Backstory: The Origins of Unglossy with Mickey, Jeffrey and Tom

How did a CCO, a music industry veteran, and a hip-hop artist come together to explore the intersection of branding and culture? In this episode, discover the invisible thread that connects hosts Tom Frank, Jeffrey Sledge, and Mickey Factz, forming the foundation of Unglossy.

First, we dive into Jeffrey Sledge’s remarkable career. Known as one of "Hip-Hop’s Most Impactful Black Music Executive," Jeffrey recounts his transformative years at Jive Records, where his broadened perspective beyond New York artists, helped diversify his reach across the country. Hear how Jeffrey scouts talent, nurtures emerging artists, and makes bold moves—like recognizing the potential in the viral hit "Stanky Leg" and helping Shaquille O'Neal transition from the basketball court to the music studio.

Mickey shares his own perspective, detailing his initial encounter with Jeffrey and reflecting on his experiences touring with Nas and crossing paths with Lupe Fiasco while working as an editor for Laced Magazine. Although Mickey eventually signed with Jeffrey, the experience was far from the Hollywood depiction.

Tom adds his story, recounting a pivotal assignment that brought him face-to-face with Lupe Fiasco at SXSW. The encounter sparked a long-lasting creative partnership and led to Tom working with Lupe as the creator, producer, and co-host of the popular Lupe and Royce podcast. The show facilitated deep discussions on everything from music to social issues and laid the groundwork for the formation of Unglossy.

Tune in to hear the journey that brought these three hosts together, the surprising connections, and their favorite episodes to date.

"Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture," is produced and distributed by Merrick Creative and hosted by Merrick Chief Creative Officer, Tom Frank, hip hop artist and founder of Pendulum Ink, Mickey Factz, and music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to hear this thought-provoking discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://unglossypod.buzzsprout.com/.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on Unglassy .
This podcast came to birth.
A I love working with you, yes.
B I wanted to find a way towork with Jeffrey Right.
But C I had just bought acompany and my mission in life
was to take this company andcompletely rethink how its
perception of this company livesin the world, not because they
had done anything wrong, butjust because I wanted to change

(00:22):
the perception Right, and Iwanted to be able to talk about
brand and marketing, not withbrand and marketing people and
what was expected, but talk topeople about brand and marketing
who don't even think ofthemselves in branding marketing
.
And I think the biggest spaceto do that in a lot of cases and
it's not solely what we'redoing here, but a big part of
that is the music industry,because the music industry tends

(00:42):
to be on the forefront ofculture.
Yes On the forefront of whatbrands are doing, and a lot of
brands come to music to try tofigure out what's next, to try
to brand themselves.
From the top.
Yeah, I'm Tom Frank.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
I'm Mickey Fax.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
And I'm Jeffrey Sledge.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Welcome to Unglossy decoding brand and culture.
I'm Tom Frank, partner andChief Creative Officer at Merit
Creative.
This is Mickey Fax, hip-hopartist and founder and CEO of
Pendulum Inc.
And that is Jeffrey Sledge, aseasoned music industry veteran
who has worked with some of thebiggest artists in the business.
We're here to explore themoments of vulnerability,
pivotal decisions and creativesparks that fuel the

(01:21):
relationship between brand andculture.
Get ready for athought-provoking journey into
the heart and soul of brandingthe unscripted, unfiltered and
truly un-Kalasi truth.
All right, we have a veryspecial edition of the show
today.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Very Very special.
It's my first time meeting you.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
First time ever, we're all in the same room,
though, which doesn't alwayshappen.
Never happens, never happensWell not never, but very rarely.
Very rarely, Very rarely.
We're just out of Washington DC.
We're in the Merrick Studios atMerrick Creative.
Ain't this really?

Speaker 2 (01:51):
out of Baltimore.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
We're like right in the middle between Baltimore and
Washington.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Listen, if you guys ever come here, just know that
it's my studio, there's M'severywhere.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yes, yes, yes, we're all in town tonight for a party
that's officially opening up thenew office Excited.
Thank you guys for coming.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
The new.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Merit Compound.
The new Merit Compound yes,Wouldn't have missed it.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
And I thought, since we're all in the same room for
the first time, we've had anumber of listeners who have
either made a comment or havesent us a message that are
curious how did this happen?
Why the three of us are on apodcast for a company called
Merit Creative.
Wow, true, all right, butbefore we jump to the end of the

(02:32):
story, I think we got to rewind.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
You know, that's Tom's favorite thing.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
But, before we start, we should have called the
podcast.
Wouldn't have been a bad name.
That's kind of fire.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Maybe the next next one, okay all right.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
We got to fully understand some of the
backstories here, okay, so Ithought I would start with the
elder state statesman in thegroup, is it right?

Speaker 3 (02:54):
who is that?
Is that jeff yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
okay, we're all separated I think I think we're
all separated by a differentdigit.
Is the first digit in our age.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
I believe that.
I believe you're still yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
So I thought we'd start with here.
There was a headline aboutJeffrey Sledge from a list in
Vibe Magazine which featuresJeff that was titled Hip Hop's
Most Impactful Black MusicExecutive.
I think that is the perfectplace to start as the elder
statesman.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
I've had a couple headlines in my years, a couple
light low-key.
I was ranked top A&R person ofall time with me and Barry.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Of all time.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, complex.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
You and Barry Weiss.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Wow, well, you know he's done.
People was real mad, but it waslike People were mad about that
.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, because you know he's done People was real
mad.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
But it was like people were mad about that yeah,
cause you know it's competitive.
And then people check the statslike damn he's done a lot.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Okay, so let's rewind here.
Okay, you got to start withwith.
How did you?
You don't have to go all theway to birth, but let's start at
the beginning.
How did you get into this this,how did you?

Speaker 2 (04:06):
how did?
You even get to be on this listI was born most impactful
executives, um, so I mean, butthat list I don't know, I I keep
it.
I don't even remember that list, but like it was recent, it was
like it was last year it was2023.
That was day 20, yeah, but I Idon't you ask me about that list
particularly I'm just sayinghow does one get on a list as

(04:26):
such?

