What's up, And welcome back to another episode of No Sellings Podcast with your hosts now fuck that with your loaw glasses Malone, So Atlanta, I'm in Atlanta doing no Ceilings. Shout out to Charlotte Man, Shout out to Black Effect, Shout out to iHeart. It's weird because I'm with EP. If you listen to my podcast, y'all know who EP is.
We've talked about Irving Pope a lot of times. Really fantastic producer, produced the whole cancel these nuts from wats like Me you know, produced on the first you Know, played and produced on the first four four Kanye Records. UH produced on Doctor's Advocate. Executive produced Lax with Game, produced stuff for the latest Scarface stuff, UH Tech nine single, really Dope dude, just really all around good dude.
I got EP out here. EP talked to the people, say, man, what's good y'all? It's good at Yeah. Yeah. So this kind of podcast, like right is my podcast.
I don't really interview like it's I like to think of my my people.
That's really smart.
The people who enjoy those singlings are like really really smart, like because I'll be taking them through some shit this, you know how I think he will have some crazy conversations. Yeah, and it's just a normal thing, Like it's just what we do, you know what I mean, it ain't really nothing.
So it's odd because I got my man, what's my man? Aj? So I met AJ before?
So AJ is following me around with a camera and me and EP And it's so weird because and I don't know if it's like this is probably a problem, like and for me as an entertainer, is I just don't feel like my life is that interesting.
Don't get me wrong, y'all.
Know, walk in, talk to drag or walk in talk to him, talk to Atoven. But is that really that just little stuff like that. No, yeah, just the names you just named.
Yeah, But I I.
Think I'm disconnected from like like.
How people see things.
Yeah, because you've already acquired the relationships and most people dream of even seeing these type of people.
But it's nothing to you because you're not doing it.
For that reason, I can see, like if I was swimming with sharks, that would be like a dopte behind the scenes. AJ take his ass in that water and them sharks swimming around Nigga, that that's something to be behind the scenes. But imagine, imagine a little a little aspiring rapper from somewhere that's a rural area who's never even seen what looked like that's true, but I guess I really don't.
I don't know. I guess I just don't think the general public.
Like when I, like I was telling you, when I grew up listening to hip hop, I never in my.
Life care what Scarface did.
Like I really thought Scarface did the same shit as me, Like he was on the block selling rocks, then he went to the studio made his songs. It just don't seem like that would be that interesting to me. But it's grown to that because of the social media presence. Now everything like you, like you always say, everything is visual. It doesn't only pertain to the to the to the product, but the lifestyle too. I'm starting to think most people
just never sold rocks. So that's like fascinating. Yeah, you know, it's like going to work. Yeah, you know what, we need to set up something. I got an idea, aj cub, like we need to actually have you follow somebody that work at Walmart and do it behind the scenes and that's just their job, like they wake like a regular nigga, like take the mail out of his box, get a shower, get the cereal, go to his job at Walmart and talk to people. I think that's more interesting the type of motherfuckers.
That walk in Walmart. Yeah, to you, that would be like a nigga work at Walmart.
Imagine the type of people customers, or like somebody that work at rallies or what they call it checkers in the South, rallies and checkers.
That'd be a crazy job.
You know what I'm saying that that'll be some crazy shit, Taylor, Like you just follow the day in the life of a nigga at rallies or Checkers and he just back there flipping burgers. You watching any flip Burgers? I bet you people will watch it. Absolutely. I just think we had a really weird juncture in society, like a really weird where we just so disconnected out our own personal lives.
Like all I ever thought about.
When I was when I decided to be a rapper, was to like make the soundtrack to your life or give you an escape to another life that you didn't know existed. I never looked at it, cause like I never looked at it like, uh oh yeah, this is some kind of dream life. Like this shit has worked. We out and this motherfucker waking up the ship. We got the voice here. We're gonna tell you who she is. She said, she don't want to be known, but her voice is soul Tree. Come on, say something to the
voice soul Tree. This is not a lant so I so no Seilans goes to everybody. You just in Atlanta. We're just in Atlanta.
Low world.
Yeah, there you go.
No ceilings like I like I think I was. I've been thinking about like a name for my audience. The people that's with me, like to be Hive or the Kins and Barbed Black, like I don't even know how you want to be that, Like that's just weird, like the kins in Barbie, Like it's some niggas that's infatuated with kids.
That's just weird. That that goes to my point earlier.
What's your point.
That people are infatuated of watching somebody else's life and trying to get anything from them to.
Apply to their life. Do you think it really is about applying to their life though?
That's why that's why I watch certain people that I that I admire that grind.
I watched to see who they're talking to or what they're doing, or are.
They doing something different that I can apply to my grind that to take me to the next level.
So I hope that's why people was doing that. That's why I do it. I don't think, I really I don't know. I don't really ever watch anybody's.
Like, but you know what that's true because I do get the benefit. Like right now on our way over here, I want to ask battle Cat, like what happened to that? When I wake up song with Snooping Goldie that should have been on the last meal and I just called Cat and like I'll ask, like, hey, why that didn't make the album? Listen to him tell the story, and it's it's not to to to tell a story for him to somebody else.
It's just to know.
