May 7, 2026 • 31 mins
In the latest season of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell is looking at the origins and consequences of mistakes—why we make them, the context in which we make them, and what happens after we make them. Years ago a music producer named Irv Gotti—a hitmaker for Jay-Z, Ja Rule, and Ashanti—was tapped by Sony Music to make a record with Jennifer Lopez. They wanted a big hit. And Irv delivered. But then he made the biggest mistake of his career.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
In two thousand and one, Tommy Mottola, then the head
of Sony Music Entertainment, called murder inks IRV Gotti, who
at the time was working with the likes of jay Z,
y Ashanti and DMX. Tommy asked Gotti to do a
remix of Jennifer Lopez's I'm Real, which became a huge
radio hit and led to more remixes with j Lo.
In the world of hip hop and crossover pop in
the early yachts, IRV Gotti was at the top of
(00:40):
his game, and then admittedly he messed up big time.
In the latest season of revision of History, Malcolm Gladwell
is looking at the origins and consequences of mistakes while
we make them, the context in which we make them,
and what happens after we make them. Here's the story
of Gotti's mistake and what it tells us, not about
the individual who makes a mistake, but the witnesses who
(01:01):
watch it happen, enjoyed the episode, and find more of
Revisionist History wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
This guy calls me like seven in the morning, like
Tommy was South.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
In two thousand and one, the head of Sony Music
Tommy Mottola called the rap producer IRV Gotti at the
time God. He worked with jay Z, Ja Rule, Ashanti
DMX in the hip hop world of the early arts.
He was at the top of his game.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
He's like, yo, I need you to make a record,
And I said what he said, make a record with
j Lo and put jaw on it and make it
a duet. And I say, yo, I need total creative
at TIMMS, I'm doing whatever the fuck I want. Tommy
was like, you could do whatever the fuck you want
as long as it's a duet with Jo Roul and
(01:53):
j Loo.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Mattola wanted Gotti to do a remix if I'm Real,
a single off Jlo's second album. The first time around
it had been a generic ballad. Matola thought it could
be reinvigorated God. He went to work and started to
make a demo with Ja Rule and Ashanti.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I said, yo, I got the records. I'm Real. Him
and his wife Talia come to the crack house, my
studio and solo and it's funny because the freight elevator
used to always go out, so him and Talia walked
up six flights of stairs. He gets upstairs he said,
this fucking record better be fucking good. So I played
(02:32):
I play real form. Him and his wife go crazy.
They're like, oh my god, it was a one listen.
They listened and it was like, it's the biggest record.
So he puts me on a private jet. I fly
to La record the record with j Lo. Next thing
you know, the record comes out. It's all over the radio.
I'm talking about maybe a couple of days after we
(02:54):
recorded it, it's all over the radio.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
A few months later, God, he made another remix from
Jalo's album Ain't It Funny? The same thing happened.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
You don't even understand. Those records was colossal, not just
in the States, on the planet Earth. I don't give
a fuck. If you went to Germany, Australia, Africa, that
shit was in heavy rotation. Look, those are the two
biggest records, and for me to do, i'mral and instead
fuck it and Ain't It Funny? It was like at
(03:37):
that point in my life, I was like on top
of the world. It was a feeling of invincibility. It
was a feeling of I could do whatever the fuck
I want to portray who I was at that moment.
That's that's who I was. I'm from the hood. I'm
making all of this money. I'm producing records for everybody.
(03:58):
All of them are working and going number one, and
money's raining from the sky. I could do no wrong.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
It was at this point that IRV God he made
a mistake. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to
Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This
is the third episode in our mini series inspired by
Michael Linton and Josh Steiner's book From Mistakes to Meaning Will.
(04:27):
The authors sit down with a wide range of people
and try to make sense of their biggest screw ups.
One of their interviews was with her of Gotty just
before God, he had a stroke and died at the
age of fifty four. I listened to the interview and
I found his story so moving that I asked Steiner
and Linton if I could include it in this series,
(04:48):
because in his story, I think is a really important
lesson not about the person who makes the mistake, but
about the people around the person who makes the mistake.
The witnesses.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Man I grew up, Oh man, I grew up. Let
me describe how I'm the youngest of eight kids.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
This is Gotty talking to Litten and Steiner about his
childhood and growing up in Queen's We have no money.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
We live in the home. I sleep in the attic.
They ever slept in the attic of a house in
the summertime.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
There's no refuge. It's a hundred change. Yes, you wake
up every every day, you wake up in a puddle
of sweat like I had. That was my life. That's
it was a lot of love. My family, the most
loving family. But we had nothing. So when you talk
about the ship, you told me, I'm not I don't
(05:51):
give a fuck. Yo, I'm getting money. Oh, I'm gonna
I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna work my ass off
and get it. I don't give a fuck what comes
from it.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
He was blunt, reckless, ambitious, and hugely talented. His rise
in the music world was swim. It was no accident
than Buttola called Gotti to work with Jennifer Lopez, then
well on her way to becoming one of the biggest
celebrities in America, and when the two of them met
at Gotti's recording studio, Gotti from Queen's Jailah from the
(06:23):
Bronx to click, just so you know what to expect.
Were giving you the unfiltered gottie.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
So I had like thirty hood niggas in the studio
and in walks Jlo, and she was straight Jenny from
the block. She had on some sweat pants and the
tank top. And if I tell you, she got in
that studio and she had every one of my guys
fall in love with her. She worked and talked to everybody,
(06:57):
and I was just like, Yo, she's just so dope,
you know what I'm saying, because she could have been
on some I'm a big star boogie shit, but she
was a total opposite, the biggest sex symbol, biggest superstar,
got on some sweatpants, her as was looking fucking phenomenal.
