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All Right, well, ladies and gentlemen, this is a special episode of Court Love Supreme, as all episodes are special episodes of course Love Supreme.
No seriously, for a long time fans of the show.
Who already know like how nerdy and informative we are, or at least that we strive to be at least and putting you on game. This is probably why our guest today is the perfect example and know how having one foot being a well effective suit in the business while equally having his other foot deeply rooted in creativity.
It's really rare to.
Meet someone on the other side of the camera that's as much of a creative as artists are, but still in the mode of being a suit. He is the president of Live Nation Urban and as a business manager for the last twenty years, he's literally guided the careers of a bajillion acts from Jill Scott, Scott.
Storch, Lil Wayne, j Colen, Nicki.
Minaj, even a certain unnamed presidential candidate Slash Nuisance, not to mention Philadelphia's finest.
The legendary Roots Crew.
Hello.
Hello, but you know pretty much if you've been head scratching for the last ten or fifteen years, wondering how in the hell does Questo? How can Questo match a triple platinum artist going buff for buck with only a single going gold in silent?
This man is really fully responsible.
Uh he can answer that question because lord knows, I've been in the game since nineteen ninety two and there's not many of us left here still swimming and thriving. If you will, and we owe that to our guest. I promised no inside baseball talk. This is supermanager, Sean guest, super.
Thank you, brother, thank you. I'm waiting for my supreme y y you'll do that practice last night.
We can do it on zoom.
We can't do it on COVID nineteen.
But if we had about it that name, I'm like, we can get a feature.
Then, you know, break it down.
His name was Sean G I think that's what it was.
Was your.
No, I don't know, you tell us please, lets you can start there the story, all right?
Yeah, No, Seawanz's rap name was MC two cool mellow cool cool cool mellowy.
Yeah, Sean, Sean is really responsible. I guess you know.
I mean, it's no secret.
Shawn and Tarika cousins.
And I guess a lot of people don't know that.
Right, Okay, again, no inside baseball from question treating you like a regular ask guest. Yeah, and so I guess the legend is that the sibling rivalry nature of their of their childhood. You know, Sean was like the star of the family because he had a twelve inch single that was popular Philly and you know that that really lit a fire into Tarik, like you know, wait, do
they get a load to meat like that? That sort of thing, and that's you know, so Sean is responsible for really putting the fire under.
Hold on, I see what's about to happen here, you go ahead.
Okay, IM about to say so.
So Tarika and I our cousins. Black thought is my cousin. We were sort of raised more like brothers because his mother was my first cousin, so he was my second cousin, but we were obviously around the same age range.
And you know his mom, you know.
He's always stayed at the crib like my mom was. The was the aunt was the South Philly aunt who moved to Mount Airy where all of the entire South Philly family would come up and hang and drop their kids off. And Riek was always at the crib, always at the crib. And from the time we were four or five six years old, we were super competitive in everything, right, whether it was riding our bikes, whether it was drawing, like Trek is a super dope visual artist. And you know,
I'm the older cousin. I'm two years older than them, so I I especially in those at that time when you were younger, two years is a big difference. So I was able to muscle him. I was able to, you know, verbally muscle him, physically muscle them like yo. So you know, we would have drawing contests, you know what I mean, and we judge each other's picture and you know, his pictures looking super dope in minds, looking
like stick figures. But I'd like, I want, I want, you know, So you know I used to always be able to frustrate them and in different ways. And music was another passion of us, like we you know, grew up. You know, I got my first record that I bought was you know, the Fat Boys but a stick them, you know, from Sound of Market, you know, brought it up to the cribe, was at the crib. You know,
we're playing a record. So you know, a lot of the experiences that I had being the older cousin, I would come back and and explain or talk to him or about it, and he would sort of live vicariously through me. And then, yeah, it got to a certain point where you know, I started rapping and and I started to get a rep in Philadelphia, and I used to travel around the city and got a record deal
quote unquote and put out a single. And at the same time, you know, REP was always an artist, you know, whether it was a visual artist, whether it was a poet, writer, a rapper, you know, a singer. He could do it all. And I got to a point where, you know, I also played basketball in high school and I was shooting guard. I had a record out and I was on a basketball team.
Played basketball then.
No, no, not at all, not at all, not at all, but but basketball basketball took me away from from hip hop, like basketball took me away from because it was like I started getting college scholarship offers and things like that. So I stopped. You were that good, Yeah, I got I got scholarship division too. I mean I wasn't. I didn't know that you were in that Villanova you swhere, But yeah, I got I got a college Scouts, I got the ball, like yo, google me though, like.
I got to be a mayor me Sean.