I don't know the value of it. I've been talking to shout out to the homies from the La Posse.
They're all all of good muff, all the good brothers, but.
Like listening to their stories, like I don't know what it means.
Just like when I talk.
To Frigi Dre recipes from south Side and he told me the whole thing that happened with poking them. I didn't know the value of it, but I just listen to people who've had other experiences, so it seemed like better to me, Like if I would like if I would talk to the camera and just talk about experiences, Like I think I'm more of an artist that's like story timed with glasses more than like just follow me around and like me going to the interview and you
listen to me talk. But I guess people are interested. Have you ever seen behind the Music?
No? Those those series that.
I think they are MTV or something, Okay, Yeah, Essentially what they're doing is telling stories about whatever particular project or.
Their journey they might have one. They might have one on the Earth, Wind and Fire or one on.
Somebody my council. These nets make our own exactly. See, I just like produce content, you know what I mean? I guess that's but that's how you get it because you get behind the scene footage to add in the b roll and stuff that makes what you're saying it, documents it, and it makes it authentic.
I think you and I have had conversations on the phone before where I wish it would have been on the podcast.
It was like, damn, this was good classes.
Yeah, fucking voices, Tayler, this is the funny shit, right. So first off, no siilings, gl you know what I mean? I got Mohammed ep we in Atlanta. Fellowshipping. Some people call it promoting. We call it fellowship because we meet other brothers and we politic and we build relationships and we just happened to have dialect over cameras. But reality is, when I came out here, I came to get closer
to Atlanta to get the feel. You know, we stayed somewhere in the community, you know, I mean killer Mike dropped and shout out to Mike. Los has been great for me, Carlos Miller, Like, you know what I mean, people, I really genuinely like the guys. I feel like we are kind of like the same type of brothers. I'm sure there's some some significant differences, but we are kind of the same. And I got the voice with me.
She that's her name, the voice. Remember this, When you ever hear her on those ceilings, it'll be the voice and one day she may announce herself.
Can I ask a question?
This is for you?
Yeah, so everybody says, if you're if you're one of the OG's, you've been around for a while, why won't you feature with a new artist right now in Atlanta? Like if I could take you door to door right now, why would you? Is it a yay or name with who?
Like?
Like? How like anybody that's popping in Atlanta?
I love Rich homey Kwan. That's who I really want to mine. Like, I'm okay, so I'm talking young rich Homi Kwan is pretty.
He's probably the last generation.
Of guys because remember twenty twenty one.
Ain't no rappers eighteen nineteen twenty from Atlanta right now that we know about PZ not from I thought PZ is from Detroit.
Uh huh from Atlanta.
He's out here now.
Well originally PZ is Do you know you know PZ is on and BP. I think he's from Detroit. Tyler, you can turn it on your mic too. On No sailings the engineer talk sometimes. So if you need to, nobody gonna know, nobody gonna come find you later. But jess O, kay I asked, you said, you know what, it's not age for me right, It's like I'm Hella, I genuinely believe when people listen to Glasses Malone they
want the West. Now, I don't mean that I can't feature with artists from the Midwest, the Troitch, Chicago, Cleveland, artists from the South, Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans, Florida, or the East right as any of these coast states. It's not that I don't genuinely think I can't rap with the younger. Oh, I think everybody can't rap over the shit we do.
So what about new production because you just got with a Yeah.
They can't rap over that because they when I came to fuck with Aay. I've been building that relationship with Zay for about a year or a year and a half. Like I've been talking to say, I mean, I knew Jay was forever, but I just never looked at it
like I didn't know how to use him. So for years I would have never asked because I wouldn't have wanted to rap over trap music because I understood since probably two thousand, since twenty ten, people don't want to hear Glasses Malone be nothing else but the la crip that watched Crip that he is, you know what I mean?
So do you believe we can break a song from the West in Atlanta. Yeah yeah, Webb Atlanta.
Yeah yeah, all of it.
Yeah, because Okay, like one of the one of the biggest songs in Atlanta in Los Angeles is Spaceships on Bankhead, Fabo. I'm starting to see spaceship some bang here kid. That's a huge song at home, right, And I hear I thought about it right today. I finally thought about it, and somebody told me who is that? Who told me Fable produced that? Somebody told me it the other day. It was like Fable produced Spaceships on Bankhead. So I like, I've been following Fabo for years, So I DM Fable a,
I need me and you. I want to do a song with you. Spaceships on bank Head. Now, he's not this generation, but like I've reached out to rich Homi Kwan. I think rich Homei Kwan is kind of the last generation of successful Atlanta artists that pretty much went national Little Baby rich Homeie well Little maybe a generation before like Thug. He was out that Thug generation. So it's all twenty ten and twenty twenty. So I reached out to him. That's the person in Atlanta, I mean outside
of that. You know you're talking about new like rich Homey Kuan. I think he would do well. Like I think he's a He's probably one of the most underrated geniuses from my thay. So that's the kind of person I would need. So even when I came finally the fuck was Atoven. He had something special for me. We're going to see Tump today, right, I seen Toope already, but we're going to see Tump. Tump got something special for me.
You know. They're like making stuff.
