EYL #113 Respect the Culture feat. Shawn Prez

You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy? Just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. With Indeed sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates, so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have forty

All right, guys, welcome back another edition E y L. This is the Legend series. Always like these type of episodes when we interview O g's in the game, whether it's Chris Gotti, whether it's Kenny Burns, whether it's Jason Jeter, They're always good stories and just a ton of gems and information. So this is right along the lines of that. Sean Press, a legend in his own right, started as an intern in the music business for for Diddy and then became his role manager, then became the vice president

So we forgot So what's that South Bronx.

We can't forget that? Shout out to the South Bronx, South South.

The Homer hip hop, That's right.

So yeah, this is gonna be a you know, entertaining conversation and educational conversation, light in conversation. I'm looking forward to it. So, first and foremost, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

First and foremost, thank y'all for having me. Like, why am like this is? Can I take over notice? This is to become a freaking destination, Like like I got the call, I'm like making sure that my head's cut, what I'm gonna wear to day? Am I smelling right like this this thing that y'all have created, just no, it is really impacted. And now it's one of them things like you feel like you arrived if you get the call to be.

So thank y'all for having me. Yeah, I appreciate it.

So it's crazy that you said that because when we initially started and I kind of met it to you earlier. One of our first episodes, like episode nineteen Derrek Ferguson, Dude, I went to church Region who obviously was that bad boy to us a lot of things on the episode was an amazing episode, but he was like, you know, I'm gonna help y'all get some people.

He's like, you know, you need to start with showan press. I'm like, all right, Derek, let's set it up. Shout out to d that was a year and a half ago. I'm happy that. I mean, it's finally come to fruition.

Don't be late than never as a fact, So let's let's let's jump into it, all right.

Music.

You know, if anybody watches Eyo, you know that me and troya hip hop babies. We grew up on music, so we always like to have these conversations, and to me, it's always interested to hit the backstory. So you started as an intern for bad Boy and works your way up to the vice president. At the time when bad Boy, like when we interview styles, he said like bad Boy

You know, I gotta go back a little further if you don't mind. I took five internships, you know. Bad Boy was my fifth, and I was trying my best, my hardest. I was doing everything I knew how to do to get into the music industry, and year over year, and this is before labor laws, Like you could work for free back then, and the labels didn't have to pay you nothing.

They didn't have to give you coffee, they didn't have to give you lunch money. You ain't have to be in school and get credit.

So I was trying my best to get in the game for years, and I would do a year at Arista and be like, can I get a job, Like, we're not hiring.

I just gave you a year free labor. You know.

I went to Atlantic, I went to every label I can get to, and when I got to Bad Boy, and the reason I want to go back, and I think it's necessary because I didn't just up the chain, you know, from by the time I got to Bad Boy, I was an uncaged savage, like they had kept me in a cage for six years trying to get in this game. So by the time I got the bad Boy, what I thought was, you know, the world working against me because I couldn't get a job to save my

How old were you in when I started in terning where I get the bad bad Boy?

When you get the Bad Boy about twenty three?

So what's the time frame in bad Boy? We are we right before ready to die? Or we in the mix already?

We are right after ready to die drop like right after.

N That's so let me ask you this perfect time twenty three? How old was Puff twenty one? Twenty two?

No, no, no, no, Puff's older than me. Puff got me for about two years to like twenty five. How was that?

How was that to be a twenty three year old intern for a twenty five year old ceo?

Like?

How was that experience? Because usually it doesn't work like that, usually in corporated like your bosses like sixty years old, fifty years old, twenty five year old Puff?

Like that? We can only imagine.

I can tell you first and foremost. Long before I got to Bad Boy, you know, I was working and trying to get in the industry. Puff was that dude in the city. Like, Let's let's be clear, Like Puff was throwing parties. He was throwing parties. Yeah, he had the red zone like Puff had all types of stuff going on. He had just come off Mary J. Blige first album. He really changed the world of R and B because before Puff, R and B looked like the OJ's and it looked like they was doing choreographed steps

And learn from.

The best hands on so without without a doubt. Yeah, I heard I heard Puffed on Sleep.

I heard that now, like I gave him his credit, but I call puff now even sleep California time.

Yeah, exactly.

Maybe that's what it is, so so so moving, moving, moving through the ranks and bad boy as far as on the music side and working your way up to be the vice president. What does that entail like to be a vice president of a label? What's your responsibility? Are you A and R and projects? Are you marketing?

Every I was.

Actually I was actually vice president promotion to be specific, and that is really you you For me, I started out intern working on the street team, work my way up from coordinator, running the national street team, running.

Mix your radio, all of.

That stuff, and then you start to get into real radio, so that that it's how do I say it, it's it's dope because if you're young and you're living the lifestyle, who don't want to be in the music industry? And then I had a front row seat, like I was in the hottest label at the hottest time ever in the game. So for me, you didn't have to be a rapper. You you could be, you know, the guy next to the god, next to the god, next to the rapper the streets.

So I mean, I'm listening to you now, and I'm like, yo, I know I saw the title like Puff called you the ambassador of the streets, absolutely because like you was literally out there. But the streets even had some legends in it too.

Oh without a debt. But see this is I would love to share this with your audience. I don't care where you get in. I didn't like I went to college.

I didn't.

I didn't go to college to be on nobody's street team. But that's the way I had to get in. And for me, getting in was I'll pick up the garbage. Like you want the garbage picked up, like, I'll do that. You want the taller bowls clean, I'll do that. I came to the label, they was like, yo, all we need right now, we're not hiring. I wanted to be an A and R. I didn't want to be even in promotion. They were the people on the street team and that

In a way y'all never seen before me.

Let me ask you this, because there's a lot of young people might not even know what the street team is because there's no street team more. But can you just even explain, like, because to me, Bad Boy had an extremely strong street team. Rough I is something I've never seen before.

