (03:00):
No. Not really. It only really feels like we've been on
the road a long time when we'reon the road. You know what I
mean? It's like it's 1 of thosetype of things.
But, you know, time flies, man,and it's speeding up. It feels
like time speeds up. It fliesand it gets faster. So, you
know, as I as I think back andsomeone's like, yeah. You know,
next year, 2025.
(03:21):
And I'm like, 2020. Jeez. So,you know, like, we've been too
yeah. We we we toured prettyconsistently. We performed
consistently since, you know,the mid nineties working off of,
oh, no.
No. I'm tripping. Before we evendid, the word-of-mouth tour
Ashanti (03:37):
Mhmm.
Rakaa (03:38):
We did, Rage Against the Machine and Gang Starr tour.
Ashanti (03:42):
Yeah. Yeah.
Rakaa (03:42):
I think that might have been our first tour. But either
way, it was around the sametime. But, yeah, we've we've
toured pretty consistently sincethe late nineties. We took some
time off to do solo projects andthen we were we were out not as
dilated, but doing, you know,Evidenced doing solo tours, I
was doing solo tours, Babu, thesame thing. And then, you know,
(04:04):
as those cycles wind down, wewould get back into accepting
dilated offers, especiallyoverseas, but US tours as well.
And then, yeah, it was pretty itwas semi consistent until, I
would say, until right beforeCOVID. We we purposely, took off
2019. We toured 2018. We perfectpurposely took off 2019 because
(04:29):
2020 was our anniversary year.So we were kinda I think we
might have done 1 show in 2019,something real light because
we're doing big deals for 2020to, to celebrate the anniversary
of the platform, the firstalbum.
And then COVID hit and thatpretty much, you know, wiped
everybody, the whole the wholeindustry out for a couple years.
So we're just and then more soloprojects and more other things
(04:52):
happened and I got more into theGoogle side. So we're just kinda
getting back into the swing ofthings right now.
Ashanti (04:58):
Yeah. With that said, actually, I mean, y'all, it's
extensively extensively tourtour Europe over the years. And
I mean, like, look. Let's lookin at some of the tour places,
and I'm like, bro, where likelike, how do you get an offer
out of, like, this most randomplace? Couple of things.
Number 1, from what Iunderstand, at some point, you
pretty much took over being theagent for Dilated. Right?
Rakaa (05:20):
Yeah. Different times, I've been our booking agent,
mostly for international. Wealways I think, except for short
little stints where I took overfor the US, we we always had,
like, pretty much always hadNorth American representation.
And international, I took over,you know, as I saw it early and
wanted to make sure that that wetouched the world before it
(05:41):
turned into 1 of those thingswhere, you know, you know, a lot
of groups, unfortunately, theywait until they can't book
shows, and then they try to gofind international audiences and
whatnot. But for us, I grew upwith Hendrix friend and like
just listen to music and thesethings I started to realize
that, you know, the the world'sa big place and, you know, you
could you could plant theseseeds early and they'll, you
know, they'll sustain you.
(06:02):
So, yeah, we toured a lot ofthose place a lot of the places
that we toured that were not asas known as far as cities were
concerned. A lot of those weremusic festivals and a lot of
times the music festivals areoutside of the main region. So,
you know, you know, some people,you know, their egos are like,
no, you gotta go rock this bigthis club in a big city. I'm
(06:23):
like, I'd rather rock 20 timesthat a minute amount of people
hour away from the big city atthis music festival, you know.
So that's how that's how we didit.
But we still got clubs. We stillwe would kinda mix them up,
especially in Europe. We wouldlike, you know, summer tours.
The the festivals are prettymuch on the weekends, and so we
would do club dates during theweek and then festivals on the
weekend.
Ashanti (06:42):
How did that begin? Like, did you have those
connections or were you just didyou go through a phone book of
Germany or, like, how did yousaw like?
Rakaa (06:52):
Yeah. Well, early on, at least early on in our career, a
lot of the people that werebooking the shows, a lot of the
promoters were also hip hoppers.They would be DJs or or or or,
you know, retired b boys orgraffiti graffiti artists,
emcees themselves, producers.And then they would get into
booking shows and they kindagrew in that scene. So just from
(07:17):
being in the circle of things,especially at the time, I was a
member of Zulu Nation, being amember of Rocksteady Crew.
You know, I was I was buildingsome really strong cultural
connections around the worldand, we just ended up being as
we perform at these places, youknow, the promoters would, you
(07:39):
know, introduce themselves. We'dbe cool. We hit it off. And then
if we get let go of an agent,they would start reaching out to
the scene, like, yo, we wannabook Dylators. They reach out to
a DJ partner of mine or agraffiti graffiti cat or b boy,
b girl, whatever.
They would reach out to peoplein the scene and some kind of
way would get back to me andthrough doing that, I started
developing my own relationshipsand started to realize that, you
(08:02):
know, it gets stepped on a lot.Like, by the time the offer gets
to you, it might go through 3 or4 hands. You know, and you start
to realize how much you'rereally worth if you deal
directly with the people asopposed to becoming, you know,
part of that scene. So westarted dealing directly with
people. I mean, we've had bigagents over there as well.
And that was good if we wantedto just get placed on a tour,
(08:25):
somebody else's tour, and theycould make a call and plug us
in, but that wasn't really doingwhat we wanted to do to really
build up our own our ownnotoriety and our own, brand and
base out there. So yeah. Justconnected with the culture,
connected with the community,and through that, people started
reaching out directly. I startedto realize I could I could do
this myself, you know, verywell, very effectively, and kept
(08:48):
it moving that way.
Ashanti (08:49):
Where, going going back a little bit to, like, from your
first tour to your second tour,how different was it for for you
personally? Like, was it just Imean, for the group, was it just
a major difference, or were youguys just getting into it? I
mean, you know, your first tour,you don't know what the hell
you're doing. Yeah. So, like,explain to me, like, how that
(09:10):
felt.
And then from that first tourinto the next tour, what what
kind of
Rakaa (09:13):
things you brought with you? Main thing that I took away
from, you know, that I rememberabout growing in our tours and
just our shows in general wasthe the length of the show. You
know, when we first startedtouring, we'd be up there doing,
you know, a hot 15 minutes. Youknow what I mean? And we put all
our energy in the 15 minutes,blow out our voices, we're going
(09:34):
crazy.
And, you know, where we are now,like yeah. Festival might be 40
minutes or an hour or something,but some of these club dates,
we've done 2 hour club dates,you know, things like that. You
know, that's not our normal clubtime. Usually, it's like 75
minutes or something like that.90 minutes.
But we've done like 2 hour, 2and a half hour club date. Like,
(09:55):
we've done like crazy time. So Ithink that was the biggest thing
is, you know, you having a lotmore material, having a lot more
to remember, having to paceyourself differently, having to
take care of your voicedifferently, you know, if you're
doing 15 minutes of versus anhour and a half. The size of the
physic the physical size of thestages, you know, it was just
(10:17):
growth all the way around. And,you know, that caused us to have
to be a little bit moreresponsible, you know, to be to
maintain that professionalism,make sure we were gonna be right
for the show itself.
You know, we couldn't treat thehour and a half show the same
way, you know, headline show thesame way we're doing a treating
a 15 minute intro set, you know,or whatever the case may be. So
(10:38):
that was probably the biggestthe biggest thing. And then
also, from our first tour totours happening after that was
recognizing how expensive it canactually be to tour. You know,
you start getting an offer like,yeah, we're gonna pay you x
amount of 1, 000 per night to godo the show. You do the math in
your head real quick.
Like, oh, we got 30 shows. We'reabout to come back and put a
(10:58):
down
Ashanti (10:58):
payment on a house.
Rakaa (10:59):
And you get back and they're like, okay. There's a 1,
000 a day for the tour bus. Andthen, you know, this amount's
advanced to show and you gottapay for the crew and you gotta
pay taxes and, you know, yougotta do this. And by the time
you get it, it's like, alright.You know what I mean?
Like, it's it's not Business.It's a business. It's a whole
business. So, you know, yougotta, you know, plan
accordingly and set expectationsaccordingly.
Ashanti (11:20):
Did you when you guys first started, did you have a
crew or did you kind of buildyour crew, like, over time? I
assume you were on Capitol atthe time, right, when you went
on
Rakaa (11:28):
your first tour? We had a crew as far as, like, in the
streets, you know what I mean?Like, you know, like that kind
of crew, but we didn't have likea, a professional crew, you
know, we would hire, tourmanagers early on. You know, we
have various people, but 1 ofthe biggest 1 of the tour
managers that really helped showme how tour management actually
(11:52):
works, how touring works, andwas also somebody we could
always count on was a guy namedLalo Medina.
Ashanti (11:57):
Okay.
Rakaa (11:58):
So Lalo, he was working with j 5 and he was working with
other people as well. I think heworks with, what's his name?
White Stripe. Jack,
Ashanti (12:08):
Oh, Jack White.
Rakaa (12:09):
Yeah. Jack White White Stripes. He works with him now,
but, Lalo working with OsoMotley, I think. He was working
with a lot of people, and he wasjust a really solid, you know,
he he knew how to really solidtour manager, really cool dude,
still is, really cool dude, andhe could think on his feet and
(12:29):
make things happen, you know,you know, as needed, like, on
the fly. So I learned a lot fromhim, and he was also really
communicative.
He had a he was organized, like,it was a way to do it. And then
later, we work with, like, withFrancisco, who was, you know,
who Lalo brought on originallyas a as a, kind of an assistant
(12:50):
team when we were we're doingthe bigger tours. But we've
worked with a lot of differentpeople. We had a dude named Kiko
Mara, who is, out of out ofColorado, out of Denver, I
believe. He worked at the FoxTheater in Boulder, and he was a
sound our sound tech for a lotof tours.
He also worked with Jurassic 5.So, yeah, we over the years,
we've had some some really goodpeople, you know, early on. We
(13:12):
had a, you know, a a good baseof people to make sure that
everything was going right whenit came to touring.
Ashanti (13:18):
I think that from my from my side and having tour
managed, not only you guys, butactually, there are times when
when I was at the label or whenI've worked before where someone
couldn't, you know, managesomebody and they just couldn't
afford a tour manager. Right.And once again, for the
economics of it, I had to justjump in and be a tour manager.
Right?