Speaker 1 (04:28):
That's a big deal.
It's hard work.
I'm not on a list of top blackexecutives in the world Yet Yet.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yet you working towards it, though.
You know hard work and and youknow longevity.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, you know, I've been around quite a long time.
I'm seeing a lot of people youknow come and go and pass away
and it's not and just havemanaged to maintain some type of
relevancy over those years.
That's how you get on that list.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
You know um, and as a inR person I tell people all
the time one of the blessings ofmy A&R career is that working
at Jive Records was a hugeblessing because we didn't have
a lot of New York artists.
We had some, you know, we hadKRS and Tribe.

(05:21):
That was a blessing.
Yes, because it forced me to beother places.
So, while a lot of my peers arelike New York, new York, new
York and of course New York istheir home, it's a central
location and too many New Yorkartists have been successful to
name.
But it forced me to be inOakland and be in Texas and be

(05:42):
in New Orleans and see the seethe big, a much bigger picture.
Instead of just like yo, bronx,queens, brooklyn, Manhattan I
was like, nah, what's coming outof Texas you guys don't know
about?
Because I would go to see UGKand they would tell me about
what's happening down there.
Or I would go to Oakland to seetoo short E40 and move around

(06:04):
and see what was happening outthere and I could see trends and
waves coming way before a lotof my peers because they were so
centralized in New York.
So that's also been a blessingis that I, even now today, I
look at artists and listen toartists and it's not just this
or that, it's like you know,it's kind of like I see all
kinds of different trends.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
So tell me exactly when people who aren't familiar.
What does an A&R do?
Okay, what are you essentially?

Speaker 2 (06:33):
doing Okay.
So A&R stands for Artist andRepertoire.
A lot of people don't know that.
They say A&R is just like theArtist and Repertoire and your
job is basically to find anartist that you think could be
very successful, hopefully signthem and you know maybe their
producers to the label thatyou're working on and then

(06:53):
you're the helpmate in makingthe record.
You know, putting them withcertain producers, talking to
them about what kind of soundsthey want to do, helping them
understand their vision, becauseyou have to convey that vision
to the label.
They're not going to sit in amarketing meeting you are.
They're not going to sit withthe head of the label you are.

(07:14):
So you have to be able toconvey that vision and their
vision to the next levels up toget it and be like oh, yeah,
yeah, yeah, okay, I get it.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
So if we do this and that and this and that, we can
be successful.
That's what a true an?
R person does, is it?
Is it an agent?
Do you serve as the agent?
You don't serve from a legalstandpoint, no, not legal, not
at all legal.
Financial, that's businessaffairs.
That's totally, totallydifferent department.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
So I guess it is kind of like an agent and the best
an r people who are?
I'll name three, or I can namefour, I can name six, but uh,
I'll name three, three off thehead.
Uh, barry Gordy, who's the bestto ever do it?
Best to ever do it, I'll.
I'll fight that to the death.
Um, la Reed, clive Davis,emmett, uh, emmett, erdogan.

(08:02):
Those are the four off the top.
There's way more, but those arethe four off the top, off the
top of my head.
Like a lot of black people sayPuffy, and that's no disrespect
because Puffy was amazing, butthose guys were kings.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Mount Rushmore.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Mount Rushmore to me and those guys were able to find
an artist, a diamond in therough in a lot of cases, and
develop the talent of thatartist.
Whether it's Barry realizinghis little man, smokey Robinson
was an amazing writer eventhough he was in a group called
the Platters.
He's like, this guy's different, you know.

(08:39):
Or LA Reid finding some kidfrom Knoxville, tennessee,
chattanooga excuse me and belike I don't know what's up with
this kid.
He could be a global superstar.
And that's Usher, you know, I'mat Ernie Ginn seeing this is
Columbia's got this girl, thisgospel girl, but they don't know
what to do with her.
I don't know if I can get herover here, can make her

(09:00):
something, man.
That's Aretha Franklin, youknow.
So you know Just.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Aretha Franklin.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Just Aretha Franklin.
You know what I'm saying, justa little something, something.
Clive Davis, being like thispretty girl from New Jersey I
don't know, she could besomething I don't know In
Houston.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
You know.
So you have to have that vision, Maybe a little bigger.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, you have to have that vision to be able to
do that.
Those are what true A&R guysare and again, there's a lot
more and women there's women A&Rtoo, but those are just the
four off the top of my head.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
So, besides Mickey, which we'll get into, what's
your best?
Diamond in the rough?

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Besides you, of course.
Yeah, diamond in the roughBecause Mick was a diamond, I
don't know how much rough he wasbecause he was already pause,
because he was already doingstuff.
Yeah, you know, I was justtrying to pour gas on his fire,
right, but I'd say there werethese kids in Dallas.

(10:02):
You know, I was working withyoung Jock at the time.
We had done a deal with jock,he had did one act.
It was successful.
He said I got these kids inDallas.
I was like Dallas high school.
I said what?
So he sends me this tape theseare videos to look at early
YouTube and he's literally inDallas at the high school and

(10:23):
these kids are all doing thisJust on an old camera On YouTube
Talent show.
Yeah, Literally the kids arelike at lunchtime they're taping
each other.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Right and they're doing this dance and I'm like
what is this?
But then I look and I'm like Idon't know, all these kids are
doing this dance.
There's something going on here.
Yeah, me and Jock talking Allright, man, I'm going to give
you a shot, man.
And that was the Stanky Legrecord.
Wow, huge, wow, that's amassive record, massive.
So again you got to see thevision, like all these kids in

(10:54):
this high school, it's not threeor four kids, it's all these
kids at lunchtime doing thisdance.
It's in Dallas, there'ssomething going home.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
That's how it started .
It started in a cafeteria.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah, it started.
Yeah, yeah, those kids, thekids in the group uh, named GS
five, they made up that danceand they all the kids in the
school, started doing it anddoing it and doing it became
bigger and bigger and bigger,and that in Dallas, which is not
a you know, a market that a lotof heat for that, because

(11:27):
people were like, why were yousigning that bullshit?

Speaker 1 (11:29):
I'm like then later on it was like yo, genius.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
The other diamond was actually Shaq.
Okay, I was going to say who isthe biggest name that you've
ever signed, Shaq.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
You got to at least tell us about.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Shaq.
I'll tell you the Shaq story.
He's from Newark actually Newark, new Jersey, so he keeps up
with East Coast stuff.
He was young, he was like 18 or19, and he was a big fan of the
Fooshnickens and he was goingon Arsenio Hall's show.
That's when Arsenio was big.
He said I'll only go on ArsenioHall's show if I can bring my

(12:04):
favorite rap group on with me.
And I was a full snicker.
So they were like yo, hang on,we don't care.
So he brought you know.
So he brought him on and theydid.
Uh, the song called what's updoc, what's up doc, can we rock?
Yeah, can we rock?
yeah, what's up doc and um, theguy who owned jive, who was
actually he's?
He's a mount Rushmore A&Rperson too.

