¶ Rodney’s background
Here's the part of the story that most people don't even know. A fax comes through. from Sony Music signed by Tommy Mottola offering $2.2 million $4,000 More than EMI. And I remember having a conversation with my attorney, everybody was excited. And I said, No, I want to sound What am I in here? Like what you just got offered? $400,000. Let's at least go back to EMI and tell him that we got a bigger offer
from Sony. I said, No, no, no, no, no. I just want to sign the deal that was offered to me by EMI. And I like Brian Jackson. I love the fact that he has a passion for what I do. And he spent time with me. And I want to get this deal done today. And I closed that deal that the next day. And I never forget getting a call from Tommy Mutola cursing me out about not doing this deal with him. Literally curse me out. I'm literally 17 years old and he cursed me out. I've always believed that it's not
always the biggest deal. That's the best deal.
Welcome to a Search of Excellence, which is about our quest for greatness and our desire to be the very best we could be to learn, educate and motivate ourselves to live up to our highest potential. It's about planning for excellence and how we achieve excellence through incredibly hard work, dedication and perseverance. It's about believing in ourselves and the ability to overcome the many obstacles we all face on our way there. Achieving Excellence. That was our goal and it's never
easy to do. We all have different backgrounds, personalities and surroundings. We all have different routes on how we hope and want to get there. My guest today is Rodney Jerkins Rodney is one of the most successful music producers
of all time. He has worked with some of the greatest artists of all time, including Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Alicia Keys, Sam Smith, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston and Mary J. Blige, just to name a few. Collectively, the records he has produced have sold over a
billion albums. He's been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards, and is a one to four Record of the Year and Best r&b song and he's also an incredible songwriter and musician in his own right. Roddy, thanks for being here. Welcome to In Search of Excellence.
Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me.
I always start my podcast with our family because from the moment we're born, our family helped shape our personality, our values and the preparation for our future. You were born and grew up in Pomona, New Jersey, a small town 15 minutes away from Atlantic City in New Jersey. Your dad was a pastor at a church and your mom was a housekeeper for a wealthy family in southern New Jersey. Can you tell us about the relationship you had with
your parents? Your mom's serious illness when she was pregnant with you, Mr. tamborelli. And your dad's house rule?
Yeah, you know, growing up in a small town, Pomona, New Jersey, we're a small town. My mother when she was pregnant with me, I'm the fourth, the fourth child, the last child. And when she was pregnant, she was just super ill. She was she was super sick. And there was a moment when she went, she went to see the doctor. His name was Dr. Klein. And Dr. Kwan basically told her that he didn't believe that I would make it. And my mom, who's a woman of faith, said, No, he's gonna make it and he will be
blessed. In a second, she was, you know, the time came when she had me. And, and I never forget, of, you know, Dr. Calm was my doctor, for you know, probably first 1213 years of my life. And he would always tell me that story about how sick my mother was, and, you know, and, and him not believing I would be here. So he said, you have a special gift, you are gifted, you're blessed. You're blessed boy. So he's telling me all the time and you know, so I don't take life
for granted. Especially now with myself having four kids. When I think back, you know, of my mom when she when she worked at. She worked for a wealthy family, several wealthy families. So not just one house. This is this was a journey for years for her. And I would go there to her to one of the family's homes to visit sometimes she would take me and they will allow me some swimming pool with the other kids. But this one particular family, they
always had a piano. There was always piano lessons being taught to their kids. And my mom when they you know, had the courage to ask the piano teacher his name was car All temporarily, if he'd be willing be willing to give me piano lessons. And at first, you know, kind of caught him off guard because she was she was she was the housekeeper. And, you know, so I'm sure he probably thought she wouldn't be able to afford
the lessons. But she was relentless in, in asking him, you know, we grew up in a very gospel house. He was a classical piano teacher. She wanted me to learn classical piano. So he said, Yes, eventually he said, Yes. And he gave me my first piano lesson, and I had piano I stuck with him for about eight years. I started I started piano lessons with him at five years old, and was learning a lot of classical music. Up until the time where he can teach me
anymore. He said that I had went too far that he had, that I was kind of just progressing in my own own world of creating my own songs. So he felt he couldn't teach me anything anymore. And that was pretty much it.
Tell me about the house rule that your dad had.
Well, my dad's a pastor, you know, he's right now my dad's about to turn 80 years old, and he's been a pastor probably, I don't know, maybe he started, he started preaching when he was 21 years old. So that's a good 59 years right there as a as a preacher. So he had his house rule that we were not allowed to listen to rock and roll music, because when he called it what he meant was secular music. We weren't allowed to listen to pop, r&b,
rap anything. He called it rock and roll, it all came under that under that umbrella. So around a house, all we heard was gospel music, music, gospel and classical. And that was, that was it all I heard as a kid coming up. But of course, you know, most kids at some point, have rebellious. So you know, me
being rebellious. I was sneaking listen to a lot of a lot of music, whether it was you know, Michael Jackson or whether it was like, you know, W fresh, Slick Rick, you know, hip hop on the hip hop rap side, I just listened to a lot of r&b new jack swing pop I was sneaking in. And I will actually try to figure out how to play the chords that I was hearing on the
piano. I got in trouble. A lot of times, my mom and dad will find cassette tapes around the house of you know, artists like Guy, Michael Jackson, and Prince and, you know, different, just a lot of different artists that I was sneaking. Oh, and it was it was a house rule was this you can't listen, you can't listen to this type of music. You know,
it's the devil. The devil's music is what they were referred to as a funny thing about this whole story it was when I turned five, probably 10 years old is when I really started wanting to become a producer. And I just had a natural knack for creating tracks in that pop, hip hop, r&b space. And so eventually, by the time I'm 13, I was actually making songs, local local records for local artists in South Jersey. And I was getting
paid to do their demos. And eventually my dad who, who initiated that rule, he became a manager. So he had to kind of go back on his own word in his own teaching. And now he had to manage manage my career.