Rakaa (13:38):
Right. And I learned
Ashanti (13:39):
kind of my flow of it. But, ultimately, what I learned
was once you understand theflow, especially if it's more
than 1 person. Right? Becausethe flow of 1 person is pretty
easy to get down pretty quickly.But when it's multiple people,
really learning the flow ofthose people, how they interact
with each other, and then whatare the needs that everybody
has, As long as everyone's needsare taken care of, the show goes
(14:01):
well.
And then outside of that, youhave to take care of the needs
of the venue, take care of theneeds of kinda everyone, all
partners involved. You're reallycut you really are the glue of,
like, making sure thateverything runs, smoothly for
that night. So I give it up tosome of the big you know, some
of the I know tour managers onthese massive, massive tours,
(14:21):
and I'm like, bruh, I don't evenwanna see, like like, Kendrick's
team, people like that. It'slike multiple tour managers. You
know what I mean?
It's like tour manager plusassistant plus assistant. Yeah.
But, yeah, I mean, what so sohow tripped out were you after
the first few tours when youwere making those calculations,
like, oh, we're getting paidthis much. And then you're like,
(14:43):
oh, damn. I we didn't realize wehad to pay for all this shit.
Rakaa (14:49):
I mean, it was a it was definitely a rude awakening.
It's 1 of those things that, youknow, you you can't be mad that
you don't get the the answers toquestions you didn't ask. You
know? So, like, it to me, itjust became a situation where,
it became really important to toknow what to ask and to know how
(15:10):
to set those expectations.Because what what happened is,
you know, I was some kind of waya lot of the times.
I'm not sure how it happened,but over the years, I became
kind of like a point person forthe group. You know, a team
captain, if you will, I guess,outside the studio. Inside the
studio
Ashanti (15:29):
Well, I can tell you why.
Rakaa (15:30):
There might be Ev or Babs, but outside the studio,
like, what what why why is that?
Ashanti (15:34):
You have the personality for it.
Rakaa (15:36):
Right. Okay.
Ashanti (15:37):
It's simple, bro. You either got like, I don't I mean,
I don't mean to cut off yourthought, but III used to go to
the, IPR in different places andgive these talks about being a
manager, being, you know, inthis business. And I would just
tell everybody, you might aswell go ahead and stop doing
this, this vocation you're doingright now unless you have the
personality for it. You eithergot the personality or you
(15:59):
don't. That can't really betaught.
Rakaa (16:00):
Yeah. You you
Ashanti (16:01):
gotta know how to, like, like you said, like, being
able to think on your feet andget things done.
Rakaa (16:06):
Yeah.
Ashanti (16:06):
Other people might crumble or fall, but I feel like
you have that personality forsure. So that's why.
Rakaa (16:12):
No. I appreciate it. And and I
Ashanti (16:13):
should chose for you. You didn't it doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Rakaa (16:16):
It was it was definitely a lot. It was a lot to deal with
because part of what comes withthat is navigating the other
side of the personalities in thegroup. You know? Like, it it
becomes you know, it's notalways an easy thing to have
somebody that's in the groupthat we're we're all on 1 side
of the line together at 1 point,and then suddenly, you know, I'm
(16:38):
being asked to to kinda moveback and forth across both lines
to say, okay, guys, we gotta dothis and try to smooth things
over and make things happen forthe bigger picture. So, you
know, it becomes it becomes alittle bit of, it becomes a
little trying sometimes tonavigate that primarily because
that's not where we started.
Like, what we start you know,business you know, we started
(17:01):
recording music in, you know, inthe studio. You know, that's I'm
I'm very happy to step back alittle bit and be like, okay.
What should we do here? Whatwhat should we make happen here?
When it comes to the businessside of it or to the live side
of it, I'm much more involved.
So, you know, we had to kind offigure out how every all the
(17:22):
pieces fit. We had to kind offigure out how we were gonna,
work with each other in thatway. The record label is calling
me, you know, management iscalling me, agents are calling
me, merge people, whoever it is,they're calling me to make these
decisions and then I have to gokind of figure out how to if
(17:42):
they if they make sense, how to,you know, push them across the
line and push them through. Soit becomes a little bit it
becomes a little hectic. But,yeah, maybe I do have the
personality in general to beable to step back from it and
look at it all big picture andthen figure out the best way to
to implement these things.
But, yeah, it was it was alittle bit it was a little bit
crazy at different times to, todeal with that, you know. But
(18:08):
ultimately, we all respect eachother and that's that goes a
long way, you know. That goes along way when you're when you're
in a group, you know, thatrespect being a base, that
appreciation that, you know,we're all here for a reason and
that we all bring somethingdifferent to the table. But it's
just about being able to tomove. And then you and then you
(18:28):
also gotta keep in mind thatduring the same time, you know,
Ev is really focusing on hissolo career at a certain point
and also doing dilated, youknow, Babu has always had a
focus on his solo career.
The way we set up that Babu'sdeal was different than our
deal. So he had the opportunityto to take all the, you know,
(18:51):
get all the benefits of being,you know, in a in dilated
peoples that, you know, from thelabel to management to
everything else, insurance,everything came. But he also had
a little more flexibility andfreedom. So he immediately, he
was out doing solo baboon duckseason projects on sequence and
and nature sounds, I think, andlike other things that, you
know, we weren't able to doRight. Until until a little bit
(19:14):
later.
So, yeah. It it, you know, therewere a lot of dynamics. The
dynamics kept shifting, but wemoved to work.
Ashanti (19:20):
I think the, just speaking of that, I think a lot
of people,
Rakaa (19:24):
a lot
Ashanti (19:24):
of younger artists that, that I've talked to and
spent time with and around, theytend to kind of lump all
everything together and don'trealize that, like, the music
business is different pieces andthere and there's businesses
inside of that business. Right?So recording and releasing music
is 1 part of it. And touring isa whole separate business.
(19:48):
Right?
Yeah. A lot of the the artiststhat I talked to, I'm like, you
set up a touring entity. It's acompletely separate thing, and
it's a separate business withits own set of insurance and its
own set of people that areworking at certain times and its
own set of life. And then merch,merch is its own separate
business as well. Right.
Right? You can't yeah. You yousell merch usually based off of
(20:10):
your shows and things of thatnature, but they are separate
businesses, and you kinda haveto treat them as such. Yeah.
Rakaa (20:15):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Ashanti (20:17):
And, like, nowadays, I think that, you know, obviously,
touring is very different thanit used to be. If you can, you
know, think way back even if youthink, like, early nineties, a
lot of these a lot of the biggercast would play, like, large
large, markets, New York, LA,blah blah blah. A lot of these
minor markets weren't beingplayed at that time. They've got
(20:39):
and hit the road. They werestill selling records.
As that kinda changed andrecords started to maneuver and
streaming became a thing, Nowyou see Lil Wayne hitting Jack,
you know, Ames, Iowa. You knowwhat I mean? Or, like, all these
little minor markets. So I guessI said all that to say, like,
the touring businesses, it'swhat's making money now. Touring
(21:00):
and touring and merch is is whatit is.
Yeah. Yeah. Are you feeling likeyou when did you feel like you
saw that shift? Did you everfeel like you saw that shift? Is
that something that you guys, oror you specifically were aware
of?
Rakaa (21:16):
Yeah. I mean, you could feel the shift happening. We we
were always kind of a uniquegroup in the sense that, you
know, we always felt that, youknow, the record label didn't
get on board with us becausethey really respect the culture
or record labels that we we'vehad multiple labels, but they
didn't really get with usbecause they respect the
culture. They didn't reallyunderstand necessarily what made
(21:39):
us special, you know. We got 2MCs and a DJ and some turntables
and some microphones and, youknow, it wasn't, gimmicky, you
know, it wasn't anything likethat.
But because the people wereshowing up, because the you
know, we invite them to ashowcase and they couldn't get
in because, you know, the firemarshals would tell them it's
(22:00):
at, you know, at capacity andit's aligned down the block
outside, they can't get in. Orbecause DJs were keeping us in
rotation and these things. Theythey I think a lot of the times,
the interest came from themrecognizing that we had a direct
connection with the people, andthey didn't wanna lose out on
that. So as a result of that, wealways had this kind of thing
(22:21):
where we were, you know, toosmall to push. Like, I have
said, too small to push, too bigto drop.
Ashanti (22:28):
Yeah.
Rakaa (22:29):
But we were kinda caught in this weird middle ground,
where we weren't making popmusic. You know, we weren't
consciously making pop music totry to break into the charts.
But the music that we didrelease was making enough noise
where they weren't gonna let goof us. Like, they're, like, this
is this is good or, you know,like, you know, situation
(22:51):
capital, like, they haddecimated their entire hip hop
departments, basically. I thinkthey when we got over there, it
was just it was just the BeastieBoys, to be on if I re if I
recall correctly, they didn'thave any hip hop.
And the Beastie Boys was evenwith Grand Royal, and they had
their own office down thestreet. They weren't even in the
capitol building. So they weretrying to rebuild and they
wanted to rebuild off ofsomething that had some cultural
(23:15):
base and integrity andsignificance. So, you know, they
they came to us and we saw,like, a clear path to move on.
And it was working really welluntil, you know, industry
politics do what they do, andcapital and priority merge, and
(23:36):
that wanna try to make us fitthat model and it doesn't, you
know, it creates friction.
So, you know, there was therewas definitely changes that we
felt, streaming have been justthe Internet in general, you
know, becoming a much bigger,factor in music. It kinda
decentralized things, you know,for lack of a better word, and
(23:59):
we could definitely feel that.But at this by the you know, at
the same time, because we didn'treally have that label
understanding and that labelsupport, we already hit the
road. Like, you're talking aboutbefore, like, we were in these
cities, we were already doingthese festivals, we're already
in these places internationallythat a lot of people have never
been. So, you know, from thatstandpoint, yeah, we saw it and
(24:23):
we recognized early that wecan't really control what the
label's gonna do, what thelabel's not gonna do.
We can't spend their money forthem, you know, we can't force
them to spend a dollar theydon't wanna spend. That's not
they're not contractuallyobligated to spend. So it was up
to us to go build out our ownbase and our own relationships
and tell our own story directlyto the people and that's what we
(24:44):
did. And this is, you know, alot of a lot of what happens now
is that these, you know, kidsthat lump things together, like
you were saying, a lot of themwere came up in the 3 60 deal
era. So they lump it togetherbecause it's kind of been
presented to them as somethingthat's lumped together because
that fits the labels.