(12:24):
These are people that we knowmuch about him, clive Calder.
He's a Mount Rushmore guy, buthe was like we should sign Shaq
and I was like, come on, he's abasketball player.
He was like no, no, he sawsomething.
I didn't see it.
He saw it.
He's like all right, I was.
It was like and it's going tobe your project.
Um, and everybody clownedbecause he was a basketball

(12:46):
player.
I asked, I called a lot ofproducers and asked them to work
with Shaq.
I won't name names, but a lotof them said no, like, even
though it was Shaq, they didn'tbelieve in the talent.
They liked him.
It wasn't about him.
It's like I'm not.
He's a basketball Like.
I'm not.
That's like right now, evenlike you, just somebody.
Yo, I want to make an albumwith LeBron James.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
They'd be like what are you talking about?
Although nowadays it seems likea lot more athletes, they're
trying, they're trying.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Okay, and I love to say me and Shaq are the only
athlete rapper to go platinum,wow, it's true.
And gold, I believe the onlyones.
Nobody touched it to this day.
That was 1993 and 1994.
Nobody's touched it since.
So, anyway.
So he signed Shaq and I go downto Orlando.

(13:32):
I get the guys that want towork with me Ali Shaheed God
bless him, I love him.
Fife Guy who passed away, namedBig DS, who did the Onyx
Records, eric Sermon, whoactually became more like an
executive producer because hewas so helpful, and a couple
other guys that I can't think ofoff the top of their head.
Biggie was on that, no, no, no,biggie was on the third album.

(13:53):
I didn't do the third album, hedid that with Clark Kent, but
anyway.
So we go down to Orlando.
And Shaq, does you know?
And Shaq, he was messing aroundwith rap.
He didn't know how to rap.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
So he was with the Magic.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
still at that point he was with the Magic yeah, so
he'd go down to Orlando in thesummertime because he's off.
Yeah, so he'd spend the wholesummer in Orlando, 110 degrees,
every day.
He was taking us to UniversalStudios and Disney World and
Hard Rock Cafe, and all this.
Can I tell a little side storyabout Shaq?

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, you can tell a side story anything about jack.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
So, uh, one day we're in a stretch limo, right, we're
going or going or coming fromstudio, probably coming from
studio because we work early,because we have to work out, so
we couldn't work late into theevening, because we have to get
up early in the morning, sowe're um, going to get something
to eat and we're in a stretchlimo.

(14:45):
It's like four o'clock now foryou, young fellas.
Back in the day, banks used toclose at three.
Okay, those are called bankershours bankers seven to three
banks close at three o'clock youprobably didn't know that
mickey oh, this is.

Speaker 3 (14:59):
Did you even?

Speaker 1 (14:59):
know there was like brick and mortar banks back in
the day.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
I knew, knew it, I knew it Peace, no ATMs back then
.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
No ATMs, no ATMs, no ATMs.
You got to go in.
You got to go in, you had tobalance it.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
There was no PayPal.
There was no.
There was no debit card.
No, no credit card.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
None of that.
Okay, so banks closed at three.
He's like yo, stop at the bank.
And I was like bro, it's 410 orsomething whatever, so the
bank's closed.
He's like watch this, Watchthis.
It's crazy.
He gets out the limo, goes upto the bank, knocks on the glass
and they open the bank.
Just for him.

(15:35):
Wow, the bank had been closedover an hour.
They're like cashing out.
Yeah, Just for him, they open abank so he can get some money.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
He has a lot of his money in there.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, he probably had all of the money he might have
had all the money.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
So anyway, gordo Lando, we record that whole
summer and you know he learnshow to rap like learns how to
record properly and the mic andda, da, da, da and we put the um
platinum.
Yeah, we had a good time, yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
So you went then from shack and now here's where
we're going to start tying itall together okay somehow you
find this guy oh yes, so muchmany years later.
So, I was many years I was at avideo.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
I was at a photo, a video shoot, I believe, and it's
a guy named quasi, which I wantto show at some point doing a
lot of amazing things now bigdeal with adidas.
He runs.
He's like a big, big fashionguy right.
He's quasi's dope uptown sowhile he's uh, I think, um, at

(16:34):
that point just assisting thestylist of the video, so I don't
remember whose video it was, sowe just kind of kicking it.
Whatever, you know talking, youknow he's talking.
We told my Harlem and he's likeyo, you should listen to my boy
stuff.
And I was like who?
My man said Mickey Facts.
We got this magazine.
They had a magazine calledLaced Magazine and Laced
Magazine was a magazine aboutsneakers.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
You know, and Mickey was the editor.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
You were the editor of Laced Magazine.
I was the editor of LacedMagazine.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
So they would put out these magazines and be like oh,
these kids who are now like bigfashion people, like legit
fashion people, yeah, and at thetime it was just kids on the
street styling, you know, justfiguring it out.
And he's like yo, I'm going togive you this tape.
It's a mixed tape.
What was it born?

Speaker 3 (17:17):
In Search of the.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
NERD In Search of the NERD all.
NERD stuff was Pharrell, yeah,so, so, so it's all right, tom,
it's all right it was.
He was in a, in a productionteam called the Neptunes.
I know the Neptunes Okay, well,I'm just you know, I don't know
if you know so they put out analbum called NERD, okay, nerd,

(17:48):
and mickey rapped over theinstrumentals of that, of that
mixtape, of that album, rather,and so I took it home and I'll
say it's kind of interesting.
I kind of like this, you know.
So we met, you know, built arelationship.
He would come by the office andtalk quasi and steve fucking
brown and saint and the wholegfc crew come out office of
office and we built up arelationship to the point where
I wanted to sign him because Isaw what it could be.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
And was he the first guy to sign you?

Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yes, so he was actually the first person I ever
met in the music industry.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Unglossy is brought to you by Merrick Creative,
looking to skyrocket yourbusiness's visibility and drive
growth.
At Merit Creative, we solveyour brand and marketing woes
With big ideas, decades ofexperience and innovative
solutions.
We'll draw in your targetaudience and keep them hooked.
Remember, creativity is key tosuccess.
Partner with Merit Creative andunlock your brand's potential.