That's awesome. Let's go back. Because you're five years old, and you didn't want to take piano lessons. But your parents made you do that. I I know so many parents who forced their kids to take piano or music. I know you force your kids to take piano and they all play different instruments as well. Should we be forcing our kids? Yes. And in your case? Or why not? Your dad didn't force you. Would you be a massive global producer superstar if
they hadn't forced you? Would you have found it anywhere?
Yeah, he definitely they definitely forced it. And I definitely I'll thank them to this day for for forcing it on me because I wouldn't have been a producer for sure. I definitely wouldn't, I wouldn't have pursued production at all. If it didn't start with me on a piano, I wouldn't have been a songwriter. If it didn't start with me on a piano. Um, you know, when I take about my, our kids, you know, I've, you know, our kids are very musically inclined. My oldest son, you know, he's more
he's more into golf. And that's really his thing. So, you know, piano sometimes he doesn't really want to play piano as often as the other kids do. But my wife and I, our thoughts on that is, you know, we just want you to be able to exercise different parts of your brain. You know, it's not a thing where you know, You know, you have to play the piano just because you live in under this roof. But we would like for you to play the piano because we believe that it definitely exercises another
part of your brain. And to me, I think there's nothing more beautiful than, you know, if you want to play golf, and you're 2530 years old, you playing golf, and at the end of the day, you invite people over to your home and you start playing the piano beautifully. For someone, I think it's just, it's an extra bonus to be able to have that under your belt. So I stand by it, I really encourage. I encourage most parents and friends like yeah, you should get your your kids piano
lessons. It's a very, it's a great instrument to learn. It's a great instrument that will help you work your brain in a different way, and open up your creative juices and creative thoughts.
¶ Never stop dreaming, never stop believing
You mentioned your dad finally came around, he knew that you had a talent. He eventually became your manager. We're gonna talk about that in a few minutes. But so many parents I know make awesome sacrifices for their kids. And a lot of single moms, people who come from low socio economic means they don't have funds, they can't take the private piano lessons. Your dad did something really amazing. He broke his life insurance policy to buy you a $1,200 drum machine. Can you
talk about that? And put your head back in the exact timeframe when he did that? How much did that influenced you and spark you to have your parents say I believe in you at such a young age.
Yeah, it was such a special moment for me because I was 12 years old. And never forget it because at this time, I had already at 11 years old I got my first job I was working at a local footlocker in the Hamilton small guy by the name of Doug Smith gave me my first job. And I had saved up a little bit of that money to buy this little small drum machine that was like $110 at the time.
But I used to read all these magazines back then it was like these these word up magazines and black bead and these hip hop magazines. And it always has these, these articles about producers and the the actual hardware that they used to use. So I would read like they will use, you know, the Yamaha Sy 77, the SP 1200 and all the producers that I liked, they used what was called the AKAI
MPC 60. And I just thought that if they use that, and that's what is super successful, that I got that then I would become super successful. And so I found when it was a magazine out of Pennsylvania called it's called trading times, it was a little newspaper called trading times. And I would read it. And I would go to the for sale section of music, and the music category. And there just happened to be an MPC 60, for sale for $1,200. And
I sold my father. And he took he knew how bad I wanted to just machine. It said, Alright, let's take a ride. So we went to Pennsylvania one day in Pennsylvania, it was you know, it was a good hour and 40 minute drive from where we were. And we took this drive. And the guy was selling this MPC 60. And my dad tried to talk him down. And he said, No, sir, I've already brought it down from $1,400 to $1,200. So that's the price. So my dad said can I put it on
layaway. And the guy said, I'll tell you what, I can't put it on layaway, per se because we're not I'm not a store. But I'll take it off of the market for one week. If you if you really want it, you got to be back here in one week to get this. And so I asked the guy could I make copies of the manual? There was a manual owner's manual. And he said yeah, and we went to like the local Kinkos down the street and literally Xerox 80 pages of this manual. I took this manual
back home. And I kid you not I read every single day I was reading every day, this manual or how this machine operates with no belief that I was getting them this machine by the way, right but with belief one day I would have that machine and I would know it. So to my surprise a week later, or like literally one week goes by and my dad bought the machine and he said I believe in you. I believe in you so much that I borrow the money I borrow the $1,200 off of my life insurance to get use
this machine. And I turn that machine on. And, and I'm telling you ran out. I was programming and literally the first five minutes, I knew the machine I had read so much in one week that I literally knew how to operate the machine, I probably could operate it to this day with my eyes closed. And I just appreciate my dad so much for taking that leap of faith. He did make me sign a one page contract that said, I will pay him to throw $100 back. I'm sure I paid him like $1.2 million
back in overtime. But oh, yeah, I mean, he taught me you know that it was a transaction. But it was just a blessing to know like, you know, that relationship between the father and son that a father had that type of belief in his son. It's such a, it's such an early age.
I said this before on my show so many times, I think the four of the most important words in the human language are I believe in you. And it's something I say to my kids all the time.
Yeah, I agree. I agree. We, you know, I do the same with my kids, you know, we all are born with, we all are born with something we all are, we all have a gift, we all have something special inside. And sometimes we just need to hear a voice or someone tell us that we're special, and tell us that they believe in order for us to believe in ourselves even that much more.