But for us, we already knew,like, this is something where we
(25:07):
gotta really put our whateverwe're working on, we gotta put
everything into it. But we can'tbe con we can't not tour because
the record isn't multi platinum.Like, we're headlining this
festival, and there's multiplatinum artists opening for us
because they don't have aconnection to the people. They
have a connection to the programdirectors at radio or whatever.
(25:27):
Right.
Ashanti (25:27):
Right. Which is a very different thing. So you did it
the smartest way, in myestimation, which and a lot of
people aren't gonna be able todo that either. It's, like,
kinda just always be hitting theground and being out on the road
no matter what, outside ofwhatever's happening at the
label or what's happening in thein the business all altogether.
There's only a few, like it'sfunny because there's a lot of
indies that did it, but y'allhappen to be on a major, but
(25:50):
operating as an indie, like,group.
You know what I mean? I mean, tome then, you probably were able
to to pretty much protect yourprep your price for a long time,
I assume, since you were doingit on your own.
Rakaa (26:02):
Yeah. We were able to protect it. We were able to
really, you know, carve out ourown lane and really build it up
from that side, and and thenumbers have gone up. It it's
it's always interesting becausewe have been able to do it our
ourself on that side, but But atthe same time, as we're talking
about, the the nature of theindustry has changed. So, you
(26:25):
know, the the access that otherpeople have to the space means
that there's a lot more trafficnow.
Right. So on 1 hand, yeah, we'reable to protect our price. We're
able to make sure that ourguarantees were constantly
growing. We're able to reallybuild that up regardless of what
was happening with the with theactual records. But at the same
time, there were a lot like aflood of a flood came, you know,
(26:50):
of many, many more peoplethrough, you know, digital
access that didn't exist before.
So on that, you know, from thatlooking at it that way, we were
kind of I wouldn't say lucky,but we we definitely played our
cards right in carving out ourlane before we needed to find a
lane ourselves. You know, we wemade our whole lane into
(27:10):
something that still serves uswell to this day. To this day.
Yeah. We have our fans.
We have our our connection withthe with our people directly. We
know how to perform. And, youknow, to be honest, a lot of a
lot of our our ability to dothat also came from the fact
that by by rocking the way thatwe rock, we got a reputation for
(27:31):
being able to rock a show. Everbeen able to go anywhere just
with our energy and the skilland the and and the the
foundation of what we do to rocka show. So we were getting a lot
of calls, like, last minute, youknow you know you know how it
goes in Europe, you know,everything's running in a week
before the show.
Somebody's pulling out the showand the promoters are scrambling
to try to make it work. And sothey would give us a call, like,
(27:51):
yo. Get dilated, fly out, andand do this. And so 2 things
happened there. 1 is well, a fewthings happened.
1 is we got good relationshipswith promoters because we were
the the the people that werecoming to save the day. 2 is we
got in front of a lot of peoplethat we ordinarily may not have
(28:12):
been able to get in front of,you know, and we were able to
let our skills show through, andshow and prove on stage that we
could do this even without beingnumber 1 on the charts or
whatever the case is. And 3, isthat because these were last
minute calls to come save theday, the the offers were a
little higher than they wouldhave been if we got the call
(28:34):
when they were doing theoriginal bookings. So that kinda
helps set precedent in all thesedifferent places, that our
number is pretty high, but we'regonna come in and kill it. And
it doesn't matter what'shappening with the charts, like,
book them too, but you you bookus, it's gonna be a, you know,
real life real life show.
So all those things kinda worktogether in our favor and and
help keep us in, you know, keepus in the place that we're able
(28:57):
to we're able to do now, whichis to still go tour the world as
we want to and go take theseshows. And we don't take it for
granted. We don't think that wecould just dip out and not say
anything and just because wewant a tour, we're gonna go
headline a festival. But, youknow, we have done enough
individually and collectivelythat we keep that fire lit. And
when we like, right now, whenwe're getting geared up or we're
(29:18):
we're hitting the road more,we're doing these shows, the
numbers are where they need tobe, you know.
Shout out to, to Ivory andZinger. You know, they, you
know, they've been in the mix inin getting these numbers up and,
you know, different things likethat to to to put us where we're
in a comfortable place to keepmoving.
Ashanti (29:34):
Keeping that poll star looking good. Yeah, man. It
feels like a lesson for, foranybody who's who's looking to
do international work. Gottakeep that passport clean and be
ready to go.
Rakaa (29:47):
They just Yeah. Yeah. For sure. They start to stay in
shape. You never know.
It's like a like a fighter. Youknow, like these UFC fighters or
whatever. Like, you never knowwhen somebody's gonna, you know,
weigh in, you know, miss misreadit, weigh in or get disqualified
or pop hot for something. Sostay in the gym, stay sharp,
keep your skills right, and, youknow, keep like you said, keep
the passport current.
Ashanti (30:07):
Yeah. At
Rakaa (30:08):
least everything is taken care of because you might get
that call that could change yourlife. You step into a last
minute situation and and andwalk away with a belt or def or
or at least with your stock at ahigher level than it was before.
Now you're in a position to tonegotiate and make things
happen. So
Ashanti (30:21):
What's the biggest show you guys play?
Rakaa (30:23):
The biggest show we've ever done was Woodstock, Poland.
So Poland had Woodstock, Polandhad never done hip hop before. I
think they said they had, like,a rapper 1 time that was in the
electron in the electronic I'msorry. The, the dance tent or
the electro tent or something.They did, like, a guest
appearance with a DJ, but theyhad never had, like, an
(30:46):
official, hip hop artist come inand they called us to do it.
We're like, Poland is alwaysgreat for dilated. Like, that's
1 of those countries that alwaysshows a lot of love and we were
shocked when we finally went outthere, how much love we got
there, so we always went back.But doing Woodstock, Poland,
they called us and they're like,yo, it's gonna be, yeah, a
(31:07):
1000000 people over 3 days, andwe want you guys on the main
stage. We're, like, you want uson the main stage in Poland or
someone that has never done hiphop before? We'll see.
Like, we I was trying to talkhim in, like, let why don't we
just put go you got a DJ set?Can we just rock the DJ? We got,
like, 2 1000, 3000 people. Let'sjust rock the DJ set. You know
(31:29):
what I mean?
Why are we trying to, you know,change change Poland? They don't
want I didn't want hip hop. But,no, they were like, yo, like,
you know, we wanna do this. Thepromoter, you know, the the
owner of the festival, theperson that runs the festival,
he he checked you guys out. Hereally likes your work.
He wants you guys to be thegroup that that brings hip hop
(31:51):
to the festival. So, yeah, wewent out there and we didn't
know what to expect, man. Weit's all rock. Like we got
there, it was like biker gangslining. It was like a whole day.
We were like, yo, this is crazy,yo. Like, I don't know how this
is gonna go. I look at Ev. He'sover there tapping his feet.
He's nervous.
Like, that's what just people'slike, what do we expect? Like,
there's a rapper to get the nameof the group, but there's a rock
group on before we go on. Wepeek out of the crowd. You can't
(32:13):
even see the back of the crowd.Like, it's, like, 300, 000
people or something out there.
And we as soon as we hit thestage, we just killed it, man.
Just rocked it. And it was 1 ofthose things that really let us
know. Before that, it was hiphop alparque in in in, in
Bogota, in Colombia, and thatwas like a 100000 people. But
(32:33):
but Well, you Poland was 33times.
Ashanti (32:36):
Like, how that's gotta be such different energy than,
like, a club show. Like, I mean,how do you even do you know what
I mean? Do you just go up andnot try not to look at anybody
and or how does it, like?
Rakaa (32:47):
It's weird because from my perspective, at least, when I
rock a club show, I'm rocking aroom full of people. Mhmm. When
you rock a 100000 people or300000 people, it's like you're
performing for the ocean. Itbecomes 1 big wave of you know
what I mean? Like, you could 0in, like, somebody has a big
(33:09):
flag, somebody's fire in thesky, there's people, you know,
that are holding up signs, youknow, could be, you know,
pictures of your face.
You know what I mean? Like,there's, you know, that they
printed out. Like, there'sthings like that that happen
that make you zone in or maybe,you know, you find 1 person
that's just going crazy, wrap italong, and you give them some
but for the most part, like, aquarter million people will have
you know, you you're talkingabout 6 figures of people, that
(33:31):
becomes like a like a thing.That becomes like a big That's a
whole thing. Yeah.
The wave. Even the wave and howthey're jumping because the
sound travels to the back, ittakes a minute for it to get
back there. So, you know, you'relike, oh, yeah. It's up and it's
like you can see it kinda goback as the sound or sometimes,
like, they'll even have to have,like, another set of screens,
like, halfway through the crowdbecause the people that you're
(33:52):
the people in the back are sofar. Otherwise, they wouldn't
even be able to see the showbecause that's how far back they
are.
So, yeah, it it's crazy, man.It's a crazy feeling.
Ashanti (34:01):
What was the smallest show, you guys ever played that
you that you can remember, fan?
Rakaa (34:06):
I I remember we did a show. I think it was on I feel
like it was on the word-of-mouthtour. Maybe it was on the
word-of-mouth tour. I feel likeit might have been, like,
Atlanta. Maybe it was Atlanta,but it may have been, like, 50
people, 40 people in there.
(34:27):
Like, it got so crazy that, ifI'm not mistaken, I think at 1
point, like, Lalo, our tour man,like, brought, like, the George
Foreman grill, went to thesteak, and started making
sandwiches on stage. It was itwas a it was ridiculous. It was
it was a ridiculous situation.But, yeah, like, that that was
probably if I remembercorrectly, that was I think that
was 1 of the word-of-mouthtours, and we just laughed about
it. It was funny to us.
(34:48):
Like, it was like, alright.We're not gonna win them all
because, you know, every othershow is sold out 2 nights this,
that, and the third. And, youknow, we hit 1 where it's like,
oh, that didn't that didn't gowell. You know what I'm saying?
Okay.
You still
Ashanti (34:58):
gotta you still get up and have to perform and and do
what you
Rakaa (35:01):
do, but but You still
Ashanti (35:02):
feel it for me. Making, sandwiches on stage is pretty
fire.
Rakaa (35:05):
Yeah. You know, you gotta get that foreman you gotta get
that foreman cracking. You knowwhat I mean?
Ashanti (35:09):
If you had to pick a tour and be like, wow. That was
cool. I don't wanna do thatagain. Which tour would that be?