(07:17):
She worked, She literally worked the whole home. Like when
she left, every guy was like, Yo, she's dope.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I think she liked me.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I'm like, yo, dog, she's she worked us, Yeo. She
she worked for fuck the rule. But I thought it
was so dope of us and me and her specifically, Yo,
we hit it off. Benny Medina, her manager, Benny Medina,
was like HERV, you're gonna be like the Quincy Jones
(07:49):
to her Michael Jackson, she was like, We're not doing
nothing musically unless you're involved.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
A year later, Ellen Magazine decided to do a cover
story on Jennifer Lopez. It was for their Sex and
Body issue June two thousand and two, headline Big Letters.
J Loo on fashion, that song and Puffy. Puffy referred
to Puffy Combs, the infamous rap impresario who she'd just
broken up with, and that song referred to Ain't it funny?
(08:22):
Because Gotti's reinterpretation of the song turned it into the
story of someone coming out of a very problematic relationship.
The writer asks her, is that song about Puffy? She says, no,
it's not. Then the reporter calls gotty. Jlo says, ain't
it funny? Isn't about Puffy? What do you say? And
(08:42):
Gody says, Oh, it's absolutely about Puffy, and Jlo knows it.
Here's the exact quote from the l magazine article, which,
by the way, is nearly impossible to find now. My
producer had to get someone at the New York Public
Library to unearth the issue from an off site storage unit.
(09:02):
I ain't gonna lie. We was thinking of effing with
Puffy because that's what the world wants to hear. And God,
he tells the reporter a story about running into Puffy before.
Ain't it funny came out and playing him the demo?
He says, you know the four Seasons on Dohaney in La.
I pull up and Puffs out there with his security
(09:23):
and I say, Puff, come listen to the new record
I did with your old bitch. So boom, he gets
in the car. So I'm blasting the record and when
it gets to the second verse, he jumps out of
the car, screaming, gotty, you bastard, this is the second verse. Listen,
you never had.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
This, well, you should have never played the game.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
To play now and that you can lay.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
He calls Jelo's ex boyfriend into his car and says,
come listen to the new record I just did with
your old bitch in a very public way. God, he
was essentially saying Jennifer Lopez wasn't being honest. He called
her credibility and question.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
When I read it in that magazine, j Lo quote,
those records are not about Puff, daddy end quote. It was.
It's the worst mistake I've ever made in my life,
because I say that to say, because j Lo Benny Medina,
(10:32):
they was friends. They loved me, They love me like
I was a writer for them and I would do
things for them that probably no one else could do,
and I would get done for them, and she was
my friend. Like why the fuck would I say that?
(10:53):
Why the fuck would I say that?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
But God, he didn't stop there. He kept going right.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So I went on to say other damaging things, like
how would she know? She didn't write the records. We
made records and wrote the records. She just did what
we said, so she don't know who the fuck we
was talking about. And yeah, we was talking about Diddy.
And then I said some more damage and shit, I
(11:25):
was like, guys like me, we didn't listen to Jake,
We don't listen to Jalo's music. I made guys like
me listening to j Loo's music. I said, before then
we just hit the mute button and looked at her ass. Yeah. God.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
He reflected on this with Michael Linton and Josh Steiner
when they spoke Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
And you could pull all this up in the l
magazine is there. Those are vivid quotes. Those are like
supreme asshole quotes that wasn't warranted. And when I look back,
I was like, what did you do to your friend? Yeah? So,
(12:05):
needless to say, needless to say, ruined my relationship with
j Lo. I apologized, I sent to Candy and flowers
and apologized a million times, and I was high, that's
no excuse, you know what I'm saying. I apologize by
us and she accepted my apology, but it forever damaged
(12:29):
your relationship, right. You know, superstars like j Loo, they
have a small circle of people who they could trust.
And I think I was in there for a second
and I totally ruined it. Right, So I'm an asshole.
Well you were in that moment. I'm totally in the
(12:52):
wrong and I'm a complete idiot. Make sure you say
that that I said that I'm a complete idiot. She
didn't warrant that, she didn't warrant nothing that I said.
She was my friend, And why would I do that
with the biggest thought and most beautifulst person. Why how
do I do that with Jala.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
One of the themes we've tried to explore in this series
is that mistakes have roots. They aren't random events. They
come from somewhere, They arise out of a context, but
the context often isn't obvious, not to those around the
mistake maker, and often not even to the mistake maker themselves.
In Gody's case, the context was a telephone call had
(13:49):
been on just before the reporter called. It was with
a prominent music industry executive. God. He asked that the
man's name not be used, so we're gonna bleep out
every mention of his name. All you need to know
is that the executive is white, and God he was black.
The two of them had an argument. One of Gody's
artists had played a part in a hit song and
(14:10):
was in the music video, but had been left out
of the radio version, and God he was unhappy about it.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So I was like, Yo, you're killing my artists. You
got him on the video, but on radio he's not there.
It's and then like mixed signals, Why are you hurting me?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Their argument got heated. The executive said it wasn't his fault,
the decision was someone else's at his label, a black man.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He was like, I told that fat nigga not to
not to put this out. But when he said the
N word, Oh, that's when I went crazy.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I said, what the fuck you say? I said, you
just call Cory Roone and nigga. I said, when this,
when this nigga see you, I'm gonna fuck you up.
I said, how about that? And he was like, and
we argue him, but he said he used the N
word on some racist shit. He said, I told us
fat nigga not to put the record out or put
(15:11):
him on it. Yeah, but when he said nigga, I went,
that's that's that's the anger. Yep. I'm not a volatile person.
I'm not a pop off. I would describe myself as
a cool guy, level headed. But it's something about when
(15:34):
a white person like uses the word nigga to me.
Mm hm oh, I'm ready to kill because it's like
you start thinking of all of the fucked up shit
that black people have been through when you got the
audacity to say nigga in front of me. Oh, I'm
gonna show you a nigga, now you know what I'm saying.
(15:57):
Like I used to always say, like when people would
ask me how how would you be able? How did
how would you think you would be able to operate
in those times of racism? And I always answer, I
would die. You know what? I'm saying because I couldn't
take the racism that would have been bestowed upon me.