Yeah, like Little John right, Little John gave me fort these biggest records. Wow, right right in the middle of the Hype movie, right in the middle of the this movie. The great producers JD Like the great producers, don't They're not stuck in the regional sound. They can produce up, down, mid anything.
So no, let me let me I want to touch on that. Sure, So I had producers try to produce. Okay, producers from Cali try to produce for artists out here in Atlanta. As soon as they heard it, they was like, no, it sounds like like a West Coast beat or something. They couldn't find the essence of the roots. Do you find that with well? Working with producers from Atlanta, if you're trying to get a West Coast sound, that's.
A great point, right. So a programmer or a programmer and a producer is different. So like you got you might have people who program ideas. But if you go to battle Cap, battle Cap can make something that fits here, the same way Doctor Dre could make something that fits here.
The sound way if you listen to DJ Quick class if.
That would have been an Atlanta Persons record, that would have been the number one record in the country. Like if you put twenty one savage freestyling, like making us song overclassed by DJ Quick, it's the number one song in the country, you know what I mean. So I think it's a level of skill that you know in experience as well that needs to be applied for producers
to do it. Rick Rock right for jay Z gave jay Z he produced rock Life familiar Rick Rock from Northern California, Drake J Mary J. Blige you know from New York R and B Siger Her greatest record, right, which is that song would all have made up words hileration and dancer rees.
What about your biggest hit? What do you think it was? It a crossover with an artist out side of Cali or do you think it was Cali?
So it depends on who you ask, like, right, my.
Greatest So okay, so this is tricky, right, So as far as hit certified probably would be considered my highest charting song, and DJ Tump produced that with a con But I also understood why it worked.
At that time.
Tunt was like the number one guy in the game, right giving uh Tun't gives t I what you know about that? He gives Kanye West, can't tell me nothing, gez like he got all the shit. So I just happen to have one of.
Those Timing is everything too.
Timing is in for era, like where we're.
At right now? So where are we at right now? Who's taking over?
Well that's the point, right, We're in a fucking weird space.
Yeah, I don't think it's Atlanta.
No, no, no, but it's not really any specific place, right, And so there's a couple of reasons, right well, like producer waves create the moment, right, So, which is why Atlanta's still probably holding up towards They may don't have the newest artists, but they have the producers. The role of producers.
Producer, you know what I think, and let me know what y'all think. Atlanta producers like with ato A Mafia and all them, they told me they actually started branding themselves as artists. As artists do what other what other producers do you know really had that famous lifestyle with social media on the West Coast.
But I don't even know if if if if.
That's why, you know, I understand why the marketing a pill of it could be dope or the branding a pill of it could be dope.
Right, But.
Also like Future is still one of the biggest artists in the game currently Thug right before he goes to prison, you know, fighting his charges. Rather, he's one of the biggest artists in the country Gunna minus his you know, his horrible, horrible decisions to be to to to volunteer information to the police. Is one of the hardest, you know,
one of the greatest artists in game. Little baby that the music the rappers are being produced by the same guys, like Jay is still producing stuff for people that's in this movement versus battle Cat is not producing on YG's album, right, Doctor Dre is not producing on Kendrick's album.
So there's no more real producers, you know, and in our time when you had someone you were working with that was your producer. So now we kind of bounce around, Is that what you're saying?
Not in Atlanta? No, they came with Gucci, took came with Tip.
As far as we lost our loyalty.
No, okay, So something's okay. No no, no, no, no, so no, this is what I think for you, even go he has a producer, it's important to get his opinion. But somewhere after the two thousands, the greatest producers from the West stopped taking on new clients. Doctor Dre is the only person who took on a new client as far as established producers right in the game in two
thousand and five. He didn't produce another whole album on a brand new artist after that, right, which is fair because god damn, this nigga been working forty years, Like Surgery came out and with like eighty three or early eighties, eight eighty three, eighty four, Surgery, R and B well, and then two thousand and five he does the games alum, right, So it's that the third twenty years of some twenty plus years of him producing artists Battle Catch last brand
new artist that he produced consistently, not to take credit from his brother, but outside of that, he didn't really produce after the East Siders. DJ Quick didn't really produce after Sugar Free like that. So there was this great span from probably two thousand.
And Quick tried with Massa Burg but I.
Mean mored in the nineties, but like when Myra, because my era came and that became a problem. Like Glasses, Malone, Nipsey, Hustle, j Rod, Kendrick Lamar, Battle Cat, all of those guys we came out around them, excuse me, Glasses Malone, bish and Lemont, Mike stro Nipsey, Hustle, Jay Rod, Problem, Kendrick Lamar. None of us received that production from those guys. We never they never produced our whole albums, and that kind of became when we started to struggle. It didn't work
until it skipped. And then Mustard right who kind of started getting his feel from you know, everything that was going on with Hayphi and Thiz and they made their own movement.
And then you get yg.
And Mustard and ty Dolla Sign who also is an underrated producer. So I think before the last ten years, I already realized that. And I've been trying to develop an artist because I don't feel like you're a super producer unless you break an artist and introduce something new into the game.
And well, you know the history, bro.
I've been trying to do complete projects or producer and artists for the past ten years, but they just haven't worked out or come out or even pursued at the highest It's a tough it's a tough out.