Rakaa (35:15):
We did a tour we did a tour with D'Angelo. That was a
weird tour for us. Like, Iremember the first day we did,
like, the Greek theater, andit's like Diluted People's Lucy
Pearl and D'Angelo. And we'relike, and that was another 1 of
the I think most deaf wasoriginally supposed to do that
tour, which still was kind ofweird, but it made more sense.
Ashanti (35:36):
A little bit more sense. Yeah.
Rakaa (35:38):
Yeah. But they called us and we're like, alright. So we
went out there and we did ourthing, But it was a weird kind
of crowd. It was like Mhmm.Girls that were there to scream
for D'Angelo when he takes offhis shirt.
You know what I mean? Like, Iremember seeing, like there was,
like, times where it'd be, like,pimps with, like, a whole
stable. You know, you know, youknow, it was, like, a whole
different it was a wholedifferent different vibe for us.
(35:58):
And, you know, we had to kindago out there and earn it every
night and, you know, peoplepeople got into it. It was a
cool vibe, but, you know, youknow, like, these people are
they're they're having a goodtime, but they're really here
for D'Angelo.
You know what I mean? It was 1of those things. You could look
at the crowd and be like, oh,these girls are dressed up.
Okay. This isn't.
These women are here for notthey're not trying to see me and
Babs and Ev, like, you know,rocking rocking the stage.
(36:21):
They're ready to have somebodydo how does it feel and see,
like, some abs or something likethis.
Ashanti (36:26):
And you weren't giving them the abs,
Rakaa (36:28):
I assume. No. Yeah.
Ashanti (36:30):
I feel it.
Rakaa (36:30):
I feel it. I mean, they're there. They're there.
Ashanti (36:37):
They're always there. Are they visible? I don't know.
But
Rakaa (36:41):
they're there. We did, a Lincoln Park tour. We did a
dilated Lincoln Park, and then Idon't
Ashanti (36:50):
know if it makes sense musically, but it made sense for
that time because that was whatwas happening. You know what I
mean? I can't Yeah.
Rakaa (36:56):
No. There was, like, a mix. They were doing that kind
of and and to be honest, we wewe agreed to do this tour
dilated at Lincoln Park they'regonna have somebody else open
and we're like, okay, LincolnPark, they kinda do, like, rock
wrap fusion or whatever. Butthen by the time the tour
happened, this was in Europe, Bythe 2 time the tour happened,
they had added 2 other rockgroups to the the wall,
Puddlomutt and Edema who were,like, you know, 2 rock groups.
(37:18):
And, so we're like, alright.
So I remember, like, that was 1of those things. Recipes to
Chester too from Linkin ParkRecipes. But we could that was
another thing, like, that was arock crowd. That was a Linkin
Park and rock crowd. That wasn'ta dilated crowd.
So much so that whenever wewould get off our tour bus at
the venue, we had a separategroup of people on the other
(37:41):
side of the fence that were notcoming to the show. They just
wanted to come meet us and do,like, a free meet and greet in
the parking lot. Because they'relike, why are you doing this
tour? Like, you've never beenhere before. Why would you come
here with Lincoln Park?
Like, it was 1 of those type ofthings.
Ashanti (37:54):
I tour managed you guys on that show going up to, it
wasn't Ukiah. It was likeNorthern California. I can't
remember
Rakaa (38:01):
exactly where. Eureka. Eureka. Yeah. It was Eureka.
Humboldt County.
Ashanti (38:04):
Humboldt County. I know we talked about this, but I'm
just gonna say here, I I tourmanager on that show, and, I
think there was a lot ofexpectation that there'll be a
lot of partying happeningafterward. Yeah. So there was
some frustration when I waslike, can we box all this stuff
up from backstage while you guyswere performing? Yeah.
Rakaa (38:23):
Like, you can just write it boxed up.
Ashanti (38:24):
Yeah. They were like, wait. What? I was like, yeah.
Yeah.
No. We need everything boxed up.We're gonna get out of here.
They're like, they're not gonnastay. I'm like, no.
We're gonna roll out. You know?But I'm pretty sure that there's
no 1 at that show, especiallywith how it was a Halloween
show, everybody was partyinghard.
Rakaa (38:40):
Right. Right.
Ashanti (38:40):
I can guarantee you no 1 would would have ever expected
that you and I would be in yourhotel room 2 about a hour and a
half later at the casino that westayed at making sandwiches and
eating sandwiches and talkingshit. Like, I'm sure they
expected us to you know? Yeah. Imean I people are so used to
glamour, and there is someglamour to it or whatever, but,
(39:03):
really, it's like that hour of,you know, you hurry up and wait.
You know what it is.
Get there. Wait. Wait. Wait.Wait.
Do your do your 75 minute set.We out. You know what I mean?
Like, that's that's kinda how itis. You know?
Rakaa (39:15):
We've partied we've partied around the world. We've
done the done done the afterparty thing. And there's certain
times when it's fun to do orwe're getting paid to do it and
then it's that's makes it evenmore fun to do. But for the most
part, yeah, I'd rather say thankyou, make sure our bread is
right, make sure everybody getsto the hotel safe, and call you
up and be like, yo, you got thebox of fun. Let's do it.
(39:37):
Yeah. You look for that. Like,when we would go, do Boulder or
something like that, like, Kikoand all those guys to check from
around midnight, Those dudes,they had a they had a house in
Denver and they'd be like, youknow, you know, you wanna come
to the club, you wanna go dosomething. It's like now,
they're like, why doesn'teveryone just come to Chuck's
crib? I I remember 1 day, it waswe're on the word-of-mouth tour,
(40:01):
I think word-of-mouth 2 maybe,And Kiko was, like, yeah, every
after this, let's I'll go toChuck's house.
And it turned out to be, like, ajam session downstairs in the
basement with, like, Maceo fromDayla and the drums and all us
freestyle and they're barbecuingin the backyard, like, it was
like a it turned into, like, ahouse party. Like, you know, it
(40:21):
was so so much fun compared toall the club parties and catered
food and all that stuff. Youhave somebody barbecuing and
playing drums and messing aroundfreestyling hanging out. It was
like, this feels like an adultversion of what we grew up
doing. Like, you know, this isthis is this is fun.
So, yeah, like, somebody islike, man, don't don't even
show, I'll make some homemadewe'll cook something or we'll go
(40:42):
pick up something local. Andjust chill, relax, watch the
game or watch the fight or go dowhatever and then just get get
where you're going. It's like,ah, it is a nice break. It is it
does feel like you get torecharge your batteries a little
bit and not be stuck in thisperformer or, like, this this
performer brand mode, like, youcould just be a person and then
do what you gotta do. So, yeah,I I enjoy that as well.
(41:03):
I could see them being like,yeah, this is cool. I needed
that.
Ashanti (41:06):
I have a similar story that went absolutely the
opposite way. I'm I'm so excitedthat you, took the time to join
us today. I really appreciateyou doing it. I know you got a
lot of awesome things going on,and I'm still you know, always
just happy to be able to stillcall you a friend and, even
spend time with you these days.Anything else you wanna leave
(41:27):
anybody with?
Rakaa (41:29):
Yeah. If you just if you're in the industry, if
you're a tour manager,definitely get that ternwheel
app, get it popping, really getthat account set up. If you're
an artist, and you want yourbusiness right, then make sure
your tour manager gets thatTurnwheel app and gets a
subscription, gets it set up.But, yeah, man. It it's great to
see your growth as well.
(41:50):
Great to be able to call you afriend as well to be able to
work with you. And and, youknow, there's there's obviously
much more that we're gonna bedoing, but, you know, just to
see the growth and to be able totake something that you have a
very strong grasp of, you know,a strong understanding of, and
turn that into some into a aproduct that can not only drive
(42:11):
good business for you and yourfamily and other people around
you, but also improve theindustry and improve the lives
of the artists and and thepeople that are using it and
make you know, if if if the roadis managed more efficiently and
effectively, then that benefitseverybody.
Ashanti (42:30):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Rakaa (42:31):
To be able to take that have that vision and and turn
that into something real and notjust leave it on the on the on
the board, but actually bring itinto real life, man. You know,
bravo to you. I'm real proud ofhow you how you've handled it.
And, you know, you I've neverknown you to be a shy person,
but to be able to go putyourself out there also on
social media to go travel andand and visit these things that
(42:53):
really make this happen. I'm I'mexcited to see what happens with
Ternible moving forward.
Yeah. I mean,
Ashanti (42:56):
it wouldn't it wouldn't have all been done without you
either. So thank you for yourhelp with it as well.
Rakaa (43:01):
Happy to, man. Happy to. I appreciate it.
Ashanti (43:04):
And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Loadout.
Huge thanks to Rockahara Sciencefor joining us and sharing his
stories. If you enjoyed theepisode, please subscribe, rate,
and review on your favoritepodcast platform. Follow me on
social media at probably Ashantior at ternwheel on all
platforms. Thanks for tuning in.
(43:25):
Until next time. Keep buyingthose tickets. Peace.
Like, you want us on the main stage in Poland or a show
that has never done hip hopbefore? Let's see. Like, we I
was trying to talk him in, like,let why don't we just put go you
got 2, 000, 3, 000 people. Let'sjust rock the 2, 000, 3, 000
people. Let's just rock the 2,000, 3, 000 people.
Let's just rock the 2, 000, youknow, why are we trying to, you
know, change change Poland? Theydon't want to.
Ashanti (00:20):
What's good, everyone? Welcome to the very first
episode of the loadout. Thepodcast where we dive deep into
the world of live music,touring, and everything that
happens behind the scenes. I'myour host, Ashanti Abdula,
founder of Ternwheel, and aseasoned manager, tour manager,
and show producer with over 20years in the gang. In each
episode, we'll unpack the highs,the lows, and the in betweens of
(00:43):
the tour life.
From crazy road stories toexpert tips and exclusive
interviews with artists,managers, tour managers, and
industry insiders, we got it allcovered. Whether you're a die
hard music fan, an aspiring tourmanager, or just curious about
what goes on backstage, this isthe place for you. Today, I'm
thrilled to be talking to RakaaTaylor, better known as Rakaa
(01:05):
Iriscience from the legendaryhip hop group Dilated Peoples.
Rakaa is a rapper, brand andculture consultant, and founder
of the creative strategy agencyAngles. He's worked with top
companies like Supercell, RedBull, and ASICs, and even won a
Clio for work with Weeb Maps.