(16:21):
I would have killed me a couple of white people
and they would have hung me and killed me, and
my life would be over. I couldn't take them doing
something to my mother or you know, hanging my father,
and I'm living life. Nah, you're gonna have to kill
me too. So these are the thoughts that's in my mind. Yeah,
(16:42):
have you experienced that before where you had white people
say things with you. A lot of my white friends
to say, Yo, that's my nigga. But I'm not mad
at that.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Yeah, use it when they say that's my nigga, it's
in IgG a.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
He said, Yo, I told that fat nigga, that's n
I G G e R. It's a big, big difference.
Like I couldn't I couldn't believe that he just used
the N word to me. That's what made me so volatile.
And it was so weird. It was like as soon
as I hung up with the phone rang with L
(17:21):
it wasn't like a five minute it wasn't even like
a five minute cool off period. No hung up, man, Yo,
this is old magazine. Yeah, what the fuck? Y'all want.
I didn't like saying hello a little different?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Can I ask, So, what do you think it was
that made you You think you were just gonna lash
out at anybody who showed up in that moment?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Uh yeah, within that five minutes, Yeah, it was going
to get the exact thing vibe what the fuck you want? Yeah,
it just what happened. It was the old magazine, not
one of my boys. Yeah, so I said what the
fuck you want? And he was like, oh, oh, I see.
(18:11):
Like as soon as he heard that response, he immediately
cut to the chase. He said, oh, oh, I'll just
get right to it.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
You know, Jlo said that the records, I'm really made
it funny and not about puff daddy ex boyfriend, and
I was like, what that bitch is lying?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
This was Serve Gotty's mistake. It changed his life. There
was a version of the next twenty years where he
could have been a creative partner with one of the
biggest stars in the world. He had ideas from movies, collaborations.
Jaelo was at once in a lifetime opportunity. That's why
this was a mistake. It had consequences, but there was
(18:58):
a point in Gotty's interview with Steiner and Linton that
I couldn't get out of my mind.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Listen, how quickly did you realize that you'd made a mistake.
I didn't realize quickly. I was so angry and mad
when I got off the phone with that magazine. I
thought nothing of it. It hit me when they sent
me like the transcripts of what they was gonna plant.
(19:27):
How long after that was that? A couple a week
or so? I would say, A right, And when you
did you realize it right away? Yeah? I was like,
don't print that. They was like it's too but they
was like it's too late. Yeah. They loved it. They
loved it, and they said it was too late, and
(19:50):
I was trying to get them not to print it,
but they wasn't. They like, hey, buddy, you said it.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
Yeah, did you get me try to did you get
me help to try to get them not to do it,
or did you just.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Let it go? Let it go? I gave it my effort,
but after my effort, I just let it.
Speaker 8 (20:09):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
He realized he'd made a mistake that, in his anger
at one person, he had said something he didn't mean
to another, and when he tried to prevent his mistake
from having consequences, from turning into a serious mistake. He
was told, hey, buddy, you said it, it's too late.
After Linton and Steiner's book came out, I interviewed them
(20:30):
on stage at the ninety second Street Why in New York,
and I brought up their chapter on gaudy. So who's
the villain of the story.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Not every story has to have a villain.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, but tell me who the villain of the stories?
Speaker 7 (20:45):
So don't Michael, don't fall for this like this is okay,
this look at this is why he's so good.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
But don't fall for his trap.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Like okay, you can say not everyone.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I got to keep the conversation going. I would argue
it was the executive who used the N word, Josh,
here's a villain of the story.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Here's what I think that guy acted terribly. There is
no villain in the story.
Speaker 7 (21:03):
And I think an important piece of what we tried
to describe is that there isn't always a villain, There
isn't always some outside danger, there isn't always some consequence
that has been derived from a villain. That these things
are deep rooted in ourselves and we're not villainous, and
(21:23):
so that aspect of our personality doesn't make us bad.
This isn't a morality test. This is an opportunity to
explore oneself and come to terms and acceptance of the
fact that we're flawed, and the way to get hopefully
healthier and better is to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Who do you think the villain?
Speaker 8 (21:38):
Is?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
A man who has a very close relationship to the
biggest rock star in the world, a relationship that has
resulted in extraordinary commercial success. Is called by a reporter
and has asked a question about that relationship, and in
the course of answering that question, the man says, Oh,
she's a liar. Who's the villain in the story? Do
you think it's erv Now it's the reporter, But the
(22:03):
reporter doesn't No, no, no no. This is a crucial, crucial point, Michael.
Think this is because it's about when mistakes are made
and they are as deeply rooted as you suggest they are,
they're not what's you're The whole argument of the book
is a mistake can come out in the spur of
(22:23):
the moment, but it's not something that's coming out of
the spur of the moment. It's something that has roots.
And what does that require of those who are observe
and are part of the process in which the mistake
is played out. It requires some degree of grace and
forgiveness and understanding. So the reporter, here's some IRV God,
(22:45):
IRV God. He say something that is completely out of place. Right,
it makes the reason the reason that story. So that
story what you didn't what is important? Detail is here
is it goes. It's all across the country. It's like
it's huge. That's why it blows up so much. Everyone
seizes on this. Her longtime collaborator called j Lo a liar. Right,
(23:07):
if you are the reporter in that instance, and someone
says something they shouldn't say, your obligation is to say,
why did you say that? And if they can't give
you a satisfactory answer, your obligation is not to use it.
I'm sorry, it's not to use it. You're not You shouldn't.
