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, Coach, One more question.
Play 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 made responsibly. Must be eighteen years or older to purchase late or claim.
All Right, guys, welcome back eyl LA Hometown Heroes Edition.
That's a fact.
Yeah, shout out to Los Angeles.
We are sheltering in place in the great city of LA one of my favorite places in the whole entire world. Respectfully, absolutely so, while we're out on the West Coast for the summer, we definitely, you know, planned on getting a
lot of content done. So this is the first of hopefully many episodes that we will be recording while we are in Los Angeles, West Coast Natives, and this is very rare to actually meet somebody from LA or the Greater LA area, because everybody that's in LA is like from somewhere else, like you meet him like from Toronto, Chicago,
or Houston. Everybody comes to LA from different places. But Ernest Dukes is actually from the OC, which is close enough, close enough LA southern California to LA the Greater LA area, and he's a really superstar in the game of being a publicist and a TV producer. Is actually crazy because I just found out. So I was talking to MG the Mortgage Guy. If you're a loyal listener of Ernia Legia, you know who Mad is. He's a close, close friend
of OZ and one of our most prestigious alumni. So MG the Mortgage Guy, I'm talking to him like a few weeks ago and he's like, yeah, DJ Envy hooked me up with this publicist. So I'm thinking about, you know what I'm saying, working with a publicist. So I'm like, yeah, he's like, you know, publicist told me. He was like, well, you know, have you heard of this podcast called Earn You Lisia? Like you should try to get on that podcast, And he was like, I'm the best episode by the way.
You're like, oh, if you ever earned a Lisia, you already He's like, yeah, I made them go into top ten.
That is true.
So as as fate would have it, shout out to our Gta Dune another ey L alumni, my God versus my enemies. He hooked it up with our partner Mike to get us our first interview in LA with like I said, Ernest Dukes, who is a publicist. And it's actually interesting because we haven't talked to a publicist yet. We haven't talked to a TV producer yet, so I run down. He has a long list of accomplishments, but he's the owner of a marketing and PR company called
the Nottingham Group. He represents a lot of celebrity clients. Some of them are Jeezy Remy Ma, Fashion Nova, Keisha Cole, La La Milan. Some of his past clients were Nick Cannon, Ky, Michelle Scott Storts, Tammy Rome In one twelve and Uh. He has a bunch of stuff going. He has annual business and branding workshops that he does once a year I believe once a year yeah, called Ernest Living Tour, where he's had guests like Mona Stock Monas Scott Tyson Beckford.
He also has a book that he is the author of called Caption God, which talks about five hundred captions on social media to increase engagement, and he has a web series called Black Publicist Working. So this is going to be a very informative, going on, educational episode. And it's perfect that we you know, we're in Hollywood in a perfect place to do it. So first and foremost, thank you for joining us.
Appreciate it, Thank you, appreciate you.
But now we candn't have Shotty do this for you, like for the rest of your career.
I'm here for When he was talking, I'm like, who's he talking?
We're open to that, YO.
Side note, I'm so jealous of y'all because I did my tour, the Ernest Living Tour. I really wanted to call my people know how to have like the old fans or whatever, like the community.
I want to call him the.
Earners shout out to ans.
That sounds good. We go use as a drop.
So all right, so let's start at the beginning because I'm interested in this because, like I said, we actually thought about hiring and publishers.
I just told him when we were in Chicago. I saw Mandy shout out to many another alumni and I was like, Yo, Mandy. We were watching her go to all these events and we would look like, Yo, we need a publicist. We need to be in these events. And she was kind of like why you need it, and I gave a bunch of reasons, and she was like, nah,
you guys are great where you are. You know, just see how far you can go without it first, and then if you really mean I was number one, was like, look, we need to be in events that other people in. We need a little bit more notoriety. We hadn't had any press really, and she was like, I'm not sure that's what a publicist does. I think you need to figure out the roles first. And then we had another conversation.
She was like, keep going the way you're going. I like the way you guys are doing this, and we'll talk later. And we haven't talked about it since. But like when you said that one of the episodes that you listened to was Mandy, I'm like, that's ironic because she had this conversation with me about the publisher position.
Yeah.
So all right, so before we even start, how do you, how do you get started in being a publicist. I mean, you're in the best city, LA for that. But you never worked with an agency. You was always independent, you told me, so you just like run down on people, like, hey, let me get you in the magazine.
I've never been that person, so all right, so let me start from the beginning. Growing up, it's gonna sound super funny and corny. I wanted to do acting when I was a kid, like a teenager, and so I would come from Orange County to LA and I would always do these acting classes. And at the time, like a lot of the people that I was hanging out with have become successful to this day. Like coming up, like I would run around like Kiki Palmers and like
Quincy and Kofie from Queen's Sugar and Own. And so by hanging out with them, I would always get invited to events. And so one day I got invited to some event. I saw Jackie Christie who's on Basketball Wives, and so she was super nice. She was on the red carpet and she was sweating. So I was fanning her. You know, I'm like, hey, I'm trying look out for you, because it's.
Like it was like sweating, right.
And so when I was finished and she was done during her interview, she gave me one hundred dollars and she's like, here's some change.
And I'm like some change.
After time, I was broken as hell, So I'm like, what can I do for some more change?
Right?
So every time I would go out and I wouldee her, I always try to be nice and cordial because I wanted to get some more change.
Nah.
I was like, what you need? Like I would have though, you know. And so she asked me, like, who's your publicist? Because you are you are always at the same events that I'm at, and I didn't know what a publicist was. And so I'm like, well, shit, I guess it's me because no one else is here. And so she's like if I pay you, can you get me into events? And I'm like, yeah, perfect because it was some pay
involved and I again wasn't making money. And so from there, her and her husband written a book called No Ordinary Love. It was they co authored it together, and then Basketball why it was happening on that show?
There was nobody. None of those women had publicists.
They didn't even know what a publicist was, like, you know, think about it, like you're just a wife or a girlfriend, and all of a sudden, you're on television.
You don't know what to do.
And so they saw Jackie at a publicist and so they all start hiring me. So like season one, like I worked with Malaysia and Laura Govin and like all these different women, and then it just kept going from there and I became like the reality show publicist.
Yeah so she had she had a sister, right, Laura, Yeah, Gloria, So yeah, both of them.
No, I just had they weren't getting along.
So and that's another thing I realized too quickly that those women are so competitive that it didn't really help me to represent everybody because everyone Like for example, when I had Laura and Malaysia, they got.
Into a fist fight, so it's like, what do you do?
Like, what do you know?
How well legend I think it's on real start, You're gonna check it out.
They both have hands though I could tell you what I saw, but yeah, and then from there I started doing all the reality shows. I got people on Love and Hip Hop, I got Hollywood X's on VH one, Mob Wives, and like again becoming the reality star guy. It was looked down upon, Oh, you just do reality because at that time, no one cared about reality stars.
It's like who cares? And then but it's funny that it's funny that people look down at me having reality stars because that's what actually got me my job at Fashionova. They saw value in reality talent as influencers, Like before influencers were really a thing. It was like the reality people they would pay and so I had so many of them. They hired me to do the PR for Fashion Nova, and that's really what people started treating me
different after that. It's like, you work at Fashion Nova, you know stress because of reality TV?
Really that's crazy.
So you got all these clients in season one, I'm still thinking to myself, what actually does publicist do?
Right?
Yeah?
I was thinking that too at the time because I never went to college for PR, like really intern for a bunch of people, and I don't really feel like I learned what to do. I learned what not to do because like there were those people I interned for, with the exception of one woman her name of Chanelle Green, were all kind of just using me to like do things for them.
Like I wasn't learning nothing.
It's like and that's why I tell peop about internships, like you got to really figure out like if the internship is in alignment with your vision, because like me, running to get you coffee every day is not going to ever propel me to where I want to go. I know how to get coffee, I know how to look at me. I can eat, you know, I know how to order and uber eat and all that. So
like literally it didn't help me at all. And so I started taking like classes, like you know, online classes or watching YouTube videos.
I think I have a PhD in Google.
Oh, I guess class, ye.
And I used to steal, but like not like steal steal, like you know, like stick nobody up. But I would go to this bookstore called Borders Bookstores. I don't know if they still have them, but they used to have the price tag on the back of the book. It was a sticker, and so I would go like in the children's book section and get like Clifford the Big Red Dog and it was four dollars. And I would take that sticker off and put on the back of
like the Art of Publicity that was sixty dollars. I had like a CD rom in the back before there was apps and stuff, and I would go and like pay for that. So I was stealing, but like still trying to you.
Know, have a good art with it to the scramblers.
You know what I'm saying.
And that's kind of like how uh that's how I learned. But yeah, I remember what the original question was. I started thinking about stealing and going to jail.
I think he was saying, like, what's the actual role the roles?
In the beginning, I didn't know, like I said, so I kind of operated as a best friend for hire. Like these women would call and be like, oh, my husband's cheating on me, and I'll be on the phone like what happened?