No no, no, no, watch your mouth, watch your mouth. Bad Boy had these and I'm looking at the Bad Boy had the number one street team. Everybody out there ask them. Was fighting for second place. It was just was a given number.

Had the banners, you had the sticks with the Bad Boy joint, you had the.

Flags running out. We were the most creative, We were the most aggressive.

Shout out to June Balloon, Shout out to Shannon the Butcher, Shout out to so many of the guys who you know keeping came before me and laid down the pavement that that we could really do what we did. But that Bad Boys street team, you know, that was legendary. And then when I came in and really took it over my man room like like Puff.

Called me the ambassador of the streets.

But I couldn't do nothing with that, with that, without that army of savages, let by my man Room and all of those guys.

So now it was all right.

So the street Team is a real street like a bunch of people that's putting up flyers, that's going to club, that's handing out T shirts, that's doing all of this, right, So are these people getting paid or yeah, these people are getting paid. They getting paid. So how many people was actually on the street team?

Okay, so a great question. It depends. Like when I came in, I was charged with taking what we were doing in New York and replicating it nationwide. So I wanted to go and find you know, people might not know what street teams are. Street teams are the equivalent of today's influences. These are the people who other people look to for what's hot, what's next. These are the people who have their finger on the posts of what's coming up. It might not be hot today, but check

Everybody looked at her.

It might be that guy who's the you know, he always got the fresh new Jayson. He's always the one who's wearing the new clothes.

Yo. You need to be down with us.

And we took them and took what they naturally do and just laser focused them on our mission in our records.

Y'all doing that from city to city. Because now I'm looking, I'm like, Yo, damn, y'all did that with the music. But they also did that because it sounds like the boys the same thing.

Next door. He told us that same story.

So while the Street team is doing that, are you hands on now with the artists or you the guy that's like, Yo, this is the record you're going up to radio.

You're the guy that's you.

I'm the guy, but you know, and here's where I got to shout out hard Pierre. You know funny, because I told y'all I wanted to be a A and R when I got in the game. And sometimes you look for what's shiny, you look for what's hot. The A and R is one of the most coveted positions in the music industry right everybody wants to be an A and R. But the more I got deeper into the game, I learned things about myself.

I don't like the studio.

I don't like being in a confined space, people smoking, because the artists are always smoking and they need to get that creative juices going and music is blasting, and you hearing the same record fifty million times. For me, I was like, I know, I wish for that, but thank god I didn't get it, because I would have been the worse an R because I just didn't.

Even want to be around.

So I always when the records was done, I would go to the studio, but I wanted to hear it like a fan. Give me this when it's a finished product. Let me drive up up and down the West Side Highway on my way back and forth and listen.

To this like I'm a fan.

And then yes, I would come into the office and be like, this is all record, this is the one trust me when I tell you, and I'm the kind of person you know, I put my nuts on the line, like like if I say this is it, consider it broke? Like like hold me account?

How many you must have heard a bunch of them? Like that's the one like every weekend.

Again, shout the hall, shout the puff. They made my job easy me.

I got a couple of questions. So the first question is for radio, right, because I watched the Breakfast Club interview and you were saying that you went to radio with Black Rob. I think that's when your first met Charlomagne. So like, what's the process to break somebody's record on radio? Like how do you how does because you always hear like you know, they pushing it to the DJs and you got to talk to the director of program directors and all that, Like what's the process for that?

That's a great question. You know, it is a little different now, but it's somewhat the same. Nobody today wants to put in the work, and everybody wanted to be in the music industry. Everybody want to blow, but nobody want to put in the work.

And here's what I mean by that.

Back when we was coming up, I look around, and I applored y'all.

Y'all got Life after Death on one side.

You got the blueprint on the other sides. But you got it as wax. So we get it, y'all. Y'all know, y'all hip hop, right. It used to cost a lot of money to put records on wax and if you was willing to invest your money in studio, real studio, Like now it's cheap. You can do it from home. You can go in your bathroom and make a hit record. You don't have the same value as if you spent real money. Like back in those days you had to go to the studio. You was getting two hours. It

You hear that for three hours straight.

That type of work still works today, but people are not getting up and they're not going and they're.

Not harassing the DJs the way that we used to.

They're not knocking like I mean, you can ask any anybody when it comes to me, like if you if I wasn't on your phone when you went to the clubs, I was there sitting at the DJ booth like, look, you know, I got to y'all get my record on. And then the DJs one of two things happen. They either start to respect your grind or they like, let me play this person's record because I know he ain't going nowhere, so let me give you this spin. But

But do they really have liked DJs really have power? Because I was told like they just get told what to play from the program director, which comes from the top up, and they don't really have the power to actually play what they what they really might want to play.

That's an excellent question. It really is.

Back in the days, they did have way more power than they have now. But everything is not playlisted. So let's just say a DJ has a one hour mixed show slot, maybe forty minutes of that is playlisted, and then your program director will let you just get busy, just so long as you're not playing crazy records and you can sandwich a new record in between two hits.

Yeah, DJ self broke a lot of He's broken a lot of people out the self.

They will definitely shout out to self, what's your thoughts on the role that you used to have now?

Right where artists can almost break their own records, right like if they just get on SoundCloud or they get on YouTube.

Like, what do you think the role now is?

What does it look like in terms of breaking your own record or trying to break a record for an artists when I mean technically you know what I mean, Like most of them are trying to break that, especially in New York.

It's like, so you're saying they don't need somebody to break their record for them, they break their own records.

Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like the role of the and all the role of the VP of promotions, is it kind of diminished now in a sense?

No. No, Like at the end of the day, radio is still viable.

I don't you know. You have all these streaming plays platforms and.