Yeah.
So but that's why I said, I do give you credit and different producers from around the way credit that's trying. It's not a lot, but I'm saying right now, like right getting him with Doctor Dre, like he's different because he kind of is really good. But I'm sure there's a benefit to if Doctor Dre, Hey, man, let me help you with this. I mean, he been in the game long, but I'm sure you're not gonna let me Nigga Drake that he helping me, Like, I don't think
that's his response. Battle Cap when I came to him with fed up and I'm like, man, I got an idea for battle Cap to do something here, and he was like, all right, let's do it. So it's like getting him together, watching him work on mixing an idea
or producing an idea, finishing the mixing. Is it's imperative that we get the information that these dudes who've been doing it at the highest levels and having success at the highest levels pass on to everybody, even working with somebody like EP, who they all know because they know he could play and he could produce. You know, it's it's crazy that you know. There's not it's not more
tracks Battlecademy pick that you know. And the reality is sometimes it is up to like an executive mind to push people into the room with each other, so like, because.
That's where we're always thinking of collaborations.
Well, black music is all about the power of us too. Like hip hop is about representing us. Black music is about the power of us. All black groups re memory people be sleeping Teddy Pintigrads came from a group, Michael Jackson came from a group. A lot of times that's not built on it's not built out of them knowing
the potential. It has to be reality and for them to actually get in a room with douce life, So you gotta you gotta create something successful before they'll be like because I reach out to everybody, so I'm you know, I'm everybody, but getting them in a room and actually doing something it Unfortunately, it takes a lot of the time you creating something successful as we're doing now before they will actually put them behind the thought yeah and get in a room to actually produce something.
How would you feel at this point the album is doing right now, considering all considering the media run stuff we've.
Done, I think it's doing great. It's a little bit better than I thought it was gonna be. I thought it was gonna be harder. I mean, really, it's harder for me because I don't.
Really trust people taste. People just got bad taste.
I had this whole conversation yesterday right, and I posted on Facebook and Instagram where I said, look, black music is judged differently. We don't judge black music by complete success, like I can see if it's an album that nobody likes. But I was having this conversation in nineteen eighty seven, what's the better album? Right and make it last for everybody? Keith Sweat or Bad by Michael Jackson. I expect nobody black to say Bad by Michael Jackson.
Yeah, I can see that.
And it was entirely too many people saying bad by Michael Jackson.
It's two different genres, though.
I don't give a fuck what genre.
Is unless you believe that Keith Sweat is just better that make it last for ever. It's just better. It's just better. That's fine, brand new, it's just better.
I do agree, and Michael.
That's not to say Keith Sweat obviously is anywhere in the same arena as Michael Jackson, as Michael Jackson as an artist, because Michael Jackson is not really bad as much as he streller off the wall in Jackson five in all kind of success. But again, when you when you ask black people this and they don't have enough blackness to know the difference, they can't go listen to make it last for ever and think to themselves like this is different, and they're like, well, this is Michael Jackson.
Like people was talking about, you know, Dirty Diana. I'm like, bro, don't nobody fucking play Dirty Diana. That's not to say Dirty Diana is not a fantastic song, like it's a it's a great.
Which one of the projects can you live without?
And that's crazy bad as corny Yeah, the single is corny.
Do you ever go to Bad to listen to it?
No, doude, doude, dude, dude, yo, bud, it's mine. I remember they was asking Prince about this, Princeville, like, what the fuck I was supposed to do? Be a duet with both there? But and and that becomes my concern right where It's like, so back to my record. It's like I didn't know what to think because I knew when we finished it and put it together, when Counsel These Nuts was finished, I knew it was special. I knew I plugged it all the way in. I know
EP pretty much gave everything that we needed. I knew I plugged every SoC at the end to make the whole house light up. Every song was plugged in. So it's a well lit project. But do I do I trust people who think Bad is a better album than Make It Last Forever to think that it's good.
Fuck. No, we're in a different er era too, though.
We don't have that much variety now, so we don't we're waiting on something great?
Are we waiting though? Or or is the media curving? What do you cause?
I think it's a lack of good content. That's how I agree. So that's what I mean waiting. So when something comes out that's refreshing, it's like man refreshing though, I think so I think, say, for instance, you remember Tiki.
Punch, right the old she's not from she don't know about? Okay, of course.
It's a it's a drink that was Yes, it's a soda that we love. It's like a version version of Hawaiian Punch Hawaii, that novelty item, you know what I mean. Like, so it doesn't mean we won't buy it. We just can't find it because they stopped making it. So if the supply, if the demand is supplied, then we'll appreciate it.
So what do you think You think that we're coming back with good music because I feel like person is sounding better.
You see us going back to veteran artists right now. That is weird, you know what I mean, because that's where the quality is.
But is that the West?
No scarface is being talked about right now because of that?
I mean, listen, when you see the real it's just unbeatable.
Yeah, and when you see something great, you know, and that's the reality show. I did have questions that like when you see, like if you saw something, would you know is great? But watching people talk about scarface like they didn't know this, Nigga was like like I keep having this conversation like if you just notice this now, like what I guess you know, I can't say nothing, like whatever you finally catch on, It's fine with me, right, you know what I'm saying.
