Sam Hook

So high school was mostly doing the dumb shit, practicing in my group and then going out to Brooklyn and doing like talent shows and shit like that.

first investor, first like promoter, first manager. That's my brother.

G and B Getting Money Boys. Right, College's best Friends was back in Brooklyn and the star Korean study Los introduced me to Korean Star in study. So now I'm in New York and I got a team in New York and I don't got to travel out to Jersey so much. I'm part of GMB sixteen years old. The group was over by the end, and they have me going to tom Square singing for girls, you know, sing on the train like they would put me through practice

to be a singing artist development. And so I'd always be in Brooklyn mccooran study, always being Brooklyn mccorean study and college. Before he passed away, he got his girlfriend, I'm not gonna say a name. He's got his girlfriend pregnant, right, so while she was pregnant, Korean study who was like god going to be the godfather. They'd always be with her, taking care of her. So I show up and we all became crew and it was like GMB. One day we at Danielle's crab and a lady walks in and

I think I was sitting too close to Danieller. So Danielle was full blown pregnant, so she ain't know what Tommy was. She never seen me before, so she's like, yo, who's this. I'm like, I'm saying, who are you right? And she was like, I'm Annie on Annie to you, So I didn't know what was going on. Who that was. She had bags in the hand, she walked to the back of the house. Cory Study is like, yo, bro,

that's that's that's whole sister. So that day we all end up eating hot dogs I'm way too young, drinking Heinnekens with chilling making jokes. I'll sing for Annie, and we all like chilling right, Corey and Studied made me sing for anybody that walked in. It could be somebody, grandmother, they could be you know whoever. If they knew that person, then I had the talent. They showed it. So at the end of the night, Annie was like, yo, Dan yell, I love him, invite him to the baby shop, and

so that baby shower. A few months later, I went to the baby shower my parents. I got my parents and get me like a family bible, you know, in scripted with her name on it as a gift. I went to the baby shower, and that's when I meet everybody that initially keeps like like changing my life. So it's all the It's Jay's nephews, mel Ro, It's uh Tata's son, Spanky nephews, Ravel, like the whole squad like

and then they had my niggas JD. I wrote to me, Uh, everybody was in the basement and so uh Korean study like they always do. They was like Yo Sam sing and I had three songs on no beats, right. I had a song about weed, a song about shoes, and a song for girls. Right this shit you like, Yeah, the song about shoes. The main lyrics like I like them, like I like my shoes clean, but never tats. And so when I was seeing that ship, they.

said yes. And that was the last time I went home to live with my parents. So it was eleventh grade and I stayed in Jersey. I was already always going out to Jersey the lowest crib and sleeping over his mom, calling my mom like Yo, what's Sami doing over here? Or just so you know Sammy's okay, you say, if he's over here. But that time was that's the last of it. And so I was sneak into mel

and Ral. They would sneak me into their crib and have me inside the crib because I had nowhere to go, Nigga out here homeless with like anouncer and a half selling dubs. You see I'm saying, so I would just make sense every time anybody see me, I'm helping I'm working, I'm helping. I'm working. Los is helping me out. And if I need to close, Los got me. If I need the money, Lows got me. Loos would go to

work to support my dream. Yeah, that's my brother. And so it took like two three months for on Mickey now Uh Meli's mother uh to come downstairs. And I wasn't making no sense. Now I'm lagging mad comfortable.

I'm waking up four and five am, taking the New Jersey Transit to the Path Train to the UH or the Path Train to UH Penn station in Manhattan, or Jay Train all the way to Jamaica Q four or the Dollar in to my neighborhood and going to school and night school because I was left back in everything.

I can Yeah, I mean I could get back. Oh yeah, looking it off.

My man Monty had my clothes on his porch the whole eight months. Like I was getting taken care of by my crew. That's incredible. And we would be in the studio, we rinding, Oh everybody's kids though, yeah, everybody is two thousand and six, eighteen years old. So I turned seventeen there, turned eighteen there, and then mid eighteen or before that. So like my first meeting in life is the whole crew is like, yo, we're going up to the whole script. We're gonna perform.

first meeting was at whole script. So me wrote Timmy Jay Dot, I don't want to leave nobody out, the whole crew. We all we all went up there, We all formed our songs. I only had one song recorded that we played for him that day. And then I said, they want me to sing a cappella. I sang now a coppella and whole tap my ma and Manti like he got it. And so that day was like inspirational, but it was like Yo, at the end of the meeting, it's not like we got signed. Hope said, y'all don't

do nobody no favors. He was like, so, don't think you about to get a favorite. Let you name reach mine. I throw your boone exact verbata and so I remember being in there like one, I'm looking around like this is what could happen if you really really grind. And then two, I'm like, yo, where did this nigga? There was a secret door that somebody who worked for him came out of with pizza. It's like, we in this room right now, and you didn't see a door some

way somebody came outside with pizza. And so I remember just looking at it like, you know, being inspired, but also saying being hungry, like yo, he said, let our name reach his, you're gonna throw some bomb. And so grind time for us. It was like, yo, it's time for us to turn up. One, I'm outside like I'm living in somebody's basement. It's not easy for me and my parents. I love my parents to death because they don't play that one spoil uh you know, one spoiled?