Know that's I'll send you some clippings, like you know, I don't know that life.
So twelve grade year, I put numbers the way Sean, you basket forward and can we take it back, like take it back to like the kind of house that you grew up in, like what your what your parents did, and.
Oh we can start there. We can start there. So so my entire family on my mother's side, I was really close, you know, to my mother, and father was in my life, but my mother raised us.
You know what I mean.
It was a household where you know, my father was in and out. You know, he was in my life. I'm not I'm not the one who's got it. He was in my life, but my mother raised it. She was She was the visionary, she was everything. And my mother grew up in the projects in South phil projects. I have three siblings thirteen, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years older than me. So they're much older than me.
Oh they were.
They were born in the projects in South Philly. My mom, uh, she dropped out of high school in tenth grade. She was pregnant with my sister when she was in tenth grade, so she dropped out of high school in tenth grade. Her my dad got married. They had two more kids, living in the projects. My entire mother's side of her family is from South Philly, Fifth Street Projects of Seventh Street. You know, South Philly is fifth Street of seventh Street, and you know that was the sort of pre showing
existence was all South Philly. My mom was a hustler, you know, she worked two three jobs. She saved up, she bought real estate, and her dream was to get her children out of South Philadelphia and she did that. She bought a house in mount Airy and my closest sibling was twelve years old, and they moved, and we moved.
They moved to mount Airy and I was born in a mount Airy So I I was born on Sharpenext Street in mount Airy with my entire family living in South Philly for the first six years of my life because my mom was working a couple of jobs, my dad was working, you know, and my kid, my brother's and sisters in school and we was ground and they
couldn't keep me. So my first six years of my life, I lived in South Philly with Tarik's grandma, so until I became until I was able to get become school age, I stayed during the week in South Philly with Tarik's Grandmam and my other aunt who lived like two doors from each other, my Aunt Many and my Aunt Blanche, until I turned six, when I was able to go to school. That's when I moved to Mount Airy with my mom and my family for the entire you know,
all week. So that was sort of my my early existence was jumping between South Philly and Mount Airy during the week and then you know, sort of staying with my parents and my family on the weekend.
Which at the time was like the first right was.
The hood and the burbs. It was absolutely one thousand percent this was this was mount Airy at the time where there were white people there, you know what I mean, it was, it was, it was predominant. It was predominantly white when my mom moved there. I mean, now you know that that doesn't exist, but that's that's the Mound area that we moved to when it's predominantly white. But again, my existence until I became six and went until I
became school age. Was still in South Philly because my mom and dad didn't have you know, didn't have no home health care, you know, kid money, money to.
Put me in some sort of some sort of you know care. Wait, so I have a question that Trica is going on record to tell the story. But were you there in South Philly during the infamous fire episode?
So the fire episode? All right, So I moved When my mom moved from South Philly, she moved to a house on Sharp Next Mount. That was the house she saved up. You know, she saved two jobs. She bought that house again. My mom was a hustler. Let me tell you one more thing about my mom. My mom was death So she lost her hearing at sixteen, so she dropped out of high school at fifteen, lost her hearing at sixteen, and had three kids by the age
of twenty. But she was a hustler and super smart and understood how to make moves and under and had a vision for her family. So she got us out of South We moved to a house on Sharpnext Street. We were there for about I think four or five years. Then she saved up and bought another house on Hoarder Street, which is the street around the corner, and kept the sharp Next Street as a rental property. Right, so we moved around the corner, kept the sharp Nextreet as a
rental property. One of the first tenants in that Sharp Next Street property was Tarik and his mother. So the infamous house burned down story was the house that my mother owned. Oh and it was in Mount Airy, not in South Philly. So the story is Tarik lived in this house. Tarik and and and his mom and his brother lived in this house. I was over there. I was there. We were hanging, we were playing. We were being cousins or whatever. And then I bounced and we
were playing. I don't know if y'all remember these little green army men.
Yeah, that was that was our thing.
That was our thing.
We used to set them up all around the crib and you know what I mean. And again I'm the older cousin. I'm like, wow, wow, wow, I killed you. I killed you. You know what I want. But we we we, you know, we got into the game and I bounced and he continued playing, and you know, evidently the story is he found a lighter and you know, the army men were stuck in one particular position. You know, that's the position you bought the man, whether they're on
their knees shooting or on the ground shooting. Te you know. Being the intelligent kid that he was, he said, I think I can if I burned this army man, I can change his position, because it's going to be you know, yeah, exactly. So, you know, he clicked the lighter, old school lighter, you know what I mean, clicked the lighter was burning the army man. Of course, the lighter got hot and he flicked the lighter down, and before you know it, you
turned around and the curtains is on fire. And he runs downstairs and tells his mom, and then the whole upstairs is on fire, and then the house is so, yeah, that's the that's the that's the that's the ultimate story. But yeah, I mere the house that the house that caught on fire was actually my mom's rental property. Oh okay, how those ladies in that house?