You knew what you wanted to do when you were 10 years old, which I think is very unusual. Can you tell us about visiting your family in Toledo, Ohio, and being at a shopping mall with your cousin Sonia. When Michael Jackson's human nature started playing on the sound system, which was a song from his Thriller album, which had just been released, and how that changed your life forever?
Oh, absolutely. I never forget that moment, you know, going to Toledo, Ohio to visit my, my family, my aunt and my cousin Sonia cousin Bushi. And just you know, being out there and going into this, this local mall. And it just so happened to timing of us being there was the timing of Michael Jackson's Thriller, album, Thriller album coming out. And I was walking through the mall and human nature was playing over
the speakers. And when I heard that song and heard the quality and the production of that song, it just and of course, Michaels vocal ability, it just sparked this moment of, that's what I want to do. I want to make music. And I want to work with Michael Jackson someday, like, I would literally tell everyone that I'm going to work with him
someday. And I couldn't I couldn't wait to like just get going, you know, at such a young age get going to figure out what that look like what creativity would become studying how how to how they made these records, and how what kind of sounds I would listen to songs, and I would try to decide what that sound was that I was hearing without anyone telling me. So I would hear the bells and say, Okay, I need to find a sound that sounds like a bill. I want to hear you know, if it wasn't a piano, it
was a rose. Okay, I need to find the sound. That sounds like a Rhodes strings. Well, I can't afford a live orchestra. But I can try to manipulate my string sounds to sound as close to an orchestra. So I would do it in its parts the cello first, and then I will do the violins and you know, just creating what I was hearing recreating what I
was hearing pretty much. But that moment just it really changed my life because hearing the production of Quincy Jones, you know, barn none one of the greatest producers, if not the greatest producer of all time. It just inspired me to want to go and to a level that I knew was was conceivable. Like, I never had a doubt that's the thing about me. And even at 19 years old, I knew what I wanted to do. And there was no doubt I was going to do it no one no one could tell me differently. I
just knew it. I just like this is what I'm going to do this I'm going to produce these artists. And I'm going to change the world through my music and and I've always been goal driven from day one and I set it out I set the goals out and and I just go after it.
You've mentioned before in prior podcasts talking with some of your friends that that specific moment blew you away. My question to you is when we're choosing careers is that the signal and the criteria we should all be looking for that we should all be blown away and I think at 10 years old is pretty rare. So what's your advice to us? If we don't have a 10 year old? 10 years old? What's your advice to us? If we don't have it at 30 years old,
wow, I mean, I can't say everybody's gonna get it at 10 years old. I can't tell you everybody's gonna get that 20 years old or 30 years old. But my belief is that there is always something, there's always something there for us to go after, for us to achieve in life, we don't always see it right away. And I'm noticing that even as I as I, as I grow in, in my craft, and become better in my craft, you know, there's still other things that
I want to accomplish. There's still other things that I want to do. Right? So you never stopped dreaming. You never stopped believing in what your abilities are, you know, I believe TV and film is something that I want to do next, you know, so, in fact, I will do it, because it's just, I won't, I would never tell myself that I can't. You know, I believe that with God, all things are possible. So I'm gonna go after whatever goal that I set out for myself. And I encourage other
people to do the same. I believe if you if you you know, if there's something that I think like speaks to you in that kind of way, it kind of tells you what you're supposed to do. Right? You kind of just something, a feeling that we all get right that I should be doing. This podcast right now, I'm sure you had when you were contemplating, what do you want me to do this, I feel and it just takes off. I should do a podcast I want to interview. It's just and that's what everybody everybody gets a
feeling. Not everybody goes after the feeling. And that's the problem. Right? You have to go after what you feel.
You said that you knew at age 10. And you knew you're gonna want to do no matter what, and you went after it. So you're looking, you're from South New Jersey, and we'll go through all of the stepping stones, your career, which are just fascinating. But you're in a small town in southern New Jersey, there's no music scene growing up, you want to work with Michael Jackson, you did achieve your dream, and I can't
wait to talk about that. But if you just think about it, most people would say, hey, Roddy, that's never going to happen. It's too far. It's a dream. Sure. Everyone wants to work with Michael Jackson. So what's your advice to everybody out there? Who's saying I want to win a Grammy and Oscar, I'm gonna go be the next Michael Jackson, or have these dreams that most people would think are impossible to achieve.
It's funny, you reference Michael Jackson. Because when I worked with Michael, I had a chance to visit the home that his parents had in Encino on it, call it The Haven hearse home. And I went to this home and I and I will see all of these pictures and writing's on the wall, all around the house that will say, dream, the impossible dream. Or you can you can reach the unreachable star, I will see all of this. And then I've been to no Neverland and I will see the same type of
things. And I will say, if you instill that, in someone's mindset, at a young age, I feel like it will kind of settle in that the world that looks so big as not so big after all, right. And so what may seem not reachable, it could actually be reached, reached reached, because it could be one phone call, or one second or one mile or one handshake on one relationship away.