Artists now can eat long before the world knows them because they get paid royalties every time their records are streamed. But you don't become an a list star until radio starts to bang it, until radio puts you in rotation. So radio is still uh, if you want to be a celebrity, if you want to be that guy, radio is still very important for you. But you can do this yourself now, but you got to put in the work.

It's a crowded space.

Crowd It's different now too, because I feel like there's so many different lanes. Like you're right, because I still listen to radio and in my car. I'm not one of the people that listening to Spotify, but I know, like NBA Young Boy, I've never heard his song on the radio, but he's the biggest artist on YouTube. And there's a bunch of people that I've never heard on the radio, but they run up crazy numbers on Spotify.

Because they were the only show in town. It was like, if you wanted to blow, you had to get on radio. Now it's option. Yeah, you know, but again, you know, and our underline, if you want to become a mainstream superstar, you still need radio.

So at the point when you're I mean, you're putting out hits after hits after hits, right, and I'm hearing it what you're saying, Right, you didn't like to be in the studio, you didn't like to be around the smoke. You just wanted to get the finished product. At what point are you saying to yourself like this isn't for me, I need to do something else.

Oh that's you speak in my language. It's a good question. I think it's a teaching moment for people. You know, It's funny because I try to always stay tapped in to God and I'm very I'm very, very open about you know, really my relationship with God, and God has us on this journey, and sometimes you can think that that the path you're on is going to be the path that you know, I'm going to the Promised Land in this lane and at the peak you know of Well, no,

But what we were building.

With saying bad boy like like right now this we're talking about his legacy.

And I had to.

Come to terms with myself that as a man, I wanted to build my legacy. And I started to you know, it's crazy because as God is putting this in my heart, I'm fighting it because I'm like, yo, I work my whole life for this, like you kidding me? But sometimes you just gotta trust your intuition. You gotta trust that in a voice. And it took me a couple of years of really fighting it before I decided it was time for me to put my resignation in.

But even when you put your resignation in, there was a story with that, Yeah, he would he wouldn't let you leave, right that go okay?

Like like again, I'm gonna give my man Puffin's flowers while while he's still alive and you can still smell him.

But I feel like I'm giving a way too much. Like here's the deal.

I you know, these are those moments that people need to really listen to because I hope it helps you in your journey. We down in Miami. I'm staying at the Mandarin Orient to a hotel. I have a terrible memory, but I remember this like it was yesterday. It's Memorial Day weekend. Maybe it's zero four five somewhere in there. Yes, it was wild and everybody's having a ball, you know.

It was a punch in my face.

It was boom, like like I was in my hotel room and I woke up and I was supposed to be out working that morning. I couldn't leave my room, and I was depressed. I was confused, and I did what I always do. I dropped to my knees. And when I draw to my knees, I promise y'all on everything I love. I heard God's voice, just like I'm hearing y'all's voices. And God said it's time to go, simple as that, it's time to go. And that was

He's here.

He was like, like I don't know if y'all ever seen the movie The Green Mound, but the dude is on death row and you know he's taking that final walk. That's how I felt going to Puff's office because I just knew I didn't want to look him in his face, like like like I said, I took five internships. He gave me a job, and I remember going to that office and I got the nervous smile on him. I'm looking and I'm sitting at this side of the table and Puff is at that side, and this is how

Yeah, Like I went through the old thing like yo, it ain't chewish me.

And I told him like like my big dreams and my plans, like you know, I want to build my own and I want to start my own legacy. And it was in that moment, and that's why I say you have to you gotta listen when when when, when God is speaking to you, gotta be in tune because puff this is something he's never done before, and I don't know if he's ever done it since. But he stayed quiet once I gave him a spiel. And it's crazy too, because he had a security He had a

Do for you.

He said, I give you office space. I give you my infrastructure. You don't have to worry about phones at that time, of fax machines, you don't have to worry about none of that. You could stay here and you could build your company under my roof. And I want to be your first account.

And that was the blessing of all.

And now granted, he said, I'm gonna take you off payroll, but I'm not paying you. You're gonna pay yoursel like like you want to be an entrepreneur, Like you're gonna do it on your own but he allowed me to keep my health insurance and I was able to build my company within his company. And I'm ever grateful to this man for that because that's how I was able to, you know, go out and build a staff.

And all of those things.

And you know the great part about it is so many people in the outside world they didn't know, so I kept I was able to keep that that that affiliation being that close to him.

They just thought you were still I was still there. So is that the birth of power moves in? That is the birth of because I mean I've listened to a lot of your stuff and he was like, Yo, you've been an entrepreneur.

Since you were born. It's the thing you want to do so much.

So PM I was that the you already had that vision drawn up or as you were doing the Street Team and you were like, you know what, I got this thing that I think I want to do. Had that been something that you would originally.

Planned, well, you got a one hundred percent right. I've always been an entrepreneur. I was that kid who was watching cars, I was doing any packing bags, I was doing anything everything I could do. But this is you know, when you really good at what you do, like when you and I told y'all like I was brutal, like I was a beast and what what? While I was working these records and we was coming up with these

The boss find out I ain't paying no more.

So as far as building a marketing firm, how does that work? As far as like you just working account by account or do you have like one big account that's kind of like carrying you over for the for the for the time frame, because that could seem like a pretty stress situation, right, It's like.

Being an entrepreneurs is a pretty stressful situation. That So, yeah, no, you it comes both ways. To answer your question, you get your retainer accounts. If you're blessed and lucky enough in some of it, you you it's account by account, Like you know, it might be brands out there that are launching new campaigns and they just need somebody to execute it. They need somebody to come in with fresh new ideas and it's just for this launch.

You know.

It might be for you know, the Christmas season October, November, December, or it might be the launch of these new sneakers or McDonald's decides that they come out they have a new campaign we just wanted for the next six months.