You can't make someone The reporter turned that from a
(23:29):
nothing into a destruction of someone's career because they had
not the slightest concern for his well being or his reputation,
and they if they had an ounce of self understanding
or of general understanding. They would have understood that he
didn't mean to say that. They should at the very
least have said, did you mean to say that? Right,
(23:49):
that's your responsibility, and the reporter fail in that fundamental
Why do people hate the press Because because in an
interview like this, where we could talk for three hours
and you say one thing out of place because you
have to be irritated about something else, and the reporter
runs with that one thing that's about practice. Why is
this person getting a pass that's terror? Sorry, I'm really
(24:10):
upset about this. I was upset about this because you
can't do this if you're a journalist. The whole profession
works on an implied contract. Somebody grants you the gift
of their time and attention and thoughts. They make themselves vulnerable,
and in return you pledged to respect that vulnerability. You're
not a stenographer. You've entered, for the duration of the
(24:32):
interview into an intimate relationship, and intimate relationships have rules.
But then I went home after that interview at the y,
after I had called the reporter a villain and a
disgrace to our profession, and I realized I don't even
know who this person is, and then I thought to myself, Oops,
(24:55):
now I've made a mistake. So I decided to track
the reporter down. That's after the break. What do you
remember about that interview?
Speaker 8 (25:18):
It's funny you're asking this something that no one's ever
asked me, because I remember that interview quite well.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
For a few reasons.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
This is Carter Harris, he wrote yel profile. He's now
a screenwriter teaches at NYU, and one of the reasons
this article he wrote twenty five years ago, sticks out
is the reaction a God, particularly from Jlo and her
manager Benny Medina.
Speaker 8 (25:43):
I actually remember being in a car with Benny Medina
in Los Angeles, and I can't remember why we were
in a car, but he was telling me how disappointed
Jlo was, and he was because it seemed like a
negative interview.
Speaker 6 (25:57):
I wasn't negative at all from my perspective.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
At some point, his profile of Jlo completely disappeared from
the internet, and he always wondered if Jlo and her
manager had something to do with it. Was God upset
during the call, Yes, he was. Harris remembers he seemed
like he was in a state. He mentioned something about
having just gotten off the phone with someone he thought
Harris was a fashion writer, and God, he seemed relieved
(26:22):
to learn that Harris had been an editor at The Source,
the magazine that was the bible of rap at the time.
They talked about Puffy Combs and I'm real, I ate
it funny. And then God, he said that bit about
Jlo not telling the truth when you heard it when
you were reviewing him and decided to use what you
were using, did you did you think that you might
(26:45):
be jeopardizing his relationship with Jaeloh?
Speaker 8 (26:50):
No, And maybe that was naive of me, But what
I thought was in the moment was Wow, that was honest.
Speaker 6 (27:00):
She might be a little bit.
Speaker 8 (27:03):
Irked vexed by one or two of the quotes, but
I never imagined that it would.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
Be such a big deal for her or for him.
I mean, I thought she'd be vexed.
Speaker 8 (27:20):
I mean, when you say, you know, I gave her
more hood credibility, that's gonna be like, come on, dude.
Or when you say it was really about Diddy and
basically you're accusing her of not being honest, you know,
yeah that I totally understand why she was vexed. And
(27:40):
I even at the time, I was like, oh, she
might be a little ticked off about this, but I
figured they'd air it out, either publicly or privately, that
she'd be like, come on, he overstepped on this one.
And then maybe he comes back and says, yeah, all right,
I was on Molly what she was willing to say
back then?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Is it weird to hear someone say twenty five years
later the biggest mistake they made in their life was
something they said to you in an interview.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (28:07):
Absolutely made me feel very strange.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
When I heard that. I was. I was, I was.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
I was very surprised and very I was a little
disturbed too, because that when I heard that then I
did have feelings.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
Then I was like, oh shit, what did I do wrong?
Speaker 3 (28:27):
You know?
Speaker 6 (28:27):
It was like, what was I responsible for this? Somehow?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Did he run the quotes by Gody and tell him
that it was too late? You said it? No, that
would have been the fact checker. That's the way things
worked in the magazine world of those years.
Speaker 8 (28:41):
If he had called me and said, I was in
a state, can you take those quotes out? Yeah, I
probably would have worked with him on that. But I
never got that call. Nobody ever asked me about those quotes, so,
you know, what can I what can I really do?
But yeah, I certainly felt weird about it.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I mean, you know, I.
Speaker 8 (29:02):
Don't take any any joy in being, you know, a
part of anyone's biggest regret.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Carter was frank and thoughtful. I liked him. He was
talking about a decision he made many years ago when
he was much younger, and he said that he wouldn't
necessarily do the same thing today. I understand that you
have to make a certain number of mistakes to understand
what a mistake is.
Speaker 8 (29:31):
It's really interesting because if I had been in the
gym and somebody had told me this story and I
was not the reporter and I was not Gotti, I
probably would have had the exact same response. I'm pretty
sure I would have been, like what they said, what
they messed with Gotti? Like and they screwed up a
(29:52):
relationship with Jalo and Gotti. You know, this is bullshit.
This is like the media. You know they do this,
especially l and these corporate magazines and you know all that.
So I'm not surprised to hear that that was your response.
That probably would have been my response. But to the
(30:13):
larger point. I think we all do this in our
own way, in lots of different contexts. We jump to conclusions,
mistaken conclusions, and I certainly do in my life. And
if I've learned anything it's that I have to check
myself sometimes and say, wait a minute, I'm human like
(30:36):
everybody else, I'm jumping to a conclusion. I should go
look and see if there's more to this story. Doesn't
necessarily mean my conclusion that I wanted to jump to
is wrong, could be right, could be worse than I
thought it was. But I do think that that's the
thing to take from this is like, hey, everybody, each
(30:56):
of us can check ourselves. You know, we all have
the ability to check ourselves and say, hey, maybe I
should look into this a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
We can all check ourselves a little bit more. On that,
I have to agree. Revisious History is produced by Nina
Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Adatt Haffrey. Our editor
is Karen Schakerji. Fact checking by Angelie Mercado. Our executive
(31:27):
producer Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, original music
by Luis Quira, Sound design and mastering by Marcelo Diela.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Vera.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
I'm Malcolm Gladwell, coming up on the next episode in
our Mistakes series.