(18:40):
Learn more at meritcreativecom.
And now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
When Quazi told me that he gave my music to Jeff
Sledge, I didn't know who JeffSledge was.
This is around the time beforethe internet.
You can't Google anybody so Ididn't know who he was.
I just knew that he worked at arecord label.
So my first thought process isI'm gonna meet with this guy at
we went to dinner.
I forgot what we went to dinner.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
I forgot where we went, you take him somewhere,
nice, I hope yeah, we wentsomewhere nice okay, good, yeah,
I had the corporate, yeah, thecorporate car, so we went
somewhere nice.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
So like I the my first again.
I'm 24 years old.
My first thought process waswe're gonna go to go to dinner.
I'm going to get a record dealtonight.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
You're going to sign it I thought he was and they're
going to wheel in the cash.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Like oh.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
I'll push the paper across the table with a check.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Go enjoy yourself.
Here's your check.
Here's the paper I thought Iwas getting signed that night.
What I came to realize was thatthat was just an initial
meeting and that the industryworks completely different from
what you see on television andthings like that.
So he built a relationship withus as a, as a unit, and he was

(19:55):
just kind of.
He was kind of like he's kindof like the big brother, just
kind of watching but notinterfering.
He did not interfere, he justwatched what we were doing and
then he kind of just caught.
He kind of saw what washappening.
I remember we again my firstshow ever headlining was in
china that's right.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
You went to china.
That's right, I went to chinadid he send you to china.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
No, no, no, no, fader , fader, fader, magazine, uh
from china wanted us to come outthere and do something with
them.
So we did something in china.
Took me and my friends.
We went to china.
First time you had ever.
Fader magazine from Chinawanted us to come out there and
do something with them.
So we did something in China.
It took me and my friends.
We went to China First time youhad ever been out of the
country.
The first time ever out of thecountry.
First time out of the Bronx Notthe first time out of the Bronx
but the first time out of thecountry.
And when we came home, Jeff, youwere living in Harlem and we

(20:45):
went to Prec house that was myproducer and we did the super
song yep and he a and r thatsong for us and it was.
It was like a youtube kind ofthing like people started doing
dances to it.
Chanel iman has a dance to itright now.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Supra was a sneaker brand.
It's a fashion, so he did that.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
And then I started to bubble on my own and I began
putting out a song every weekand we would stay in contact
with Jeff.
But he still was like I don'tknow if I'm wrong or right, but
I felt like he felt we weren'tready just yet.
We still weren't ready, so wewere taking meetings.
I took meetings with Lenny S, Itook meetings at Warner and

(21:36):
Interscope.
I took all kind of meetings.
Now I know that when I go to ameeting I'm not getting a record
deal.
So we took all of thesemeetings and now, like I'm one
of the hottest mcs and in newestmcs coming out and I got a
chance to get on a double excelcover.
I got a chance to tour with nazand Busta Rhymes.

(21:57):
I did a car commercial, I didthe Honda commercial, I was on
video games.
I did all of this stuff.
I toured the world.
I got a chance to see theentire world.
And then, when we were done, soyou toured with Nas all over
the world.
I toured with Nas in thecountry.
I was on the Rock the Bellstour with him oh, okay, I was on
the rock the bells tour withhim.
Oh, okay.
So, uh, and it was.
It was just, it was amazingevery night, right, um.

(22:19):
But then when I was finally done, I had big aspirations of doing
like the soundtrack for needfor speed.
I wanted to try to kind ofchange music.
I was way too too ahead of thecurve, instead of just being
normal, like I just wanted to doeverything outside of the box.
You still haven't figured thatone out, okay.
So, um, finally, um, when Ikind of zeroed in and I was done

(22:45):
doing everything experimentalthat I wanted to do, I finally
kind of sat down in atlanta andI put together like 20 songs and
I, once they were done, I sentthem to jeff, mind you.
So you had him still in theback of your head, always had
jeff in the back of my head,right.

(23:05):
So again, I was doing music allthe time.
I wasn't really sending him anymusic like that.
I wasn't really sending him hewould.
I know he saw what washappening because he's in the
label system, he's doing whathe's doing and obviously my name
is buzzing.
We had meetings but it didn'treally go where we were supposed
to go.
But this time I sent him all ofthis music and this was the
very first time he respondedback and said I think you're

(23:29):
ready and I want to do a deal,and it would be at Battery Jive
and I was like, ok, it's time.
And that's when we kind offinally started working together
.
This was 2010.
So I met him in 2006 and it wasa four year process.
And I think that a lot of timesartists feel like you know they

(23:50):
have a hit record or they have asong and it's that moment,
right then and there.
But I'm grateful that it tookme four years because it made me
appreciate the grind and thehard work.
All of my peers were signingdeals Kid Cudi signed with Kanye
, wale signed with Mark Ronson,et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

(24:10):
Everybody was getting deals.
I was the last artist that wason the cover of the XXL to get a
record deal deals.
I was the last artist that wason the cover of the XXL to get a
record deal.
So everything that I had gotdone was off the strength of
pure talent and drive.
I didn't have a cosign, Ididn't have a big budget, I
didn't have a label.
Every deal that I made happen Imade happen myself, with my

(24:34):
team.
That was it.
It was just us independent andjeff saw that and jeff was like,
okay, let's bring this into thefold.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
And that's essentially my story as meeting
jeff and then kind of theculmination of him signing me to
jive right and also I'd like tosay and I know it's it's a
totally different time now, so Idon't know if you can really do
this anymore, but in thatfour-year span, like mick said,
I became very close with justnot him, but actually keeping a

(25:00):
trill.
I spent more time with thesquad than with him.
Yeah, yeah, I spent a lot oftime with saint, like a lot of
time, me and saint.
Saint would just come out ofoffice and we'd go out and saint
started to take me out to allthe things that was happening,
because at that time, remember,we had the rosenthal's.
This is part of that.
That downtown seat, thatdowntown scene, that below house

(25:21):
and scene, was where all theseat that time kids were hanging
and developing this scene,whether it was art or whether it
was fashion or whether it wasfashion.
All the guys that you see infashion now and girls like they
came from, they came from there,they came from there.
Like I told you, I love to see afilm of lower broadway now,

(25:43):
because you'd be pointing peoplelike, oh shit, that's that
person, that person, they wereall there so saying would take
me to all these things, and wego these, these french djs are
djing.
They come with me tonight andwe go to see there.
It was a big DJ team calledJustice.
Yeah, like he'd be like yo,there's an art gallery over.
You should come with me tonight, or you should.
Well, this is.