So that goes back to the followers concepts.
And but look with the media in his prime, Look how many options we had to enjoy music. It's a plethora of different We had EPMD, we had everybody. Yeah, now we just every the radio is one long song.
But that's why some songs get broken eight years later. It just depends on how we got broken, the time, the time, what area.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think the artists are bad now, I think the producers.
Are bad now.
I agree, And I.
Think great producers produce artists.
So to ask artists to be great without being produced is as asking an actor to be great without being directed. And the artists got to be trusting to go somewhere that they that's not even in their data bank. Well, trusting a producer to give them something that's left of what they're accustomed to. Well, the best part was before today, right, you didn't have a choice because you for sure wasn't gonna have your own settu because you ain't not to
work nothing, So you needed the producer. And as it became more accessible to everybody, you know, hence the dilemma of where it's like now, artists felt like they know something because they felt like I threw my hat in because I downloaded this beat off YouTube and.
I recorded it myself.
So a lot of the artists are turning into producers because they don't have enough money to true you know, because engineering is a part of production too. Like me know that, but we got the kind of relationship where we know what time it is like and like I said, I've said this a million times, but it's really important. Like I'm grateful that he trusts me and be like, do your thing because there's certain things like I fucked up.
We can go back. He's like, yeah, we gotta go back, but there's certain things he kept me.
Like I like that that works.
So I feel like you got to go back to quality as well, because even when there was producers producing artists, there were still mixing and mastering engineers that were a part of the project that made sure that it got it was finessed to the point where okay, quality is now here a right. And there was teams, there was teams of writers, there was teams of It still happens
today with those with budgets. I think people need to realize that that that element is so important in making a full project, because that's what you did with yours. You didn't just have you had EP. He did produce the whole album, but you had other producers or mixing that.
Is part of the production. That's all part of the production. But again it's a team effort. Like it's not a team effort on all for us, but it's a team effort making the record. Jason Joshua was somebody we didn't talk about, but Jason josh was like, a that's like having Kevin Durant of mixing.
Yeah, it's a nigga tough and.
He mixed probably four or five cuts and gave us a lot of direction and e a Ski somebody who's been around the business for a while and didn't have less lets, didn't have to even figure it out himself, like less it's stuck shout out to lesser mentos and he mixed majority of the album, probably like six or seven songs. But in a nice hour, yeah, in the knife hour. That's another thing at the at the bottom of the knife and but he had a good guideline, he knew what to compare it to and you can
see people shine. But in some of those songs, Man, like something somebody said to me the other day too, because it's like it's one guy making a song. Now he's in a room, he downloaded the beat off YouTube. He's in a room, he record itself. And that's the whole thing, right, James Brown, it's thirteen niggas on the song. Man, it's thirteen niggas. Is everybody playing instruments. It's the engineer, it's the nigga helping produce the idea. It's his homeboy.
That's his nigga that he listened to. It's James. It's thirteen people. Go look at them death Row Records. It's about twenty people in the crack.
It was a real team working.
So that is another thing too.
A lot of the artists today are left too because it ain't just they want to know. Again, you're talking about a poor sport, so you ain't gotta you can't pay everybody, but I mean, listen. I don't like using the term quality right because I think it is a real term. But I don't think most people know what we talking about when we start talking about frequencies, and feels like it's different, like it's much more to it.
But you do need some help, So like if a rapper listens to no ceilings, you do need some help. And you may have to find other poor people like you to help you. I mean other poor people who may play the piano, other poor people who may play build your team production. Just find other poor people that want to come up like you. Like me and ep happened to be near in the same place in the business where we've had some success. We know what it's like.
So then you combine power. La Gihns have had some stuff and Jason is yo, he's epe in one, actually epte in fucking one. I got one plaque, he pee got a few and some grammy shit. So you just gotta work with the You gotta keep trying. That's another thing. You can't stop, bro. You have to keep trying, Like this shit is tiresome. This shit is tiresome, like being out here, especially now, Like when I was twenty four, this shit was a walking apart. Yeah, being forty four,
Like people talking about ageism and hip hopping. It ain't about am I not as good or somebody seventeen? You play my shit for somebody sixteen seventeen in that nigga hard. But the problem with getting forty four also is your ass be tired. Yeah, I don't be fucking fucking with these crazy ass niggas all the time. I got better things that I'd rather be fishing.
I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna go because I'm gonna go because really, the last fucking twelve years, like I've been preparing.
So you expected it already or you have a high level of expectations knowing that you have to move. This is this is it, because everybody else is moving, they're hitting all these platforms. If you're going to compete in any type of level, on any type of level, this is what it takes. This is what it takes.
So you can get lucky, Like you know, you don't have to work hard to make money, You don't have to put in work to make money.
You can actually hit lot.
Of true, your chances, Rick, You're like your chances, But this is the this is the way. So what I realized, right is like like when you first come in to hip hop, it's a dark room.
You can't see nothing.
You just throwing shit at the wall hoping it stick. You have no idea, and usually you meet other people you know who know something.
Right.
Yeah, like if you Snoop Dogg, you come in the room, you don't know shit, You just making songs in nineteen eighty nine and eighty eight, you on those shit, you just rapping, and then.