So I'm not going to tell you everybody is going to maybe the person watching may not you know, they may want to work with you know, Adele, right. And the dream is to work with Adele. And if that doesn't happen, it doesn't mean that you can't work with the next Adele or the next person who's just as great or will be just as great. But if you don't have any type of goals, and you're not living life, if you're if you're not, if you're not putting goals in front of you, then you're just
swinging through life. And that can't be the mentality and mentality has to you have to set goals for yourself. And you have to tell yourself, I will, I can and I will accomplish these, these certain milestones, these things that need to be reached in life. You know, I'm not a driver. I can't tell you I like to drive right. I'm not a person who, you know, maybe I got sport early on in my career by car services and in those different things and buses and limos and
all that stuff, right? I can't tell I don't I like to drive but my wife said one day she goes, I want to, I want us to do a family road trip. And I was like, what does that mean? Like, am I gonna hire a driver and we're gonna go across the country. She says, I want us to do a 40 day family 40 day road trip, but I want you to drive,
you know. And when I started looking at the map, and I started writing the notes down of how the distance was from one state to another, it looked very scary to me, to be honest, because I'm not, I can't tell you that I like to drive and it looks scary. But then one day, I woke up and I said, for my wife and my kids, I'll drive to the ends of this ends of this earth. And I made it a goal to accomplish that 40 day road
trip. And I've done it twice now in the last couple of years and got another one coming again this year. So I just believe if you set out what you want to do in life you can accomplish. I really believe that
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¶ From washing dishes to working with James Jones
You're making demos for people in neighborhood and you said okay, I've got a gift. Not only did you know you had a gift, people in the neighborhood knew you had a gift. So walk us through what happened from 10 to 12. And then each year you've had just milestone after milestone but I want to take it slow. You're 10 years old. You're getting $35 I think per
demo tape. I think you're working as a dishwasher somewhere to to have some extra money to go to New Jersey, maybe you can just tell us about all that was just phenomenal, fascinating story in itself.
Yeah, I mean, for me, I just wanted to, I wanted to be able to buy my own equipment really, you know, this is this is kind of like pre MPC, 60s, my dad and I just wanted to get like some some things to create. So there was a local diner right around the corner from my home called the Pomona diner. And we would go to this diner for soup and in things in one day. I just got you know, bold enough to ask for a job. And they gave me a dishwasher job in the back. They knew who I
was because we came. It wasn't a lot of money. And it was very dirty back there filthy washing those dishes. But I wanted to buy my own equipment so bad that I was willing to take that step. One day, I was bold enough to walk into the mall in 1988. I was 11 years old. And I walked in the mall and I walked in the footlocker and I ran out the guy who was the manager of the chain of footlocker, the chain of regional chain. His name was Doug Smith, and I walked in and I asked Doug Smith for a job.
And at first he was like, You're too young and can't have a job. He talked about us against the law. It's against the law to have a job. And I said, Please, sir, I just want to be able to buy some equipment for myself and I make music. Say really, you know, you're because I tell you what, you could work in the back stock in boxes, and I'll pay you myself. And so I stock boxes, and he would pay me out of his. You pay me pretty much under the table. And believe it or not, duck Smith is a really
good friend of mine now. And I hadn't seen him since I was 11 years old and I bumped into him. Last year, he runs the golf clinics that my son actually playing, which is crazy. And you know, and we cried together when we saw each other and talked and talked about these stories. But I say that to say it's just you know, a matter of having The thought process to succeed. And you know, I don't know why. I don't know why at that age at such a young age, I wanted it so bad, but I didn't want to be a
burden to my parents. I didn't want to be I knew they didn't have. And so I figured if I can have a little bit of drive, to just go out and try to, I don't care if it was to, I used to watch my brother, by the way, I still watch my brother who was seven years older than me. I want to watch him. So m&ms, right. So I will see like, oh, wow, he bought this box of m&ms for, you know, 10 cents a pack of m&ms, and he sells them for $1. That's a 90 cent profit. And I watched him do it over and
over again. And I was like, Okay, I want to make music. And I know it can be profitable. At some point for myself, if I put my heart into it, put my all into it. And if not, I'm still winning, because I just love to make music. And my music can make you smile can make you cry can make you dance, it can make you have a good time. And I love what I do. And that's just what
I wanted to do with my life. In school, I was known for that, like in seventh and eighth grade, middle middle middle school, I was known as the kid who brought a beat machine to school and made beats at lunch at lunch cafeteria time, and would get on the podium on a microphone and start rapping like I was known in school for that they everyone knew me for trying to make people have a good time.
So you're socially mature at this age, because you're dealing with people older than you. You're making music for people, I'm sure you had a lot of confidence yourself, well walk us through, you're going to New York City, on a bus. And I want you to talk about standing outside of Polygram Records and Mercury Records. And handing cassette tapes to people as they're walking out who look like they're in the music business.
Now you hear about this happening all the time you hear about Scooter Braun and usher in the studio and where you're living now in Atlanta just going up and kind of waiting to go off to people. And you hear about people sending tapes to people or giving them tapes, and no one wants to hear it. They take it thank you they throw it away. Yeah. And a lot of guts going up and doing that at a young age.
Can you tell us about that and what the thought process was, and I wanted to also ask about how important cold calling skills are to our success?
Yeah, I think you know, it was a little bit later, probably around 15 years old, is when I started, like having the courage 1516 years old, having the courage to get on the New Jersey Transit bus, you know, and take that two and a half hour bus ride, go to Manhattan, go to 49th go from Port Authority, which was on like 42nd street and go to 49th and Eighth Street, which was where the Polygram building was
where Mercury Records was. And across the street I'll never forget was the days in hotel and I would go outside and I would wait around, you know, lunch hour or after hour after you know, work time was over. And I would go and I would have cassette tapes. Have you noticed a Rodney Jerkins demos. And I will wait to see anyone who looked like an executive they had a, a button up shirt and suit on or whatever. And I would ask them, you know where they a&r. And I would give my tape.