You know?
John three sixteen said like, you know, giving them script jobs. Six You know, I'm serious.
I'm thinking, like this is what you coos to do.
What I'm doing everything else, you know, I'm fixing ship and getting them pressed. So I really didn't know in the beginning, but now I have like really learned and mastered the art of it. So what I would say a publicist like I am in charge of how the public consumes your image, of your brand or your project. So for different people I do different things. Some people come to me for branding, which is like I'm involved with your overall like look of your brand, everything that
you I guess accumulate under your brand. So, for example, like Tammy Rowman, when I started working with her shoes on Basketball Wives, she just hit somebody in the face. I forget which season it was. She hit somebody and she's like, I don't need to clean my image like they were saying, I'm a bully, and I'm like, all right, cool, let's figure this out. So we went and did press and all different markets were in Atlanta, New York, LA.
Of course, like really trying to show like a different side of her that people don't see on the TV show. And then from there and getting to know her, I realized she was funny, and she was doing her bonic chronicles. She was on Instagram talking and really blowing up on Instagram for that, and so I'm like, well, what more can we do? So together her and I created an app called tam Motions, was like the first talking emoji. We're number one of the app store. We beat Kim Kardashian.
We ain't really making no money from it. That's another story. But we beat her and then from there we kept growing. So we did the scripted series on title Bonnic Chronicles. We did scripted, not scripted. We did stand up comedy where I co write the jokes with her, and that would be more more of an example of branding. But then there are some people just come strictly for publicity, like Scott Storage. She was producing the single for Chris Brown and Rick Ross. All he wanted was to do
interviews and talk about it. So I set up his press tour. We did all that stuff and when it was over, I got my check. He went along his way and I ain't seen him since, you know, So, uh, A shorter answer, just like I guess put a button on. It is like anything from anytime you've see an artist do, like magazine interviews or red carpets or anything that has to do with press, Like the publicist is there to facilitate that.
So is it based off of a relationships?
So it's like, all right, I want to go on a press tour, right and I just put a new book out. I want to go to breakfast club. I want to go to you know, big boy in the morning. I want to go to earn your leisure. That's a big check, big, big, big where else you want to go?
So I'm like adding numbers in my head.
So how do.
You all right, how do you make that happen? Is it like relationships that you've built with these people or do you just kind of cold call?
Like how it can.
Happened one of two ways.
So I think a lot of When I first started MPR, there weren't a lot of publicists like and not a lot of black ones or males at that point for that matter. And then over the years, I think it's become cool and trendy. So now so many people do it, and so those people are just getting in it. They would do like a cold call or like an email or send a pitch letter and hope for the best. If you have a client that is of interest, they're going to call you back, you know, Like let's say
I work with Gabrielle Union. Of course they're gonna call me back. Is Gabrielle Union. I don't think that really shows like how great of a publicist you are because.
The talent's name is big.
I'm always more impressed, like when somebody can get like, you know, Joe Jones, no exactly. So when you can get Joe Jones on those platforms, that's what I'm impressed. I'm like, how do you get this? How you get them over there? You know, no one knows him, so that's impressive. But for me, I did start that way, like not having any big names and really having to like really trying to persuade people, and really it's all
about relationships. So now I can like text someone at the breakfast club, like, hey, can you have my person come on? Or like because I work with Nick Cannon, I can text him and say, hey, can someone come on your morning show or whatever. But I was able to build relationships by investing in myself. So here's what people don't realize. When I said work with reality clients, they don't make a lot of money. So it's not like
I was making tons of bread working with them. I was making literally, I'll tell you what I was making. When I first started with Jackie Christie, she would pay me fifty dollars for every interview I can get her, which is crazy, like no one's fucking working for fifty dollars. But at the time, like, you don't understand how dead broke I was so I'm like, fifty dollars. I had her interview with every WordPress blog or blog spot blog or internet radio. I'm like, you got to interview here,
interview there, and she would do it. That's bad though, for anybody listening, like you like less. It's more to me, like you want quality instead of quantity. But at the time, it was like I wanted the fifty per placement. And then from there, I'm like, I'm gonna charge everybody a thousand a month.
I'm gonna be rich.
Realized I would never be rich making a thousand dollars a month, especially because going back to your point and building relationships, I would used that money to invest in myself. So like, if I got someone an interview on the Breakfast Club and I'm in LA, they bare could afford the thousand dollars a month.
They're not going to afford to fly me in. So I would take the thousand they gave.
Me and fly myself in and put myself up just so I can put a face.
To the name when I meet these people, you know what I mean.
And so I really wasn't making nothing, but I think in a long term it paid off because I have so many relationships, Like I can navigate through pretty much any city now because I've been there so many times or so many clients, And now I'm to the point where people fly me in and it's not even like I'm in coach or in the middle seat, like I get first class, like I have a I hit like a rider, humbly speaking. But it's all because of like the investment I made in myself.
So your pay is based on the the placement, So the higher the placement.
No, my pay now is based on my name.
Honestly, I think I always tell people like a lot of people reach out to me and I had to like really like tap into my discernment and discerning like is this somebody should work with or is this somebody
who's just trying to chase the cloud? Like I've had people who've hired me and don't even have any spectations for me other than for me to put them on my page and say I represent them, and for them to say like, oh, yeah, my publishers does Fashionova and they do this person that person because I think it
makes them lit by association. And in the beginning, just like the fifty dollars, I'm like, come on, I got you I'm a publicists because I want the money, yeah, you know, and now not now, but like later in life, I realized that like all money wasn't good money, and I cared more about my reputation than like trying to mix them bread and so again, like most publicists, they'll
charge you not necessarily based on the placements. I think back in the day, there was a way that people would factor that in, Like they would say, like how much each outlet, like what the value was, and like this was valued at this, And the way they would create the value is by seeing how much they charged
for an ad. So like let's say you guys charge one hundred dollars for a fifteen second ad, and I got somebody a ten minute interview on your thing, I would charge, you know, four hundred dollars for every minute.
So all right, so what's the going rate for publicists?
Now?
I believe you said like five and twenty five hundred dollars a month.
Yeah, so I think most people on average charge twenty fives to five thousand, But again that some people would charge less, some people who charge more. It just really depends. And honestly, it's like a business where you make your own rate. It's like, what do you charge for ads on your podcast? Whatever you want? You know, some people charge they rant or they overhead and that's what all they want to make. Are some people they think less
is more. They operate with less is more mentality, Like I'd rather get ten clients for one thousand dollars and make ten thousand then trying to hustle up two clients that will pay five. So I think it all depends for me. Yeah, what do you charge? It depends. I I was thinking, like should I say what I charge? It really does just depend on like the level of client. Like I have strategy behind like what I charge, and I always try to factor like how much time is
this gonna take for me? Like if it's fashion OVA and I know I'm going to be on the phone with you guys on a million zoom calls now because we're in COVID, but all these zoom calls every day and it's taken away from working other projects, and obviously I'm going to charge more for that if it's something like a Nick Cannon. At the time, we're just doing
these music stuff. So it wasn't a lot that was going on I still charged, you know, more than I that I said in that range, but it was less than significantly less than like what I would have charged.
Somebody was taking more of my time.
So is it is it something that you need on going? Like let's say we want to just a run for the book, right, is like I get to published it for three months and then I'm good? Or it is like something that you just need to have like every month.
Definitely, that's depending upon what your vision is. Right, So if your goal is only to promote this book, then I would say do a camp, like a three month campaign for the book. But if your thing is like I want something a long term where I want this person to be invested in my brand and I want them to bring me opportunities and I want them to find opportunities when there's nothing going on on, then I would say do something ongoing like for you guys and
having your show. I don't know if you have a talent book or if you book it yourself, but I would say, oh, yeah, you can have a publicist for the earn your Leisure podcast because you guys have so many dope guests on. But how many times are people syndicating it on other platforms. And what I mean by syndicating it is like, for example, like you can have your interview with Ryan Leslie, you can send it out like, hey,
we did an interview with Ryan Leslie. I don't know how much pickup that's going to get, but if you're a publicist, they can say here, they didn't interview with lyon Ryan Leslie. You did the excerpts from the interview, like Ryan Leslie on starting a business, Ryan Leslie on the first time he lost a million dollars.
So you're really almost doing.
The work for these outlets to write their stories for you guys, and then we're including photos with it. So that way when people search earn your leisure, like you're turning more people onto the podcast. You're helping your seo. So when they google y'all, y'all, of course you're gonna be the first thing on Google because you're a unique name. But it just helps with all of that. And so that would be something that would be more long term.
You don't tell somebody do that for three months and then stop, you know.
So that's a lot, right, So what is it like juggling all different types of clients Because I'm sure you have to deal with multiple different type of personalities.
What's that Like, I've never done crack, but.
When I be seeing them in the movies they be doing all that, I'm like, I can relate to that shit I've ever done it. Though it was like that. Now, like I mentioned, I have a handful of clients. Now I'm in a position where I'm very selective.