What do they say? One rotten apple and a bunch. So at the time I would be against them. I was like my dad's arch nemesis and everything you don't want for a son if you're a pastor, you know, or especially if you're past pastor. Today is my best friend. But back then I was just arch nemesis, like I was not the one, and so I wasn't going back there. So it was like, yo, it's either up or or like I I got nothing else to do college. I never even thought about that shit. So we kept on grinding,

kept on grinding. The group started to like grow up and grow out of being a group. So I moved to Lower East Side, Manhattan, sixth Street and Avenue D. We was renting a we were subletting, the cribbing the projects right and my man, my brother's older my brother's man's had me paying the whole rent, but he was telling me that I was paying half. I'm not eighteen years old. So when I found out, I was heeded.

So I take a Greathound out to Georgia and that's my first time, second time going to Georgia to visit my older brother. He was out in Augusta, Georgia. And while I'm out there visiting my man, fifth a trive who from high school moved to Atlanta. He was two hours away in Atlanta from Augusta. He calls me, He's like, yo, you gotta see Atlanta. And I've never been in atl before.

club's a g O H Jacob Yorick he was. So he had a way already out there. So he's like, I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna show you the A. I'm competitive and ship. So when we two hours away from Atlanta, I'm like, I think I want to show him something too, Like I don't want him just to stun on me. So I called at the time, you know, Vaughn Vaughan Smith. I called Vaughan and he was my manager, and I'm like, Yo, you know anybody in uh in the A. He's like yo, gino, he's he's he's running.

He's uh the engineer for Neil go up there. I had already been around Neil because you know, being around everybody. I was around up Top and around those days is when Neo got signed. So I called Gino. Gino already knew him from from Brooklyn. He had a studio on J Street. So I called Geno. I'm like, Yo, what you doing? I'm about it being the A. So he he tells me come up to Neo's studio. Everything travels about to show me. It was like, nah, nigga, I

just beat you. I'm going to Neo shit right right. So we go to Neo shit and and Gino's like, Gino's like, Sam, you need to stay here. Second he said it, I said, I am staying. I was already getting double charged for the projacks up top. I don't speak Spanish, and everybody in that neighborhood it's like I'm trying to order eggs. Don't even know how to say nothing. So it was like, your fucking I'm just stay out

there now. I know that I learned the hallway. I tell you off camera, okay, so we get out there, Uh, we tell you to stay yeah, And I said, fucking I'm staying. So now when we leave there we seen the plaques like it was only a year or two later since Neil came out, and it was already a hallway full of plaqus.

pickle or just be slowing them up. I probably knew a girl or two in that land. I call a girl same night, she can't pick me up. The way Travis tell the story is the next time he saw me, it was a few days later. I already had an apartment. The way it really happened, I called my dad, said, your dad, I found an apartment for seven hundred and ten dollars on seventeen p Street Street, Midtown. Mindre, I didn't know what goes on at nighttime on them blocks

in Midtown. It gets crazy, so but fuck, it was the cheapest thing I could find and moved in. The only friend I had out there was my man Drave. I had my man theon that left since high school. He lived in like Beuford, far a little far away as far that. I had a rocker where Snorkel that my man Mail gave me and the inside they had first I was sleeping at So I'm living in the studio apartment. I don't have nothing but the eight hundred

dollars my dad gave me. I spent seventeen on moving in, so I got ninety dollars.

And then so I've seen this one dude. I won't say his name, but he was getting money in the building and I keep seeing him. He ended up being my plug. He put me on, and then he also taught me how to do things beyond just the weed that I was used to doing, like selling wise, and he got me into a world. Now it's like I'm getting chicken and I'm going to see Geno at the studio and you know, and that went super sour. So my main them that I brought up earlier. We sold

candy in like fourth grade. My man, my man's old little sister, Tracy. She she dated the security guard at Walgreens. We give him twenty dollars, he'll let us go. Still old candy. We got to wake up early though he was the night time.

you got him. You got him really out here like getting money. Like I love what you're doing with him, you know. And so I felt I knew he was a gangst in London. I'm like infatuated with thugs at this age. It was like my parents are super like I was super sheltered. So in church, I loved the thugs. In school, I loved this like my boy, yeah exactly exactly. So I brought that up to say that we always stayed in touch with him until the I moved to Atlanta.

So now that thea's I'm back in Georgia. Deanna took a couch out of his mom's uh garage that she wasn't using. That was my best. He brought me a little TV, a little CD player and then I played my BCDs on that and I was in the spot, trapping my way out, just trying to stack right.

plug and the robbing home of the finests. So now you robbing me, I get better out of him than him. He violates, and so now I got no plug, got no money, and I'm shook because I'm not built for no wild shit that I was going through. And you were how old at this point, nineteen eighteen nineteen, and so Gino keeps calling me to the studio. He keeps calling me to the studio. My man, mister Tango's son became like my brother, and so he starts bringing me to the studio. One day they set up the meeting

because I'm fucking homeless at this time. I'm living in I got evicted in Atlanta. Everything went shot, goes bad.