And I would watch certain people walk around a corner and throw the tape in the garbage can. I literally saw that with my own eyes. And it made me it wasn't you know, it wasn't anything wrong with that. Because by the way, you're not supposed to solicit music to people that's you know, that's how lawsuits are created. Right? So I didn't learn that too. Later on. I should just think, Whoa, these people. These people are really mean spirited people to throw my
music away. They don't even know what they're missing right now. That's how I would think. But eventually I'll tell you what's what's what's really crazy is one day I'm home and this is how when everything just was really
interesting. I sent a cassette tape to an a&r Director at Uptown records by the name of James Jones, and I have read his name with a backup of Mary J. Blige album, and I sit this cassette tape with this cheesy lead letter attached that said, you know, Hi, James, I'm a music producer that another night anyway, oh, his assistant at the time a guy by the name of Federico, he would take any tapes that they get me throw them in a box, because you can't they would not take solicited
material. And James says there was something about this particular envelope that made him open it up. And he opened up this envelope and he listened to my cassette tape. And next thing you know, my father and I are on our way to New York and 24 hours to meet with James Jones and uptown records because he loved
the music so much. In fact, he loved the music so much, that I ended up moving to Hackensack, New Jersey at 16 years old, to stay with James Jones and work on music for all the artists that he was working on.
So the cold calling work, but he also told you, hey, I want you to drop out of school. So what was the decision like, with your parents and your dad? Number one, you're living with a man you barely know in Hackensack, New Jersey. So he's letting you do that. And two, you're dropping out of school. And I'm curious what the conversation there was. And I will also want to ask you, would you ever let your own kids drop out of school to do something
like this? And how important is education to our future success?
Yes, so the conversation between myself and my father when and little like this? Dad, you know, this is an opportunity for me to you know, live out my dream, at least start my dream. I know what I want to do in my life, I want to be a producer, whether I finish school, or whether I go to college, this is something that I foresee myself doing for the rest of my life. And, and my dad was a little apprehensive at first, but he knew where my heart wasn't what I believed in.
And he allowed me to go after that. I would not do the same thing with my kids. I would not do I would not I would not I'm sorry, I would not I love my dad for doing it. But I would not do the same thing. I believe. I believe education is so important. I believe that I want all my kids to I want all my kids to do everything that I
didn't do, by the way. So I would love for them to to graduate high school and go to college, get get their degrees, you know, they're way smarter than me anyway, already, they already have a great head start because they're super smart, and intelligent kids. And I would tell that to anybody, you know, education is super important. You know? You know, I didn't I didn't I never really believed in a plan B for myself. It was always plan a music was what it
was going to be. But I just think that education is part like, you know, I look now, you know, I'm naturally I'm naturally smart. I naturally have a naturally just have a gift to have. Understanding. But I will admit that education, you need education as part of music. You know, so a lot of the a lot of a lot of things I learned throughout the years was because I did the research. After the fact that you need math, you need math, to be a great producer and engineer, you need
math. You need history, to learn about what came before you. And why does it matter now? Right. And so a lot of a lot of times I look back and I'm like, Man, if I would have just stayed that extra year. You know what I mean? It would have been super beneficial to me even more. So I believe in my success. I really believe that. But it is what it is you can't go back and I can't go back and correct that. But I do know through my kids, I can
correct it. So I will encourage my kids to go as far as they can go in education.
¶ The biggest deal is not always the best deal
We're going to come and talk about Teddy rally in a minute. But before we do now, you're 16 you're having success. People love your stuff. You actually had tried to get another band to listen to their music. I think Tommy tunes or something they didn't. Well, we'll get into the Teddy Riley story in a minute. But I want to talk about people are pursuing you now to sign and record deals. EMI, there's a guy named Brian Jackson, a&r guy who's spending a lot of time with you.
And you're 17 years old, about to turn 18 years old. And the guy wants to give you a million dollar deal. And then you got Tommy Mottola who at that point was one of the guys if not the God of the music business along with Clive Davis and a few other people who said no, man, I want you to sign with us. And I guess there's a little bit of a bidding war going on and Tommy Mottola is a is a big deal. He's
a huge deal. I don't know if he was married to where I carry at the time or if that came later. Who would she at that point was a superstar maybe the number one superstar in the world. But you got Tommy pursuing you and then you have EMI pursuing you. You signed with EMI and the reason you signed with them is because Brian Jackson took that Time to spend time with you that Tommy didn't. So can you tell us? First of all, I have a multi part question here. How crazy is
it that you're 17 years old? And you're going to sign a million dollar deal as a music producer, and you've got two people bidding on you, and and can you tell us also, why is it sometimes the best option not to go with the highest option and the most money?
Yeah, so yeah, when I was 17, so actually, it was a $1.8 million deal. all added up to $1.8 million. And the guy from EMI is the guy from EMI his name was Brian Jackson. And Brian, how I met Brian was to my attorney at the time, his name was Brad Rubens and Brad, you know, he was the one to say, he felt that it was time for us to seek a publishing deal. You know, and so he had a relationship with Brian Jackson, and he introduced me to Brian.
And Brian would catch the train to Atlantic City to three times a week, he would come in my basement of my my parents home, with wires hanging all over the place, and crates and all types of you know, keyboards on crates, and it was just crazy. It's crazy room. And he would sit there and watch me for hours, create for hours and hours. And talk to me about how good he thought I was and taught me about how I can become better and talk to me about so many different things music related.