So you're good. So you always are juggling accounts.

What was your favorite what's your highlight of your marketing.

Too? To come to mind off the rip number one, the voter Die campaign of that was a big four. I had that shirt and definitely had that shirt. That was a big one.

Yeah, and and and the man behind it like like that was Puff's brain child for for one hundred percent.

But we we.

Were the executors on the streets and then it was their rock boys. It was it was, you know, creating that program.

Oh so you so Nick Storm you worked with Nick Storm? Or that.

I saw that show like.

I do watch while so no, shout out to Nick. Here's here's a real right.

That's all I got, you know what, Like he's all he's I think he's the first, maybe the only right to bring his own wide glasses start.

Nickas Dope, nickas Dope, niggas dope.

But the the.

Here's the birth of the Sarraq Boys, right. I got a call before Sarraq was what y'all know it to be, Soraq was selling something like forty thousand cases.

You know.

I went up to the very first meeting with Puff and a woman named Jackie Lee, who deserves her credit. She was working at Diagio and she was the one who had the the uh, the out of the box thought that, yo, we should bring somebody in that is on the level of a diddy and have him put his muscle behind this brand. And Puff went in and the deal was done, and I'll never forget Puff called me.

Our lives playable way like listen man, like like I.

Need you and this is exact words, Yo, I need you to put that brilliant market and brain in yours to work man like this can this can be the one that set us up for life. And I had to sit and I had to think, what can we do that would be effective? And here's a deal, right, people know sir rock now, but phonetically try sounding out C I R O C like. I was taking this to people in the hood and influencers and people.

Was like urac like.

People didn't even know how to pronounce it. So there was certain hurdles we had to come over. And then I had the thought process of you know, it's just one of those moments man, where you're like, Yo, it's the DJs.

You know, my whole career have been working with.

The DJs, and that's why you gotta trust this process, man, you have to trust the process. I was a dude who didn't even want to work with the DJs. Puff and Harf, Pierre told me, you're taking this job, you have to be the guy who runs mixshow. That's what they said. Like when my man and Malcolm Miles left the company, they made me run And it was the best thing that ever happened to me because I built these these incredible relationships with all of these different DJs

Liquor.

The DJs are on the radio, and they're shouting stuff out all day every day in between the hottest records. So I started to put together the hottest DJs around the country. And I didn't come up with the name Sarah Boys. I don't know who came up with it, but and I think it was powerf who came up with it.

But it was he said, who came up with it?

J came up Yeah at the video shoot.

Yeah.

But but putting that DJ crew together is what really took us over the top because it was a way to bring the brand into people's lifestyles in the most seamless, the most like It just was easy, and I hand picked every DJ, and I wanted to make the program aspirational, so if you became a sack boy, that meant you made it.

You.

Yeah, you got to stamp like I had DJs all over the world, Like can I be a Siah? No, you cannot get the work so like like seriously. And it's funny because we talked about self right. Self is a dude I've been knowing since he was a young buck, like like, and I used to always tell Self because Self used to always want records and.

I used to be like yourself, like you're not urgent, like.

I'm giving this record to Clue, I'm giving this record yeah, and here tell you and and it and it made my heart feel good when when when when Self went so freaking odd and he had this city, New York City on fire. Wasn't a club you can go to without Self breaking records. And I never forget the call and being like, Yo, come up here, I got a record for you. Nobody else got it, your urgent playboy.

Having self be a rock boy. That's like you remember what record it was? I don't even remember.

I just remember being so happy to tell him, like, Yo, you made it like you official.

Now from that story, man, and I'm just listening to it. I'm like the power of relationships.

And we talked about out Man, you didn't even want to be around DJs, but look at what being around DJ's helped you from obviously with the bad boys situation, but now with the rock thing, and then that transitions into your your next masterpiece, which is the global spin.

Absolutely, yeah, let's let's talk that.

Because DJ I feel like DJ's are forgotten people in hip hop. There's really no hip hop without a DJ. They're very influential people, like you said, from the nightclubs, from the radios too. I mean, the DJs need to break the record. Like you know what I'm saying. That's what when I said early hip hop dies, blame it on the DJ you got.

You gotta think though early hip hop, everybody had a DJ. Right if it was Eric B and Rock Kim, right, if it was j MC. Even the Fresh Prince had Jazzy Jeff. You know what I'm saying, everybody everybody had. The salt Pepper has been derelaed and then it was the DJ was a part of I mean you can go to E. P. M. D. With Scratch Crass. I mean, the DJ was a part of the group.

They was the third and then and then even when the DJ kind of transformed into a producer, I still feel like I feel like Swiss Beats is still a DJ with like his relationship with DMX, you know what I'm saying, But he's a producer side but it's like like Doctor Dre and Snoop. But but you you know, Swiss was a DJ, Yeah, exactly.

So when you hear so many of his beats sonically, the reason why he's so successful because he can think like a DJ, like, oh like when this, when this beating it, when this kick comes in.

Like the DJ can bring it back. He gets like he think and that's why he.

Was so successful even like a Mustard and YG in today's time, same thing.

Yep.

So all right, so yeah, so the DJ is very influencial people, very important people, but they've been ignored for a long time. So you have this idea to come up with an award show for DJs. Did how did that come about? It's twofold number one. My career, going back to the nineties, it always involved the DJs and they have been so important to me becoming me, becoming that guy in the industry. So that was number one, but number two. As the music industry really.

Blossomed, you know, you had a lot of people who were working the DJs, and the dj started feeling theirself like, you know, they getting calls from everybody, and you know, some of them would forget, like yo play, I've been down with you from day one. You know, if they got fifteen people calling them to play records, it's easy to get a little bit of swelled head. So I had to kind of turn the tables. I had to be like, I'm not regular, like I don't know about.