Now I'm like, do I like that?
Like, is it gonna like when I see them call, I'm not gonna be like not this person again, or is it gonna be somebody I'm excited to talk to you, I'm gonna be calling them. And so if I don't have that level of excitement, I don't want to do it. Because at the one time I would have everybody, I have twenty clients making five hours an hour, like when you break it all down, like I wasn't really making no money. And I was also very big on like that was when PUFF was like I don't sleep, I sleep.
And I'm dead. I'm like, I'm asleep and I'm dead. And then it almost died.
I'm like, you're going to SEP So now I'm like quality of life. So I'm going to sleep. I ain't staying up all night. Y'all can have that, and I'm easy for me to balance them.
Yeah, you know so, so that's part of it, right, dealing with the clients. But they also have teams too, So what's it like dealing with their manager or their agent?
And now everything is different.
I think the time I only have issues with dealing with a team member is when I'm brought on to work as someone's independent publishers for a label. So for example, with Gezi, now I'm as publicists because he's not with a label, but like for his last two albums, he was on Deaf Jam, and so it would be myself as an independent publicist, and then we have a Deaf
Jam publicist, and that would be hard. And it's always hard when you're working with a label publicist because we're all trying to we're all trying to show that you know, we're worth what you're paying us, that we're needed, and they're only but so many outlets, So it's like if I'm pitching for a breakfast club and they're pitching for a breakfast well, that's a whole other story because then he also has a radio person too.
I learned that quick.
Radio publicists, well they just handle all radio radio in terms of radio ads or radio interviews or whatever. So no one touches radio but the radio person. I didn't know that because I come from like where I had a reality client. It was just me and them. So I'm managing damn near doing PR, marketing everything. So that's kind of like where my mind is at, like I can just get it done. And I remember I pitched inn for the Breakfast Club and I was like, you don't ever pitched the Breakfast.
Club for him? Like that's my job. I hate my bad, you know.
And so that's when it becomes difficult when everyone's trying to figure out like their role.
Even with the publicist.
It's like if I'm pitching for let's say Source magazine, and he pitched for Source magazine, it's like, and I got it. It's like why I talk to them first. It's like, yeah, but did you get it though?
No?
And it happened for me too.
It's like while I was talking to them for two weeks, but they went around me and talked to somebody bigger and they got it. And so like now that's something that he got to put on his press recap for the month, and I'm like, I ain't get that. You know, I get a lot of work. So that's hard, and it's hard. That's hard in terms of like logistically, but I think mentally for me it's hard too, because I was always in those scenarios considered like the urban publicis.
Even with GZI at one point, I'm like the urban publicist, he's leaving the label, he's with a big firm, Sunshine Facts, and so it's like, well, this is my for lack of better terms, you know, to be frank, like, this is my white publicist, and this is my black publicist.
So when it came to me, it was like, although I can go and get you like US Weekly and get you in People Magazine just as well as I can get you on Breakfast Club and Source and hell even like on Bossip if we want to go just all layers of it, they would only send requests to the white publicists for white stuff. And then for me it was like get me on Double XL, get me on Fader, get me on Complex. And I was also I'm not gonna lie. That's the same scenario I had
with Nick Cannon. But Nick had a million publishers. They get a publicist for a while, and hour publicists for the radio show, a publicist for his acting, and here I'm doing the pr for the music and so it's like I was I remember I told Nick. I'm like, hey, I got this opportunity. You can go on Larry King, you go on the real He's like, I don't want to do that. I'm like, okay, well what do you want to do? He's like, I want to do an interview with This is fifty. I'm like like, no, shade
of this is fifty. But I was so happy. I'm like a TV booking, Like like that's what we want, Like we want TV bookings because there's not as many. Like with a digital outlet, you can have a million stories on it. You can do everybody TV is. You know, it's only five days a week. There's limited slot. So you feel like you did something when you got it. And he was like, no, I want to do it. And I'm like, all right, I don't want to do it.
I'm like, what about cooking with Snoop and Martha. He's like, nah, I don't want to cook this is fifty. I'm bossip. I'm like all right, And so because I'm the black publicist in that scenario, like I'm not even black. I'm not going to use race for Nick. I'm the music publicist. He just wants hip hop. He wanted to be an artist, or he's an artist. He wanted hip hop outlets, and then the person who does his general press.
Would go out and get those TV opportunities.
So those that it becomes hard working with other people and scenarios like that, I would I would much rather. I won't say much rather, I was gonna stay. I would much rather work alone, but I would work as a team if you know everyone was on the same pagecause a lot of times it's not because we didn't.
All start together.
It's like imagine you're my publicist and we work and all of a sudden, I'm like, yo, this is my other publicists. Now you kind of feel away, like what you needed him for I wasn't doing good and so now.
Too many chefs in the kitchen.
It's too much.
And so there's really no way for you guys to become like this because you're always looking at him like is he trying to replace me? You might come in with like a chip like yeah, they needed me because you couldn't do it, and so it I don't know, it's not harmonious.
Who needs a publicist?
Like because it's like traditionally you would think, all right, an actor, actress, musician, But now, like I said, you got mortgage brokers. Just looking at publishers and financial podcasts, Like, I think that the landscape has changed because of social media has really made any anybody can be a celebrity on social media, Like you're gonna be a celebrity chef?
Huh?
Can they?
Though? I mean you could put somebrity in front of it, but I'm like thanks, So, like what defined what celebrity means?
Celebrity as far as famous? Right?
So it's like when people actually could recognize a person in add value And I actually think that's a good thing because I always felt, especially as I get older, it's like, why is a musician of celebrity because he's he's a good poet. What kind of value is he really adding some add value? But a mortgage broke is probably way more valuable. We should probably celebrate the mortgage broker more than a rapper who's rapping about things he's never done ever in life. No, disrespect to the rappers,
but it's just reality, right. It's like even a ballplayer is like, Okay, you can dribble a basketball, you entertain us, But what real value are you adding? Right, Like maybe a school teacher should be celebrity over a basketball or champion.
Maybe champion is the word.
Champion, celebrity whatever, But are you so when you're saying school teacher and basketball player, are you equating that to like money earned or in terms of notoriety?
Notoriety? So we should all know every school teacher should.
Be absolutely not, but every basketball player should be celebrity either, right.
But what I'm saying is that I got turned something down.
I don't even know they are, But I'm just saying that social media, I think, has created a platform. Like we've interviewed people who have way Like I know a school teacher who has more followers than half of the NFL players.
What's she doing only fans?
Now, I'm actually what you're doing.
Now, she's become she became real big. But she works in Baltimore and she shout out the valve. She she does like clips on she's like a social activist stuff like that. So Rihanna follows up everybody. She's been on Time, magazine, people, Vogue, all kinds of stuff. She just became really lit online, red table everybody. So I say that to say she probably has more press, more write up, more than the seventh man on the Lakers. For sure, not a seventh
bent on the Lakers has more money than her. But as far as the world that we're in right now, odds are somebody like that will probably get recognized than a linebacker that is, you know, just trying to make the team for the Lions.
Right.
It's the reality of it, right.
So what I'm so the whole point is that I feel like social media has kind of leveled with the playing field and has given everybody an opportunity. Now everybody can't be it, but has given everybody an opportunity to have some fame and notoriety. Whereas before you would never a mortgage broker, would never have eighty thousand people that cared about them.
They wouldn't walk down the street on Melbourne and somebody's like, yo, that's you know what I'm saying.
Like we went to a coffee shop, They're like legion.
Yeah, So I say that. I say that to say and like I said me, that's just my own personal opinion. I'm all for it because I said, especially in our culture, we it's out of balance. Who we always the celebrities have always, but there's no balance like in other culches. It's like you CEOs are are superstars, like like Elon Musk is a superstar, right, Steve Jobs was a superstar like, so yeah, of course you have actors and actresses that are white, but they also have business leaders that are
superstars and politicians that are superstars as well. For us not so much, but it's starting to change. Angela Rai she's a superstar right in the world of politics. So my whole point is who needs a publicist now? Because it feels like it's opened up and everybody can be beneficial From that standpoint.
I yes, And though I mean, I feel like what you were just saying about like the teacher or people who I guess are like you had said someone earlier too. I can't really remember, but because she was saying a lot and I was trying to hear her. But I think, like, it's not like the teacher obviously she's a teacher, but our people following her because she's a teacher or are they following her because of the ancillary things that she
does outside of teaching, you know what I mean. So I think when you break it all down, it's like, yeah, your your career could be whatever it is. But I think people like you build your notoriety based on like the ancillary things. So for example, the mortgage person who's a mortgage broker, people aren't he's not eighty thousand followers because he's just selling houses.
Like what else is he doing? Is he doing webinars?
Is he doing these ig lives and he's like really trying to bring a community together and mobilize people. Is he posting listings all on his page? And people want to look at real estate? And so it's like it's you're not getting it just because of like the career where I don't know if that was your what you were trying to say at one point, which is like teachers should get more than like the basketball.