get it back. So and I'm scared because the way Tango just spoke to this nigga, I never seen somebody get violated like that. And so now my hands is shaking and it's time to sing. He's like, Yo, you got music. I didn't have nothing to play. So he's like, YO, sing something I didn't realize. I never learned someone else's song in my life. I could have sang you every Day Struggle by fifth or by Biggie, but I couldn't sing a whole song from anybody in music because you

were writing your own song. Yeah since fifth grade. Yeah, so I said I got my own songs. I thought I played the same way I'd always played it, sing my own song and win. Not for a person who manages the best songwriter in the world at that time. My songs was and shit to what Neo was coming out with. So I sing my voice shaking, I sound nuts. Tango looks at me like this nigga sucks too, right, and I know Tango, so I see, Yeah, it's exactly how it is how you're gonna get it and and

I love him for no fluff facts. His son is the exact same way you ain't. You ain't And you could get react a certain type of way to it until you realize that you rather find out the truth now than let somebody watch the take time bombing, so to save my ass, Geno, Right, Geno's like, but he could write though. Tango's response, he looks a skinned like Yo. Them producers suck, he sucks. Put them in the studio if they exact words. Bro, I'm talking About'm getting like

I'm already broke, homeless nigga. And on top of that, it's like I just heard that I sucked, and I know I sucked. My voice was shaken even on this podcast. I'm nervous. So I was finding out that the Spotlight's not for me, okay, you know, but not knowing that's what I was finding out. I was just always trying to because you were you were being you were being pushed pushed as an artist. Yeah, yeah, like that was the only thing. Yeah, right, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, okay, yeah,

he completely just tore that down. It was quite for that forever, right. Geno's like, nah, but he writes though, which was to me a lie because it's I didn't write for anybody else ever in my life. So he said it in a way that implies that you were right for someone else, period, and so that wasn't the fact. But I looked at him like, yeah, double down like anything. I don't care if it was mopped the studio, Yeah that he mops. Yeah, I would did it. I needed to stay right.

relationship that you find value in. When you when you're saying by, think of the next time you're gonna follow up, think of the intention for the next phone called you know, or even state if it's a really important, state, this is when we're gonna speak again. And that's helped me a lot, even if I don't tell you when I'm gonna reach out to you again. I can write it down and keep my promise. So he comes up to me hungry, like yo, and he fucked with his producers heavy.

He comes up to me, He's like, yo, if I put you in the studio, how long would you stay?

to do this session on the first call. So now he drives me up how Old Military's studio and I'm in his studio right, and me and track Guru in there. He leaves us there with the BTCD from his guys. And I remember in that session, me and Guru, I was trying. I was trying to make phone calls and see how far he was from a customer. I didn't know how to drive, so I would I think I asked him to bring me somewhere so I could sell a fifty or something. I needed the money, and he

was like, yo, bro, you got this opportunity. You don't need to be doing that. And he shit on me, made me feel real small, and I was super New York, super proud, super hard headed, and nobody could tell me nothing. We bicker and I had to listen to him because it's like, without you, I can't get a ride. So you said, no, I got I'm gonna stay in the studio. Shut up. And the way he was was like a big brother for those two three days that was in

the studio. In my first songwriting session for writing for other people, three songs of which one of them is my first placement. So my first session, my first placement, I was writing like my life depended on it, right, So yeah, it's not like I got like a major hit out of it, but that's the life changing thing.

So it's J. J. Holliday his second album, I land a ballot on there called Forever Ain't Enough, Right, and I wrote it about like my high school, like the girl that I loved right after high school.

having this conversation the other day. There are people that still don't have a place, that have been writing songs for years and years and years. So that's what I'm saying. Oh yeah, my first session, Yeah, first session. A month goes by, you get your first placement, Like that's that's God. Yes.

I signed the deal. He looks at me, said, what you think Balloon's gonna come out?

like bro I ain't eat yesterday. You think you hold me down, Neil will be like, be right there, come to the studio thinking about to give me two three hundred drop five racks on me. Wow, shit, neo. Nobody could say nothing to me about that guy, and a few people about you guys, but legit a few times, making sure you were straight. And then when I'd be like, yo, how am I gonna pay you back? And when I'm a god I got you one day back, he'd be like, Yo, bro, be great. I didn't give you that as a debt.

I see it in you be great. So that's my brother. So going through all these things, it's part knucklehead legit, ungrateful for the family that I came from, and just going against all these greens. I start grinding it out, grinding it out for some reason or another. By two thousand and eight, we get the whole team flies out to New York to LA for the first time. So I land in LA with meeting people. This is all

the traveling you've done at this point. You've only been from New York to Georgia, New York, Jersey or Manhattan, Georgia and now LA for the first trip. First trip, so we're moving around, were moving around. We end up staying there for like a month or two. And on the last day of the first trip, I won't say their names, but my two homies they both had a crush on this this one girl, right, and they said,

you're about to call it to the studio. She had an internship at Depth Jair and you know, you know back then, you meet an intern in Depth Jay and she in the building, you think it's lit. So she comes to the studio. We work in a record plant and she pulls up to the studio when I tell you my competition, and then I just wasn't that nigga. I was. I wasn't the best friend you could have because I knew two of my niggas like the girl.

When I saw I said, okay, I got it. Yeah, facts, So I've seen her and I caught her in the whole way, you know, the bat the long hall way to the back. I caught her in the whole way. I smiled at it, and I just grabbed her phone, put my number in it and said, text me. She texted me, So now I'll go back in the room, act like nothing ever happened. Super Snake vibes snake right. So I'm texting, I'm like, yo, I leave tomorrow. Tomorrow's like tonight's my last day. I need to speak to you.