(26:04):
It was a club called Santos.
That was his nickname, santos.
It was like yo, santos is goingto be crazy tonight.
So he saying it in the timethat mick was also developing, I
was learning the scene, yeah,so I didn't want to know, I
didn't want to sign an artistlike him and not know what to do
with him.
Yeah, so when I in the time thesame as and steve, all those

(26:25):
guys were taking me around andshowing me the scene and I'm
meeting different people, notcaring about all of them, right,
I'm learning the scene as well,you know what I'm saying.
He took me to see kid cuddy.
Kid cuddy did a show.
I swear to god, it wasn't 20people, it wasn't 20 people and
they were like you gotta come,it's our boy cuddy.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
It was wasn't 20 people in the room and we ran to
that show before he got onstage and you know, it was about
maybe seven, eight people inthat yeah, including us yeah, so
it was like the scene that Ilearned.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
So when, when me and mic started working together, I
understood where it needed, Ihad a better sense.
I mean, they understood fully,but I had a better sense of
where it needed to go, cause Iwasn't like what's that?
You know?
Cause, cause I'm not timingCause I was developing and
learning about that scene.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
We need Saint on the show.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
And did Saint?
Did Saint always know?
I mean he, has he been doingthe same?
I mean he's an agent, righthe's?

Speaker 3 (27:19):
a manager.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
He's a manager, manager, and he's been doing
that ever since.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yes, don't manage it.
I was the.
I was his first artist, youwere his first artist.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
And we.
He was working at Alicia KeysSongwriting Camp, wow.
So yeah, it's full circle,saint, if Saint was a rapper, a
producer, he'd be Kanye.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Literally, he knew everything Way back.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
He knew it, he knew it all.
He was literally like thatperson's going to work.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
This person's going to do that.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
I don't know, he knew it.
He was Kanye.
He was kind of like aNostradamus he pinpointed what
fashion would work.
He pinpointed what music wouldwork.
He pinpointed what art wouldwork Hebrew, brantley, basquiat
before it started blowing upLike this guy, saint, we need
him.
Yeah, we'll get him.
We'll get him.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
He's ready, he's ready, all right, so let's fast
forward a little bit becausewe're getting around.
I haven't come in the pictureyet.
I haven't come on the rap sceneyet.
So at some point then, becausethis is how we're going to get
to our connection.
Yes, you met Lupe Fiasco.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
So I met Lupe Fiasco with Chris Atlas Cornerstone
Promoting.
You told me yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Oh yeah, Promoting the cool.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
We talked about that, promoting the cool.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
That's my first time meeting him and I was there as a
Least Magazine editor, so I wastelling him about the magazine
and I said to him what year isthis?
This is 2007.
2007.
And I said to him one day we'regoing to work together and you
know, artists say this toartists all the time and he just
kind of brushed it off andwalked away Two years later, the
next time we meet, we weredoing a photo shoot for

(29:03):
Phenomenon to go to Japan.
Phenomenon, phenomenon Swaggeryeah, I remember that.
And the third time we met, wewere in Japan together.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
And then you're performing together.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Performing together.
We met, we were in japantogether and then you're
performing together, performingtogether, and we built this is
about 2009, this is 2009, and wehad, we built that relationship
from 2009 onward.
Um, and then, yeah, so that'show, that's how me and so now
this is interesting.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Now we're starting to see this.
I don't know the year I'm notas good with years as you are
but I would say right around thesame time.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
You met him.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
I'm sitting at a bar at South by Southwest and I'm
working with a company calledHiggy who is owned by the
Chicago Sun-Times.
Okay, the Chicago Sun-Times guywho owns it I'm blanking on his
name, I should know his namecalls me and says listen, I have
an artist who's going to fly inand you are going to deal with

(29:59):
him and he's going to be our newuh like, face of the of the
company.
He's going to be our creativedirector.
I need you to make sure thateverybody at South by says well,
it knows he's here and you runhim around and I want every
minute of his day filled.
So the time he tells me this,it's midnight the day before
he's flying.
At eight o'clock in the morning, damn yeah.

(30:19):
So we put a whole plan together.
I had never met the guy before.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
I knew of him but I didn't really know that well,
lupe Fiasco flies in.
One of the greatest people I'veever worked with is.
He flew in and he goes what doyou got for me?
And I had stayed up all night.
We in.
And he goes what do you got forme?
And I had stayed up all night.
We planned up the whole thing.
I had a partner in crime shoutout to Lauren Sloat who
basically was with me the wholetime.
We planned out the whole day.

(30:47):
We made rumors out that Lupewas flying in.
We did all this kind of crazystuff.
We shipped him aroundeverywhere.
We did every, every major mediaoutlet that was out South by
Southwest.
And then that night I get a call, or that afternoon I get a call
from Target and Target says,hey, we're in.
You guys have been to South bySouthwest.
They all, the all the differentrestaurants you know get
branded.
So it was like the Target grill.
And they said to me hey, wewant, uh, is Lupe doing anything

(31:07):
tonight?
And I was like, well, what doyou, what are you thinking?
And they said we would like himto headline, uh, our, our, our,
our events that night.
Wow.
So I said, all right, hold on.
So I, I Lupe, I say hey, uh,you okay doing like a, doing
like a show tonight.
And he's like I'll do whateveryou want me to do.
Um, he's like, and I said okay.

(31:28):
So I get back on the phone andI'll say here's the deal.
We need a green room, we needuh, I need to introduce him
personally, I need 25 viptickets and I think a couple
other things.
I get off the phone, he looksat me, he goes you know, who do
you know here?
I'm like I don't know anybody,but I just I figured I'd see how
many tickets make it sound?

Speaker 3 (31:46):
good yeah, I had to make it sound.
Was it a free show?
Did he do it for free?

Speaker 1 (31:50):
yeah, yeah, so he was just there and that's kind of
how that scene was.
So we, so we're about to go andhe tells me he goes.
You realize, I don't haveanything with me, like, I don't
have them, I don't have my music, I don't have a dj right, you
got to figure this all out.
So he gives me a phone numberand I call a guy and the guy
sends me the music on mycomputer and, as I got the music
he's like all right, cool,you're the dj, you're the dj.