No no, no, I'm saying like as far as who actually needs a publicist, Like, because does I think just for musicians and entertainers or is it for business people? Is it for creatives?
Like I think it's for every industry because every industry there's something that you can maximize on. However, I do believe some people need a publicist and some people need Jesus some things. It's just like I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't figure that out for you. I'm sorry, you know. But like, for example, real estate, there's real estate magazines. You want to be on the cover of that magazine. You want your listenings to be first.
That's something you can get someone who does marketing or publicity for you. That's obviously help your business. I think any anything where you can make money off of, like, yeah, you should, you can have the you could potentially have a publicist because it's going to bring more revenue to you because all pr is is maximizing your exposure, and
more exposure is gonna bring more money. So like, if I want an ice cream truck, I want to maximize my exposure, and I don't know who's gonna interview the ice cream guy. That might be more of a job for someone who's marketing to get him out there more. But I think there Yeah, definitely would agree then with your point.
So what type of struggles do we have to face if we're choosing this career, right, Like, there must be some things that happened. I know I heard you say at one point you thought about giving this thing up, man, So what type of struggles do people face?
Well, for me, it was a financial struggle.
I'm giving it up because all right, So if I work for a PR firm and I have my set salary, I know what I'm gonna make. I have benefits. I'm gonna get paid on every two weeks or every month or however it works for them, And so there's stability there with me. If I don't hustle and go get clients, I ain't gonna eat. And then people don't tell you. It's like you might have a client. They agree on the rate and the retainer late it ain't on time, Like my retainer's due on the first of each month.
I've had people been months late on a retainer where it's like, oh, I got you. It's in my account and it's a NET sixty or it's a net ninety or a net next year. Like I'm like, I'm a sentence to collection, man, Like, what the hell you know? And so that's part of it too, because if you don't budget correctly, It's like, what do you do if your rent is doing the first and your money is coming in on the first but it's late. Are you late with the rant? You're getting evicted? Like what what is it?
You know?
And so I think that's a struggle for sure.
I'm reading this book right now by a very famous publisher's name is Terry Williams. She was she was like one of the first publishers. She used to represent Eddie Murphy. And even just in the beginning of the book, like she was talking about like always putting her clients first, even at the even at her own detriment, you know, Like she was talking about she would be out at red carpet parties and all this stuff until midnight and then come home and she would she'd be just in
the fridge just eating her feelings. And I'm like, damn, I can relate to that.
You know.
I'm not saying I'm eating my feelings, but I'm like I've been binge eating too, you know. And so as she continues in the book, like speaking of struggle, it's like, this is the job where you kind of sacrifice yourself and put yourself last, Like you're for me, I'm the publicist who caters to my clients. Like, if I have a great idea, I'm like, is it for me? No,
I'm gonna give this to my client. Or I'm gonna go travel with my client and do all these different cities on their tour for them, and that's okay.
If I don't eat, they eat, they do that. And so it's like.
That can take a toll on you mentally if you're not strong, because you don't really know your true word out of client one time. It's so funny. I was almost said her name, but out of client one time. Nobody's listening to something podcasts. Yeah, but literally, like she wanted to cut my rate in half, and I'm like, cut it in half, and she's like, because all right, this is what happened. She was famous and her husband were famous, and they both hired me together, and I
was going to work them as a couple. Me and the husband kind of fell out because I wouldn't get involved with their arguments.
Like it's like if y'all was arguing and you're like, well, who's right? Am I right? Are you right?
If I say he's right, You're gonna be mad. And if you say if I say, you're right, you might be mad. And so I was always in the middle of stuff like that, and so one day he's like, you fired. I don't want to work with you no more. So I'm thinking, like, I guess I'm fired, you know, And then she's like, no, I'm gonna keep you. So but remember I'm working with both of them. When they asked me what the rate was, I gave him the rate.
They decided to split the rate. So if they said this house was ten thousand and you put five, and you put five, the house is still ten thousand, regardless if you move out or not, you know, you don't just get to pay five.
And that's what she wanted to do.
She's like, well, I'm only paying my half, and I'm like, no, no, no, the rate was the rate, and she's like, you're not
even worth that rate. And at the time, sadly, I took the half because I believe I wasn't worth the rate because a lot of times, like you don't see what happens before a client go on the red carpet or before they go on an interview, like the the words of affirmation you got to instill in these people, or like all the moving parts it takes to push somebody out there to get the image that you I see. And a lot of times people beat up on those
who are closest to them. Like I remember in the beginning the ice side of a client and would talk to me crazy like you motherfucker, you fat mother?
This heavy e.
I'm like, heavy E, what bitch knocked the ship out to you?
Now?
You know, like you ever think about somebody, especially especially.
Literally now I'm a completely different person, and I'd be wanting revenge on people.
Man.
I remember, not too long ago, I went on Facebook and try to find somebody from high.
School crazy that I let slide.
I'm like, yo, I wish I was who I am now then? Like what Yeah, Like I was to find them and fight. I'm like, this is ridiculous. They probably don't even remember what they said to you, you know, but like, and I would take that kind of stuff because that's how I grew up. Like my dad is like if from Detroit, he's a hood kind of guy. He would talk to us like that, motherfucker is your motherfucker that? But that's how he was raised too, And so in my mind, I'm like, oh, this is like,
this is how people talk, you know, it wasn't. I did my own little soul searching and you know, some therapy and stuff, and I'm like, yo, this is toxic and it even worth it. I'm getting cussed out for fifty dollars. So in my mind, I'm thinking right right now, right now, That's how I get it. Like, so you have a how do you balance your personal life?
Right?
Because it seems like you're putting your clients first, right, even if you have ideas, you're giving it to your clients.
This was in sight.
I want to say, this is hindsight, guys, this is like, now you have great personal life. Like the same way I said, I would try to the same way I would have to budget my time with clients, like Okay, this client is going to get this much time, and this client's can get this much time.
Like I'm budget my own life in there too.
You know.
At one point you can call me at two am. I'm like hello, I'm always up. Now it's like two am. I'm like, nigga, no, what the fuck? So I have created boundaries, how to learn boundaries. But I can say a lot of people start and they don't have boundaries. Like so many people, like when I listened to like these zoom calls or these webinars like they.
Claim to fame.
Is like, you know, I was working with so and so, and I was living in my car. I was homeless, so I spent my last to go here. And I'm like, why is that the story? Like why is that something that we should celebrate? Like you know, like for me, it's like, yeah, I was living on a couch. We all lived on a couch. That's not the story. And nigga like I got off the couch, and that's what I want to talk about, like getting off of it.
But I think so for so many of us, we feel like we have to struggle in order to uh, to be validated, validated. I even my first TV deal, I knew it was a fucked up deal. I knew it was fucked up. I knew like everyone was making way more than me. And I think, like I executive producing the show, like a TV show executive producer, you would think you get some checks.
It was two thousand.
Dollars and I'm like, what the entire series for the two thousand dollars?
Wow?
And I had an attorney who was experienced. I had an agent who was experienced, and what the agent told me was like, you know, you always take an L on your first deal, Like have you ever heard that before? Like that's what everybody says, and we're so accustomed to thinking that way, Like you take an L. Yeah, if I was doing this on my own, I should take an L. But nigga, this is like your hundredths deal. This is you've been doing this, Like why am I taking els? Why am I expected to take an L
on my first deal? Like this is my project, I'm epeing it like y'all want to buy it. Clearly there's a huge budget.
I've worked.
I've been blessed to work on different areas of television where I'm producing. I know what the producers are getting, I know what the talent is getting. I know what the marketing company is gonna get when they market it. How come I'm getting less than everybody? And this is my ship, you know? And so for me, I don't want back to your question creating boundaries and then also being knowledgeable.
Like to not have to go through those struggles.
That's what I try to tell people, like really ask Like for me, I was embarrassed to ask certain questions. I remember I would go to parties and they would be like Diddy, like the most recent party before COVID, it was lit and I was that Yep, Diddy's fifty then said I was hot and I'm like, hey, I know, but it was lit because like Kobe was there, rest in peace and Marvin Sapp was saying, and all these
different people in the room. And I remember I used to go to parties like that, and I would spend money. I didn't have to look like I was a part of the crew, just to stand this close to Beyonce or this close to somebody like an La Read or whoever, and not say shit, Like I won't even ask for a photo because I'm like in LA you don't ask for a photo.
You ask for a photo. It's like your courtney, like you got to look like you belong.
So I wouldn't ask for photos and I would act like I was supposed to be there, And really I realized that was doing a disservice to myself, Like if God's putting you in these rooms, like you gotta humble yourself enough to ask questions, like you're in your for a reason. Like you network, Like, don't come in here and already think that like your shit, don't think and you the hottest thing since slice bread because you're in the party, like go Like for me, I always see people take.
Pictures that party. I'm like, who's number did you get? Like what follow up is going to happen?