Something in me wanted to notice girl that night, and it wasn't about hitting or nothing like that. So I was like, Yo, this was back then. I didn't know how to drive. I said, this is what you're gonna do. You said, hug. Everybody say if you leaving, I'm gonna act like I know you're leaving too. In fifteen minutes, I'm gonna meet you around the block right or Santa Monic or whatever block that is by a record plan and we gonna dip off and I just want to

talk to you. I didn't know her from scratch, but something in me wanted her. So exactly what we did. I duck off, acting like I had something to do. Yeah, And she drove us to Luca Lake to it drove me to to Luca Lake where I was staying. She had so much respect for herself she wouldn't go up to the spot, so I'm like, it's definitely not a hit mission. We sat in front of the spot, in front of her car and fell in love all night, just talking. Now I'm pissed. I get back to Atlanta. Atlanta.

You know Neo's crew niggas. All you're getting is tough truth all day. The niggas is treated you like yo. You know, like yo, Sam, you know, get the shit done or That'shit's not it. And then I got this girl in LA that I'm caring about more than the music, and the people give me an opportunity. I get back to La Atlanta and I miss her like crazy. So it spends eight months texting this girl, calling this girl,

texting this girl, calling this girl. I write a song called Hustler for Kerry Hillshare and that gets me a flight out to LA again. So to me, it was just a way back to her.

I'm gonna rap niggas budgets for some reason, like on the hotel. So it's like, we can't do this, and so Chuck Comedy let me sleep on the couch at the studio for three weeks. I remember having forty two dollars in my pocket, and it's like he knew I was broke, but didn't treat me that way every time he ate I ate dog. I had sixteen dollars left after three weeks, and I came in there with forty two dollars. So that's how much he took care of you.

So shout out to Chuck. That's smart. Like I got so many people.

I'm when I'm rooted. Yeah, so now you're in la la something. Yeah, two or three probably have. I had one with Neo on his album Okay Okay, and that's you know, a lot of placements ago, but I land here with that one song. Ethiopia shows Me Love, Carrie shows Me Love, DJ and more Milly Manny. They showed me love and they taking care of me as best as they can. Now I'm back being a dickhead, like Yo, money's low, what can I flip? My girlfriend won't deal

with somebody who traps. So we're arguing because in order for me to stay with it. I'm looking at her like I'm forgetting that.

That's the short of it. And now I'm out here dolely more connections whatever, and I gotta figure shit out myself. So me and my old assistant we moved together right in North Hollywood for a year. It's gotta be two thousand and ten to eleven. And during that year, mars from fifteen hundred to nothing, and I would work with fifteen hundred en nothing in Englewood when it before the studio was the building, before the building was the school, like they were still the type of people they are today.

It's never switched. Big brothers and advisors and just good hearted like people and talented so Mars calls me up. I mean people that would literally give you the plug. Mars calls me up and says, yo, pull up to the studio. I'm working with Chuck. I didn't know who Chuck was. I'm from the East, so if you say chucks me, I have no idea who that is. Pull up to the studio. My assistant drove me to the studio. I get there, I'm wearing like a Mets jersey, the blue joint and the Mets hat. And I walk in

there it's bloods everywhere. And mind you, I'm from New York. I'm not a gangster, and I don't really like all I knew about La was what I heard. So I'm like, I'm out of pocket right now, you know. So Mars introduces me to the game. Who is Chuck? And while we're in the studio the first day, the way game is very similar to like tango. So I was used to the language where it's like cut and dry. Showed me what you got, prove it kind of energy, and by that time it's like I was already in sessions.

Mike Karen had me in so many sessions. He saw something in me would put me in the studio like crazy, forever grateful for it. And so by that time I already been sparring for so long that I knew that I could facts, especially in front of who dude. I can't be on stage and do it, but that studio, I know I could be in there and impress whoever's in the room. So we start working. Chuck takes a life making to me. Mars is always looking out making

sure that he calls me for this. I ended up going to the studio niggas every single day for like three four months. The niggas that I was so scared of when I got there. I'm talking about niggas with like tattoos on their forehead. I ain't understand the language. It was like, Yo, these niggas is geez. After a while, I'm sitting down with my man, uh, watching fucking SpongeBob and laughing. Gangster is the same everywhere, And I'm the

little homie that always got big homie love. I think God always positioned me to have really, really, really graceful and uh like great teachers in my ogs. So meeting the crew, they become my crew. I'm with them every day. Thanks to Mars. I'm with them every day and Chuck inviting me in like a little bro that he just has to look out for for some reason. I'm on all his mixtapes since we met. And then I get comfortable like I always get, and I'm working with Mike