Plus, he's still razor sharp onthe mic. Full disclosure, I had
(01:26):
the pleasure of working withDilated day to day during the
directors of photographycampaign, and I've been their
tour manager from time to timeeven. We're gonna deep dive into
some wild tourist stories, thechallenges, and the triumphs of
life on the road with 1 hiphop's most iconic groups. Rakaa,
(01:48):
Rakaa Iriscience in the mix.Yes, indeed.
Man, it's good to have you hereon the show, especially as the
first person we have on theshow. I'm super excited.
Obviously, we know each other.We kinda go back a little bit,
at least a decade. Right.
But, you know, dilated goes backway farther than that, and you
probably got way more touriststories than actually, I know
you got more tourist storiesthan anyone that I know for
(02:09):
sure. Let's pick it back to 92.What was y'all's first tour,
man?
Rakaa (02:15):
Our first real tour, I think, probably would have been
word-of-mouth 1, and that waswith Jurassic 5 and the Beat
Junkies.
Ashanti (02:25):
Yeah. I was looking back at your tour history and
you got you know what's crazy?For someone who works with
y'all, you know, on and off forthe years. It's kinda odd. I
look back at your tour historyand y'all toured pretty steadily
from, like, 98 all the way to,like, 2, 009.
And then there's, like, athere's, like, a year pause and
(02:45):
then 2011, and there's eitherspot dates or a tour all the way
through, do you know what I'msaying, until until basically
now. So
Rakaa (02:55):
Yeah.
Ashanti (02:55):
Bro, you like, do you does it feel like that? Does it
feel like you've been on theroad that long?
Rakaa (03:00):
No. Not really. It only really feels like we've been on
the road a long time when we'reon the road. You know what I
mean? It's like it's 1 of thosetype of things.
But, you know, time flies, man,and it's speeding up. It feels
like time speeds up. It fliesand it gets faster. So, you
know, as I as I think back andsomeone's like, yeah. You know,
next year, 2025.
(03:21):
And I'm like, 2020. Jeez. So,you know, like, we've been too
yeah. We we we toured prettyconsistently. We performed
consistently since, you know,the mid nineties working off of,
oh, no.
No. I'm tripping. Before we evendid, the word-of-mouth tour
Ashanti (03:37):
Mhmm.
Rakaa (03:38):
We did, Rage Against the Machine and Gang Starr tour.
Ashanti (03:42):
Yeah. Yeah.
Rakaa (03:42):
I think that might have been our first tour. But either
way, it was around the sametime. But, yeah, we've we've
toured pretty consistently sincethe late nineties. We took some
time off to do solo projects andthen we were we were out not as
dilated, but doing, you know,Evidenced doing solo tours, I
was doing solo tours, Babu, thesame thing. And then, you know,
(04:04):
as those cycles wind down, wewould get back into accepting
dilated offers, especiallyoverseas, but US tours as well.
And then, yeah, it was pretty itwas semi consistent until, I
would say, until right beforeCOVID. We we purposely, took off
2019. We toured 2018. We perfectpurposely took off 2019 because
(04:29):
2020 was our anniversary year.So we were kinda I think we
might have done 1 show in 2019,something real light because
we're doing big deals for 2020to, to celebrate the anniversary
of the platform, the firstalbum.
And then COVID hit and thatpretty much, you know, wiped
everybody, the whole the wholeindustry out for a couple years.
So we're just and then more soloprojects and more other things
(04:52):
happened and I got more into theGoogle side. So we're just kinda
getting back into the swing ofthings right now.
Ashanti (04:58):
Yeah. With that said, actually, I mean, y'all, it's
extensively extensively tourtour Europe over the years. And
I mean, like, look. Let's lookin at some of the tour places,
and I'm like, bro, where likelike, how do you get an offer
out of, like, this most randomplace? Couple of things.
Number 1, from what Iunderstand, at some point, you
pretty much took over being theagent for Dilated. Right?
Rakaa (05:20):
Yeah. Different times, I've been our booking agent,
mostly for international. Wealways I think, except for short
little stints where I took overfor the US, we we always had,
like, pretty much always hadNorth American representation.
And international, I took over,you know, as I saw it early and
wanted to make sure that that wetouched the world before it
(05:41):
turned into 1 of those thingswhere, you know, you know, a lot
of groups, unfortunately, theywait until they can't book
shows, and then they try to gofind international audiences and
whatnot. But for us, I grew upwith Hendrix friend and like
just listen to music and thesethings I started to realize
that, you know, the the world'sa big place and, you know, you
could you could plant theseseeds early and they'll, you
know, they'll sustain you.
(06:02):
So, yeah, we toured a lot ofthose place a lot of the places
that we toured that were not asas known as far as cities were
concerned. A lot of those weremusic festivals and a lot of
times the music festivals areoutside of the main region. So,
you know, you know, some people,you know, their egos are like,
no, you gotta go rock this bigthis club in a big city. I'm
(06:23):
like, I'd rather rock 20 timesthat a minute amount of people
hour away from the big city atthis music festival, you know.
So that's how that's how we didit.
But we still got clubs. We stillwe would kinda mix them up,
especially in Europe. We wouldlike, you know, summer tours.
The the festivals are prettymuch on the weekends, and so we
would do club dates during theweek and then festivals on the
weekend.
Ashanti (06:42):
How did that begin? Like, did you have those
connections or were you just didyou go through a phone book of
Germany or, like, how did yousaw like?
Rakaa (06:52):
Yeah. Well, early on, at least early on in our career, a
lot of the people that werebooking the shows, a lot of the
promoters were also hip hoppers.They would be DJs or or or or,
you know, retired b boys orgraffiti graffiti artists,
emcees themselves, producers.And then they would get into
booking shows and they kindagrew in that scene. So just from
(07:17):
being in the circle of things,especially at the time, I was a
member of Zulu Nation, being amember of Rocksteady Crew.
You know, I was I was buildingsome really strong cultural
connections around the worldand, we just ended up being as
we perform at these places, youknow, the promoters would, you
(07:39):
know, introduce themselves. We'dbe cool. We hit it off. And then
if we get let go of an agent,they would start reaching out to
the scene, like, yo, we wannabook Dylators. They reach out to
a DJ partner of mine or agraffiti graffiti cat or b boy,
b girl, whatever.
They would reach out to peoplein the scene and some kind of
way would get back to me andthrough doing that, I started
developing my own relationshipsand started to realize that, you
(08:02):
know, it gets stepped on a lot.Like, by the time the offer gets
to you, it might go through 3 or4 hands. You know, and you start
to realize how much you'rereally worth if you deal
directly with the people asopposed to becoming, you know,
part of that scene. So westarted dealing directly with
people. I mean, we've had bigagents over there as well.
And that was good if we wantedto just get placed on a tour,
(08:25):
somebody else's tour, and theycould make a call and plug us
in, but that wasn't really doingwhat we wanted to do to really
build up our own our ownnotoriety and our own, brand and
base out there. So yeah. Justconnected with the culture,
connected with the community,and through that, people started
reaching out directly. I startedto realize I could I could do
this myself, you know, verywell, very effectively, and kept
(08:48):
it moving that way.
Ashanti (08:49):
Where, going going back a little bit to, like, from your
first tour to your second tour,how different was it for for you
personally? Like, was it just Imean, for the group, was it just
a major difference, or were youguys just getting into it? I
mean, you know, your first tour,you don't know what the hell
you're doing. Yeah. So, like,explain to me, like, how that
(09:10):
felt.
And then from that first tourinto the next tour, what what
kind of
Rakaa (09:13):
things you brought with you? Main thing that I took away
from, you know, that I rememberabout growing in our tours and
just our shows in general wasthe the length of the show. You
know, when we first startedtouring, we'd be up there doing,
you know, a hot 15 minutes. Youknow what I mean? And we put all
our energy in the 15 minutes,blow out our voices, we're going
(09:34):
crazy.
And, you know, where we are now,like yeah. Festival might be 40
minutes or an hour or something,but some of these club dates,
we've done 2 hour club dates,you know, things like that. You
know, that's not our normal clubtime. Usually, it's like 75
minutes or something like that.90 minutes.
But we've done like 2 hour, 2and a half hour club date. Like,
(09:55):
we've done like crazy time. So Ithink that was the biggest thing
is, you know, you having a lotmore material, having a lot more
to remember, having to paceyourself differently, having to
take care of your voicedifferently, you know, if you're
doing 15 minutes of versus anhour and a half. The size of the
physic the physical size of thestages, you know, it was just
(10:17):
growth all the way around. And,you know, that caused us to have
to be a little bit moreresponsible, you know, to be to
maintain that professionalism,make sure we were gonna be right
for the show itself.
You know, we couldn't treat thehour and a half show the same
way, you know, headline show thesame way we're doing a treating
a 15 minute intro set, you know,or whatever the case may be. So
(10:38):
that was probably the biggestthe biggest thing. And then
also, from our first tour totours happening after that was
recognizing how expensive it canactually be to tour. You know,
you start getting an offer like,yeah, we're gonna pay you x
amount of 1, 000 per night to godo the show. You do the math in
your head real quick.
Like, oh, we got 30 shows. We'reabout to come back and put a
(10:58):
down
Ashanti (10:58):
payment on a house.
Rakaa (10:59):
And you get back and they're like, okay. There's a 1,
000 a day for the tour bus. Andthen, you know, this amount's
advanced to show and you gottapay for the crew and you gotta
pay taxes and, you know, yougotta do this. And by the time
you get it, it's like, alright.You know what I mean?
Like, it's it's not Business.It's a business. It's a whole
business. So, you know, yougotta, you know, plan
accordingly and set expectationsaccordingly.
Ashanti (11:20):
Did you when you guys first started, did you have a
crew or did you kind of buildyour crew, like, over time? I
assume you were on Capitol atthe time, right, when you went
on
Rakaa (11:28):
your first tour? We had a crew as far as, like, in the
streets, you know what I mean?Like, you know, like that kind
of crew, but we didn't have likea, a professional crew, you
know, we would hire, tourmanagers early on. You know, we
have various people, but 1 ofthe biggest 1 of the tour
managers that really helped showme how tour management actually
(11:52):
works, how touring works, andwas also somebody we could
always count on was a guy namedLalo Medina.
Ashanti (11:57):
Okay.
Rakaa (11:58):
So Lalo, he was working with j 5 and he was working with
other people as well. I think heworks with, what's his name?
White Stripe. Jack,
Ashanti (12:08):
Oh, Jack White.