These promotion guys, but not with me. So part of it was my give back to the culture.

And really acknowledging the forgotten, the guys who were on the ground breaking these records. I would watch artists that I would break and they would be unknown, and they would be on these conference calls with these DJs and anything you need, I got you this, that and the third. Then the artists blow up and they go and get a Grammy and they think everything.

This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank. A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring and sure they definitely can be, but understanding a professionals routine shows us how they achieve their success, little by little, day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank. It might seem boring to save, plan and make calculated decisions with your bank, but keeping your money boring is

Erners. What's up?

You ever walk into a small business and everything just works like The checkout is fast, the receipts are digital, tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before the line even builds Odds are they're using Square? We love supporting businesses that run on Square because it just feels seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor at a pop up market, or even one of our

On what matters most Ready.

To see how Square can transform your business, visits Squared dot com backslash go backslash eyl to learn more that Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl. Don't wait, don't hesitate. Let's Square handle the back end so you can keep pushing your vision forward.

You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy? Just use Indeed stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. With Indeed sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates, so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have

They think the janitor and they building, and they forget to think the DJ, so they would have forgotten ones. And then I just like I said, you know, I I'm like, don't confuse me with these other promoters, like, so let me create something that when my phone call come through, y'all are eager to pick that phone up. So that was part of my mind.

It's almost like a marketing play almost after now of DJ's you got the award show, so they kind of they gotta hold you in high regard because you're like the guy.

I'm like, I'm for them. Nobody else did it for him. Nobody else did And see here was the beauty. I created the Global Spin Awards when when I was transitioning out of music full time, so I didn't need anything from them. You don't have to play my record. This is my give back to you, This is my give back to the culture. This is gonna be part of

I got a couple questions about the technical side of things, because we hear about the Grammy so much, and it's fitting that we have having this conversation because you know, everybody every year somebody gets snubbed at the Grammy's recently little baby. But so these are war shows are actually businesses. So

It's a great question. And again I gotta go back to what I keep preaching, Trust the process. Trust the process. God don't have you on this road for no reason. I didn't know when I was building Power Moves Inc. Marketing and Promotion that all of the brands that we were doing this great work with one day I would need to go back to them and say look, I'm developing, and I'm developing the Grammys for the DJs, and now I need you guys to come on board and sponsor.

And I dreamed big.

I dream very big, So I wanted to be the Grammys the first year out I want in my vision was you know, when people think of DJs at that time, a lot of the DJs was overweight, you know, like every DJ was heavy for some reason. That was like a prerequisite to spend records. But people don't really see them as is the way I wanted the world to see them. Global Spin Awards won because we created a

Listen the music, they're controlling the party. They control a party.

So you don't have to be in the music industry to be impacted by the DJ. So I made it my mission. I didn't want this to just be a music based thing. I wanted if you're on TV and you listening to, you know, a DJ's mixtape, you need to be in a building the night that that DJ is getting celebrated and honored.

So we went.

Into overdrive trying to get a lists from every every industry you can think of to show up and get and show their appreciation to these DJs who were all but forgotten for many years.

So I mean again, the power of relationships, the power networking.

Right, you had the sponsorships because you were ready with doing that. And I know when you try to first put out the first global spin ord, the production wasn't as great, but then you got to use a friend, you phone a friend, a guy who had a TV network to help.

You with the production. Absolutely again, trust the process. Yeah that guy that you used to work for, How that conversation go? How did you work that up?

Okay, So if anybody know puff Puff, he ain't the dude you go to when you first have an idea. Everybody makes that mistake, Like Pufa, I got a big idea. He's the kind of dude you gotta work him and you kind of get it hot to where he want to attend. He didn't come to the Global Spin Awards until it was like year four, like like, he didn't even show up. And then when he did show up and we had it crazy. It was all kind of a listers in a building when he did show up.

This this press thing really is working.

He's and he's literally standing there sweating because I'm like, your Cruise, get your man in here. But I didn't even invite Puff into year four and when he came, he's looked around the room in his calid At the time, you know, Drama was one of the biggest DJs in the industry.

It was Flax it was Clue.

It was all kinds of these big and then it wasn't just THEMB it was Kevin Lyles, it was Luted Chris, it was you know, we had so many high level people. It was like, if you don't come, you look like the odd ball out. And when he came, he told me, right, no, I'm lying, And this is another guy y'all might want to bring on to your show. Keith clink Scales was at the time CEO of Revolt and Keith came to the Global spinning wards the year before and he came,

It was all she wrote. Now now now it's not local no more.

So how's the like, how is the awards divided up? Like do you have a committee that kind of like decides who wins the awards? And how do you come up with different categories?

Coming up with different categories was easy and hard at the same time. I know the culture. I'm from the South Bronx. I grew up knowing you know, who were the hot DJs, knowing the different categories we should break them into. But what we did was we put together a mastermind group people who really understood the culture. And I never voted, And I modeled it after some of the most successful awards shows out there.

So I modeled it after the Grammys.

I modeled it after the the Golden Globes. So whereas you see it the Grammys or excuse me, at the Oscars, everybody go and they're like, first, I want to think the Academy.

I had to create my own.

Version of that to what exactly is that. That's like a group of people, like a secret society.

Of just seventos. No, it is. It is respected individuals.

So it might be promotion people, it might be bloggers, it might be writers, it might.

It was all people from the culture.

And I would pick up the phone and I would call these people individually, like, look, I'm trying to put together the most fair and honest award show for DJs, and I'm gonna need you guys to vote every And we call it the Bureau the way the Oscars call it the Academy, we call it the Bureau. So if you're on the Bureau, you get one vote, one vote and one vote only, so it ain't like Troy can impact the outcome of who gets a Global Spend War. It's not like pack who gets a Global spin Award.