Okay.
He tells the story that he just ran downstairs like like you smell something burning, not at all, that's when it happens.
So when you question, I had just about your mom and she lost the hearing. Did you learn how to sign to that?
Like, how did y'all?
That's the crazy shi? It is so here. So let's you know, again unpacking a little bit. So my mom lost her hair in at sixteen, her sister, Tariqu's grandma. It was hard of hearing from the time I knew her. I mean, she could hear when you like yell. Our aunt, Dot was death. Dot had two kids that were both deaf, and my middle brother was deaf. You know, So we had all of that in the family. And I just don't understand why I don't know silent you know why?
You know why because my mom didn't learn silanguage. My mom read lips. Wow, I mean, my mom never learned silentuge she and what I did. I was her communicator. So my early business days was while she was doing and building her real estate business. You know, I was this eight year old on the phone translating with the electric company or translating with the contractor. Like Mom, he said, it's going to cost you know, six hundred dollars to put this hot water heater in, and she'd be like, Sean,
get the fuck out of here. Time. It don't cost me four hundred dollars and I'd be like, sir, and she'd be like I heard her, but tell her we could do four fifty. And I'm like, mom, he said four fifty, She's like, no, four hundred, and that's it,
you know, okay for it. So I learned my first sort of negotiating and and just handling business and understanding the rhythm of those conversations because business right, yeah, over my mom handling buying houses, buying property, negotiate with contractors. I was the one doing it because she couldn't hear, so she never really learned sign language, but she obviously knew how to communicate. So I think because of that, I never learned sol What was.
The height of her number of properties at like.
Her height, I think we had. I mean she used to buy and sell, so it was never like a buy and hold, like oh my mom had fifty properties all over the city. It was it was a buy and sell thing. But I mean I think she probably you know, across my through my high school years, it's probably like ten to fifteen you know, properties around the city that she's either bought held, So whatever.
Are you still in that business or have you just let them all go?
No, I know I still have. I still I still got some property. And so you know I'm still likes.
Great because that'll call your parents in case some shit happened to me.
Are your parents to they still alive?
Shot?
My mom passed away young. She was sixty four when she passed. She passed away fifteen years ago. My father's man.
Yes, okay, gotcha.
So you also attended Millersville? Correct?
Absolutely, all right at the university I got Are you the one that introduced Malkan to read to each other?
Or yes?
It was so I did. You're asking this question. I'm sorry, So it was me. It goes back to me and Tarik being competitive, right, so like I was saying, basketball took me away from him, Like you know, he wasn't making no money back in the day.
Yeah, you know. I was doing.
Shows at the Why out fifty second Street. You know, that was my trap.
That was the house of the Why Circuit.
I did the Why on Christian down South Philly, Why on fifty second Street.
You know what I mean?
I always wanted I always wanted to be jazz j just see, like that was my goal in life.
Right, what is that record deal with Sean?
It was with a company called Payhill Records with the label was The label was a joint venture between mc breeze and balally B.
Again where is all right?
So for those that don't know, like balawie B is like mid hip hop period, like between eighty five to about ninety one. Blii B was like a legendary Philadelphia label CEO, Like what was I always heard his name? But was he like our was artists.
So it's funny because the label was you know, this is his dude name was Jim Hill. He was like your traditional you know, corporate guy, non musician, non you know probably what what what y'all thought I was when you first met me, you know what I mean, like corporate shoe, no, no creativity. So it was his label. He did a deal with mc breeze, who was an artist. This combobulated later and and and you know all of that, and Breese did a sub deal with balally B, who
also was an artist. So my label was run by.
Two artists and production deal exactly exactly.
I'm like, where's my royalties?
Dog?
I'm about to about to hit you up for that, but but yeah, so so so you know I had that then I started playing ball. College, just start calling. I'm thinking about life. I'm like, let me take this college scholarship. You know, I stopped rapping and I start playing ball, so I go up to military. But I'm you know, you still rap. You're still freestyling, right, You're still in the car. Bea come on, you still you
never stopped fucking rapping when you rap? And you know, I come home Thanksgiving of my sophomore year, and you know, reeks over the family. We have our Thanksgiving dinner. You know, we're in the basement or whatever, and me and we always battle. We always battle, always used to battle. And when I was younger, you know what I mean, I would kill him. I mean yeah, I wouldkill him. He was younger. I would muscle him right, like, even when I lost, I won. But he's just start getting fucking bad.