Rakaa (12:09):
Yeah. Jack White White Stripes. He works with him now,
but, Lalo working with OsoMotley, I think. He was working
with a lot of people, and he wasjust a really solid, you know,
he he knew how to really solidtour manager, really cool dude,
still is, really cool dude, andhe could think on his feet and
(12:29):
make things happen, you know,you know, as needed, like, on
the fly. So I learned a lot fromhim, and he was also really
communicative.
He had a he was organized, like,it was a way to do it. And then
later, we work with, like, withFrancisco, who was, you know,
who Lalo brought on originallyas a as a, kind of an assistant
(12:50):
team when we were we're doingthe bigger tours. But we've
worked with a lot of differentpeople. We had a dude named Kiko
Mara, who is, out of out ofColorado, out of Denver, I
believe. He worked at the FoxTheater in Boulder, and he was a
sound our sound tech for a lotof tours.
He also worked with Jurassic 5.So, yeah, we over the years,
we've had some some really goodpeople, you know, early on. We
(13:12):
had a, you know, a a good baseof people to make sure that
everything was going right whenit came to touring.
Ashanti (13:18):
I think that from my from my side and having tour
managed, not only you guys, butactually, there are times when
when I was at the label or whenI've worked before where someone
couldn't, you know, managesomebody and they just couldn't
afford a tour manager. Right.And once again, for the
economics of it, I had to justjump in and be a tour manager.
Right?
Rakaa (13:38):
Right. And I learned
Ashanti (13:39):
kind of my flow of it. But, ultimately, what I learned
was once you understand theflow, especially if it's more
than 1 person. Right? Becausethe flow of 1 person is pretty
easy to get down pretty quickly.But when it's multiple people,
really learning the flow ofthose people, how they interact
with each other, and then whatare the needs that everybody
has, As long as everyone's needsare taken care of, the show goes
(14:01):
well.
And then outside of that, youhave to take care of the needs
of the venue, take care of theneeds of kinda everyone, all
partners involved. You're reallycut you really are the glue of,
like, making sure thateverything runs, smoothly for
that night. So I give it up tosome of the big you know, some
of the I know tour managers onthese massive, massive tours,
(14:21):
and I'm like, bruh, I don't evenwanna see, like like, Kendrick's
team, people like that. It'slike multiple tour managers. You
know what I mean?
It's like tour manager plusassistant plus assistant. Yeah.
But, yeah, I mean, what so sohow tripped out were you after
the first few tours when youwere making those calculations,
like, oh, we're getting paidthis much. And then you're like,
(14:43):
oh, damn. I we didn't realize wehad to pay for all this shit.
Rakaa (14:49):
I mean, it was a it was definitely a rude awakening.
It's 1 of those things that, youknow, you you can't be mad that
you don't get the the answers toquestions you didn't ask. You
know? So, like, it to me, itjust became a situation where,
it became really important to toknow what to ask and to know how
(15:10):
to set those expectations.Because what what happened is,
you know, I was some kind of waya lot of the times.
I'm not sure how it happened,but over the years, I became
kind of like a point person forthe group. You know, a team
captain, if you will, I guess,outside the studio. Inside the
studio
Ashanti (15:29):
Well, I can tell you why.
Rakaa (15:30):
There might be Ev or Babs, but outside the studio,
like, what what why why is that?
Ashanti (15:34):
You have the personality for it.
Rakaa (15:36):
Right. Okay.
Ashanti (15:37):
It's simple, bro. You either got like, I don't I mean,
I don't mean to cut off yourthought, but III used to go to
the, IPR in different places andgive these talks about being a
manager, being, you know, inthis business. And I would just
tell everybody, you might aswell go ahead and stop doing
this, this vocation you're doingright now unless you have the
personality for it. You eithergot the personality or you
(15:59):
don't. That can't really betaught.
Rakaa (16:00):
Yeah. You you
Ashanti (16:01):
gotta know how to, like, like you said, like, being
able to think on your feet andget things done.
Rakaa (16:06):
Yeah.
Ashanti (16:06):
Other people might crumble or fall, but I feel like
you have that personality forsure. So that's why.
Rakaa (16:12):
No. I appreciate it. And and I
Ashanti (16:13):
should chose for you. You didn't it doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Rakaa (16:16):
It was it was definitely a lot. It was a lot to deal with
because part of what comes withthat is navigating the other
side of the personalities in thegroup. You know? Like, it it
becomes you know, it's notalways an easy thing to have
somebody that's in the groupthat we're we're all on 1 side
of the line together at 1 point,and then suddenly, you know, I'm
(16:38):
being asked to to kinda moveback and forth across both lines
to say, okay, guys, we gotta dothis and try to smooth things
over and make things happen forthe bigger picture. So, you
know, it becomes it becomes alittle bit of, it becomes a
little trying sometimes tonavigate that primarily because
that's not where we started.
Like, what we start you know,business you know, we started
(17:01):
recording music in, you know, inthe studio. You know, that's I'm
I'm very happy to step back alittle bit and be like, okay.
What should we do here? Whatwhat should we make happen here?
When it comes to the businessside of it or to the live side
of it, I'm much more involved.
So, you know, we had to kind offigure out how every all the
(17:22):
pieces fit. We had to kind offigure out how we were gonna,
work with each other in thatway. The record label is calling
me, you know, management iscalling me, agents are calling
me, merge people, whoever it is,they're calling me to make these
decisions and then I have to gokind of figure out how to if
(17:42):
they if they make sense, how to,you know, push them across the
line and push them through. Soit becomes a little bit it
becomes a little hectic. But,yeah, maybe I do have the
personality in general to beable to step back from it and
look at it all big picture andthen figure out the best way to
to implement these things.
But, yeah, it was it was alittle bit it was a little bit
crazy at different times to, todeal with that, you know. But
(18:08):
ultimately, we all respect eachother and that's that goes a
long way, you know. That goes along way when you're when you're
in a group, you know, thatrespect being a base, that
appreciation that, you know,we're all here for a reason and
that we all bring somethingdifferent to the table. But it's
just about being able to tomove. And then you and then you
(18:28):
also gotta keep in mind thatduring the same time, you know,
Ev is really focusing on hissolo career at a certain point
and also doing dilated, youknow, Babu has always had a
focus on his solo career.
The way we set up that Babu'sdeal was different than our
deal. So he had the opportunityto to take all the, you know,
(18:51):
get all the benefits of being,you know, in a in dilated
peoples that, you know, from thelabel to management to
everything else, insurance,everything came. But he also had
a little more flexibility andfreedom. So he immediately, he
was out doing solo baboon duckseason projects on sequence and
and nature sounds, I think, andlike other things that, you
know, we weren't able to doRight. Until until a little bit
(19:14):
later.
So, yeah. It it, you know, therewere a lot of dynamics. The
dynamics kept shifting, but wemoved to work.
Ashanti (19:20):
I think the, just speaking of that, I think a lot
of people,
Rakaa (19:24):
a lot
Ashanti (19:24):
of younger artists that, that I've talked to and
spent time with and around, theytend to kind of lump all
everything together and don'trealize that, like, the music
business is different pieces andthere and there's businesses
inside of that business. Right?So recording and releasing music
is 1 part of it. And touring isa whole separate business.
(19:48):
Right?
Yeah. A lot of the the artiststhat I talked to, I'm like, you
set up a touring entity. It's acompletely separate thing, and
it's a separate business withits own set of insurance and its
own set of people that areworking at certain times and its
own set of life. And then merch,merch is its own separate
business as well. Right.
Right? You can't yeah. You yousell merch usually based off of
(20:10):
your shows and things of thatnature, but they are separate
businesses, and you kinda haveto treat them as such. Yeah.
Rakaa (20:15):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Ashanti (20:17):
And, like, nowadays, I think that, you know, obviously,
touring is very different thanit used to be. If you can, you
know, think way back even if youthink, like, early nineties, a
lot of these a lot of the biggercast would play, like, large
large, markets, New York, LA,blah blah blah. A lot of these
minor markets weren't beingplayed at that time. They've got
(20:39):
and hit the road. They werestill selling records.
As that kinda changed andrecords started to maneuver and
streaming became a thing, Nowyou see Lil Wayne hitting Jack,
you know, Ames, Iowa. You knowwhat I mean? Or, like, all these
little minor markets. So I guessI said all that to say, like,
the touring businesses, it'swhat's making money now. Touring
(21:00):
and touring and merch is is whatit is.
Yeah. Yeah. Are you feeling likeyou when did you feel like you
saw that shift? Did you everfeel like you saw that shift? Is
that something that you guys, oror you specifically were aware
of?
Rakaa (21:16):
Yeah. I mean, you could feel the shift happening. We we
were always kind of a uniquegroup in the sense that, you
know, we always felt that, youknow, the record label didn't
get on board with us becausethey really respect the culture
or record labels that we we'vehad multiple labels, but they
didn't really get with usbecause they respect the
culture. They didn't reallyunderstand necessarily what made
(21:39):
us special, you know. We got 2MCs and a DJ and some turntables
and some microphones and, youknow, it wasn't, gimmicky, you
know, it wasn't anything likethat.
But because the people wereshowing up, because the you
know, we invite them to ashowcase and they couldn't get
in because, you know, the firemarshals would tell them it's
(22:00):
at, you know, at capacity andit's aligned down the block
outside, they can't get in. Orbecause DJs were keeping us in
rotation and these things. Theythey I think a lot of the times,
the interest came from themrecognizing that we had a direct
connection with the people, andthey didn't wanna lose out on
that. So as a result of that, wealways had this kind of thing
(22:21):
where we were, you know, toosmall to push. Like, I have
said, too small to push, too bigto drop.
Ashanti (22:28):
Yeah.
Rakaa (22:29):
But we were kinda caught in this weird middle ground,
where we weren't making popmusic. You know, we weren't
consciously making pop music totry to break into the charts.
But the music that we didrelease was making enough noise
where they weren't gonna let goof us. Like, they're, like, this
is this is good or, you know,like, you know, situation
(22:51):
capital, like, they haddecimated their entire hip hop
departments, basically. I thinkthey when we got over there, it
was just it was just the BeastieBoys, to be on if I re if I
recall correctly, they didn'thave any hip hop.
And the Beastie Boys was evenwith Grand Royal, and they had
their own office down thestreet. They weren't even in the
capitol building. So they weretrying to rebuild and they
wanted to rebuild off ofsomething that had some cultural
(23:15):
base and integrity andsignificance. So, you know, they
they came to us and we saw,like, a clear path to move on.