And so I decided I'm going to do a deal with with EMI then, you know, I met his team Marty bandolier and Evan Lamberg, and Jody Gerson and everybody at EMI. And I ended up going to New York and meeting everyone. The day before closing the deal. I get a call from my attorney saying that Sony has now come to the plate. Like what are we talking about Sony, Tommy matola himself has interest in you, and wants to get you on the phone about you coming to Sony. Here's the part of the story that most
people don't even know. We had a fax machine in the house. And a fax comes through from Sony Music signed by Tommy Mottola offering $2.2 million $4,000 More than EMI. And I remember having a conversation with my attorney, everybody was excited. And I said, No, I want to sound with EMI. And you're like what you just got offered $400,000. Let's at least go back to EMI and tell him that we got a bigger offer from Sony. I said, No, no, no, no, no. I just want to sign the deal that was
offered to me by EMI. And I like Brian Jackson. I love the fact that he has a passion for what I do. And he spent time with me. And I want to get this deal done today. And I closed that deal that the next day. And I never forget getting a call from Tommy Mottola cursing me out about not doing this deal with him, literally cursing me out. I'm literally 70 years old, and he cursed me out about not doing this deal with him. But I went with my gut. And I had no
regrets. Because, you know, just because it's bigger money doesn't always mean it's the right deal. Right? You know, just because it's 400 that you notice the you gotta pay attention to the details. The small print, you know, it could be bigger money, but it could be longer yours could be bigger money, but not the best relationships at the time, you know, that I would have had a
champion. Like you know, Brian, who was with me and so many sessions when I when I wrote the boy's mind and when I worked on don't only be a player for Joe when I worked at IFA love you for marriage, the blood, so many sessions, this guy was right here on the side, just how he was with me in you know, in the basement. He was the guy that took me to meet Clive Davis, I wouldn't have met Clive Davis and worked with Whitney Houston. If it wasn't for Brian Jackson, personally taking me to meet
Clive Davis at 17 years old. So, you know, I went with my gut. And I've always been my gut. I've always believed that you know, it. It's not always the biggest deal. That's the best deal.
I know a lot of successful people who make money and they buy their parents that house when they get older, and they can afford it and it's it's a crowning achievement, a great moment in people's lives, I think the highlight of the child's life. And it's the highlight of the parent's life. Oh, I'm so proud of my daughter or my son being able to do this. And so generous. It's just one of those beautiful things that you read about. You did it. And you bought your parents a house
when you were 17 years old. What was that like? And what were you thinking at the time? And looking back? What are your thoughts about it now trying to put your your self back 17 years ago, looking back?
Oh, it was it was something I was going to do. Regardless, it was something that I, you know, when I was Foley, 567 years old, I can't remember. But I wrote a poem to my mother. And in that poem, I told her, I was gonna buy her house, and I'm gonna, I was 16 years old, 1516 years old, there was a new neighborhood. And my dad and mom would take, they would take us and ride us around that neighborhood. And on one day, I was like, they're gonna
live in this neighborhood. We're gonna live in this neighborhood. And I got my publishing deal. The first thing I did was bought my mother car. She I told her also, when I was five years old, I was gonna she she used to try this little puppet Chevrolet used to call it the puppet car, because it always puts just put on all down the street. And I told her one day she's gonna ride a Mercedes Benz. And so when I got my deal, I wasn't even thinking about myself, to
be honest. The first thing I did was take my mom to the dealership and get her the Mercedes that she liked. And then I took my I took them both to the neighborhood that we used to go to and I said, Alright, guys, now it's time for us to move here. And we moved into that house, same house, my mom and dad still have to this day. So yeah, that was just you know, it's just something that I wanted to be a blessing to them, because they were such a
blessing to me. And believe in their beliefs in me as a young kid. So I just wanted to do something special.
incredibly special. When I made money, my grandmother was raised in foster care. And when I our company had gone public, and I said to my grandmother, I said, I want to buy you whatever car you want. So go to the dealership, call me from the dealership, and I'll take care of the money from there. I'll send the wire just put me on the phone with the manager. So I got a call a few weeks later, Randy, I got my car. Super excited. Where are
you? I said, I'm at the Toyota dealership in an eight mile in Detroit. I said because I'm from Detroit, and we all grew up in Detroit and said, Oh, okay, Nana, what kind of town are you getting set a Camry. And I said Camry is an amazing car Nana. But I told you, you could buy whatever car you wanted. And if you want to go to the Mercedes dealership, you go to the Mercedes dealership, and you can call me from there. Brandy. This is the car I want. This is a
dream car. And that's what you bought Rodney and I ended up buying her five Camrys over the next 25 years. And she loved that car. And I'll tell you something. Funny that first car. I went I went to visit I came home for the summer. I remember. It was a Detroit muggy day 90 degrees. You could hardly breathe outside. It was so muggy. So we get in the car. It's bright red. We get in there, the car is 110 degrees inside. So turns out the car and I'm looking for the power
windows to go down. Because I want to get some air before the air conditioning kicked into the car. I sat down and where's the power window that looked at the door and there were no power windows. They were the the rolling windows where he rolled the manual. I said Nana, what's up with this? This car doesn't have power windows. I said should I know? And I asked why not? And she said because it was $700 more. And I said alright Nana, I said I appreciate the
cost conscious. And she grew up with a very hard life abandoned. Her parents abandoned her when she was six years old, no money on the streets of Detroit and said sorry, I'm leaving. And there she was she was wandering around but she she definitely didn't splurge on the car. But I did get her the car that she wanted and she was super happy about the car. It feels good to
be able to do things. Especially if you're a family when you have the financial means to make a big difference in people's lives.
It is it's a blessing, you know and to be a blessing in someone else's life. You know, it's always better to give and you know, so that's what we try to instill Still in our children, just you know, it's always better to give.