And then myself, I never would vote.

I never touched it because I never wanted anybody to accuse me of tampering with the process, tam favorite being exactly showing favoritism, so I always stayed away from it.

We got Lifetime Achievement awards. Absolutely one of somebody from my neighborhood want or from yeah, the MS he went to Woodlands and all that.

Get out of here him and such from my neighborhood, but he's definitely.

From thats was in class with me like that. Dude was falling asleep, and.

I think he wanted like he wanted like he wanted like a DJ of the Year award something like that.

Now he's big time.

He wanted something. You remember, it was important, but I remember when he wanted.

He deserves it. He did and he's a deal, right. I think Sus is one of the one of the dopest DJs in the game. And for years he didn't win. And Sus wasn't even talking to me, like just to keep it on and and this is such one for anybody who is not from New York City. He's a big time DJ on Windy Williams Show. A riot carries DJ. But Sus wasn't even talking to me. He was taking a personally and I was just like, yo, like I have nothing to do with this, like like do your

Every year.

D Knights would come to the Global Spin Awards dressed up in a tuxedo every year, and he would sit there and be overlooked, like D Knights would be nominated in like five categories and have to sit there and never ever ever get the award.

And then this year you don't have the award.

Show. I remember, he's a funny thing. I remember it was.

I forget what year it was. Maybe it's good Will Spending Ward six five or something like that. For I don't know, but I'm looking around the audience now I know who won, and I'm looking and I'm like, yo.

D Nice, always come see him.

I'm looking at like I called D Nice because I know I got two awards with him. Oh he was a person who always supported I call him up and I'm like, yo, Derek. We wait and he's like, yo, I ain't coming this year. Like I'm DJing. And this is the first and the only time I've ever told somebody they won.

It's in real time.

I said, Derek, I don't care what you gotta do, but you better leave with you at and go home, get dressed and get down here. I don't know if the party went on that he was DJ and I don't know what he was, but he came in the.

Nick of time. It was like, and these club DJ D Nice and he comes right yo, Bron.

There we go a lot of history this year, this year to quarantine. He changed the game with that.

Oh my cousins, people magazines. One of the people of the end. But that's why you can never give up process. You got the trust.

I mean, listen, you know me and you were talking earlier about KR Ris one and down production.

D Nice fifteen years old. They call me D Nice already there you go.

You know D Nice has been hanging around the game for years, and it was such a you know, it just touched my heart to see that this man finally got the accolades he deserves and to seeing winning on the level that he's winning now, you know.

But but this is what Pete and I'm sorry. People think you just get into the game and and and blow.

And maybe in your case that's true, maybe else case true. But there's no such thing as an overnight success. It just ain't and and and and when you see people finally get to where they're going, it's no different than Cali Kalid have been putting out hits for years and years and years and years and then finally it was his time. So don't think that people just blow overnight, because they don't. They've been putting in work for years.

I gotta this is from a hip hop historian, And I'm wondering, right because obviously before you started this there was nothing.

So what did it mean to some of the older.

Guys, the red Alerts, the cool herds, the chuck chillout of the world, Like, what did they what were their thoughts in response to this man?

You're asking great questions, You're asking such great questions.

Red Alert.

You know, I idolized that man I grew up listening to Red Red Alert is the only person that me showing ever named an award after. So I named for all of the older DJs who are still doing their things, the legend. I was like, Yo, the word legend has a connotation to it. So thanks for calling me a legend at the beginning of the show. I appreciate that it make you feel like like Yo, you olding out

See the Jazzies of the world, to see.

Red Alert and just all of it, you know, grand Master Flash, all of these guys who really set it off for this culture that we call hip hop cool hurt all in the building. It was those guys who all showed up on year one and it made all of the young eyes come on year two because those were their idols. That's why they started to spend to begin with. So yes, it meant a lot. And it's crazy because I'm such a perfectionist. And when Global Spin

Me let me ask you this.

Shows and the Grammys, and every year somebody gets snubbed, and it's a whole big thing. What do you think, Why why do black artists put so much creed in validation and white award shows.

Well, let's just face it.

Number one, the Grammys are the Grammys, Like that is the biggest awards ceremony for music artists out there. So I don't know if it's a white thing a black thing, if that is the gold standard, you want to win a Grammy, you grow up wanting to win a Grammy. Now we're seeing now the Grammys are getting a lot of pushback. They're getting a lot of people coming forth saying the Grammys are out of touch, they're irrelevant, they're not supporting like the biggest artists on a planet.

Drake is like, yo, I'm not going.

To that, but I feel like it's only a black artist that can plain though. Like even if you look at the Oscars, right, Jackie Chan never won an Oscar, but he makes so much money. The guy made like forty million dollars like two years ago. Nobody even knew he put out a movie. I never heard Jackie Chan like trying to boycott the Oscars, like they think it's our culture. Man, I think it's no. I'm not gonna say it's black or white because you don't see this on the Hollywood side on film.

You don't see this.

Will Smith I remember he had an issue with the Oscars. Oscars, but he's very very diplomatic. You don't see them coming as hard as the rappers coming. I think it might be more of a rap culture, which is very outspoken, as opposed to just black and white.

I could be wrong, but yeah, I mean the eleatic part about it is like, yeah, we'll do that.

But when you get nominated for a BT, well, you don't show up. You know what I'm saying. When you do what the Soul training was, you don't go.

And it's like we said this like on episode too man, disable the accolades make the most money.

You can be smart about it and invested.

You know what I'm saying, Like, there's no need for somebody that to validate you. Like I told Christy, I'm like, yo, bro, little Baby got the best albums, yere, I don't care what anybody says.