Speaker 6 (31:49):
This was madness and yeah and it was just jaw
on the floor. I just never experienced anything like that
and I didn't see it coming
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
In two thousand and one, Tommy Mottola, then the head
of Sony Music Entertainment, called murder inks IRV Gotti, who
at the time was working with the likes of jay Z,
y Ashanti and DMX. Tommy asked Gotti to do a
remix of Jennifer Lopez's I'm Real, which became a huge
radio hit and led to more remixes with j Lo.
In the world of hip hop and crossover pop in
the early yachts, IRV Gotti was at the top of
(00:40):
his game, and then admittedly he messed up big time.
In the latest season of revision of History, Malcolm Gladwell
is looking at the origins and consequences of mistakes while
we make them, the context in which we make them,
and what happens after we make them. Here's the story
of Gotti's mistake and what it tells us, not about
the individual who makes a mistake, but the witnesses who
(01:01):
watch it happen, enjoyed the episode, and find more of
Revisionist History wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
This guy calls me like seven in the morning, like
Tommy was South.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
In two thousand and one, the head of Sony Music
Tommy Mottola called the rap producer IRV Gotti at the
time God. He worked with jay Z, Ja Rule, Ashanti
DMX in the hip hop world of the early arts.
He was at the top of his game.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
He's like, yo, I need you to make a record,
And I said what he said, make a record with
j Lo and put jaw on it and make it
a duet. And I say, yo, I need total creative
at TIMMS, I'm doing whatever the fuck I want. Tommy
was like, you could do whatever the fuck you want
as long as it's a duet with Jo Roul and
(01:53):
j Loo.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Mattola wanted Gotti to do a remix if I'm Real,
a single off Jlo's second album. The first time around
it had been a generic ballad. Matola thought it could
be reinvigorated God. He went to work and started to
make a demo with Ja Rule and Ashanti.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I said, yo, I got the records. I'm Real. Him
and his wife Talia come to the crack house, my
studio and solo and it's funny because the freight elevator
used to always go out, so him and Talia walked
up six flights of stairs. He gets upstairs he said,
this fucking record better be fucking good. So I played
(02:32):
I play real form. Him and his wife go crazy.
They're like, oh my god, it was a one listen.
They listened and it was like, it's the biggest record.
So he puts me on a private jet. I fly
to La record the record with j Lo. Next thing
you know, the record comes out. It's all over the radio.
I'm talking about maybe a couple of days after we
(02:54):
recorded it, it's all over the radio.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
A few months later, God, he made another remix from
Jalo's album Ain't It Funny? The same thing happened.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
You don't even understand. Those records was colossal, not just
in the States, on the planet Earth. I don't give
a fuck. If you went to Germany, Australia, Africa, that
shit was in heavy rotation. Look, those are the two
biggest records, and for me to do, i'mral and instead
fuck it and Ain't It Funny? It was like at
(03:37):
that point in my life, I was like on top
of the world. It was a feeling of invincibility. It
was a feeling of I could do whatever the fuck
I want to portray who I was at that moment.
That's that's who I was. I'm from the hood. I'm
making all of this money. I'm producing records for everybody.
(03:58):
All of them are working and going number one, and
money's raining from the sky. I could do no wrong.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
It was at this point that IRV God he made
a mistake. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to
Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This
is the third episode in our mini series inspired by
Michael Linton and Josh Steiner's book From Mistakes to Meaning Will.
(04:27):
The authors sit down with a wide range of people
and try to make sense of their biggest screw ups.
One of their interviews was with her of Gotty just
before God, he had a stroke and died at the
age of fifty four. I listened to the interview and
I found his story so moving that I asked Steiner
and Linton if I could include it in this series,
(04:48):
because in his story, I think is a really important
lesson not about the person who makes the mistake, but
about the people around the person who makes the mistake.
The witnesses.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Man I grew up, Oh man, I grew up. Let
me describe how I'm the youngest of eight kids.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
This is Gotty talking to Litten and Steiner about his
childhood and growing up in Queen's We have no money.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
We live in the home. I sleep in the attic.
They ever slept in the attic of a house in
the summertime.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
There's no refuge. It's a hundred change. Yes, you wake
up every every day, you wake up in a puddle
of sweat like I had. That was my life. That's
it was a lot of love. My family, the most
loving family. But we had nothing. So when you talk
about the ship, you told me, I'm not I don't
(05:51):
give a fuck. Yo, I'm getting money. Oh, I'm gonna
I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna work my ass off
and get it. I don't give a fuck what comes
from it.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
He was blunt, reckless, ambitious, and hugely talented. His rise
in the music world was swim. It was no accident
than Buttola called Gotti to work with Jennifer Lopez, then
well on her way to becoming one of the biggest
celebrities in America, and when the two of them met
at Gotti's recording studio, Gotti from Queen's Jailah from the
(06:23):
Bronx to click, just so you know what to expect.
Were giving you the unfiltered gottie.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
So I had like thirty hood niggas in the studio
and in walks Jlo, and she was straight Jenny from
the block. She had on some sweat pants and the
tank top. And if I tell you, she got in
that studio and she had every one of my guys
fall in love with her. She worked and talked to everybody,
(06:57):
and I was just like, Yo, she's just so dope,
you know what I'm saying, because she could have been
on some I'm a big star boogie shit, but she
was a total opposite, the biggest sex symbol, biggest superstar,
got on some sweatpants, her as was looking fucking phenomenal.
(07:17):
She worked, She literally worked the whole home. Like when
she left, every guy was like, Yo, she's dope.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I think she liked me.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I'm like, yo, dog, she's she worked us, Yeo. She
she worked for fuck the rule. But I thought it
was so dope of us and me and her specifically, Yo,
we hit it off. Benny Medina, her manager, Benny Medina,
was like HERV, you're gonna be like the Quincy Jones
(07:49):
to her Michael Jackson, she was like, We're not doing
nothing musically unless you're involved.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
A year later, Ellen Magazine decided to do a cover
story on Jennifer Lopez. It was for their Sex and
Body issue June two thousand and two, headline Big Letters.