(32:13):
And I'm like, well, I don't knowI do.
And he's like all you got to dois go up there and hit play.
I mean, I'm only going to playlike three songs, so it wasn't a
big deal.
So, and then, as soon as I'mdone, I'm going to you're, I'm
going to grab you and you get meout of here as fast as possible
.
I need to be back in my hotelin like 15 minutes.
I said, all right, I'm in.

(32:34):
He comes up, people are goingcrazy and he looks at me and I'm
like, okay, I hit play.
And I swear that between thetime I hit play and the music
came on, it felt like aboutthree years to me.
It was probably only threeseconds, but I was sweating
bullets because I'm like I'm uphere with Lupe Fiasco and I
don't know what I'm doing, andthe song came on.
He took it from there and itwas unbelievable, wow.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
It was unbelievable.
You got footage of that.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Oh yeah, there's a lot of footage out there still
yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
I see that yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
I have to get that for you, but it was awesome.
And to that point I said to himwe're going to, we're going to
stay working together, we'regoing to do something big one
day.
And so we ended up workingtogether home.
We don't know what to doanymore and I wanted to get into
the podcast space.
So I thought you know what?

(33:20):
I'm going to call Lupe out ofthe blue and see if he'll do a
podcast with me.
Called him up, he said yeah,man.
I said what do you mean?
You're in, he's like, I'm not.
And what does?

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Mickey say I didn't.
First of all, before I answerthis, I didn't know anything
about the podcast space.
So he asked me what would ittake for you to do a podcast?
He didn't say anything.
He didn't say it would be withme.
He didn't say none of that.
He just said what would it takefor you to do a podcast?
And I told him I was like Ineed like $1,500, $2,000 a week

(34:02):
or something like that.
And that was the last I everheard about the podcast.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
And you were out.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Right, Because, again , this is COVID he didn't give
me any specifics.
If Lupe would have said whatwould it take for you to do a
podcast with me, I would havesaid let's do it right now.
He didn't say that.
So, because he didn't say thathe just put a random thing out,
Didn't say that he just just puta random thing out.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
I just didn't you think to push it a little bit
and ask him some questions youknow how lou is.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
I just was like this is what it's gonna take for me
to do it.
You know, not not thinking thatit was with him.
If I would have known it waswith him, I would have just did
so mickey does not become ourthird house, I don't become the
host.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
We, we fast forward a little bit, royce the five,
nine steps in.
Yes, he says I'm in, didn't askfor 1500 right, he probably
asked him a little differentlyand maybe he asked him a little
differently.
Wildly successful show.
Yes, I don't know if lupe androyce would say that at this
point, because we got into alittle little tiff here and
there and uh, you know, the showdoesn't exist anymore.

(35:02):
But through that show Ieventually meet me facts.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yes, now I meet you.
While I was in Miami doingdrink champs and that was my
very first time getting on theshow we were having these in IG,
conversations about who's thebest rapper, and it wasn't a
episode, it was a Patreonepisode.
Yes, and that was the first timeI actually right yeah, that was

(35:29):
the first time I actually spoketo to tom and I was like oh
okay, this white guy seems cooland then, like a week later, the
show is no longer in existenceand um, because I was at the
beach at that point trying tostop put out the fire that was
occurring and we had a bunch ofguys on.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
We're all talking about who's the best rapper and
I'm like what, I can't believe.
We're talking about this.
What do you mean?
Who's the best rapper?

Speaker 3 (35:53):
right, um, it was friendly.
And then you know the nextthing, you know it's all
dissipated, um, and then I guess, at some point Tom gives me a
call and Tom is like hey, youwant to do a podcast with me,
you want to start this, thisthing with me.
And uh, what?
No, actually, no, it didn'twork like that.
I don't think it worked likethat.

(36:13):
I think it was.
Tom was following me on ig,yeah, and I was starting to do
the.
I was starting to do these rapcompetitions, that's what it.
Yes, and he saw that and hereached out to me and I was like
why is Tom reaching out to me?
He's like I think we can makesomething out of this.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah, I liked it.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
And I was like I'm just, you know it's getting some
traction, but I don't reallycare.
And at the same time, dj washitting me.
And DJ was like I'm at the barsapp, we can finance this.
And I was like listen, I don'treally, I don't, I don't care,
I'm gonna take care of it, justleave me alone.
And then dj hit me back.

(36:54):
I was like no, no, I'm serious,I can pay you and finance this.
Yeah, and that's when you knowhe, he, he was gave me what I
wanted from lupe.
So he was like you got yourmoney Right.
So then, when I told Tom that Ihad got paid, then Tom was like
ah, I want paid too.
I want to get paid too.

(37:14):
I can get even more money outof them.
Yeah, let's work together,let's start a company together.
And I was like okay, you know,I don't really say you know, if
you explain what it is to menine times out of ten, I'm gonna
say all right, let's try it.
Like I'm not gonna be somebodythat's gonna turn it down too
often.
And it worked out well, it didwe.

(37:35):
We made a lot of money uh, nota lot of money.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
We did how many seasons of the mickey fax bars
app challenge three two.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
We did two seasons two seasons of that yes, we did
two seasons, the first seasonsof that.
Yes, we did two seasons.
The first one, I was alreadyunderway.
The second season went reallywell.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
And then we were going to do a third season,
that's right.
And then it just kind of hadnothing to do with us.
It was the bar zap kind of justwent kaput because Meta got rid
of that space which we heard onour last episode, right.
But we were trying but thenthat's when I was looping in
jeff to get bun b for the secondseason.

(38:11):
That's how we met then of thebars app.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Well, wait a minute.
Before that, though, we werelooping in bun b for another
project and the client we won'ttalk about to be the face of
that project, of that project,yes, and they ended up opting
not to go with bundy they playedthemselves crazy, that was a.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
That was a big l told them.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
I told them what bun was gonna do, and now look at
him.
Trill burgers is massive, yeahhe has like not.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
I mean, he's always been great for his music, but
now he's doing something yeah,he's like, he's like a mogul and
we.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
We had that meeting with them and we were letting
them know, like this is what'sgoing to happen, and they just
passed on it.
But that was how I introducedJeff to Tom Because of, you know
, trying to put that together.
Yeah, but it was really tryingto get him to do the season.
That's why, and then, once yousaw how easy it was to get one,

(39:05):
you, you came up, we came upwith this idea to pitch for meta
yeah, we pitched meta.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
They didn't take it.
They didn't take it.
Then some time goes by.
We're still working on stuff,yes, and then the light bulb
goes off yeah, okay, so let me,let me say that.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
So again, tom knows me.
Tom, these, he's like pinky inthe brain, right, and I'm
clearly pinky, he's clearlybrain, and he always has these
crazy podcast ideas.
We've done about three or fouror five of them.