It was like right around the time he met you and me were like, you just start getting better and better and better. And when I came home from college, we was in the basement and he was like, yo, you want to battle. And I was like you go first, and he was like all right, and whatever he said. I was like, oh no, I don't rap no more. That shits the sucker, you know what I mean. Like I said, but listen, but I said, look, you might be good, you might be better than me. But I'm
playing ball man. I said. There's this dude up Miller's named Malik. Like, Yo, you can't fuck with Malik B. You can't. He was like who. I was like, Yo, he's from Philly, he from westsel Wayne. You cannot touch Maliku B. And you know, that was it. That was it. That was Thanksgiving dinner. I said that to him, and that was it. Fast forward. He's a senior in high
school at this time. Fast forward, him and a couple of his homies from high school ended up going to Millersville and they ended up, you know, applying and getting accepted to Millersville. They go into the summer program. You know, I'm up there working in the summer. I want the first weekend that they're up there, I go to the you know, off campus party or whatever, and they're like, yo, yo, I just met your cousin. Your cousin go here. I don't know you had a cousin here. I just met
your cousin. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's all good. He's like, he's in the kitchen. I'm like, what are you doing? He back there rapping and I'm like, all right, cool. So I walk in the kitchen and it's Tariq and Malik battle and Malick says to me, like, yo, your cousin came in a party and asked who I was, so Tarik in his mind, you know, from the time when I said, yo, you this kid Malik and Millersville, You're not better than him, it was like a missile. He was like, let me find this kid mal like
Moseean's talking about. And from that they literally battled the entire It was like a two and a half hour battle, just back and forth. From that point they were bonded, you know, from from a rap perspective, that was that's when the you know, that st that portion of the roots were formed in that kitchen that summer in Millsville University.
Wait, there's the question.
You You'll be the perfect person to answer, because normally our guests are New York UH based guests and they always have a Latin Quarter experience. However, the Philly Latin Quarter was a spot called after Minon and I never had a guest on the show that could really explain why the after midnight was so important? Even though I'm of age, I was not allowed to the after midnight?
What was? What was it like in there? Now?
I know after Midnight's building as the Spaghetti Warehouse because it shut down, But like, what was was the after midnight the pinnacle or the top place where you could see hip hop shows at that time? Was that our house of blues? Was that our or was it the fifty second Street?
Why? Like, where was Philly besides block parties?
Where was Philly in terms of seeing a show that wasn't at the spectrum?
Right? So there was sort of two levels to it. You know, you had your sort of i'll call it the local regional level, but for certain shows you still had some national acts. But that local regional level, which is mean which means you can on any given Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday you can go to a party. Right. You had the YMCA's, you had the out in Winfield, You had Circus City. You know, there was this circuit
of clubs that rock every week. But you got to understand that Philly back then, the stars wasn't the rappers. The stars were the DJs, you know what I mean? So when you got the Flyers, you weren't going to see you know, Prince Will Rock. That was Fresh Prince's name before Fresh Prince Prince Will Rock. You know, you were going to see DJ Jazzy Jeff, you were going to see DJ cash Money, you were going to see Lightning Rich, you were going to see DJ Spinbad. Like
those were the names on the flyers. And when at all of these clubs, those are the people who sort of made those rounds, and as young teenagers, we were like, we gotta go see the DJ. It was almost like a you know who cared who was actually rapping for them. Like Jazz Jeff said earlier, I always wanted to be jazz. Like Jazz Jeff is a god to me, Like it's
amazing that I can call him a friend. But because when I was a kid, you know, I was like following Jazzy Jeff, like you know what I mean, Like he was an icon and during the time he had Rock well he had I see, he had all these random m seeds, but it really didn't matter. So you know, you had your DJ circle in Philly around all of these clubs that all of the DJ's were the stars.
What's that well, Grand Master Vict Victor do play.
Absolute you know, yea Master Vic and the super m seeds, you know what I mean, Like he was he was a he was a star, you know. And Vic actually went to my high school. So I would go see him at parties on Saturday, him and and his two mcs, and I come back and he'd be walking through the halls in high school and I'm like, oh, shoot, that's Master Vick, you know. But yeah, So it was just
sort of energy in Philly around the DJs. And this was and that was the club circuit, but after Midnight brought was this sort of national u look from a national recording artist perspective. All of the New York people came down to play after midnight. You know, you gotta figure even on the club DJ circuit, it was still neighborhoody. Right when you went to the fifty second Street, why, ninety percent of the people was from West Philly, you
know what I mean. When you went to you know what I meant, the Christian Street wid ninety percent of the people in South Philly. When you went to the after Midnight, it was people from all over the city, and you had performers from that you were listening to on Ladyb's Hip Hop Show and Memi's Hip Hop Show and DAS. So it was like that was like our
house of blues. That was where the national acts would come and play and you would see all of the people in the audience from all over the city at one place where we would all congregate.