Let's go back, I still want to stay on the
¶ Strike while the iron is hot
childhood subject in history. For now, I want to talk about Teddy Riley. We're going to talk about Michael Jackson in a minute. But before we do Q, tell us about a call from the payphone a conversation you had with your dad, leaving your house at 2am for a six hour road trip to future recording in Virginia Beach, and waiting in an empty parking lot for five hours until a blue 500 SL Mercedes rolled in. And In Search of Excellence, how important is it to strike while the iron is hot?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I'm doing all these local demos in South Jersey. And I think I was building the name. And like, you know, 14 years old, as this is a young kid who was making music locally. So I was doing really well actually, I was charging like 35 hours a demo. Some people, you know, get the three song package for $100 even. But I was doing you know, I was having fun learning my craft and working with others and helping them with their
craft. And I worked with this group, they were called triple threat. And they were preparing because back then it was a big convention called the Impact convention. The big music convention comes to Atlantic City every year. And they were they were preparing for that convention. So they wanted to have their demo done and they
hired me to do the demo. And so their manager Kevin Crump played the demo for Teddy rally because Teddy rally was at this convention and Teddy rally told the manager that and by the way, I'm the biggest Teddy rally fan. There was no one better and more brilliant in my eyes. To Teddy rally at that time. No one. Not even Quincy at the time. I Quincy made me fall in love with wanting to be a producer But Teddy Raleigh was my he was my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I
studied him day and night. And so Kevin Crump met Teddy rally and he played the songs of triple threat for him and Teddy rallies response was I think the group is just okay. But whoever did the music, tell him he's really got it. He's really special. Kevin Crump runs to a payphone calls my house and tells me what Teddy Riley says. I then go and tell my dad. We have to go and meet Teddy Riley. He's in Atlantic City. We got to
go meet Teddy rally. My dad talks to Kevin Trump and Kevin Crum says Teddy rally is gone. He left. I go to the back of one of the album's and it says all the songs were recorded and mixed at suture recording studios in Virginia Beach. I knew that his production company name was future. So I told my dad I said Dad, we got to go to Virginia. We got to go to Virginia. Virginia Beach Look, it says Virginia Beach the
studio. He goes You don't know if Teddy Riley is at the studio and I said looked at Bobby Brown recorded there. Everybody's SWF. Everybody that Teddy rally works with works at this studio. It must be his studio. So my dad goes, son, that's a six hour drive. I said Dad, you've always said we got to strike when the iron is hot. It couldn't be any hotter right now. This guy just said that my music was great. We got to go meet him. My dad in the middle of the night said
pack up your bags. And we got in the car. The van the church van actually got into church van. And we went to Virginia Beach. And by the time we got there in the morning, early in the morning, there was no cars in the parking lot. We sat in a parking lot for over an hour. No cars. We left we went to Denny's came back no cars. We left we went checked in a hotel. And my dad is telling me the whole time he's not here. We drove all this way. He's probably in Los Angeles and Hollywood somewhere
in New York somewhere. And I said that just just Let's go one more time. After we checked in the hotel, we put it we went there took a little nap or whatever came back and afternoon late afternoon. Set in a parking lot and next thing you know like 15 cars rolled up at one time. And one of the cars that rolled up was this blue is this dark blue convertible sl 500 and I seen that The top was off and I seen his ball hit a guy in the
car and it was Teddy rally. And as he pulled into the studio, I got excited saying that same that same that same, it's I'm so excited. And I tell I go to get out the car and his security guard actually kind of rushes me. Like they didn't know who we are. And I told him, I was this kid producer. And then this other guy came over by the name of Earl Thomas. He was Teddy Riley chef. He was his cook at Studio. He was a Jamaican accent Hey, style was something I was while I was watching and why
Guam on? And I said, Hey, I'm going to produce Yeah, let me let me take you to meet Teddy. And he took me to meet Teddy. And Teddy took me in his studio. And he said, play me what you got. Couldn't believe it. He looked literally took me in his studio and said, play me what you got. And I played him this cassette tape with these nine tracks on it. And you listen to all of them. And as he was, and as he was listening, he was
loving the music. And he was calling other people from outside the hallways into the studio to listen. So now it was his artists and different people were filling up the room. And he was listening. And next thing you know, Teddy was like, listen, I think you're incredible. I think you got it. If you want to come here during summer after school, and hang out and help out and watch the doors open for you. He gave me open invitation. And I took it.
I took that invitation. I was back there every summer, watching a master at work, studying, studying, studying, studying, that's all I did was study, I would watch them and out. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say a word. I would just watch and study and study. And over and over again.
We have a summer intern program. We hire 35 kids every summer from all across the country. It's an amazing program is spent 60 to 90 minutes a day with the interns and it's become a thing now we have about 1000 applications. And it's one of the most enjoyable and rewarding things for me to do. Because you have the ability to change people's lives. You give them life lessons, we talk about tangible lessons, and we focus a lot on about the intangibles, which often are more important
than the tangibles. But I think internships are critical. And it can be very helpful in instrumental in people's success. Can you explain how important interning for Teddy was? And what's your view on internships in general, and how important are mentors to our success in our future?
Oh, super important, super important to first of all, intern for you to be a great intern, you have to have a servant's heart. And I don't believe you can become a king without being a servant first. And so what it says is that I'm willing to do everything it takes to please someone else to make sure that their things are running smoothly, that everything that's happening for them is running smooth. And I will put myself out there to make that happen.