You get a meeting setup, Like that's more impressive to me than an Instagram feed full of celebrity images and so all this is like stuff I just had to learn over time. So one is like knowledge and then boundaries. And I hope I answered the question because I thought about Beyonce and started rambling shout out to be because I'm like, this is a moment right here, and.
That's the moment.
Let me let me ask you this to switch gears a little bit on the marketing side, because you have a book about social media.
Yeah, let me just say something really quickly, because we saw what happen to be Simone and they said she plagiarized it.
Oh yes, I plagiarized that entire book.
You're not cheating if you're not cheating and not trying it.
But here's what I did.
It's I didn't say Written by me, it's curated by me, like you're paying for me to curate this erness.
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Way to where it's you have a million captions. It's like, oh, you want a party caps, you want a caption with your friends, you want to caption for us ub subliminal disks Like I'm curating it, adding my own things into it while still sourcing the people who I got the things from, but.
I didn't write it.
So when they come out like, he's still my caption, I gave you credit on the last page and I said I curated it, I didn't write it.
But yeah, go ahead, there you have PC has been given. So yeah, you have a book about social media. And I feel like social media has really changed the game, like I said before and now marketing. I feel like whether you're an artist, whether you're a small business own or whatever, social media is like everything. Right, So you
have a whole book about it curated. What is some tips that you have for your clients or like, how do you like is that part of like being a publicist as well as far as like to help your clients understand because I feel like a lot of people don't really understand social media. And I actually have given a lot of tips to different people in the business world, and I'm actually thinking about being a social media consultant myself.
Actually why not? Why not?
And I feel like people just completely don't get it. Like they might like have a great personality, they might have great content, they have the potential to make great content, but it's just a weird vibe for a lot of people. So social media, how do you? How do you handle that?
For people?
I don't think that's necessarily a job of a traditional publicist, Like they're like, we do PR. That's you have a social media manager for that, and maybe a marketing manager
for the marketing stuff. But going back to what I said initially, like being with a client who had nobody else and just having to do things I didn't really know, like that wasn't the job of a publicist, And so I really like mastered my skill in those different areas to where it's like, oh shit, like I just kind of taught myself to new skills that I can monetize on differently outside of PR.
Sounds like three checks, you know, And.
So for me because of that, I can do it, but I don't think a traditional publicist would do it. Like so for social media, for example, one of my clients before Covid.
Was Fox Soul. It's like the new streaming platform from Fox.
So is that owned by Fox?
It's owned by Thoughts, but it's like completely black owned and ran it's black.
It's black.
Sorry, sorry, you know I've been watching the Twitter. I'm black on this. Like my friend he's ahead of Fox, so he's a black man, but it is under Fox.
Yeah, okay, James do boats.
But uh so with them, Like I got that job to do social media managing for them. So I got it and like maybe four hundred followers on Instagram, no YouTube, nothing, And so my team and I like we came up with the whole how the page is going to look, getting the content from their platforms, editing it up, putting up there with like dope captions, and really cross promoting with other Instagram pages and YouTube pages and Twitter. And then when I finished, like I'd grown that Instagram page.
I think it was like sixty thousand followers and the YouTube at one hundred thousand subscribers in a matter of four months. And so I don't think that's something that typical publicers would do, But because I had to do that with other clients, it's like, oh, I could do that marketing. So right now I'm working on a marketing campaign for BT for Chronicles, which is a docu series on No Limit and Rough Riders. Has nothing to do with PR. There's no press element at all. It's simply
experiential in terms of marketing. And like the creative campaign that I came up.
With, how did you how did you help how did you help grow the page in the in the YouTube page that fast?
Uh? Well, the thing about Fox so every there was so much content, So every day from six to ten, it's four hours, five days a week there was a show on.
So what is that twenty hours a week?
I think, so twenty hours of content, Like we would just constantly do the feed and then in buying social ads like through Facebook or making sure like when you click other outlets that are similar, like let's say Fox Sol could be similar to the Real or to Wendy Wims in terms of in terms of the talent. When you click a Windy Wims video, you get a Fox Soul ad like it would be like Fox, so's like what is this?
Who's that? And then also what I was saying for you guys in.
Terms of like getting excerpts of like your review is like well Ryan Leslie says this, or so and so says that, and sending that to blogs.
That's one way.
Another way, or I guess a visual way of that would be taking a clip, Like you don't want to send someone an hour long interview, like I don't have time to listen to it. So I would take a minute interview, a minute clip, and I would send that out to Shade Room or to Baller or to Neighborhood Talk or whoever, and they would tag us like this is via Fox Soul.
So people will come and through. Did you pay for that?
No? No, not at all.
Yeah.
And that was strategically done because I feel like once you pay, no matter if your clip is good or not, they want to So I would send stuff all the time. Mind you is five days a week, there's four shows a day. I would always send stuff. They didn't post everything, but the things that they did post was stuff that was polarizing. Like for example, now they have the show at Lisa Ray and Vivica Fox on there whatever. So Lisay's talking about Nicki Minaj, of course they're going to
post that. So what we realize is like we got to really go in and find things that are topical, like instead of just doing an interview with somebody about publicity, it's like, what question can you ask them that other people will care about?
If they had no idea who I was?
For example, if no one had no idea who I was or no idea who you were, what would make somebody post a clip? I would then say, well, we're going to ask a question like this Varieting magazine just did a cover like the State of Black Hollywood. It's like, talk to us about being a black publicist in Hollywood? Or do you think these white corporations are using Black Lives Matter as a way to get more publicity or do you think they really care from a PR perspective.
So now that's something that is current and trending. People want to know about that because everyone is putting Black Lives Matter and their messaging. They don't care who I am, where you guys are, But it's the clip is a conversation piece is going to get engagement on their Instagram page, which is why they're going to post it. It's like when you post a picture yourself, You're like, if you look good, you know, people don't comment because you look good.
If you don't, they not.
So you even with like outlets, it's like, will people comment on this post?
Yes? Or no? You know? And so I think that's something that would be a conversation piece.
And then from there I would take that post and I might go put it on the Black Startup Page, or I might put it on Talk to Pops on Instagram, not.
Necessarily Shade Room.
And that's another thing people have to realize too, that there are micro blogs that are more important to me than the ones who have millions and millions of followers. Yeah, exactly, like if I was gonna like earn your Leisure, if I was going to promote your podcast, I don't necessarily think I would put it on the Shade Room because even if it's the great content, people on there are
ultimately there to be shady. I want to have the top comment, So I'm going to spend my money on my ad on Shade Room for them to talk about me and talk about all your.
Shirt don't fit.
It's like I don't want that or am I gonna put it on like wealth to Prosperities Instagram page or something like that, to where people on their only phone this page because they want knowledge and information and they want to do a business. Like for me, I DMed you guys back in March for something. I forget what campaign I was working. I didn't get a reply, by the way, but.
Publicist, I don't.
Know if y'all do as at the time I dammed, I'm like, yo, how much would it be for an ad on this page? Because for me, I'm like, you guys are the perfect page to monetize black businesses or just business in general, because everybody following it wants to start a business.
They want to know something about something.
For example, when I did the Breakfast club, I was on there with a hat and like a hoodie on or something like. I didn't even think about image. I thought I was just talking to friends. I didn't care about it coming on here. I'm like, hold on, let me go to the closet and get something, because I know the audience. Everyone who listens either has a business or wants to start a business. And you have a business,
you want to hire a publicist. You're gonna hire me, and I'm on here, like, you know, just slashing with my little you know, I'm like, let me put my best foot forward, let me put my Louis Paton's on it. Even though I didn't know we wasn't going to be able to see the fee out of work, you know, but nonetheless.
I put my the resk check, the risk check.
I understand the audience for this platform, and I think that's what people out in marketing got to understand the audience, Like people advertise on places that don't even care just because the followers and numbers, not engagement or like what that audience is into.
Speaking of variety, can we talk about the coalition that you guys formed. My publicist is black and the representation I know, I mean presence is everything. And I know there's probably a lack of black publicists in Hollywood and probably in New York as well.
Why do we formed the coalition? What's his purpose?
So in twenty eighteen, I wore a jacket to Beyonce and jay Z's On the Run concert that said Beyonce's publicsist is black. I wasn't trying to really send a message other than like a big fuck you to somebody who told me they wouldn't take me on as a they wouldn't let me take their client on as their publishers because they wanted to have white press, and because I was black, all I could do was black press. And I'm like, well, Beyonce's publicist is black, and they're like, no, she's not.
I'm like, no, she really is.
Like well she probably has a white publicist too, and so I'm like, let me go look into it. And so I went and researched her publicist, Yvett Noel Shore, and she'd been with Beyonce since Destiny's Child, and before that she was with Mariah Carey, and then she was with Prince and Adele and Jessica Simpson, all these big names black and white. And I'm like, yo, this is who I'm to aspire to be like. And it's like for me, it instantly changed the narrative of what people
would have you to believe. There's like a black publicist you can only do urban stuff, and a white publicsert can do general market stuff.