Caaren a lot. And back then it was like those four line paramour kind of hooks where it's like or like the could you believe that playing like those types of hooks, them full line big Bruno type hooks was popping, And so I had one that I was trying to get on like Loope at Atlantic, but it wasn't placing. And so Chuck was working on him the record and everything was super gangster and I loved it, but it was like, yo, but you know that these full line

hooks working right now? Yeah, So because I kind of said it to him in the room, you know, I should have probably pulled them aside, because I said, he was like, nigga, what you talking about? So you got one of those? And god, I had one. I pressed play on pot of Golds for him and mind you just like him And in the scope, they wasn't going to release the record until they found the records released and so that record I played in that song and he wanted to go against it because he tested me

in front of everybody. He was like a couple of niggas, like niggad ass hard. I was like Jeesus. So that record within two or three days, he did his versus two three days, he plays it for Jimmy Ivien. Jimmy Ivien unlocks his budget, and then after that they had Chris Brown on it a few days later. A month later it was out. And the reason I love him a lot of people work with a writer and you kind of never hear them say thank you in public

or even in person. He would find cool ways to pay me back, Like he'll go on his Twitter and say yo shots to Sam Hooks. It's the hardest writer and lo and behold. You know, I may not be what I was doing before, but brown papers still look good to me. So a whole bunch of people from other countries will reach out, Can I get a hook? Can I get it? I'm out here, Wilin Hooks left and right. It really became what happens when a person of you, guys like Stature, even what you're doing right now,

there's gonna be people who see this. They they believe in the story, or they believe in my work at their go my talent and they're gonna reach out. This is love, bro, But it doesn't happen with mad people. I've sold independently in major, put together three hundred fifty songs, bro, shit, three fifty songs, yeah, independent in major. You know how many niggas shot me out? Less than one percent of that about one percent, it's like three or four niggas. Yeah,

that's crazy. That's crazy because you've worked with a lot of people. Facts. It's not their fault. I'm not tight.

where I'm from be proud of me. And these things help when people are speaking about you when you're not there. If you know me, you know, I'm not taking a picture of myself and I don't know how to promote myself. These ways is the only ways people can find out about me good works and and love and respect. So I'm always grateful to Chuck for that Pot of Gold came out. It did well on that same album. I think it's that same album Me and you Just See

No Evil with Kendrick and the next album. Yeah, yeah, so is that I knew you before that though? Yeah, I would probably be too scared around you, bro. When I'm around greatness and like people that are up, like looking up to and listening to, I go right back to feeling like I'm a whole scrib is just mad scared.

always get a spotlight on them. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like it's and I think it's it's been cool for us because we don't look at our podcast as oh, we have to have such and such every week, because that's not what's the most important thing to us.

Our thing is for people to learn the stories and learn, you know, the journeys and the different ways that people have gone about getting to their success, and just even your story, Like I know a lot of it because we really really friends in real life and we've said and talked and you know what I mean, I know your whole mindset of this shit. Like every time you say and I had to get back to the pack, I know that about you, you know what I'm saying.

snow guarantees of when that next placement is coming. But the one thing that I've noticed with you all the time, and you kind of mentioned that you tapped on it was like you said it, I got three hundred and

fifty records so independent and on majors. You figured out how to get to the independent bag, which is very very important, which a lot of major yeah, and a lot of major label writers and producers they kind of, yeah, I don't really do that because you know, my fee is this, and you're like, no, no, no, no, no no, this is my new pack.

hard it must be songwriters to get paper yeah. Because it was mixed. So it felt really good for a long period of time where it's like I know, we could go to the bowling alley, rent thirty lanes, we could do this, we could do that. But the one thing that I'll say to anybody who's young and listening, I don't glorify that shit at all. A life that you can't put on a calendar, you're plugg don't have a calendar or a schedule or structure. You know, you on his time, so you could never be on your

own time. You're waiting here, you're waiting there. The things that are most important in your life that on your calendar, they shouldn't only be obligation. It's just fucking bills or when to ride to work or doctor's appointments. You could turn your life into a menu that you picked out if you do things that are allowed onto your calendar.

in one foot out. There's things that your big homie could tell you when you was eleven years old and say, yo, life no regrets. You'll live with no regrets. So you go home and you practice that. What do you pick up instead? Justification for all your bullshit? So everybody's memories in your lifetime is just you justifying your bullshit. You don't have no idea how they feel because you think

you're right all the time. And yo, things that caught the short end of the stick in my lifetime from zero to thirty years old was yo, I never had a real relationship that I can be honest with my dad, like whenever you like, if I can't tell you about my whole day, I'm not being honest with you. So when Lee and Rasseau passed away. Let me tell you something, I probably never admitted it in person or to anybody or in public when they passed away. Leah was my artist,

Rasu was business partner in with us for Leah. So and mind you, that's my sister, that's my brother, that's I love them. They had my house all week long. You know, we're together bowling, we're together, karaoke together, drink and we're got eating at my house all the time. So when they passed away, I remember the text threat, right, So I'm so quick to go public and say harpe and I love you and I'm feeling it. But I didn't know what I was feeling when I looked at

the text threat. It's me curving every time they asked me for the last two three weeks or months, when they would ask me to do something productive. Instead, I'm looking at my text message that I made up to make them say okay, so I can go chill with a joint or chill with my niggas and do the wrong thing. Right, I'm looking at how I was avoiding them and giving them and thinking that I'm always going to be able to round back and make it right.

You see what I'm saying, and I don't think I ever felt true guilt until I realized how fake of a nigga I was to them. It's like, if you ever think, like right now, you can believe the person I hand myself into you as but the surveillance is different. Surveillance sees me weary and sees me scared. Surveillance sees me panicked. That's spirit and adequate, you know, all the things that people don't show when they want their perception

to be the true story. But so it's like I started really feeling guilt, Like, what did God see this whole time? He saw the way there, they saw me there, you see what I'm saying, But how do you look when no one's looking? I hated the answer. I hated started really just doing mass self work. And once you put that one string of guilt, you never felt it before. I look at it like tabs, like all the open tabs, thirty years of open tabs. It took a thousand days

to close. I spent twenty nineteen twenty twenty one by myself, my engineer, and my assistant. Only two people I saw. I was so buried in guilt and grudges. And grief. I didn't know what how to handle, and I had to do like a remorse. We'll do it called men's tour, you know, and apology tour, like reaching out to people and saying, oh, I finally realized what effects I could have had on you. It's people that I'm like, yo, let's go do a stick up. You see what I'm saying.