Doctor Dre scoops you up. Right, Warren hooks you.
Up with doctor Dre, and then you now Dre who knows the room. It's like, Okay, this is what we're gonna do. DC, who knows the space, Like, this is what we're gonna do. So it goes from this empty dark room where you just wandering around, to this when you know what's going on, to this illuminated walkway.
You never know what's gonna come, so you.
Only can see the right path. You could no longer see the wrong way. Only one path is lit.
No, the path is okay.
So like that's what it is for me, It's like the only thing that stops is you tired of walking.
But you know this is the right way. This is the only way to go.
So like even now what I'm doing right, We started off on the East coast, went to the Bay. Now we're in Atlanta, We're in England and France next month, Japan in February, Texas in March. This is the right way to walk. You don't even know where the end is at. You just know if you keep walking this way because because along the way, more opportunities are. Yeah, you know, this is where all the opportunity is is. But you don't know what the end looks like. Because
the end may not be a million dollars. The end may not be a planning record, the end may not be nothing. You just keep walking and everything else just starts to happen until you along the way.
It might be the beginning of something as well.
Yeah, but none of none of this happens, and this part is not spoken on enough. None of this this happens unless you are willing to invest in yourself. Most people are just sitting on the side, waiting on somebody.
Behind some social media, on somebody. Because I'm talented.
Because I'm dope.
Nowadays everybody's dope, because the threshold for dope has been lowered so so much that now everybody's dope. Now, are you even bold enough to go off the beaded path and be yourself and create something and bring some authenticity into the to the game, to the fall, to even to even stand out, to give yourself have a chance. Most people just follow what's already out and they die with that sound because they didn't create nothing of their own.
Do you feel like glasses? This is a this is a question specifically for you. Do you feel like this project is the best not that you've done, but the best presentation of today for you? That's the message.
But so it's the most glasses record I've ever made house. So it's really the polarizing version of who I am create like as a human being creatively, And most of my music doesn't always pretty much none of my music until probably twenty nineteen, maybe a couple songs before, represented that. But what makes me a special human is for some reason I just carry this weird polarity, this weird kind of space of conversation to where it's like my thoughts literally trigger people.
So this is your most authentic version of you in this time, because it might not have been how you felt ten years ago.
No, this was me the whole time.
So it's always been but I never watered it down. But I wouldn't know how to deliver it through music either.
So you had to have evolved into this and then delivered the project.
Informed into this, because I don't even know if it's an evolution to stay alive as much as as you take in knowledge of how to accomplish things and records how to Like my innate thing was able to I could put together a project before, Like I was already decent that kind of telling a story. I just didn't know how to do it with the tools sonically, but I could tell a story from beginning to end, you know,
So it was different. But this, to me is the most glasses project because it really carries every bit.
Of the polarity that I am as well.
So I'll leave it to other people, more people than not saying this my best project.
And you think that it has everything to do with the fact that you had one producer.
Yeah, I mean I think that's.
Yes, right, I don't know that's that that's like a that's like using the backboard with basketball. Your chances increase significantly to make the shot if you have one person producing, one person overseeing the sound.
Because producing is not.
Like moving like this. The EP actually made all of these beats. EP most likely is gonna be producing most of my stuff moving forward, even if he doesn't make every beat. Now that's not to say he's gonna make every beat, right, he's gonna he's gonna to doctor dre a lot of shit. Somebody might give him idea he gotta play this, missing, this, this, this, this, at this, at this right. So he'll probably be my producer moving forward. But that don't mean he's stuck making every beat, you
know what I mean. It's just like and when I'm saying that, that don't mean he's not gonna have to work on it. I'm just saying he might not have to sit there like this different he had to go drums to motherfucking hiats, you know, lowest frequency to top frequency. He might get to for here. Man just work on his atoven, play on his age and what's missing, and
he'll playing this EP produced with Atven. To me, that's the most important thing to getting EP with a lot more people, so people could really see how good he is, you know what I mean? That's important, like getting him with Tom and I want him to.
Work with it. I want people to work with EP like people work with Scott Storch.
Yeah, you do have that about you where you want.
People because if I think.
With each other get together.
I want other people to see how great he is. That's that. Don't have nothing to do with me.
This nigga great, but you feel he makes you great as well though.
Oh yeah, but it's all a rids to accomplishments. Just like as we get into another space and let's say we go do something with Dre, it's gonna make us rids to a different look. We do something with Cat that's gonna make us rise to a difference. What I hope is eventually Cat or Quick call him like man, it's do something with glasses and they want to do it together. Like my goal is to put EP into the proper perspective. That's my I want to assist him
doing that. I want to assist him doing that. I want to make sure that he actually goes exactly where he needs to go.
Much I think that's where we're missing that too, as far as artists artists that they're so focused on themselves. I want to be the king, I want to be the queen, so focus on me. But this this situation that you have, you have the power of collaboration in your mind, so you're naturally gonna bring You've done that to me too.
Yeah, But that's the point, Like, what difference if I make all these connections, right, these people, some of these people you don't know, right, you got you have a huge rolodex, right, the voice has a huge roller dex of motherfuckers. But if some motherfuckers you don't got. But if I give you these motherfuckers the next motherfucker, you better run this shit up.