This is a black woman.
Who has no white publicist or she's not someone's indie publisherst she's the publicist, and she has Beyonce on Vogue, and she also knows enough about culture to have Beyonce talking to Angie Martinez or to talking to people who reached the culture and her core demographic right, And so I put that on the jacket as like, yeah, she is black and I'm at the concert. I didn't think I wouldn't meet her at all because there's a million people there and I'm like, she's probably in the back,
chilling whatever. But as fate would have it, my friend Dora, she called him, was like, hell, I've my husband's in La going to the concert. He has like these passes where like the celebrities hangout. Because ticket, Yeah, my ticket was gonna be up in the front, like front row. I played for that ticket. She got me a ticket where I was further back, and at first I'm like, yo, my seat way up there?
Why am I back here?
But you're on the risers and literally like I'm standing with Kim Gardashian and Chris Jenner and all these different people. And then here comes Beyonce's publicist, vent Noel Short, and so she sees the jacket. I didn't even know that June Ambrose had already taken a picture of it and sent it to hers. So she was looking for me and we took a picture and she's like, here, take my number down. I'm gonna send you the picture. I'm like, all right, cool, send me the picture. I think I'll
ever talk to the woman again. I'm like, you busy whatever. The very next day she called me and she's like, yo, I wanted to have a real conversation because I understood what you meant by the jacket. And so she started telling me all these stories about how she had been marginalizing, how people would try to take Beyonce from her, and different friends are like, well, you need to go with
this company or John Legend. I remember she was telling me a story that they convinced him to bring on another publicist to get them an outlet that they thought.
She couldn't get.
Meanwhile, they still never had gotten that outlet when they hired them, and so she's like, yeah, I have gone through it as well. And so from there she involved
a couple other people be brought in Vanessa Anderson. She represents Isa Ray and DJ Mustard, and then Erica Tucker does Yashadi and Kendrick Sampson he's doing all the Black Lives Matter stuff for Insecure, and Trel Thomas works with Tina Knowles because at first Miss Knowles or Miss nos Lawson was gonna have us do a panel at her theater, and that's how he was involved, Like We're gonna do a panel at Waco talking about like black pr and black publicist and I'm like, okay, cool, and then from
there it just grew. And so then the last person she brought in was Felicia font from Colombia. She's like the head of urban there and does so many people as well, and so we just started having conversations with people. We had no intentions of like making it anything really and then it wasn't until we did, like in COVID. We had a zoom call, we did one in Beverly Hills, one in Harlem at Linkston Hughes's house, and we did a COVID one and we had like like almost a
thousand people on there on zoom. I'm like, damn, these people really showed up and we saw impactful. It was like we need to do something, and so we have turned into a nonprofit organization because what we realized is like you can like again sacrificing yourself like I said earlier, and not knowing your worth. You can devote so much time to client and in the end have nothing because for example, oh I see example. So for example, I'm represented earn your Leisure and I'm doing all this press
for you guys. Now all this money is coming in, and y'all getting all these ads, y'all bawling, y'all got the Porsches, the Bentleys or whatever. My rate is still my rate. I'm still getting one thousand dollars a month. But I did all this stuff to help elevate your brand and get you so much income that when it's all said and done, like I could potentially be broke. And there was a situation where, going back to the woman Terry Williams, so I mentioned her book that I'm
reading is called Black Pain. Just because we make it look good doesn't mean we're hurting.
Her book.
I said, you work with Eddie Murphy. Now she's in a nursing home, and we're like, does Eddie Murphy know, does anybody know, like anybody helping this woman out? So the nonprofit started because we wanted to help her. We wanted to give her money we wanted to take donations for and so like, well, we can help other people
because there's more than one terry out there. Imagine like there's so many people who probably were lit at one point and devoted so much to somebody and then because that's what happens, honestly, and this is a sad truth. I don't want to be long winded, but as a black publicist, what happens is that like you become discarded, like I can take earn your leisure to new heights, like we're competing with Gary Vee. We're on the top of the podcast charts. I didn't got y'all a TV show.
Now y'all on Fox with Murdoch or Fox, so we do bos whatever you know, and you as so big that when before in this moment here, how many PR people have reached out to represent you guys at this point in this moment.
A lot, not a lot.
So I take you to a point where now all the top firms are reaching out to hire y'all, and y'all think, well, ship, we want to elevate, so we got to go with the big firm, and y'all drop my black ass, Like I helped y'all when we was nothing. When we was you know, trapping out this nice mansion. Don't let that your head, you.
Know, when it was marble on the floor, but not so much to trap.
But I helped you.
I helped you when we were like on the come up, right. There's no loyalty in this industry. It's like you want to go to whoever is hot next, and so if you don't again budget and how it's hard to budget because my white counterparts are getting paid double three times when I'm getting paid, you know, Like I remember, like I said earlier, Oh I'm trying to sab my five thousand, Like that's so much money.
And I'm like, well, i's.
The white publicist who also represents representing someone equivalent to who I was representing. How much did they pay? Fifteen thousand a month, twenty thousand a month, one hundred thousand dollars a month. I'm like, God, damn, what is happening? And I'm like, it's only like for like the black people, Like I feel like this is only my experience. Somebody got a different experience. Is that you expect more, but you also expect to pay less.
Yeah, I think that that's something that's across the board as far as black businesses. It's like, stop disrespecting the entrepreneurs because I got like, you know, essentially the entrepreneurs are our future. And like I said, no matter how good a rapper is, Derek Falcon said is on my podcast Shout and one of my favorite Alumni episodes eleven, their career is short lived, no matter how no matter how fast you can run on a football, for your
career is short lived. But you can do what you're doing for sixty years that you could be a publicist. So it's like a lot of times we devalue the entrepreneurs. And that's whether it's a barbershop owner or whether it's a publicist. It's like you always trying to get a deal.
And that just comes psychologically, I think, from not valuing ourselves enough, Like we don't look at ourselves as valuable enough, because the white person can come and just say anything and it's like, oh, they're white, they got a suit.
On, they must be true.
Monique said this right, and this is so funny because I remember Monique was doing her like equal pay thing. We're like, shut up, Monique. But then if you go back and listen to those interviews in today's landscape, Like literally, you hear it differently and I'm like, oh, well, she was saying some real shit, you know, like she was really preaching. And I think the reason why they're able to pay less. And this is a quote that she
said that she brought from someone else. She said, what one what they understand is that what one nigga won't do, another nigga will. And so if we're all three publicists and I'm saying my rate is what this white person's rate is, but then y'all coming behind me like I do it for twenty five hundred, I got you, and then you're like twenty five I YouTube for fifteen hundred.
It's taking value away from me.
No one's ever gonna get that rate because there's no standard across the board. And as much as like I feel like that's a counterproductive, I also understand it. If you're not getting opportunities and nobody wants to hire you, and then this person giving you fifteen hundred, It's like me with the fifty dollars a placement.
I knew that was cheap.
I had no money.
It's like, I know what's wrong but I got to eat ultimately, you know what I mean. And that's why I started my own company. It wasn't because I wanted to be a boss and entrepreneurship was in now it's in, like if you're starting a business now, there's so many resources. This is a major resource to help you start a business. I was listening almost started the damn vending machine.
Lucrative.
I didn't even know this is a real, real right, you know.
But at that time, entrepreneurship was not cool. It was like entrepreneurship okay, But I did it because I know one would hire me. I was only getting internshi jobs and then when the internship was over, they would hire somebody who just came in. It wasn't like they were promoting within, and so I had to take those rates.
And so I honestly feel like having like the broader conversation like with the my publicist as black, or having conversations like this, it allows you to hopefully shift change in terms of those shift change with people who are making the decisions on who to hire right now. As a black publicist, send your resumes out. Everybody wants somebody black. There are people out there saying we want to see your team, your leadership team, Like who's on there, who's black?
They're boycotting right Like so many companies they were saying like oh, uber like one percent black or representation or whatever.
Now is the time to be a black publicist.
You go and you apply for those jobs, get those jobs, and charge those rates.
So how do you feel You asked that question before, but I'm actually interested once you bring it up.
There's a lot of pr going on right now.
Black lives matter, whether it's Nike, whether it's every company has some form. I feel like you had to make a statement. If you didn't make a it was like you was complicit with everything that was going on. So every company pretty much made a statement. Some companies like Netflix even went further and they put one hundred million dollars into like black owned banks. So everybody's kind of like doing their own thing as a publicist. It's just just pr spin.
Is it good? Is it something that's gonna last?
Like?
What's your thoughts on the whole Black Lives Matter?
I think there's so many layers to it because I watched all happening, So I think there were some companies that nothing at first and then on its blackout too, so they you just put a black square and you weren't responsible for leaving a caption or nothing.
Companies took advantage of that, like that's how we could set it.
Both sides.