Yeah, but you want to know something. It's human nature to want to be validated. That that's why people come to y'all show, because you guys are shining a spotlight on people who would be otherwise looked over. Now they might be rich, and they might be doing their thing, and they might have made it out the hood, but you guys are putting a new spin on education or on people who otherwise play the background.

No, that's a very true point, and it's a great networking tool for interviews. And I learned that early on. Was that, like you said, somebody could be a real estate developer and they might be a millionaire, but nobody knows them exactly. Nobody, deep down, everybody has some level of vanity. Everybody wants to be acknowledged. Everybody, nobody doesn't want somebody to know who they are for the most part, So yeah, I could see it both ways. I can

Nothing's nothing new. Awards in nineteen nine. Yeah, it's nothing, it's nothing new.

But let me ask you this another DJ question, because when we look at I looked at the Forbes list, like the last twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. Obviously this year is uh, you know, a crazy year because of COVID.

Yeah?

Yeah, I thought you was gonna say, because they was making that kind of money in fourteen fifteen.

Yeah, that's the sixteen.

That's that's from June twenty eighteen to June twenty nineteen. Okay, go ahead, So all right, a few things strike my attention here. Ay, that's a lot of money. B DJ and DJing is started with hip hop. That's a hip hop thing, started in the Bronx with Spanish and black people. That's that's just a fact. Nobody on that list is black, even though DJ started at that. So now the d M has taken over. So where where did what happened?

Kind of over you know, warded.

And I'm just wondering your perspective, like do you see an issue with that, Like there's no there's no even like the top DJs aren't making this kind of money.

Answer your question, you're damn right, I see, Like yeah, like it's it's it's egregious, it's disgusting. You know, I can tell you even with the Global Spin Awards, right, I remember Brands telling me, oh, we can't sponsor this because you don't have some of the people on that list.

I won't name names.

Oh it's not mainstream enough because you don't have some of those names, And I'm like, what, which made me even more furious to go out there and make this the biggest award show for what I know to be.

Those DJ's favorite DJ. So when I hear those.

Type of numbers, it is a slap in the face to all of the real And I don't want to diss nobody, but it's crazy because you see some of the people on that list I won't call names, and they look like they're playing records and then they leave the stage and the records is still.

That's the mind boggling part is I'm crazy.

I'm thinking to myself, like I've seen a Marshmallow before, I've seen a Calvin Harris and I'm like, yo, you're telling me.

DJ Scratch can't do that to an arena. He would tear arena down.

He would like Swiss and Mustard, all these guys and even like all these new guys like they could do that. I'm just wondering, is it that we lack the vision of a large scale situation, because like I'm even like cald like I've seen kal It open up for Beyonce on a number of toys. I'm thinking, like, Yo, Callen has enough catalog that he could be the headline for an arena himself, if not a stadium at this point.

So is it the lack of vision or I think it's all above it.

I think it's it's somewhat lack of vision. And then it goes into what I was saying, you know, twenty twenty, twenty, nineteen, twenty eighteen seventeen, ever since that that orange head dude got into office, he did so much for black people that black people don't even realize. He put a battery in our back like nobody else, like what like, like you don't respect us, So we're gonna respect ourselves in a whole different way.

And then it becomes the birth of stuff.

Like eyl and buy Black and people having pride in who they are, like don't you ever look down on us?

Right?

So I think me having been through this, the powers that be don't want to put the money. They don't see the value in our people the way that they see the value in some of the people who you just read off that paper. And if they're writing the checks, you know, and number one, if they're writing the checks, but also if our DJs are making five thousand dollars, and that means you're doing better than ninety percent of.

The other DJs.

If you're making ten thousand dollars a set and you're doing better than ninety nine percent of the other DJs, you gotta really have a broader vision to be like yo, no way limits.

And I think I think that's why what d Knights did over the Quarantine is going when this thing opens back up, I could see him getting it sould Arena right because as he should. As he should because we literally watched him rock out. I'll never forget the first time he did it in March, rocked out for eleven hours straight and turn the world back on the Instagram live or on the Instagram live, and it was like Yo, wow, I.

Mean it's like I said, it's just what it's like, rock and roll anything like you started it, it should at least be black, some black DJs in the time. There's no way that you have a DJ list of highest paid DJs, and there's not where that's where it started from. There would be no DJing without hip hop.

But but you know that, but think of Becky, who is a thirty year old thirty five year old executive that comes from des Moines, Iowa, or comes like she didn't grow up in the same space that you grew up. She didn't grow up in the same environment that you grew up. So her value that she places when she has a fifty hundred thousand dollars check to cut to a DJ to do the annual Christmas party for X Corporation, do you think she sees the same value in you know? Now,

They love it, but they're not from it.

They want to partake in it and go to the clubs and dance to all the hot hip hop, but they don't necessarily want to hang out with nobody who looks like you, me or you. They're like, nah, like I know tes, I know Martin Garrick's, I know marsh Mellow. Those are the people who I want to come and DJ our party because everybody who's in this party knows them, grew up on them.

Yeah, the Nice Man, the original shout to all the originals, d Nice, Clark clamp By, Fido Stretch.

Who am I missing Stretch on Strong Bardo? That's it right? No, no, no, no, rich Tony Tones in it. We went. We actually went to one of their shows. Man, So it's rich Nice one of of I think.

I think, I think original, original, original, I think so, I think it's I think.

If he's not, he's always standing in with us.

Salute to all the DJ's. I got one last DJ question before we transition to to where you're at now in life, DJ call this was it's actually a rock commercial. It was a great commercial when he said I had a choice, and it showed like his journey fro when he started things like I could be the biggest radio DJ, I could be the biggest DJ. A lot of people give Calent pushback because they feel, like, you know, for a variety of different reasons. But I think it's safe

It's safe? Yep?

Michael Jordan and DJU.