J Loo on fashion, that song and Puffy. Puffy referred
to Puffy Combs, the infamous rap impresario who she'd just
broken up with, and that song referred to Ain't it funny?
(08:22):
Because Gotti's reinterpretation of the song turned it into the
story of someone coming out of a very problematic relationship.
The writer asks her, is that song about Puffy? She says, no,
it's not. Then the reporter calls gotty. Jlo says, ain't
it funny? Isn't about Puffy? What do you say? And
(08:42):
Gody says, Oh, it's absolutely about Puffy, and Jlo knows it.
Here's the exact quote from the l magazine article, which,
by the way, is nearly impossible to find now. My
producer had to get someone at the New York Public
Library to unearth the issue from an off site storage unit.
(09:02):
I ain't gonna lie. We was thinking of effing with
Puffy because that's what the world wants to hear. And God,
he tells the reporter a story about running into Puffy before.
Ain't it funny came out and playing him the demo?
He says, you know the four Seasons on Dohaney in La.
I pull up and Puffs out there with his security
(09:23):
and I say, Puff, come listen to the new record
I did with your old bitch. So boom, he gets
in the car. So I'm blasting the record and when
it gets to the second verse, he jumps out of
the car, screaming, gotty, you bastard, this is the second verse. Listen,
you never had.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
This, well, you should have never played the game.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
To play now and that you can lay.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
He calls Jelo's ex boyfriend into his car and says,
come listen to the new record I just did with
your old bitch in a very public way. God, he
was essentially saying Jennifer Lopez wasn't being honest. He called
her credibility and question.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
When I read it in that magazine, j Lo quote,
those records are not about Puff, daddy end quote. It was.
It's the worst mistake I've ever made in my life,
because I say that to say, because j Lo Benny Medina,
(10:32):
they was friends. They loved me, They love me like
I was a writer for them and I would do
things for them that probably no one else could do,
and I would get done for them, and she was
my friend. Like why the fuck would I say that?
(10:53):
Why the fuck would I say that?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
But God, he didn't stop there. He kept going right.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So I went on to say other damaging things, like
how would she know? She didn't write the records. We
made records and wrote the records. She just did what
we said, so she don't know who the fuck we
was talking about. And yeah, we was talking about Diddy.
And then I said some more damage and shit, I
(11:25):
was like, guys like me, we didn't listen to Jake,
We don't listen to Jalo's music. I made guys like
me listening to j Loo's music. I said, before then
we just hit the mute button and looked at her ass. Yeah. God.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
He reflected on this with Michael Linton and Josh Steiner
when they spoke Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
And you could pull all this up in the l
magazine is there. Those are vivid quotes. Those are like
supreme asshole quotes that wasn't warranted. And when I look back,
I was like, what did you do to your friend? Yeah? So,
(12:05):
needless to say, needless to say, ruined my relationship with
j Lo. I apologized, I sent to Candy and flowers
and apologized a million times, and I was high, that's
no excuse, you know what I'm saying. I apologize by
us and she accepted my apology, but it forever damaged
(12:29):
your relationship, right. You know, superstars like j Loo, they
have a small circle of people who they could trust.
And I think I was in there for a second
and I totally ruined it. Right, So I'm an asshole.
Well you were in that moment. I'm totally in the
(12:52):
wrong and I'm a complete idiot. Make sure you say
that that I said that I'm a complete idiot. She
didn't warrant that, she didn't warrant nothing that I said.
She was my friend, And why would I do that
with the biggest thought and most beautifulst person. Why how
do I do that with Jala.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
One of the themes we've tried to explore in this series
is that mistakes have roots. They aren't random events. They
come from somewhere, They arise out of a context, but
the context often isn't obvious, not to those around the
mistake maker, and often not even to the mistake maker themselves.
In Gody's case, the context was a telephone call had
(13:49):
been on just before the reporter called. It was with
a prominent music industry executive. God. He asked that the
man's name not be used, so we're gonna bleep out
every mention of his name. All you need to know
is that the executive is white, and God he was black.
The two of them had an argument. One of Gody's
artists had played a part in a hit song and
(14:10):
was in the music video, but had been left out
of the radio version, and God he was unhappy about it.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So I was like, Yo, you're killing my artists. You
got him on the video, but on radio he's not there.
It's and then like mixed signals, Why are you hurting me?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Their argument got heated. The executive said it wasn't his fault,
the decision was someone else's at his label, a black man.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He was like, I told that fat nigga not to
not to put this out. But when he said the
N word, Oh, that's when I went crazy.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I said, what the fuck you say? I said, you
just call Cory Roone and nigga. I said, when this,
when this nigga see you, I'm gonna fuck you up.
I said, how about that? And he was like, and
we argue him, but he said he used the N
word on some racist shit. He said, I told us
fat nigga not to put the record out or put
(15:11):
him on it. Yeah, but when he said nigga, I went,
that's that's that's the anger. Yep. I'm not a volatile person.
I'm not a pop off. I would describe myself as
a cool guy, level headed. But it's something about when
(15:34):
a white person like uses the word nigga to me.
Mm hm oh, I'm ready to kill because it's like
you start thinking of all of the fucked up shit
that black people have been through when you got the
audacity to say nigga in front of me. Oh, I'm
gonna show you a nigga, now you know what I'm saying.
(15:57):
Like I used to always say, like when people would
ask me how how would you be able? How did
how would you think you would be able to operate
in those times of racism? And I always answer, I
would die. You know what? I'm saying because I couldn't
take the racism that would have been bestowed upon me.