And we're fifteen, sixteen years old, we're doing stick ups. We think it's funny, but one of them go get locked up. It's not funny no more. And if he learned from me and my guys, you got a whole future that's different because of us, so different things that

was happening. It's like, ya, I saw that this. I'm on the same story that Jesus Christ exists on, Michael Jordan exists on, Michael Jackson exists on, Barack Obama, Will Smith, all the people that I love and look up to, And I got a character in the same story that they're in. It never the story of history don't start over. So I got a character, and this is what I

chose to do with it. I hated it, and so I spent mad time doing like unlearning the conversation we had at the crypt unlearning things, and I got I fell in love with time. Like tank, if I ask you how many hours there in the day, what you wanna say? I don't know how many hours? If I told you there was more than twenty four hours in the day, would you believe me? Exactly? I believe that too. I started unlocking that right now. If me and you and Jay's on a Tuesday together, there's at least seventy

two hours on a Tuesday. And it's if this's seven point nine billion people are counted for on planet Earth, that's seven point nine billion time twenty four hours happening Tuesday. And I'm like, yo, we've been all focused on self, all focused on self. We can't even plan correctly. But how do big companies plan? They planning man hours? How do they break it down and how do they make sure?

Like and then I was so depressed going through so much, I'm like, yo, if I felt like I was in a jail selling God said, yo, what matters to you? And my answer, if God is your CEO, You're gonna be like you do you matter? And then I said my family matters? And then I said my gift and the effects it has on history. And so it's like guys like, all right, cool, I'll let you out if you prove that to be your routine, your calendar, your

checkoff system daily in chronological order. So you said I come first, boom, I need to see me come first from surveillance. So I need to see you pray on your knees, pray out loud, read your Bible, write the notes that you just learned, write the laws you found in it, and promise me something that you're going to do today from what you just read. I need to see you.

your Bible. Then it's what is your takeaway? Then it's reach out to dad, reach out to mom, reach out to my older brother Danny, my older sister, and that my little brother Timmy my little brother Paul, nieces and nephews. It says Wednesdays because I ain't got every day for the youngest, but my siblings, my parents. You know, for a thousand days I reached out to my father every single day. Today, he's my best friend. I popped up on this calendar. Five am for me is eight am

for him. So if you got to be at his job and shout out to my pops. He's the first Haitian funeral business owner in New York State history. But like, if I call him before he gets there, first few days, this is somebody who is used to expecting the worst in me. But I realized, like yo, dust settles, it turned into cement. So if you humble enough, you young enough, you grab the chisel. You don't give up until it's in the form you wanted in. You see what I'm saying.

So I chiseled away at my relationship with my pops. I did not give up on him for a few days. It was discouraging because I'm like, how you doing. He's like, well, I sent me, like what you need?

I was requiring my pops, we lived seventy years at this point, to look through his days, and the first time in his life somebody's requiring him to say this is my favorite part.

my day is business. I make sure that I could check off that. I and then the days that I slack and don't reach out to on this spreadsheet, I could see, Yo, Sammy, you haven't checked on them for three days. You're not watering your flowers. So these things, to me is kind of became more important. And I could tell that even having that type of structure, that type of routine, changed my life and it leaked into my business. Now I have because of how depressed I

was to get out of it. I leanked on god lengthd on family, created routines, created structures, and I'm starting to realize all things need structure. The reason the first few times I invest in artists it don't work. One I'm bad leader. Two I have no structure. Three I'm trying to carry anything on my memory. I'm gonna shut down. I'm gonna lose. You can't You're not a canvas for

success in that type of thing. And so I've been in like these last I have every single day written out, so my journal runs all my revenue streams today, and I have one middle journal piece what we call central information or new information log where every information that came in from any direction, I put every log there and

two people share it. Right had operations and assystem So when this is shared to that middle link, if it took me ten hours to go through something, but I got a team of five and it takes fifteen minutes to explain you see what I'm saying. I'm not spending fifteen thirty forty five you feel me, it's sixty on

telling nobody else. I could tell it to the middle and they have a checkoff system for the company that checks the middle moves every lock to the department, set department, and I started just learning, like yo, this structural shit really works. It gives us a lot of time. In the day, I used to God gave me a big crew with but I had no direction, no good leadership, and I wasted time. So if my crew was ten people willing to give eight hours, there was a few days I could live in one day on a plan.