And if we're talking, if we are.

All around just worldwide mainstream, what he did what he did with not not not here.

In New York, not in l A.

If you're talking Kalen walks into an event next to every other DJ.

Oh, he's the most recognized, He's the most he is the celebrity, he's the a lister.

Bar social media chan, snapchat champ changed his life. Fact. Yeah, it's a powerful tool man. So let's talk about motivational speaking. How did you become How did you get into that? Because it's like, all right, you start from music doing the wards old marketing. At what point do you pivot and say I have a story to tell and I can motivate people. How does that come about?

Another great question. It didn't come about the way you would think it would come about.

It came about me again.

Listening to this inner voice, and I am unable to shake it off. When God talks to me, it doesn't matter how bad I don't want to listen. It starts as a whisper and it becomes a smack across my head. So I'm doing my marketing thing. We got all kinds of clients making tons of money. I am you know a music industry that there's not too many rooms I can't get into. And I would sit at my desk. I would go to work, go to the office, and I would sit at my desk and I felt incomplete. I felt this, this.

Can't be life.

Meanwhile, I got a staff that you know, they look I'm the leader. I pay you know, their bills. They're paying their bills because of checks that I create. And I'm demotivated, and it's hard to fake for me. It's so hard to fake motivation. It's so hard for me to be anything but authentic and genuine. And I would literally sit at my desk and I would listen to Eric the hip hop preacher and the legend the Goat.

And as I was.

Sitting there and finally, you know, and this is the longest story, I won't even go into it, but when I finally started to answer the call, you know again, it's trust the process. I was listening to these guys to motivate me and to provide direction in education and tell me, Sean, you can do it. I said, I got to become the mentor that I never had to because there's South Bronxes.

All over this world.

You know, we are from a very poor borough in New York City. The South Bronx is the Bay Route, like that is the poorest borough. But there's South Bronxes in Michigan, There's South Bronxs, you know, in California. It's all over the world. And I and I felt like it was my responsibility.

I did it.

Maybe I can impact somebody's life and become that mentor that I never had.

And that's what set me on the journey.

So right now you're speaking like to company schools, Like, how does that work?

Well, I speak to companies, I speak to schools, I speak on Instagram Live, I speak wherever I can, wherever my voice can be heard. And I do it because a lot of companies need people like me to come in and rally the troops up. A lot of schools need people like me to come in and speak to the students and show them that this is greater than a degree, because I know a lot of people who have degrees, who are broke, who are unemployed, who ain't

So they can jack the swag, But the sauce is so separately there you you know what I'm saying, and that I mean, the Power move Makers is inspiring. I watched a few of them, man, and one of the clips that caught my attention, Man, they really grabbed me. It was like, yes, you love Yankee Johnson, Yes you love every the hip hop appreciator. But you said, Yo, I'm coming for the crown, no question. That's the only reason I'm getting in this thing. I want to be

You shouldn't do it at all. You'll talk about that little bit. Yeah, you know, maybe maybe you know.

I'm born to a alcoholic father, right And like I said, I didn't have any mentors. My grandfather was the closest thing to a mentor I had, but he never made it further than the Bronx and down south. But he taught me to be a man. But one of the things he instilled in me was work, ethic and what it was to become a man. And if you put your mind to something, you go all out for it. And for me, even now that I'm doing this speaking, you think I'm worried about anybody else but eric An

It's as simple as that. I got the new campaign. I wrote it the crown or nothing. The crown, Oh, just a crown and nothing. I like that. You are marketing guy up. You need to come on over. The power moves.

Crown and nothing. That's that's there you have.

I'm putting the world on notice, like like you got to speak this thing into existence. You think I'm doing this to be number two. You think I'm doing this to stand next to somebody else. But those two dudes, like, no way, it's it's not even a And here's another thing because again you know, and the color kind of goes to your point where you were talking about the differences between the black DJs and the white DJs. Those

So you know, I know I'm calling out inky in them because.

I do these dudes like like, I am such a fan of these guys. But truth of the matter is, I'm really coming for Tony and I'm gonna bring something to this game that they ain't never seen before. They're like like like they they haven't seen it yet. So when when?

When? When?

When it's my time and I got the crown, I'm gonna make inspirational and motivational speaking something so different and I am going how did Jay say it, I'm overcharging.

I'm overcharging them for what they did the inky in my years that you hold.

There you go, fact ladies. Man Sean, it's been a pleasure. How can the people contact you out? What's your social media handles? And you got a podcast is too?

Yeah?

So any information you want to let the people know.

Yes, First I want to let the people know that I am so proud of you guys. I thank you guys for what you are doing for our community. I thank you guys. For the light that you are shining on people who look like us, who talk like us, who come from the same environments and hoods as us. I applaud y'all, and I'm saying this sincerely. I'm not saying it because I'm here. I'm saying it sincerely. You guys are bringing something special to this world, and it's

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Troy housekeeping it on.

Yeah, shout to everybody on Patreon dot com. Y'all know that's our proud to pay program. Rest and peace in it, man. I always be remiss to say that, but rest y'all know. Tier five y'all have access to eyl University, the number one online school for financial education in the world.

We're very proud of that.

And I just want to give a quick shout out to three new members Tier five numbers the Marius, Justin and Stephen. We are looking forward to having that conversation with y'all. We appreciate y'all and everybody that supporting that new EYL merch the Arnest Collection.

We greatly appreciate y'all.

Man, that's for sure. All right, Gods, thank you for rocking with us. We'll see you next week, Peace Peace, Peace coach.

The energy out there felt different. What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratches from the California Lottery players, everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off field play that made the difference on the field.

Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made the game. That's all for.

Now played the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine ers and Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery. A little play can make your day. Peace play responsibly. Must be eighteen years or older to purchase play or claim