Because ultimately it helps the team grow because then I add some new opportunities outside of what we're doing.
And some of the people are still ascending, right we are all No, No, what I'm saying that some of the people you might meet somebody here that's opening the door, and he remembered the voice in the next three years exactly. So No, it's that also goes to the person also that immediately I connected with as a child, my favorite player, Magic Johnson. Right, the past is as important as the score.
The flair is in the past. See, if you grew up in the nineties, you're a selfish dick because you think Michael Jordan's and shit, you just want to score and blah blah blah, toot your own fucking horn. But if you grew up in the eighties watching Magic Johnson, the past is the flair and the victory is in the past. I don't care if James Worthy dunkey, the past is the flair. I feel as accomplished as EP when he gets the next ship. Niggas like I need the ep YEP.
So is it the past or is it the end goal?
It's the game, Like if I looked at the I don't even know what the finish looks.
Like that end goal that win. Though winning keep passing and we keep.
Missing, we're not missing. And the thing is it's about building the team. And I understand that. So I'm not taking it as Okay, I deserve this, or let me take this and run with it somewhere else. It's like he knows, I pour it right back into the same place where.
I got it from.
You know, it's just playing Devil's Advocate, of.
Course, So it's really take the voice for instance, it's really you do a lot of things that that you don't have to do or that you're not commissioned to do for the greater cause of the team winning.
Because you understand that we all win if we all have the same mind state.
And what do this winning look like? Okay, we should set winning right now?
What's winning? What's a win for this project?
A win for this project for me would be too for it to be notable, for it to be an avenue to open other doors and and take some of the burden that we put into this off of us and allow some more people opportunity because we we sacrifice in the beginning, so find partners and fine, so so to attract the partners that we need to take off the burden to keep doing the work.
That's yeah, fair, Yeah, what's a win? What's the win for cancer? These nets, for the voices participation, what's a win?
You're like, that's a win. That's a winlasses started. Sustainability, so the ability to do it again so much more than that it needs to be a classic.
At point. Okay, sustainability meaning in ten years, I want to be able to say yeah, I do pull out the album and stream it. You know, Yeah, I do talk about that in conversation with people, whatever song I choose, because you have so many and I'm basing that particular topic on a panel, you know, and opening up perspectives. So now your legacy lives on because you were bold
enough to be authentic. A lot of rappers won't come out, not even just rappers, a lot of men and black men because y'all have it hard as it is, will not come out and speak about these topics for fear of being canceled. So we won't name some names because that's going on today.
You can all the names, but certain people.
Just aren't talking to the point where they're in tears.
Yeah that's true. That don't even look crazy no more.
But it's it's true though, And I just I want this album to be a spark because you already have success in whatever perspective you want to look at it at. But sustainability, how long can we continue talking about you? Can you be a scarface at this point in ten years?
Right?
Starting with this album?
This could be a win.
So when it takes time for you to figure out a win too, I could dig it. It's much more than just it's great that you even pause to even define what a win looks like.
Yeah, because I have not too many people do that. We just go and go and go.
I think that's the key to success. I don't even like saying the word success because I think progress is more potent than the word success because when you think success, it's like, okay, so we reach, well what is success? We reached what goal? Because isn't that progress? Because if you say we're successful now, that means that there's no longer any future goals. So I think progress leads to sustainability. Just like you said the other day, we're not worried
about what we're just gonna go. We're just gonna do it. Just focus on being better, that's what it is. And then all of us if we have that same mentality.
Yeah, when the majority of people that are on this quest of releasing music, that's the goal for them, just to release it.
They have no idea what to do next.
That's why I was telling g just walking up here, people don't have a connection outside of their neighborhood. So what we're doing even being here is huge. Being in New York is huge, and having relationships imagine if somebody just said, Okay, I'm finna go and do I'm gonna promote, I see what y'are doing. I'm gonna land in New York. What do you do next? You don't know nobody. That's true, and so this is a role that probably only we
could take independently at this point. For me, successes every day, every day. That's really I have to kind of micro manage what's going on. So like success was getting right here right now by twelve right, and it's like, okay, I'm twelve o three, I'll take that. That's okay, that's not the game I wanted. I wanted eleven fifty seven,
but I'll take twelve oh three, right, Okay. Making it to the next thing at two, exceeding at once we get to the progress report, exceeding having a conversation that makes the interviewer say, dam I never thought.
About it like that first impression, right.
And not even just first, but then really presenting a conversation that.
Gives people perspective.
Okay, fine, after that, Okay, let's go get them lamb chops amazing, lamb chops.
Goodness. But that's true because if you don't get up and get out and go to a pot cast or an interview or a radio station, doesn't matter where, and speak your mind. Then you're only leaving the audience with just those words on your songs. That's it. But once they tune into your interviews, they can go, this guy is intelligent. He's a hip hop you know, scholar. You know. I feel like scholar, you know.