But I didn't see it like that. And now with less people, you know, the people I'm blessed to have with today, I take care of the time because with like as an old to like lean Rossue, as an old to the old partners that I wasn't a good partner to, you know, as an old to the artist that I over promising, then to deliver it to like today, it's like everything is on the calendar, and if you're talking to me and the wind, I'm gonna write down what you just said to you at the it said

to me at the end of the conversation if there was any importance in it, and texted to you so there's a thread that I could copy and paste into my system so my team can see what's going on. Full transparency. I studied eight hundred numbers, and I'm like, I call all eight hundred numbers in my phone and I'm just studying, like asking why do they have their people that work for them answer questions like this? And the person who picks up the phone is like, how

can I help you? When you finish helping me, you ask is there anything else I can do? Your business is asking for more work at all fucking times, and me, I get a bag. I don't need another bag now I need to go stunt. Nah. Business has to be up and running. There's somebody got to be at the door asking for business, and so learning all these things, and I could say I spent the last five six years just unlocking coldes, writing protocols. Because you can't leave

your talents to your children. You can't leave your swag, you can't leave your personality, but your protocol. You could leave it completely short and give them a protocol to anything we learned that hasn't been written here, aid it in will be a college in fifty years. If not, we'll be it will be a college. Nobody knows. All of our children have access to protocol how tos whatnot? And then teach them how to refine it, because as

time passes by, you can make it better. But I felt like yo, I in order to take my l's and turn them into things that I could be grateful for. The biggest things I'm grateful for is learning how to spend time with my family bro and how to to to see the wrong and doing the wrong thing, and how to be accountable and how to structure my day to where the things that matter happened and all the things I can't control don't bother me. And it helps

with your stress. It helps with the things that we go through by making sure it's written out of you and shared to a team that you trust. Like kings and queens have a hand, they have a historian, they got to somebody in every department. We're kind of thrown into the world without even identifying the departments.

that it affects your creative right. And that's why to me, you are also so important to this podcast and important for you to come here to talk about the business that you've set up while still being creative. Got you, you know what I mean, because we try to. We try to explain it at times too, just from what we've done ourselves of becoming our own business and our brand and building it out and still being creative, you

know what I mean. But I think a lot of times it's kind of passable with Tank and I because they're like, oh, well, you know, y'all just go saying are you just going this? Or you could just go and you just and it's just, you know what I mean, it kind of gets written off to me. Maybe maybe not to other people, but to me it does. It's like, I don't think they fully understand the scope of what we've had to do to literally be able to really survive this thing and create a brand like R and

B money. This is not just off of talent. This is you know, this is real you know, meetings of the minds, you know what I mean. And you know we haven't implemented a structure like you. But I'm paying attention because that ship. Now we're going to ship. Those things that you've done are really really important to you know, to a business that holds no true structure. For real crier, it's the biggest way to love is if I we're all smart enough in this room, and some people outside

the room may not be. But if we're smart enough to say, yo, oh, snap yo. I got five people giving me eight hours a day, I'm doing more than twenty four hours to towards the planet day. You know, So say JP Morgan got three hundred thousand people giving him roughly ten hours right a day for work inside of his structure protocol places that he can find. That's three million hours that he can find, a glitch on where to reprimand a space on where to hire, or

a place to like something's done well. Time saved to him and his structure to where to promote three million hours eighty two hundred years a day he's living, but three hundred thousand people have a place to stay, food to eat, families, take people that didn't know what to do with their time necessarily yet can like I want to be one thousand hours by the time of forty. I want to be ten thousand hours by the time about fifty.

placed and Steel logos and plays it for Trey. Doesn't I didn't know he did. I get a d M from Trey on Twitter. He's like, Yo, bro stel O just played me the Smartphones record, Yo, I need to cut this, y'all right, and so I called my older brother. My older brother was in time for that. I think we got him the stems immediately, and we went up to his crib in the hills. And first thing Trey does before we thought we was gonna go cut it with him, he's like, Yo, pull up, I'm abowt to

cut it. When we get there, this shit's cut and it's perfect, and I'm like, yes, thank you Jesus. He plays it for me and my older brother, which is a dope moment because that friend ship turned out to be that, that relationship turned out to be a brotherhood of a friendship that I never ever ever stopped being grateful for. He the first person to give me eight or nine songs on the album.

a you know. And so to have another crew again of young niggas just like myself, knuckleheads just like myself, it was like it was a blessing. So legit, we start off with smartphones, the label loves ith. Trey cuts himself, so it makes it easy. He could just pull up to his crib studio. You could cut the whole album. Were playing two K, listening to the beats, writing songs.

We did cake, we did you Ain't Shit, Yes, no, maybe late night shit, mister still your girl, all playing two K, my nigga, Yeah, I'm kyrie.

beat and it's just media. I think I went outside. I used to smoke a lot, went outside, smoke, came back in the studio and I was just joking around when I heard the beating, like oh, Nona right, And we just kept on playing around and tell the shit like we had to get something done and wrote the record and literally like twenty minutes, cut it in twenty minutes. Final vocals is still from the first day and popped out to the whole tour.

That time I was probably more focused on chicks, girls, women, And it's kind of been kind of in your life. It's always you know, it's an excuse to chill with my day ones or an excuse to chill with girls. Major distractions and for most of us, ration and motivation to keep doing this stay. Yeah, they ones aren't distraction, but the reason for it. So let's say, let's what what causes our mistakes. You go down to yourself at four years old. I don't know if you have anything

like me, but I didn't have. Jordan's right, I'm with you. So I go to school with the thousands, some payless or there was a store in Brooklyn called Bobby, So I'm you don't want to bout it. You see that Bobby's back, come in. You can start crying.