(16:21):
I would have killed me a couple of white people
and they would have hung me and killed me, and
my life would be over. I couldn't take them doing
something to my mother or you know, hanging my father,
and I'm living life. Nah, you're gonna have to kill
me too. So these are the thoughts that's in my mind. Yeah,
(16:42):
have you experienced that before where you had white people
say things with you. A lot of my white friends
to say, Yo, that's my nigga. But I'm not mad
at that.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Yeah, use it when they say that's my nigga, it's
in IgG a.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
He said, Yo, I told that fat nigga, that's n
I G G e R. It's a big, big difference.
Like I couldn't I couldn't believe that he just used
the N word to me. That's what made me so volatile.
And it was so weird. It was like as soon
as I hung up with the phone rang with L
(17:21):
it wasn't like a five minute it wasn't even like
a five minute cool off period. No hung up, man, Yo,
this is old magazine. Yeah, what the fuck? Y'all want.
I didn't like saying hello a little different?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Can I ask, So, what do you think it was
that made you You think you were just gonna lash
out at anybody who showed up in that moment?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Uh yeah, within that five minutes, Yeah, it was going
to get the exact thing vibe what the fuck you want? Yeah,
it just what happened. It was the old magazine, not
one of my boys. Yeah, so I said what the
fuck you want? And he was like, oh, oh, I see.
(18:11):
Like as soon as he heard that response, he immediately
cut to the chase. He said, oh, oh, I'll just
get right to it.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
You know, Jlo said that the records, I'm really made
it funny and not about puff daddy ex boyfriend, and
I was like, what that bitch is lying?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
This was Serve Gotty's mistake. It changed his life. There
was a version of the next twenty years where he
could have been a creative partner with one of the
biggest stars in the world. He had ideas from movies, collaborations.
Jaelo was at once in a lifetime opportunity. That's why
this was a mistake. It had consequences, but there was
(18:58):
a point in Gotty's interview with Steiner and Linton that
I couldn't get out of my mind.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Listen, how quickly did you realize that you'd made a mistake.
I didn't realize quickly. I was so angry and mad
when I got off the phone with that magazine. I
thought nothing of it. It hit me when they sent
me like the transcripts of what they was gonna plant.
(19:27):
How long after that was that? A couple a week
or so? I would say, A right, And when you
did you realize it right away? Yeah? I was like,
don't print that. They was like it's too but they
was like it's too late. Yeah. They loved it. They
loved it, and they said it was too late, and
(19:50):
I was trying to get them not to print it,
but they wasn't. They like, hey, buddy, you said it.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
Yeah, did you get me try to did you get
me help to try to get them not to do it,
or did you just.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Let it go? Let it go? I gave it my effort,
but after my effort, I just let it.
Speaker 8 (20:09):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
He realized he'd made a mistake that, in his anger
at one person, he had said something he didn't mean
to another, and when he tried to prevent his mistake
from having consequences, from turning into a serious mistake. He
was told, hey, buddy, you said it, it's too late.
After Linton and Steiner's book came out, I interviewed them
(20:30):
on stage at the ninety second Street Why in New York,
and I brought up their chapter on gaudy. So who's
the villain of the story.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Not every story has to have a villain.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, but tell me who the villain of the stories?
Speaker 7 (20:45):
So don't Michael, don't fall for this like this is okay,
this look at this is why he's so good.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
But don't fall for his trap.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Like okay, you can say not everyone.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I got to keep the conversation going. I would argue
it was the executive who used the N word, Josh,
here's a villain of the story.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Here's what I think that guy acted terribly. There is
no villain in the story.
Speaker 7 (21:03):
And I think an important piece of what we tried
to describe is that there isn't always a villain, There
isn't always some outside danger, there isn't always some consequence
that has been derived from a villain. That these things
are deep rooted in ourselves and we're not villainous, and
(21:23):
so that aspect of our personality doesn't make us bad.
This isn't a morality test. This is an opportunity to
explore oneself and come to terms and acceptance of the
fact that we're flawed, and the way to get hopefully
healthier and better is to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Who do you think the villain?
Speaker 8 (21:38):
Is?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
A man who has a very close relationship to the
biggest rock star in the world, a relationship that has
resulted in extraordinary commercial success. Is called by a reporter
and has asked a question about that relationship, and in
the course of answering that question, the man says, Oh,
she's a liar. Who's the villain in the story? Do
you think it's erv Now it's the reporter, But the
(22:03):
reporter doesn't No, no, no no. This is a crucial, crucial point, Michael.
Think this is because it's about when mistakes are made
and they are as deeply rooted as you suggest they are,
they're not what's you're The whole argument of the book
is a mistake can come out in the spur of
(22:23):
the moment, but it's not something that's coming out of
the spur of the moment. It's something that has roots.
And what does that require of those who are observe
and are part of the process in which the mistake
is played out. It requires some degree of grace and
forgiveness and understanding. So the reporter, here's some IRV God,
(22:45):
IRV God. He say something that is completely out of place. Right,
it makes the reason the reason that story. So that
story what you didn't what is important? Detail is here
is it goes. It's all across the country. It's like
it's huge. That's why it blows up so much. Everyone
seizes on this. Her longtime collaborator called j Lo a liar. Right,
(23:07):
if you are the reporter in that instance, and someone
says something they shouldn't say, your obligation is to say,
why did you say that? And if they can't give
you a satisfactory answer, your obligation is not to use it.
I'm sorry, it's not to use it. You're not You shouldn't.
You can't make someone The reporter turned that from a
(23:29):
nothing into a destruction of someone's career because they had
not the slightest concern for his well being or his reputation,
and they if they had an ounce of self understanding
or of general understanding. They would have understood that he
didn't mean to say that. They should at the very
least have said, did you mean to say that? Right,
(23:49):
that's your responsibility, and the reporter fail in that fundamental
Why do people hate the press Because because in an
interview like this, where we could talk for three hours
and you say one thing out of place because you
have to be irritated about something else, and the reporter
runs with that one thing that's about practice. Why is
this person getting a pass that's terror? Sorry, I'm really
(24:10):
upset about this. I was upset about this because you
can't do this if you're a journalist. The whole profession
works on an implied contract. Somebody grants you the gift
of their time and attention and thoughts. They make themselves vulnerable,
and in return you pledged to respect that vulnerability. You're
not a stenographer. You've entered, for the duration of the
(24:32):
interview into an intimate relationship, and intimate relationships have rules.