Put the black square. It don't mean shit, you know, like it's just the black square. The whites are cool, the blacks are cool. Perfect No. So for me, I think people who do stuff like that or they just
put like we staying with Black Lives Matter. Almost like literally where you guys are at, like a couple of weeks ago, this shit looked like Iraq like houses with the game, burned, businesses was towed up, it was looting and riding like literally a block from where you guys are now to the point where all businesses spray painted on this stuff like Black Lives Matter BLM, black owned.
To protect their business.
And I feel like that is the same thing that I see online with companies when they put the Black Lives Matter like standard templates like black and gray with like a fist, it's like black Lives Matter. I feel
like they're just doing that to protect their businesses. The ones that I do like say, okay, y'all really are rocking with us are the ones who have made an effort to commit to something where it's like, Okay, we're like you said, Netflix, we're gonna commit one hundred million dollars to black owned banks, or we're gonna diversify RC suite and hire more black people or whatever.
And it's funny. I'm like, yeah, like black people's inventing yesterday.
Like I did.
That's it's easy to protest, and everyone's protest. Yeah, it's easy to write, pretty easy.
But I'm saying, yeah, even if they are doing it for their own to save face as a black entrepreneur, a black business person, go get your money. Like you wanted somebody black to stand it. It's gonna cost you to be just for me to stand next to you and to give you that. I've never had to educate so many people on the black experience. But you know what, let me take something else stuff. I have made more money in this COVID quarantine than I've made probably in
the last five never wasted collectively. Want to learn about the black hold on remit payment. I teach you everything you need to know, you know, and so literally I've been helping people behind the scenes, like I've made so much it's ridiculous. But I and I think that's also not fair to ask people to help you and not pay them either. Because literally, in high school, did y'all learn about Black Wall Street? Did y'all learn about what
happened in Tulsa? Did y'all learn about like slave? Yeah, we learned about like the slavery and the since they wanted us to learn about it, But did you go deep into it the way that we are now? No, we had to go seek that information for ourselves. So I did the work to learn this. So if you want to capitalize off the work and the time I invested in myself to learn, you got to pay. But
I say all have to say some companies. I feel like a lot of people are doing it, because at this point it's it's you're gonna get black balled or blacklisted if you have not mentioned or said just.
They're looking at you. They're looking at you crazy. Yeah, youre looking crazy.
So now it's like, yeah, black lives matter, whatever, but it's like, what are you doing to further that?
Dude?
We gotta see I mean I saw Facebook, for one, it was like they're going to donate one hundred million dollars to black.
Closes, and it's like, what does that even mean?
Yeah, why want you to be specific?
There's no specific It's like, Yo, where where do I apply for that?
People?
And then at the time, remember what was the Minnesota like bail fund or what Freedom fund or whatever where they're bailing people out of jail. Right when George Floyd Floyd to pass away, they got so many donations they put on the website, we ain't taking no more give to other places. I'm like, I never nobody say we got too much money. I'm like, y'all was really just giving them guilt money. I was just sending checks or whatever.
And so I feel like, for me, if you're gonna give money, it also tells me a lot about you when I see who you gave them money to. Because it's so easy to say I gave money a Black Lives Matter or I gave money to NAACP, because they're like staples.
In the community.
But it's like, what about these organizations that no one knows about that really could benefit from No.
That's and that's a good point that you bring up too, because there's always in any crisis, it's always opportunity. And it's like, not to sound callous about it, but it's just the reality. Whether it was COVID, there was a lot of opportunity, and just COVID situations, a lot of people made a lot of money. And now the whole
you know, black lives matter, racial injustice situation. And I was talking to a friend of mine who works in the NBA, and he was telling me he was like he told all his guys like, you know, like look like there's gonna be a lot of opportunity as far as like for businesses and business people. And it's like because now these companies feel like they got to wash away their sins and they got to like spend money. And it's like they're looking for people to really give
money to. Whether it's a black publicist, whether it's a black teacher that can teach their staff about the racial injustices for the last four hundred years, whether it's a black accountant, whether it's a black doctor. Like they're looking
to diversify their looking. So I say that to say, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're an investor, if you're black, this is a perfect opportunity right now to maybe reach out, make network, and make yourself known because I seen it firsthand where companies are actively looking to give money in a variety of different ways, whether there's inclusion programs, whether it's consultants, whether it's a you know, I have never really seen this much activity, and we don't know.
How long it's gonna last.
So you know, and if you are a white company who's hiring people black people, can do more than just head up the diversity and inclusion thing. Like literally everybody I was looking like we hired somebody for diversity and inclusion. I'm like, what God damn Like, like, imagine, like going to college and learning, you're so talented at what you do. When they say you're going to be here to talk about affirmative action and inclusion, it's like it's.
Like the door.
It's like I've been putting those situations where it's like, Yo, hey, we're gonna talk about race and schools and you're going to be the person. And I'm like, yo, I'm living it. Like it's I'm living it. It's enough living it now trying to explain.
It and the thing and the thing you know, I always look at me. I'm a little different because I was raised was due for self, Like I never really was raised like on some inclusion type vibe. So I tell people all the time, like, to me, support is a lot more efficient than boycotting. So it's like you boycotting and you're putting pressure on EAT. That's good, but it's like instead of focusing that energy, focus your energy on building something that you are part of or in your community.
Right, So it's like, let's.
Say there's a top PR firm who only has white people, and it's like, all right, we're gonna boycott this PR firm until they hire three black PR eight.
But it's like, you already have your own PR firm, why don't we because that's already a boycott.
If you, if you, if you, if you, if you focus your your energy and you you actually give business to real black owned businesses, technically you're already boycotting that because you're taking money away from where you are spending it. But the problem with the boycotts, like the Gucci situation, like, Okay, we're gonna stop wearing Gucci until they make some flip flops. It's really cool three months, okay, but what's really changed.
But it's like if you have like a black owned designer, then that's already taking money out of Gucci because you're you're just you don't have have to like force them to make Okay, we're gonna come to Harlem and.
Eat it, Sylvius take a photo. It's like, I just don't.
I just I still to this day don't fully understand why black people a lot of times are just so fascinated with being accepted by white people. It's really fascinating to me when it's like I don't really see any other culture that has tried so hard to be accepted and it's like abusive relationship, like you're hoping it's gonna change.
That, it's really not.
I think that's systemic.
They're still beating you.
I was gonna say that's that's the systemic part.
Sure, I think it's a systemic.
And then also I think, yeah, you can say, oh, come and like patronize with my company versus like trying to have this big company hire black people. But I think ultimately it's like everybody doesn't want to be an entrepreneur, everybody, And that's another thing that everyone is not built to be an entrepreneur. Some people just want to work for a company, and unfortunately for me, in the way that
my company is ran. I don't see my company isn't scale the same way as like a PMK or like a Rogerson Cowan or whatever, you know what I mean. So I can understand why you might want to go work over there because you're gonna get your benefits and your salary's gonna be bigger at whatever. It's a bigger obvious you might have a corner suite. You ain't getting that over here, you know, But we're gonna work hard, We're gonna do some things that are dope, and you're gonna get paid.
Let me ask you this hypothetically speaking, right, so you you you have ther whole correalition with my publicist is black you network with So what's stopping you guys from coming together and making your own top agency where maybe now you can scale it.
Stay tuned, Stay tuned.
Because why not? Right, I was gonna piggyback on that.
The biggest and you have these big talents, you know, like you're coming with Beyonce to the table and then you got fucking he's over here.
You can do a lot.
Because everything is like like you're looking like a wells far like a lot of these different companies were like two names or three names. Is because two or three people came together at one point and they formed a company. That's something that black entrepreneurs don't do a lot of Either small businesses stay small because they're not scaling and it's small, but three small businesses can come together and make a mid sized business or a larger business.
Thankfully, I found the right group of people who who they're thinking it's in alignment with what you just said, because I tried that early on and we couldn't get past the name. Like my company is not like Earnest Publicity, like a lot of people that use their name like you know, Ray Charles Publicity or whatever. Mine is not that I wanted it to be something that like if I ever wanted to leave this one day, it can
still go on and it's not like tied into me. Also, because my mouth is crazy too, I might say something in this interview that's gonna get me blacklisted, and now with the company no more, it's like no, no, you know, And so we couldn't get past the name like the people like Lit's say, the three of us were gonna do it He's like, now I want it to be my name first, and you want your name first, and I'm like, what the fuck, Like wet even got no client,
Like we're talking about a name and so it couldn't happen. And also because like it's so competitive. At least when it's my peers, like people were my age and we all came up around the same time, it's super competitive. But with this my publicists black, I believe I'm the youngest one on the entire thing, you know, and everyone has different levels of experience. They've been around for decades and whatever. They all do different things where we're not competing,
we're collaborating. So just like you guys have like assets over liabilities, I'm like collaboration over competition, and that's where our mindset is and we're able to say, like, you know, we should do this, But before like it wasn't. It was like we're too competitive because we think like of like the crabs and a barrel mentality, like you know, there can only be one and I hate them people say crabs in a barrel because like crabs don't even belong in barrels.