And now you go to jail and you're sitting in there. There's thirty kids in the class. One baddy right, and you look down like there's no way I'm not the one who bags. So you got to walk home with this desperation thing, you know, and it hurts a kid, bro it does. You walk home with feeling less than and you never thought you was less than until that day. And your parents keep telling you like, you'll be happy what you have. They try to make sure you remember

the facts, but you're not hearing it. When you got to sit in that classroom that's just like general population and you looking weak out there and so legit like I could look back and then the reason I could forgive myself and forgive all these all my guys, and we're all good no matter what where we ended up, you know, with children picking up emotions, and we're making room friends in the in a in a room that sponsors by a wrong emotion, friendships in a room that's

sponsored by a wrong emotions. So we if we all have desperation in common, nobody gonna find desperation wrong. How's it gonna feel when you got to take it out of you? You might not agree with the people you saw your whole life, so like it goes the same way, so some of the me being distracted. It leads back to just simple emotions that you walk home from school with that shouldn't ever be your few. You can use

them like your fuel, like even impulse. You know a lot of niggas get pats on the back of impulse, but it got you here. They fuck with you, But this impulse keep you here. No, So at some point you got to take out the thing that once fueled you and be fueled by something you can keep sustain. Yeah, yeah, I agree and disagree with that, I think because the fuel, whatever that is. It's different for each person, right, And whatever that fuel is, you have to you gotta keep

that light, you gotta keep that gas going. That's the profit. But are you getting away from feeling life? Do you want if pain makes you write the best songs and when you're happy you write trash? Do I want you to be painful so we can make some chicken? Or am I happy you can feel better?

But I was like that sign no more. You know what I'm saying, you can tap in. I'm not said, but guess what I connected so great at that to where when I wasn't going through it anymore, you almost feel like you're not doing good work because sometimes the response isn't the same. But that's that's based on the demand that people have gotten used to. But I said, listen, I'm going to keep this happy in this sex music in your face until you understand that this is what

I'm on. That was work, But my best work is all of my fucking works. It always is, and and and so whether whether it's motivated, whether I'm being motivated in the trench trying to survive, or whether I'm thriving and I just feel like cooking up a.

into making some money. You know what I'm saying, You think about I mean for me, I think about, you know, being a writer on a record like how could you for? Mario literally wrote that about young relationships I was in. Did I exaggerate some shiit? Absolutely?

that's the only thing I was saying. It's like those don't it's not it's not for us. We're supposed to have, like faith, we're supposed to have like you know what I'm saying, Happiness, peace, like the coolest things to feel. Be your life's story. Like when you look backwards, you can say I remember feeling peace throughout all of that. It gets crazy no matter what, but I could look back and say I felt this last five six years. I felt happiness, you know, I felt still, I felt

I felt faithful ship that is worth it. I felt inspired or inspiring.

a process called a family business opportunity list. This is where instead of owning, buying and owning a percentage of your future, I would share an opportunity with you real time. If I landed for you, I got you agreed saying that if I share an opportunity landed on your behalf, I get set percentage of up front and back end of publishing. So I had by this time, I probably had fifty sixty people on this list that I could

reach out to anytime I get an opportunity. So even if I knew what producer would be there, I'd still reach out to the people on that list, saying, Yo, I'm going to work with this artist. Send it just in case I'll leave her with it or whatever. So in that day, I go up there with a bunch of guitars because she signed to my boy must that I would never be disrespectful and bring a beat to a Mustard session, So I brought guitars, knowing that yo, he could add around it if we ever choose to

do this. The guitars were from a young sixteen year old producer named Omer Fetti, who, by two I was twenty, was the biggest producer in the world at that time. He was my little bro. He was in tenth grade at Calabasas High School, and I brought his beat. So she I think she had already written to all the beats that were on the pack. Mustar's in London working for Rihanna, So I text Monster like, YO, I didn't

want to violate that's my man, that's your program. I'm gonna call you and ask you, YO, do you think I could I got some guitars. We kind of stuck. She already wrote everything there. He was busy. He's like, yo, yeah, you could pull up the guitar joints. So I go back in there. I have a conversation with Ella. I say, yo, if all of your exes were in a room together, what would they all agree that they don't like about you? And she gave me a list. I started writing down

the list of all her answers. The song comes out. Take away the big shirts, the tattoos, the sweatpants, the vans. Okay, I don't wear no makeup, no person in my hands. These are all her answers. My rest and bitch face is mistaken for the mean girl. But what if I told you there's nothing I want more in this world and somebody who loves me naked? And I wrote the whole song about in front of my little brother, so he got to see me kind of maneuver. It wasn't

my first time working with Ella at that point. I worked on every ep she had. But it was dope to have my little baby brother moved out when he was eight. You see what I'm saying. It was dope to have my brother poorly with me and him in the rooms, just witnessing it and sharing that time with me, and she cuts it. She kills it for Christmas that year, right, I didn't buy nobody know, my siblings no gifts.

go up to the studio, the studio. Can I say names of the studios?

now he's in the main room. And so I go in the main room. Mind you. Nobody tells me shit. Walk in the room, I'm like, what's up there? Before I put a g on the gull.

I fucking shrunk. And my man. So she gets in the booth and she finishes the final vocals that they had written in the last two days for a record that probably lasted as long as fuck number one on Billboard and then the next year it was on Super Bowl. And so that's my my I ain't saying no names. Uh story.