(39:40):
Every time Tom says I got thisidea for a podcast, I let him
talk, I let him talk, I let himtalk and when he's done, I'm
like, okay, let's do it, let'stry it, let's try it and we try
it.
It might work, it might notwork.
And then this last one, he waslike I'm gonna figure this out,
I'm gonna figure this out, we'regonna get something in the

(40:01):
music space.
We're gonna do it, I promiseyou.
He's like what if we dosomething with jeffrey?
I was like who's jeffrey?
Because I don't know anyjeffrey.
He's like jeffrey sledge.
I was like, oh, jeff, okay,yeah, we can do something with
jeff.
Jeff would do it because jeffhad been doing podcasting for

(40:22):
years.
Yeah, like he was doing this inmarcus's place in red rooster
for years and years and yearsand years.
And I was like we can get jeffto do it because he's already
good in that space, he's alreadymoving in there, so we can get
him.
You know I'll be there and youcan run it, and that's how we
kind of brought this whole thingtogether.

(40:42):
Yeah, but I want to addsomething to that.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
well, first I want to ask you a question, okay, okay,
see, I always call you Jeffrey.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Because I feel like that's your actual name.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, but Mickey says what do you call him Jeffrey?

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Because everybody cuts it, but I actually like
Jeffrey, oh do you?

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah, that's my name, I just wanted to clear that up.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
But everybody cuts years.
I just got tired of trying tocorrect people all the time like
all right, because you know themusic is joe sledge, joe sledge
.
It's like that's not really myname it just got a ring to it so
for the record, I do call youby the right name.
It was brand.
It was yeah, but the jeffsledge thing is brand it's
branded man like it's.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
It's hard to say jeffrey, it's too.
It doesn't.
It doesn't roll off the youknow.
So I just it's's Jeff's ledgejust works.
So then that turned into Jeff.
But you know, I said that I wasgoing to call him Jeffrey, but
I can't.
I call you Jeffrey.
It's 18 years.
I'm going to add some contexthere on this podcast All right.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
So this podcast came to birth.
A I love working with you, yes,b I wanted to find a way to, to
to work with Jeffrey, but C Ihad just bought a company and my
mission in life was to takethis company and completely
rethink how its perception ofthis company lives in the world,
not because they had doneanything wrong, but just because
I wanted to change theperception.

(41:56):
And I wanted to be able to talkabout brand and marketing, not
with brand and marketing peopleand what was expected, but talk
to people about brand andmarketing who don't even think
of themselves in brandingmarketing.
And I think the biggest spaceto do that in a lot of cases and
it's not solely what we'redoing here, but a big part of
that is the music industry,because the music industry tends
to be on the forefront ofculture on the forefront of what

(42:20):
brands are doing, and a lot ofbrands come to music to try to
figure out what's next.
And so that's really how thisthing came to be is like how
could I get, how could Isubmerge myself in that as
non-musician, Although I dofancy myself as a musician?
Today we're going to figurethat out.
But I knew if I, if I could, ifI could get you guys on board
with this, we could do somethinghere and we could have some fun

(42:42):
with it.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Yeah, could do something here and we could have
some fun with it.
Yeah, and I, you know, and I Ibelieve in time.
I think time is a verysuccessful businessman and I he,
he sold me when we got themoney from meta.
Once we got the money from meta, anything time said he wanted
to do that's all it took it'sreally all it took.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
It's really all it didn't take too.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
It didn't take too too much convincing and, um, you
know, I'm glad that I took thatchance and sometimes you have
to take chances with people.
You know that you don't know,because you just never know what
somebody will become and thefact that he said that we're
going to do this, we're going tofigure this out, and I put that
trust in him and we got towhere we are.
You know, we've had incredibleguests so far and we have a ton

(43:24):
of incredible guests.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
We haven't even scratched the surface yet.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
We have a ton of incredible guests on the docket
that we haven't even scheduled.
That's on the horizon andthat's a lot due to our network,
you know, and the people in ourRolodexes, you know, and I'm
excited to kind of see wherewe're going to take this when it
goes.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah, me too.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
It's a lot of people, we need to start counting our
episodes, you know?
I think we need to say you know, episode 43.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
I'm going to tell you why I do that.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
I'm going to tell people who are listening that
make podcasts.
If you say it on the air, thenyou gotta, you gotta live up to
it, but you know sometimes weslide them around.
We have a lot Now.
We've been splitting episodesinto two as of late, okay, and
I've done that very, veryspecifically because I think
people tend to.

(44:11):
There's people who listen tolong podcasts, but I like to
think people have approximately25 to 35 minutes in a commute,
in a workout, in an activitythat they're doing, and to me
that's kind of the perfectlength Going to the store, yes,
and I think it's kind of fun tohave a part one and part two
which we might do with this one,yeah no, I'm not mad at that,
you know.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
I just want to say you know we're trying things out
.
Jeffrey has been taking thisthing to the next level.
No doubt A lot of the gueststhat we've been having have been
out of Jeff's Rolodex.
You got a lot more to go thoughhe's been shooting from the hip
, and you know I did thatpurposely because I wanted to

(44:51):
make sure this thing did notfail.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
And you're waiting on your.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
I got a crazy Rolodex .
You're pacing it, I'm pacing it.
And after the Marcus thing Iwas like I don know, you know we
had a little trouble we had alittle hiccup but we we figured
it out.
We figured it out, you know, and, and and.
We still made it work.
And now you know, I'm ready tostart going into the Rolodex.

(45:19):
Yeah, I'm gonna start seeingsome stuff, some people from
myself, you know, but Tom andjeffrey have been really putting
in a lot of work and I want tosay thank you to both of you
guys because you know you guyshave taken this to where you
know, I knew it would go to, andyou know, and I gotta start
pulling some weight how about?