And it was working really welluntil, you know, industry
politics do what they do, andcapital and priority merge, and
(23:36):
that wanna try to make us fitthat model and it doesn't, you
know, it creates friction.
So, you know, there was therewas definitely changes that we
felt, streaming have been justthe Internet in general, you
know, becoming a much bigger,factor in music. It kinda
decentralized things, you know,for lack of a better word, and
(23:59):
we could definitely feel that.But at this by the you know, at
the same time, because we didn'treally have that label
understanding and that labelsupport, we already hit the
road. Like, you're talking aboutbefore, like, we were in these
cities, we were already doingthese festivals, we're already
in these places internationallythat a lot of people have never
been. So, you know, from thatstandpoint, yeah, we saw it and
(24:23):
we recognized early that wecan't really control what the
label's gonna do, what thelabel's not gonna do.
We can't spend their money forthem, you know, we can't force
them to spend a dollar theydon't wanna spend. That's not
they're not contractuallyobligated to spend. So it was up
to us to go build out our ownbase and our own relationships
and tell our own story directlyto the people and that's what we
(24:44):
did. And this is, you know, alot of a lot of what happens now
is that these, you know, kidsthat lump things together, like
you were saying, a lot of themwere came up in the 3 60 deal
era. So they lump it togetherbecause it's kind of been
presented to them as somethingthat's lumped together because
that fits the labels.
But for us, we already knew,like, this is something where we
(25:07):
gotta really put our whateverwe're working on, we gotta put
everything into it. But we can'tbe con we can't not tour because
the record isn't multi platinum.Like, we're headlining this
festival, and there's multiplatinum artists opening for us
because they don't have aconnection to the people. They
have a connection to the programdirectors at radio or whatever.
(25:27):
Right.
Ashanti (25:27):
Right. Which is a very different thing. So you did it
the smartest way, in myestimation, which and a lot of
people aren't gonna be able todo that either. It's, like,
kinda just always be hitting theground and being out on the road
no matter what, outside ofwhatever's happening at the
label or what's happening in thein the business all altogether.
There's only a few, like it'sfunny because there's a lot of
indies that did it, but y'allhappen to be on a major, but
(25:50):
operating as an indie, like,group.
You know what I mean? I mean, tome then, you probably were able
to to pretty much protect yourprep your price for a long time,
I assume, since you were doingit on your own.
Rakaa (26:02):
Yeah. We were able to protect it. We were able to
really, you know, carve out ourown lane and really build it up
from that side, and and thenumbers have gone up. It it's
it's always interesting becausewe have been able to do it our
ourself on that side, but But atthe same time, as we're talking
about, the the nature of theindustry has changed. So, you
(26:25):
know, the the access that otherpeople have to the space means
that there's a lot more trafficnow.
Right. So on 1 hand, yeah, we'reable to protect our price. We're
able to make sure that ourguarantees were constantly
growing. We're able to reallybuild that up regardless of what
was happening with the with theactual records. But at the same
time, there were a lot like aflood of a flood came, you know,
(26:50):
of many, many more peoplethrough, you know, digital
access that didn't exist before.
So on that, you know, from thatlooking at it that way, we were
kind of I wouldn't say lucky,but we we definitely played our
cards right in carving out ourlane before we needed to find a
lane ourselves. You know, we wemade our whole lane into
(27:10):
something that still serves uswell to this day. To this day.
Yeah. We have our fans.
We have our our connection withthe with our people directly. We
know how to perform. And, youknow, to be honest, a lot of a
lot of our our ability to dothat also came from the fact
that by by rocking the way thatwe rock, we got a reputation for
(27:31):
being able to rock a show. Everbeen able to go anywhere just
with our energy and the skilland the and and the the
foundation of what we do to rocka show. So we were getting a lot
of calls, like, last minute, youknow you know you know how it
goes in Europe, you know,everything's running in a week
before the show.
Somebody's pulling out the showand the promoters are scrambling
to try to make it work. And sothey would give us a call, like,
(27:51):
yo. Get dilated, fly out, andand do this. And so 2 things
happened there. 1 is well, a fewthings happened.
1 is we got good relationshipswith promoters because we were
the the the people that werecoming to save the day. 2 is we
got in front of a lot of peoplethat we ordinarily may not have
(28:12):
been able to get in front of,you know, and we were able to
let our skills show through, andshow and prove on stage that we
could do this even without beingnumber 1 on the charts or
whatever the case is. And 3, isthat because these were last
minute calls to come save theday, the the offers were a
little higher than they wouldhave been if we got the call
(28:34):
when they were doing theoriginal bookings. So that kinda
helps set precedent in all thesedifferent places, that our
number is pretty high, but we'regonna come in and kill it. And
it doesn't matter what'shappening with the charts, like,
book them too, but you you bookus, it's gonna be a, you know,
real life real life show.
So all those things kinda worktogether in our favor and and
help keep us in, you know, keepus in the place that we're able
(28:57):
to we're able to do now, whichis to still go tour the world as
we want to and go take theseshows. And we don't take it for
granted. We don't think that wecould just dip out and not say
anything and just because wewant a tour, we're gonna go
headline a festival. But, youknow, we have done enough
individually and collectivelythat we keep that fire lit. And
when we like, right now, whenwe're getting geared up or we're
(29:18):
we're hitting the road more,we're doing these shows, the
numbers are where they need tobe, you know.
Shout out to, to Ivory andZinger. You know, they, you
know, they've been in the mix inin getting these numbers up and,
you know, different things likethat to to to put us where we're
in a comfortable place to keepmoving.
Ashanti (29:34):
Keeping that poll star looking good. Yeah, man. It
feels like a lesson for, foranybody who's who's looking to
do international work. Gottakeep that passport clean and be
ready to go.
Rakaa (29:47):
They just Yeah. Yeah. For sure. They start to stay in
shape. You never know.
It's like a like a fighter. Youknow, like these UFC fighters or
whatever. Like, you never knowwhen somebody's gonna, you know,
weigh in, you know, miss misreadit, weigh in or get disqualified
or pop hot for something. Sostay in the gym, stay sharp,
keep your skills right, and, youknow, keep like you said, keep
the passport current.
Ashanti (30:07):
Yeah. At
Rakaa (30:08):
least everything is taken care of because you might get
that call that could change yourlife. You step into a last
minute situation and and andwalk away with a belt or def or
or at least with your stock at ahigher level than it was before.
Now you're in a position to tonegotiate and make things
happen. So
Ashanti (30:21):
What's the biggest show you guys play?
Rakaa (30:23):
The biggest show we've ever done was Woodstock, Poland.
So Poland had Woodstock, Polandhad never done hip hop before. I
think they said they had, like,a rapper 1 time that was in the
electron in the electronic I'msorry. The, the dance tent or
the electro tent or something.They did, like, a guest
appearance with a DJ, but theyhad never had, like, an
(30:46):
official, hip hop artist come inand they called us to do it.
We're like, Poland is alwaysgreat for dilated. Like, that's
1 of those countries that alwaysshows a lot of love and we were
shocked when we finally went outthere, how much love we got
there, so we always went back.But doing Woodstock, Poland,
they called us and they're like,yo, it's gonna be, yeah, a
(31:07):
1000000 people over 3 days, andwe want you guys on the main
stage. We're, like, you want uson the main stage in Poland or
someone that has never done hiphop before? We'll see.
Like, we I was trying to talkhim in, like, let why don't we
just put go you got a DJ set?Can we just rock the DJ? We got,
like, 2 1000, 3000 people. Let'sjust rock the DJ set. You know
(31:29):
what I mean?
Why are we trying to, you know,change change Poland? They don't
want I didn't want hip hop. But,no, they were like, yo, like,
you know, we wanna do this. Thepromoter, you know, the the
owner of the festival, theperson that runs the festival,
he he checked you guys out. Hereally likes your work.
He wants you guys to be thegroup that that brings hip hop
(31:51):
to the festival. So, yeah, wewent out there and we didn't
know what to expect, man. Weit's all rock. Like we got
there, it was like biker gangslining. It was like a whole day.
We were like, yo, this is crazy,yo. Like, I don't know how this
is gonna go. I look at Ev. He'sover there tapping his feet.
He's nervous.
Like, that's what just people'slike, what do we expect? Like,
there's a rapper to get the nameof the group, but there's a rock
group on before we go on. Wepeek out of the crowd. You can't
(32:13):
even see the back of the crowd.Like, it's, like, 300, 000
people or something out there.
And we as soon as we hit thestage, we just killed it, man.
Just rocked it. And it was 1 ofthose things that really let us
know. Before that, it was hiphop alparque in in in, in
Bogota, in Colombia, and thatwas like a 100000 people. But
(32:33):
but Well, you Poland was 33times.
Ashanti (32:36):
Like, how that's gotta be such different energy than,
like, a club show. Like, I mean,how do you even do you know what
I mean? Do you just go up andnot try not to look at anybody
and or how does it, like?
Rakaa (32:47):
It's weird because from my perspective, at least, when I
rock a club show, I'm rocking aroom full of people. Mhmm. When
you rock a 100000 people or300000 people, it's like you're
performing for the ocean. Itbecomes 1 big wave of you know
what I mean? Like, you could 0in, like, somebody has a big
(33:09):
flag, somebody's fire in thesky, there's people, you know,
that are holding up signs, youknow, could be, you know,
pictures of your face.
You know what I mean? Like,there's, you know, that they
printed out. Like, there'sthings like that that happen
that make you zone in or maybe,you know, you find 1 person
that's just going crazy, wrap italong, and you give them some
but for the most part, like, aquarter million people will have
you know, you you're talkingabout 6 figures of people, that
(33:31):
becomes like a like a thing.That becomes like a big That's a
whole thing. Yeah.
The wave. Even the wave and howthey're jumping because the
sound travels to the back, ittakes a minute for it to get
back there. So, you know, you'relike, oh, yeah. It's up and it's
like you can see it kinda goback as the sound or sometimes,
like, they'll even have to have,like, another set of screens,
like, halfway through the crowdbecause the people that you're
(33:52):
the people in the back are sofar. Otherwise, they wouldn't
even be able to see the showbecause that's how far back they
are.
So, yeah, it it's crazy, man.It's a crazy feeling.
Ashanti (34:01):
What was the smallest show, you guys ever played that
you that you can remember, fan?