If they need me, if if they need me to wash their car, I'll wash their car, if they need to go pick up the food or go pick up the food. If I'm not even a cook, and they need me to make them food, I'll make the food. If they need me to go pick up someone, it's just you're pretty much saying I will do it all I'll do whatever it takes, right, because I want to prove that I'm ready to go to the next level. And how I prove that is by serving others serve being a
servant to others. And in that moment, while I'm serving, I'm getting the opportunity opportunity to learn, right, because I'm watching a master at their craft. I'm watching others that are masters at their craft, and I'm enjoying the process as I'm able to learn and anything you need me to do while I'm here, I will do it. It's a very, you have to be very humble for something like that. Right? And it was so rewarding to me. It
taught me so much. But then it also taught me in the future when I became successful, how much interns meant for me. Right and I've I've literally, I've had, I've had interns become my head mixers. Mixed the biggest songs in my career that were in they were interns in a studio picking up food orders for us. And I'm like, What do you want to do? What do you want to do with your life? I want to be a mixing engineer. Cool, I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you that
shot. Because I see how willing and able you are to respond to the needs that I have. So I know that something deep down I know you can actually go to the next level when I want it. How'd you get there? So, internship is so, so important. And it's so so important not only to be an intern, but to have the right mentor, right. And having a person who's willing to pour life lessons into you during those times of internship, it's really important.
I think, also, when you have a large group of interns, you know, people show up, you have 35 people in the room. And what I tell everyone every summer is, I'm going to judge your performance this summer. And we'll have a review at the end of the summer. And what they're really striving for is my mentorship. Because I'm still in touch with some of my interns from 15 years ago, some of them are running huge companies. Now, once a cent, a millionaire, and nothing makes me happier than to see their
success. But what I tell everybody is, you know, the performance, it's not a competitive, we're not competing against ourselves, I want to tell you, at the end of the summer, where you were relative to the rest of the interns, just so you know where you are, but it's not you perform yourself, I want to judge you based on what you do, and your skill set and your work ethic and all the other things that we talked
about. And it's a bell curve, we have the bottom third, who just want to have my investment firm on the resume, we have, and they're really checking in and out, they do what they're told, and they don't have the, they just don't have it. And if they have it, they're not showing it, then you got the middle third, and they do a fine job, you know, I graded a 3.3 to a 3.6 or seven, but then we have a third, who's the top third. And that top third earns my lifetime
respect and loyalty. Frankly, they are superstars, a third of them go into investment banking, at Goldman Sachs, there, they they kill it. And what the interns don't understand is that the internship is a tryout. And if you want to take advantage of it and maximize it, you should really maximize your summer we have interns sometimes who are staying till 12 one in the morning, not because I tell them to because that's just their
DNA. And I'll pick up the phone I've called the CEO of Goldman Sachs before I broken a tie when they're in a competitive situation. And it's, it's really something that a lot of interns don't understand that you really shouldn't just phone it in. You should just work your best what what's your advice to people coming in just saying I want to put my name on a resume this
summer? Should they kill it no matter what, even though they want to have fun hang out in New York City this summer with all their buds?
Yeah, I mean, definitely. I mean, they definitely should give their all I mean, you know, you can't listen. One thing you sometimes you can't make get back as you can't get. You can't get yesterday back. Right? You can't get yesterday once this one yesterday is gone. It's gone. So you got to live in the moment, you got to make sure that every moment counts. Every moment has to ask it has to count. And I love I love that. You know it's interesting, right? Because I never forget being in New York,
right? I was at the Hit Factory in New York. And my mix engineer guy by the name of Dexter Simmons, he was an intern at one of the first studios I worked at in New York. And I saw his passion in his eyes. And I said, What do you want to be? What do you want to do? He said, I want to mix. And when I was working at the studio, I would I would literally leave the studio every night around eight o'clock at night. And I said to him, I said, Hey, man, I got the song. If you want to try and mix it Be
my guest. And his eyes lit a really, really. And do you know, he came to my hotel at like two o'clock in the morning with the cassette of the mix. That night that I told him that. And from there. I never looked back. I started letting him mix everything and work with me on everything. He mixed the boys mind by Brandon Monica. He mixed angel in my mind. He makes Toni Braxton he wasn't man enough. So many. Jennifer Lopez if you have my love so many classic records
he's mixed for me. But one thing that I just want to I want to share was we had a session in New York one day. And we were working at the Hit Factory and it was this big room. I looked through the glass booth. And literally the booths was so big. This is where Mariah Carey actually, that video that she had with boys to men, it was that studio. And it's this big booth. And I never forget we were in the booth and it was a
guy. He was an intern. So it was me and my engineer, former intern, and this guy his name was buzz or something like that or and he was sort of left but or something. And he was sort of left of me. And the engineer my engineer said I need I need the mic to go whatever He just says something. All I know is he ran so fast, he didn't walk, he ran out the door to the booth, adjusted the microphone. And in less than 15 seconds was back sitting right back where he was.
And my engineer looked at me, he said, Whoa, I've never seen somebody move that fast. Right? And I and I say, well, people with passion, move that fast. I said, that's how you were about 10 years later on with, with Jimmy IV. And I'm in his office about to go into a Beats by Dre headphones meeting. And you know, who was the head marketing for Beats by Dre? That same guy that ran through that booth. I bumped into him 10 years. I say, I know you from sending you somewhere. He goes there. I was
the intern in the studio. And I said you would have got it ran really fast. He that was me. And now what are you doing? I'm running marketing for Jimmy for Beats by Dre. If you have it, you have it. And if you have the passion, you'll make it and you have to show the people that you're willing to go no matter what it whatever you have, whatever it is you go all in all in all out in that moment, because you can't get that moment back. It's gone once it
once it leaves us gone. So you have to prove yourself in the moment that I want. I'm here because I want to make it I'm not here just to have fun. Yeah, I can have fun and I'm not here just to have fun. I want to prove that I can be the best that I can. That's That's it