Speaker 1 (45:36):
how about?
I ask you guys this what's thatfavorite moment so far of the
pod?
Yeah, we've had a lot of guestsand they've been very a big
like variety of people.
We've had a lot of guests andthey've been a big variety of
people.
We've had people in the musicindustry.
We've had people in the sportsindustry.
We've had people in theentertainment space.
We've had people in the brandand marketing space.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
You know what One thing I can't?
Why am I blanking on his namethe cat?
That's the architect?
Oh, anthony Laney.
It shocked me how interested Iwas once we got going I didn't
know him for a can of paint, soI'm not saying I thought he was
going to be whack because Idon't even know him.
But once he got rolling and itwas interesting with him because

(46:21):
I could see that respectfully,I could see he does a lot of
podcasts, right, he does a lotof interviews.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
So at first he was.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
He was very scripted.
He was very stock-answer-yright.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
But it was cool, I get it.
He was still giving meinformation, but then we started
.
He also, and your other man,your man who was a pilot.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
Oh, he was great.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Oh, he was really good, not that he was stock
answering, but I think he wasthrown and Anthony were thrown
by some of the questions and thequestions made them like oh
shit, okay.
Oh, nobody really covered melike that, like pause, like that
before, like with the pilot I'mblanking on his name.
We was like yo, like what aboutthat before?
Like with the pilot.
I'm blanking on his name.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
We was like yo, like what about?
Oh, oh, matt Jacobs, matt.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Matt Jacobs, that's who we're talking about.
Yeah, I was like yo, Matt, whatabout Orgy's on the private jet
, what's going on?
And you know what I'm saying.
And he's like, oh, oh, we'redoing that type of podcast, you
know, yeah, and we went to that.
Or even with square foot, I gotit.
But like like, what's theflyest house you ever built?
Like, yeah, what'd you do?
And I could see him going likeoh, no gravity room yeah, yeah

(47:31):
and all that people.
I could see him going like, ohokay, people never really asked
me this type of stuff.
They kind of asked me thebasics.
So I that's not I don't knowthey're necessarily my favorite
guests, but that's what I sawhow you could interview somebody
from a genre or profession thatyou're not really know a lot

(47:54):
about.
But if you ask them questionsin a certain kind of way you
could loosen them up and be like, oh okay, these are questions
that nobody would have In theirworld.
Nobody probably would haveasked them that.
Like yo, matt, what about sexon the private jet?
Nobody would ask him that,right, because he's just like a
pilot.
And they'd be like, oh sowhat's your altitude?
Like nobody would ask him.
Like more layman kind offantasy-ish kind of questions,

(48:15):
the same, anthony.
So I learned.
I learned from them.
Like it doesn't matter.
Like if I don't really quiteunderstand, know um about what
you do, it's got to do enoughresearch to kind of learn what
questions ask and what questionslike normal, like if I don't
really quite know about what youdo, it's got to do enough
research to kind of learn whatquestions to ask and what
questions like normal, a normalperson would want to know, not
like a professional, but anormal person on the street.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
And that's exactly why we do this Cause I wouldn't
have even thought to ask himhalf of the stuff you asked him
which made it kind of wacky andcool.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, cool, yeah.
He was really having a goodtime yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
You know, for me, I have three moments.
Three moments in order.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Okay, so three is um, the woman that we didn't
interview and you came late andshe just was talking crazy about
you.
Yeah, beverly, beverly.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
We got to get that.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
We got to get that she was incredible, and we
didn't even interview her.
I can already tell that that'sgoing to be.
I was nervous about it, sothat's three.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
It was so good.
I can't wait.
We talked to her for a while,oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
She was amazing.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
That's three.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Two, you know I found it to be comical, the naked in
the fray situation.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
That might have been my number one.
It's just like come on.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
You just wanted me and Jeff to be naked in the
woods.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Be naked in the woods I just wanted to put you in a
very awkward situation and seehow you would react.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
It was funny, though I give it a good moment.
All right, and my number one,obviously, you know, reagan
Gomez, come on.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
What are we talking about?
What are we?

Speaker 3 (49:37):
talking about here, like the schoolboy crushing me,
came out for Reagan Gomez andall of my friends were jealous
of me for like three days.
When I posted that online I waslike you interviewed, you got
to look at and speak to ReaganGomez.
I was like, yeah, so that was.
That was number one moment here, number one number one easily.
Well, I.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Mags was the most fun conversation.
Mags was dope, Mags was good.
I like Mags.
Mags is a good person.
But I also gotta say MarcusSamuelson like just listening to
him to talk about the love ofwhat he does in cooking.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
From Artistic's.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
Which one, the live one or the?

Speaker 1 (50:16):
I think I like the live one a little bit better.
We ate, we got to be in hisspace.
I mean it was great.
I loved, because I just lovetalking to my cousin Tim.
I love hearing about the NBA.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
The.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
NBA was fly too.
I'm such a huge NBA fan, Iwouldn't mind a repeat episode
with him.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Now that the Olympics are over.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
I wouldn't mind and the WNBA is like really kicked
in.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
He's a part of the WNBA stuff too, the WNBA is
owned.
Wow, yeah, I would love to havea repeat episode with him, so
we get him back on.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
I love that we got so much more to do.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
Yeah we do.
We got a lot of crazy guests onthe way, like a lot, so we need
you guys to stay tuned toUnglossy with Jeffrey Sledge.
What's your last name, tom?

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Are you kidding me, the great Tom Frank.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Tom Frank.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Thomas Frank, you always make fun of my two first
names and me Mickey Fax.
It's Mickey, it's Mickey, it'sMickey All right, there we go,
there we go.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
That was it.
That's how you learn about us.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
That's how you learn.
Right there, let's do it.
And now we're going to hang out.
We're going to go to a lot thatpouring ice.
But you know, man, you got todo what they got to do and we
got to have some ice for ourdrinks.
Yeah, okay, all right.
Tom Frank, mickey Facts.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Jeffrey Sleds.
Mickey, yeah, you went thewrong way.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
I went the wrong way.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
We'll start that again all right, folks.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
That's our show.
Tune in to unglossing decodingbrand and culture on apple
podcast, spotify or youtube andfollow us on instagram at
unglossy pod to join theconversation.
Until next time, I'm tom frankI'm jeffrey sledge that was good

(52:06):
.