Like no one ever questions that. It's just like, yeah, we crabs in a barrel.
You know.
It's like no, like there really is so much money everybody to eat.
It's enough everybody.
What's what's your thoughts on quote unquote Black Hollya, what's the future of it? Or is it in black Atlanta now?
Because you know Tyler.
Peri studios it's huge? What what's your thoughts on it?
No? Actually know what Tyler Perry Studios. I think is gonna be something that's super dope. And I see a lot of things are done there already. I've done I've done multiplepoper reductions on his studio a lot, So I don't want to speak to that. The future of Black Hollywood, to me, it seems like, and I hope it's not just a moment, but I think people are starting to really see the value that black people bring in terms
of their experiences. Like even like with these animated series, like the guy who plays in Cleveland, Cleveland or whatever, he's like, I'm not going to voice him anymore. I think somebody black should be the voice of him. Well, I mean you could have twenty years to say that, you.
Know whatever, Oh Cleveland, the guy's white.
Yeah, I never knew that that's that's crazy.
Close your eyes, he do sound that's very very racist. Melon the lack of melon, that's amazing. I think people are making more conscious decisions like that, we need representation here, Black representation, authentic black voices to be heard.
We want to hire black and diversify.
And so I think it's an exciting time we walked into, like this pandemic, like the years over, Summer's canceled or whatever.
I feel like all this stuff.
Although there has been some bad things that have happened and people have lost their lives, lost their homes, whatever, I think there's also good too. I think we had to kind of do like a hard reset, you know, to where like no one should want to go back out of this pandemic, Like we want to go back to normal. Like I was asking about TV earlier before we filmed, I'm like, y'all still want to watch that? I don't care about that no more, Like yeah, I've been in the house. I didn't watch so much TV,
Like I don't want to see nothing else. So like we're creating a new normal, and I think the new normal was going to include diversity and amplifying and supporting black voices.
Yeah, I'm thinking about this, like I'm going all the way back now, Like you started out as a publicist, but you also executive produced. Like how did you gravitate toward that and where did you get the skill? Is it just being on the scene and learning as you with your clients or did you like to study that?
No. So when I was working with a PR one of the people I interned for, I didn't really intern I'm not gonna lie. She would outsource things to me so she would pay me. She was based in Atlanta, name Teresa. She would sense to say, you're her client, you're in LA. She's like, can you go look after them in LA? Because I don't want to fly in and it saves money of course.
Fine.
Whatever.
So one of those people was Kisha Cole And so I'm like my own publicist. I my own company, not really a real company. I just had a logo on a website. I didn't do nothing like to like really register it. But I thought that's all I needed. So I'm thinking I'm like this big Mogo type nigga. I got a company. And so she's like, can you look after my client? I'm like sure, whatever, So I look after Kisha Coole, and at the end of us working together for that day, it was a photo shoot from
a magazine, She's like, Oh, what are you doing? Do you want to come back to Cleveland with me and my husband and be my assistant? And in my mind, I'm like an assistant, I'm a boss, nigga, I have a company. But I'm like, oh wait. Her publicist probably told her I was her assistant, and so she's like, well, you're an assistant, you want to work with her, you can work with me, And again, being broke, I was like, hell yeah, And so I moved to Cleveland and started
working with her. And at that time, she had a reality show on BT and Keisha is somebody who you have to really speak her language in order to communicate with her. That there's a way to talk to her or I think people we've mastered the art of communicating with various type of people. It's like, if you're an introvert, we can sit here in silence and talk really loud. If you're an extroverted, we could be extra stuck together
and we're gonna get the job done. And whatever you want to talk and we want to curse, we could do that. You wanna smoke, i'mna smoke what you want to do it. I'm a chameleon in that way. So I mastered the art of communicating with her, and so that production brought me on as a production assistant, Like they paid me in addition to her, so I can make sure she was on time and that she knew everything she had to do and that because if she's late, it's going to hold the whole production up.
You know, she don't come downstairs for the day you wasted money.
And from there, when it was over, I was offered a job by that production company to work as a production assistant within their company.
And I'm like, I want to be.
A publicist, but this is paying more money because I was paying eight hundred dollars a week, and I'm like eight hundred a week versus the fifty dollars a month, I mean fifty dollars a placement. I'm like, hmm, I'm gonna do it eight hundred dollars a week. So I went there and I just worked my way up through
that company while simultaneously still doing publicity. So I would be working with Jackie Christie getting her interviews and then I would be at the production company answering phones because I wanted that extra income and I wanted to learn.
And so in that company, I went from a.
Production assistant to casting associate, which is like the casting assistant, to like a field producer, a segment producer, and I worked my way up to an executive producer.
And one thing I.
Would say is that like people, when you demonstrate like what you're good at in your strengths, people will hire you and they'll rock with you. They may not like you, but they'll call you when the money is there because they know you can get the job done and they
can trust you. And so that same guy who hired me as a production assistant is also who brought me in for Fox Soul to do that, because he now is the head of Fox Soul, James Dubos, And so it's like a testament to having good relationships and also like having a vision. Like I knew when I was answering the phones, I'm like, I barely answer my own phone.
I don't want to answer this phone. But I knew I was able to see other people in the company who were driving nice cars and they were making nice salaries and I'm like, I want to get to that point, so I'm gonna do what I have to do so I can do what I want to do later. And that's really how it came about. And I was I got more credits, other people would hire me, you know.
So then I went an EP like Tammy Roman Special for VH one Tammy Ever After, and then I guess we got the Bonding Chronicle show was scripted, and then I got another show on bt HER with Queen Latifa's company, and just really like showcasing like, okay, what you're able to do, and not just saying that you can do it, which a lot of people do, Like I'm a producer, I'm whatever. It's like, I can show you like what
I've been able to do, you know. So even when I took that L and said I got two thousand dollars, I booked for another job and I made what I was supposed to make on that one.
So I guess it was right. You got to take it L on your first one.
But I still don't think you had to, like you don't have to hurt yourself or less of your value in order to be successful.
But ended up working out for me, for sure.
So Ernest, it's been a pleasure. One last question the most and most.
Of the all they tired and in the already interview already four ads and fifteen second thing full times to skip it, like That's what I'll be doing in like bevel, the most important I'm sorry.
The most important question, no anchor shout shout out to anchor, just skip that. One the good people is Spotify. How do you get verified on Instagram? Uh?
There are various ways to do it, the easy for a friend, the easiest, ask.
For whatever you want to ask.
I'm ask for my check.
But I think the easiest way to do it is one if you're on a TV show. Like companies like Viacom, vach one, they take ads out or they do ads with Facebook, which owns Instagram. They can there are like a lot of a certain amount of people they can verify, so they'll verify easily. Or the key is to get like ride ups that are all right? So are you familiar with domain authorities like the rating like the d A rating?
All right? So I wasn't at first either.
So like imagine like a site like Google, they have like a domain authority of one hundred I mean so many people go there. Everybody body knows Google. It's like a verifiable type of thing, whereas like uh, plant based hustlers dot com, they may have like a domain authority of twenty, Like no one goes there, they're not getting ads, people aren't linking things back to their site or whatever.
And so you have to have I think as a minimum of like five articles about you on on an outlet that have like a domain authority of seventy or higher. So like if you get an article in like.
Fours or Yahoo find it.
Yeah exactly, you do those, then then they see you as somebody who needs to be verified, like you are a person who these people vouch for, who know who you are, and therefore you could get verified or another way to do it is like in this you know, you have some interns or whatever, create a bunch of fake pages, earn your leisure, but eat are in like my do mind, earn your leisure, and then it's like okay, put the same logo on there and just upload shit.
Do a couple of those, and then they're going to verify you because they feel like there is too much confusion on who they're accurate on is like their imposters impostering you or havn't just known somebody.
I don't know.
I don't know who that somebody is because I've seen people pay and ain't got nothing out of it. They didn't get verified or nothing. It's got swindled. But I think those are the two most effective ways to do it.
You know, Okay, you're trying to get verified.
We should be verified.
Are you verified in the street.
That's a fact. That's a fact.
No, no, no, nothing that not. That's first and formal for sure. Respectfully, respect respectfully. Obviously people like I ain't verified with you know.
Like the hout.
Your game go up when you get verified. So I get it, y'all want to be.
Respectful. I cannot confirm now.
That who check can't do this house might get appreciate you'all got to do on the YouTube page the extra blog home to for Really Ernest Living, to Ernest Living.
Episode in your Leisure for shout out Tonest.
It's been a pleasure, bro.
How can people contact you any initiatives you want to make them aware of anything you have going on?
No, just drink water and get your rest.
I am on Instagram at arn Duke's E R N d U k S And that's kind of consistent across all platforms. I don't follow back what I do read on my rams.
So how that me? There? You have it, ladies and gentlemen. Troy Housekeeping.
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Yeah, and once again you forgot the real estate face or the investment face.
Oh yes, yes, yes, yes.
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