And this is the thing that I'm learning on these on these on these runs which I didn't know before, like and he like, I'm learning so much so I feel like I'm in school right, so learning when we go do these interviews in these podcasts that it's not about setting the product. It's about the selling you and having a conversation and then some some yeah, but some conversations never leave really back to the project. We will mention it, but it's more about Man, I didn't even
know you was that deep. You offer a different respective, but the clip that comes out later on allows you to be like, man, I like this dude. Now let me listen to his pros or.
I don't like him, or I don't Yeah.
We did like one with horrible decisions, and the brand of that show is more or less girls who kind of want to be free and don't be judged for being free. And then somebody steps on and say, you need to put some boundaries on yourself. You need to do something if your goal is to obtain this finish.
That's the control of the media. See, I have to do that as a publicist. So don't say that, don't do this. The media will control it, the labels will control it. But you have full control. So with this full control, you can speak and say what you want. Sometimes you don't get the backlash, sure, but that's it does open up conversation. And that's what's key is people continuing to talk about you.
As a gangster rapper. Your job is to be the greatest villain.
I like that.
But as a man, you gotta do it in truth. I like that. And you got to document the time that you're in like you you like. They were mad.
They was like glass, I can't believe he said hold it till we're married. In twenty twenty three, Nigga, that made me hitler.
They like, I'm I'm Hitler, walked out the show.
I'm Hitler of the pussy. I'm like, hold that thing until you get married. How dare you say, how dare you tell us to save ourselves from somebody? How dare you speak such a wet glasses. We have needs, we need, we need to actually fulfill our needs, but we still want everybody to accept us and respect us. And I'll just be right there looking like the villain himself. I'll be just looking like Hitler up there at the podium, and they just be like.
Shout out to West Coast cam he we had he y'all go through that to where people are like, did he just say that? But you're you're bold enough to know what your purpose on this.
Earth is, and it's not always favorable. It's usually not it's not always favorable, you know. I mean it's it's like it's like Jesus chasing the money changers out the temple, not the Jesus that everybody liked. They got to that that will never get the.
Fuck out of here. That's where is he?
I mean, that's me all the time. That's the version of Jesus.
That I didn't want to see that version more.
The Martin Luther King I am is is I've.
Been to the mountaintop. I'm not. I had a dream. Martin I've been to the mountaintop Martin.
I'm I'm not who rebelled though, because he rebelled too.
That's why I've been to the mountaintop.
If you listen to that speech, ironically in Atlanta, right his hometown, and this speech was in Memphis.
Before he got shot. This what got him shot?
M hmm.
Can't just be telling people ship so you know, I expect the women to come together and try to pack me out.
So what's the limit? Is there a limit? Because can you can you be that villain without saying kill kill kill? And taboo topics? I like the idea of taboo topics because it makes you think.
This is the thing, this is the thing. And this was just two days ago. I got back in the car with a glass. I said, bro, who are you because it was it wasn't your taboo topics, it was sports. Oh and it and the analogies that he had and he's well versed. And I'm not just saying that because he's my partner, but like, I was really taken back just sitting there, like he really controlled this room and gave them some perspectives that.
They had no idea that was coming. And again polarizing, So.
You got you gotta talk, but answer the question and your perspective.
The weird part is people think that I'm doing this would intend to be polarizing. It's really what I think, and that's the problem. Like ask somebody like EP was just chilling with me. That's just in the car, We'll be talking about some shit and that's just how it come out. But I think it's different because I'm talking to him consistently, so it's well explained, like he not were having a greater conversation most of the time. People introduce me the ideas all the time, and I listened to him.
Okay, But back to the villain. How is there a limit?
No no limit? Hitler levels as oh Jesus levels.
The state that.
Jesus levels and villain Jesus levels of villainy. Hang you, hang you in front of the whole town.
Mm hmm.
Hitler is too lay easy because he did something that people can desire and feel is worthy of whatever happened. I mean, he did some gradu shit Jesus levels of villainy, Martin Luther King levels of villainy where you like, you know what I mean, Muhammad Ali levels of villainy. I mean where you just like out of control with this villain ship.
They like, how dare him think he gonna come to this slut walk and.
Talk to us that way? I should be at the slept walk with my movement rapping. Kanye should have never married that bitch.
At what point does it get okay? Where does it get to the point where you question if what you're doing is exactly what you're supposed to be doing. And if it is okay, so be it. But at what point do you say, because if you want to talk about the Jesus story, then even Jesus said you sure, this is the way that this is the way it has to end. Because if it is okay, I'm gonna go out there and write about me.
I'm not as great as Jesus.
But just the story of the concept, well yeah, it's.
Gonna always come up short of Jesus. That just you know, you just gotta walk your purpose. If I wasn't tasked for it, they'd be different. This is I'm not trying as he I'm not trying. I'm not prepared. I'm not trying. I read all the time at home, I watch sports. It's just what I think, and I've done it enough to understand that this is what I should be saying. So I'm not trying, like I swear to God on the live, I'm not looking for things that people to
be outread. I just kind of noticed things and I'll be like, oh damn, that's crazy, Like like Key Sweart, mak it last forever.
It's better than bad.
Good looking out For tuning into The note Seller's podcast, Please do us a favorite, subscribe, rate, comment, and share. This episode was recorded right here on the West coast of the USA and produced by my homeboy A King for the Black Effect Podcast Network and now Heard Radio Yeah