But then I went home after that interview at the y,
after I had called the reporter a villain and a
disgrace to our profession, and I realized I don't even
know who this person is, and then I thought to myself, Oops,
(24:55):
now I've made a mistake. So I decided to track
the reporter down. That's after the break. What do you
remember about that interview?
Speaker 8 (25:18):
It's funny you're asking this something that no one's ever
asked me, because I remember that interview quite well.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
For a few reasons.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
This is Carter Harris, he wrote yel profile. He's now
a screenwriter teaches at NYU, and one of the reasons
this article he wrote twenty five years ago, sticks out
is the reaction a God, particularly from Jlo and her
manager Benny Medina.
Speaker 8 (25:43):
I actually remember being in a car with Benny Medina
in Los Angeles, and I can't remember why we were
in a car, but he was telling me how disappointed
Jlo was, and he was because it seemed like a
negative interview.
Speaker 6 (25:57):
I wasn't negative at all from my perspective.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
At some point, his profile of Jlo completely disappeared from
the internet, and he always wondered if Jlo and her
manager had something to do with it. Was God upset
during the call, Yes, he was. Harris remembers he seemed
like he was in a state. He mentioned something about
having just gotten off the phone with someone he thought
Harris was a fashion writer, and God, he seemed relieved
(26:22):
to learn that Harris had been an editor at The Source,
the magazine that was the bible of rap at the time.
They talked about Puffy Combs and I'm real, I ate
it funny. And then God, he said that bit about
Jlo not telling the truth when you heard it when
you were reviewing him and decided to use what you
were using, did you did you think that you might
(26:45):
be jeopardizing his relationship with Jaeloh?
Speaker 8 (26:50):
No, And maybe that was naive of me, But what
I thought was in the moment was Wow, that was honest.
Speaker 6 (27:00):
She might be a little bit.
Speaker 8 (27:03):
Irked vexed by one or two of the quotes, but
I never imagined that it would.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
Be such a big deal for her or for him.
I mean, I thought she'd be vexed.
Speaker 8 (27:20):
I mean, when you say, you know, I gave her
more hood credibility, that's gonna be like, come on, dude.
Or when you say it was really about Diddy and
basically you're accusing her of not being honest, you know,
yeah that I totally understand why she was vexed. And
(27:40):
I even at the time, I was like, oh, she
might be a little ticked off about this, but I
figured they'd air it out, either publicly or privately, that
she'd be like, come on, he overstepped on this one.
And then maybe he comes back and says, yeah, all right,
I was on Molly what she was willing to say
back then?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Is it weird to hear someone say twenty five years
later the biggest mistake they made in their life was
something they said to you in an interview.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (28:07):
Absolutely made me feel very strange.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
When I heard that. I was. I was, I was.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
I was very surprised and very I was a little
disturbed too, because that when I heard that then I
did have feelings.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
Then I was like, oh shit, what did I do wrong?
Speaker 3 (28:27):
You know?
Speaker 6 (28:27):
It was like, what was I responsible for this? Somehow?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Did he run the quotes by Gody and tell him
that it was too late? You said it? No, that
would have been the fact checker. That's the way things
worked in the magazine world of those years.
Speaker 8 (28:41):
If he had called me and said, I was in
a state, can you take those quotes out? Yeah, I
probably would have worked with him on that. But I
never got that call. Nobody ever asked me about those quotes, so,
you know, what can I what can I really do?
But yeah, I certainly felt weird about it.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I mean, you know, I.
Speaker 8 (29:02):
Don't take any any joy in being, you know, a
part of anyone's biggest regret.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Carter was frank and thoughtful. I liked him. He was
talking about a decision he made many years ago when
he was much younger, and he said that he wouldn't
necessarily do the same thing today. I understand that you
have to make a certain number of mistakes to understand
what a mistake is.
Speaker 8 (29:31):
It's really interesting because if I had been in the
gym and somebody had told me this story and I
was not the reporter and I was not Gotti, I
probably would have had the exact same response. I'm pretty
sure I would have been, like what they said, what
they messed with Gotti? Like and they screwed up a
(29:52):
relationship with Jalo and Gotti. You know, this is bullshit.
This is like the media. You know they do this,
especially l and these corporate magazines and you know all that.
So I'm not surprised to hear that that was your response.
That probably would have been my response. But to the
(30:13):
larger point. I think we all do this in our
own way, in lots of different contexts. We jump to conclusions,
mistaken conclusions, and I certainly do in my life. And
if I've learned anything it's that I have to check
myself sometimes and say, wait a minute, I'm human like
(30:36):
everybody else, I'm jumping to a conclusion. I should go
look and see if there's more to this story. Doesn't
necessarily mean my conclusion that I wanted to jump to
is wrong, could be right, could be worse than I
thought it was. But I do think that that's the
thing to take from this is like, hey, everybody, each
(30:56):
of us can check ourselves. You know, we all have
the ability to check ourselves and say, hey, maybe I
should look into this a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
We can all check ourselves a little bit more. On that,
I have to agree. Revisious History is produced by Nina
Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Adatt Haffrey. Our editor
is Karen Schakerji. Fact checking by Angelie Mercado. Our executive
(31:27):
producer Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, original music
by Luis Quira, Sound design and mastering by Marcelo Diela.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Vera.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
I'm Malcolm Gladwell, coming up on the next episode in
our Mistakes series.
Speaker 6 (31:49):
This was madness and yeah and it was just jaw
on the floor. I just never experienced anything like that
and I didn't see it coming
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