Rakaa (34:06):
I I remember we did a show. I think it was on I feel
like it was on the word-of-mouthtour. Maybe it was on the
word-of-mouth tour. I feel likeit might have been, like,
Atlanta. Maybe it was Atlanta,but it may have been, like, 50
people, 40 people in there.
(34:27):
Like, it got so crazy that, ifI'm not mistaken, I think at 1
point, like, Lalo, our tour man,like, brought, like, the George
Foreman grill, went to thesteak, and started making
sandwiches on stage. It was itwas a it was ridiculous. It was
it was a ridiculous situation.But, yeah, like, that that was
probably if I remembercorrectly, that was I think that
was 1 of the word-of-mouthtours, and we just laughed about
it. It was funny to us.
(34:48):
Like, it was like, alright.We're not gonna win them all
because, you know, every othershow is sold out 2 nights this,
that, and the third. And, youknow, we hit 1 where it's like,
oh, that didn't that didn't gowell. You know what I'm saying?
Okay.
You still
Ashanti (34:58):
gotta you still get up and have to perform and and do
what you
Rakaa (35:01):
do, but but You still
Ashanti (35:02):
feel it for me. Making, sandwiches on stage is pretty
fire.
Rakaa (35:05):
Yeah. You know, you gotta get that foreman you gotta get
that foreman cracking. You knowwhat I mean?
Ashanti (35:09):
If you had to pick a tour and be like, wow. That was
cool. I don't wanna do thatagain. Which tour would that be?
Rakaa (35:15):
We did a tour we did a tour with D'Angelo. That was a
weird tour for us. Like, Iremember the first day we did,
like, the Greek theater, andit's like Diluted People's Lucy
Pearl and D'Angelo. And we'relike, and that was another 1 of
the I think most deaf wasoriginally supposed to do that
tour, which still was kind ofweird, but it made more sense.
Ashanti (35:36):
A little bit more sense. Yeah.
Rakaa (35:38):
Yeah. But they called us and we're like, alright. So we
went out there and we did ourthing, But it was a weird kind
of crowd. It was like Mhmm.Girls that were there to scream
for D'Angelo when he takes offhis shirt.
You know what I mean? Like, Iremember seeing, like there was,
like, times where it'd be, like,pimps with, like, a whole
stable. You know, you know, youknow, it was, like, a whole
different it was a wholedifferent different vibe for us.
(35:58):
And, you know, we had to kindago out there and earn it every
night and, you know, peoplepeople got into it. It was a
cool vibe, but, you know, youknow, like, these people are
they're they're having a goodtime, but they're really here
for D'Angelo.
You know what I mean? It was 1of those things. You could look
at the crowd and be like, oh,these girls are dressed up.
Okay. This isn't.
These women are here for notthey're not trying to see me and
Babs and Ev, like, you know,rocking rocking the stage.
(36:21):
They're ready to have somebodydo how does it feel and see,
like, some abs or something likethis.
Ashanti (36:26):
And you weren't giving them the abs,
Rakaa (36:28):
I assume. No. Yeah.
Ashanti (36:30):
I feel it.
Rakaa (36:30):
I feel it. I mean, they're there. They're there.
Ashanti (36:37):
They're always there. Are they visible? I don't know.
But
Rakaa (36:41):
they're there. We did, a Lincoln Park tour. We did a
dilated Lincoln Park, and then Idon't
Ashanti (36:50):
know if it makes sense musically, but it made sense for
that time because that was whatwas happening. You know what I
mean? I can't Yeah.
Rakaa (36:56):
No. There was, like, a mix. They were doing that kind
of and and to be honest, we wewe agreed to do this tour
dilated at Lincoln Park they'regonna have somebody else open
and we're like, okay, LincolnPark, they kinda do, like, rock
wrap fusion or whatever. Butthen by the time the tour
happened, this was in Europe, Bythe 2 time the tour happened,
they had added 2 other rockgroups to the the wall,
Puddlomutt and Edema who were,like, you know, 2 rock groups.
(37:18):
And, so we're like, alright.
So I remember, like, that was 1of those things. Recipes to
Chester too from Linkin ParkRecipes. But we could that was
another thing, like, that was arock crowd. That was a Linkin
Park and rock crowd. That wasn'ta dilated crowd.
So much so that whenever wewould get off our tour bus at
the venue, we had a separategroup of people on the other
(37:41):
side of the fence that were notcoming to the show. They just
wanted to come meet us and do,like, a free meet and greet in
the parking lot. Because they'relike, why are you doing this
tour? Like, you've never beenhere before. Why would you come
here with Lincoln Park?
Like, it was 1 of those type ofthings.
Ashanti (37:54):
I tour managed you guys on that show going up to, it
wasn't Ukiah. It was likeNorthern California. I can't
remember
Rakaa (38:01):
exactly where. Eureka. Eureka. Yeah. It was Eureka.
Humboldt County.
Ashanti (38:04):
Humboldt County. I know we talked about this, but I'm
just gonna say here, I I tourmanager on that show, and, I
think there was a lot ofexpectation that there'll be a
lot of partying happeningafterward. Yeah. So there was
some frustration when I waslike, can we box all this stuff
up from backstage while you guyswere performing? Yeah.
Rakaa (38:23):
Like, you can just write it boxed up.
Ashanti (38:24):
Yeah. They were like, wait. What? I was like, yeah.
Yeah.
No. We need everything boxed up.We're gonna get out of here.
They're like, they're not gonnastay. I'm like, no.
We're gonna roll out. You know?But I'm pretty sure that there's
no 1 at that show, especiallywith how it was a Halloween
show, everybody was partyinghard.
Rakaa (38:40):
Right. Right.
Ashanti (38:40):
I can guarantee you no 1 would would have ever expected
that you and I would be in yourhotel room 2 about a hour and a
half later at the casino that westayed at making sandwiches and
eating sandwiches and talkingshit. Like, I'm sure they
expected us to you know? Yeah. Imean I people are so used to
glamour, and there is someglamour to it or whatever, but,
(39:03):
really, it's like that hour of,you know, you hurry up and wait.
You know what it is.
Get there. Wait. Wait. Wait.Wait.
Do your do your 75 minute set.We out. You know what I mean?
Like, that's that's kinda how itis. You know?
Rakaa (39:15):
We've partied we've partied around the world. We've
done the done done the afterparty thing. And there's certain
times when it's fun to do orwe're getting paid to do it and
then it's that's makes it evenmore fun to do. But for the most
part, yeah, I'd rather say thankyou, make sure our bread is
right, make sure everybody getsto the hotel safe, and call you
up and be like, yo, you got thebox of fun. Let's do it.
(39:37):
Yeah. You look for that. Like,when we would go, do Boulder or
something like that, like, Kikoand all those guys to check from
around midnight, Those dudes,they had a they had a house in
Denver and they'd be like, youknow, you know, you wanna come
to the club, you wanna go dosomething. It's like now,
they're like, why doesn'teveryone just come to Chuck's
crib? I I remember 1 day, it waswe're on the word-of-mouth tour,
(40:01):
I think word-of-mouth 2 maybe,And Kiko was, like, yeah, every
after this, let's I'll go toChuck's house.
And it turned out to be, like, ajam session downstairs in the
basement with, like, Maceo fromDayla and the drums and all us
freestyle and they're barbecuingin the backyard, like, it was
like a it turned into, like, ahouse party. Like, you know, it
(40:21):
was so so much fun compared toall the club parties and catered
food and all that stuff. Youhave somebody barbecuing and
playing drums and messing aroundfreestyling hanging out. It was
like, this feels like an adultversion of what we grew up
doing. Like, you know, this isthis is this is fun.
So, yeah, like, somebody islike, man, don't don't even
show, I'll make some homemadewe'll cook something or we'll go
(40:42):
pick up something local. Andjust chill, relax, watch the
game or watch the fight or go dowhatever and then just get get
where you're going. It's like,ah, it is a nice break. It is it
does feel like you get torecharge your batteries a little
bit and not be stuck in thisperformer or, like, this this
performer brand mode, like, youcould just be a person and then
do what you gotta do. So, yeah,I I enjoy that as well.
(41:03):
I could see them being like,yeah, this is cool. I needed
that.
Ashanti (41:06):
I have a similar story that went absolutely the
opposite way. I'm I'm so excitedthat you, took the time to join
us today. I really appreciateyou doing it. I know you got a
lot of awesome things going on,and I'm still you know, always
just happy to be able to stillcall you a friend and, even
spend time with you these days.Anything else you wanna leave
(41:27):
anybody with?
Rakaa (41:29):
Yeah. If you just if you're in the industry, if
you're a tour manager,definitely get that ternwheel
app, get it popping, really getthat account set up. If you're
an artist, and you want yourbusiness right, then make sure
your tour manager gets thatTurnwheel app and gets a
subscription, gets it set up.But, yeah, man. It it's great to
see your growth as well.
(41:50):
Great to be able to call you afriend as well to be able to
work with you. And and, youknow, there's there's obviously
much more that we're gonna bedoing, but, you know, just to
see the growth and to be able totake something that you have a
very strong grasp of, you know,a strong understanding of, and
turn that into some into a aproduct that can not only drive
(42:11):
good business for you and yourfamily and other people around
you, but also improve theindustry and improve the lives
of the artists and and thepeople that are using it and
make you know, if if if the roadis managed more efficiently and
effectively, then that benefitseverybody.
Ashanti (42:30):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Rakaa (42:31):
To be able to take that have that vision and and turn
that into something real and notjust leave it on the on the on
the board, but actually bring itinto real life, man. You know,
bravo to you. I'm real proud ofhow you how you've handled it.
And, you know, you I've neverknown you to be a shy person,
but to be able to go putyourself out there also on
social media to go travel andand and visit these things that
(42:53):
really make this happen. I'm I'mexcited to see what happens with
Ternible moving forward.
Yeah. I mean,
Ashanti (42:56):
it wouldn't it wouldn't have all been done without you
either. So thank you for yourhelp with it as well.
Rakaa (43:01):
Happy to, man. Happy to. I appreciate it.
Ashanti (43:04):
And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Loadout.
Huge thanks to Rockahara Sciencefor joining us and sharing his
stories. If you enjoyed theepisode, please subscribe, rate,
and review on your favoritepodcast platform. Follow me on
social media at probably Ashantior at ternwheel on all
platforms. Thanks for tuning in.
(43:25):
Until next time. Keep buyingthose tickets. Peace.
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