Would your life be in danger?
Likely?
Latin Quarter?
Yeah, your life in danger at all of these places. You know, that's just part of that's part of the culture. You know what I mean, girls, girls would get there snatch and you know, guys will get there. You know, the six's jackets taken and you know what I mean, their name belts and all that ship. But yeah, I mean that's you know, that's that's that's that goes along with with the culture. You don't want if you don't if you don't want to experience that, stay home. Okay, I did anyway?
Wait what weren't you allowed to go?
I don't understand that. Yeah, come on, I.
Did it the first route show of Princess Lounge.
I wore burking Stocks. Now you got anyway?
Yeah, So okay, Now how you entered my life was you you started my first ever bank account, Like, at what point are you realizing that that basketball might not
be your future? And when does finance enter? And when you were entering finance, were you thinking of entertainment finance or were you just thinking like, I'll be a professional and you know, make low six figures a year, get a BMW, nice job and you know, wife or two kids in mount airy life, Like, where was this paradigm shift in your life where it's like, Okay, money might be in my future.
Well, what you doing?
I was I was looking and laughing in my mind. Sean was just about to say, Darren, but I'm gonna exactly what I'm going to say.
That basketball stopped becoming important my freshman year when my girlfriend at the time and at Millersville told me she was pregnant. And at that point I had to grow the fuck up. So it was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had November of my sophomore year, my oldest son was born. I was nineteen years old, a father. I was a quote unquote statistic, a teen age father
who wasn't supposed to make it. And you know, you're supposed to drop out of school, and you know, all of your dreams are over and just support your kid. But again back to my mom and actually her mother, her mother and father. They both looked at both of us and said, all right, cool, you know y'all got this, but we're gonna take care of this for the next couple of years. We're gonna take care of this kid for the next couple of years. Y'all both gonna graduate,
and that's one thing that's not gonna happen. Y'all not gonna drop out of school. So that support a lot. But but also my mom said, but you're gonna get you know, I was always a worker anyway, but you know you're gonna take care of them too, Like this isn't all on us, So you make sure you get your answer job or two if you need it. You know, you know you got you gotta take care of it. So at that point I stopped playing ball. Stop playing ball. I literally worked two jobs for my sophomore year to
to my senior year. One one was at a bank in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. One was at Kellogg's facility up there. On the weekends, I would they would shut down the the cereal uh whatever that is not treadmill, what do they call the assembly assembly shut down the Cereal assembly line, you know, on the weekends, and they bring people in and all we do is clean. We cleaned from ten at night to ten in the morning, twelve hours, two
days a weekend and get paid doing it. So I had two jobs up at school and graduated in four years. I was an accounting major, so you know, I didn't know what the funk I wanted to do. Like, it wasn't like I was like, I want to do finance.
You know.
I was an accounting major, so I you know, it was like, all right, you know, let me, I guess numbers are are where I'm where I need to be. I started working for the phone company. It was Bell Atlantic at the time, but it's it's Verison now, uh. And you know, it just was like going through life not knowing where I wanted to It was eliminating things that I didn't want to do, if that makes sense. So worked in the finance department with the phone company.
I was like, oh, this is where I'm supposed to be. Once I got in there, I was like, oh, no, this shit ain't for me, you know what I mean. After the finance department of the phone company was like, oh, people are going to get their NBA, Like, you know, there's a I can get another degree and that's going to help me make more money. Let me go get my MBA, you know. So I went to move to Washington, d C. I went to George Washington University full time.
While wait wait wait wait wait wait, so you'll parents are still like, okay, so you want to get your NBA.
Sorry, Sean, go ahead and move to d C.
I moved to d C, but by that time I had graduated college. She had graduated college. Darren was living with her and her parents, but he was with me every weekend. Wow, So I was traveling to get them even when I lived in DC. You know what I mean. I would drive up to Blancaster, pick them up, bring them the DC. He'd be with me on the weekends, I take him back drive back to d C. So he was with me pretty much every if not every other weekend. But yeah, she was living with her She
was living with her parents at the time. So you know, went got my degree, MBA and finance and investments. You know, Okay, what are you supposed to do with that? You either go consulting or you go Wall Street all right, let me try this Wall Street thing, you know, went up, started, got a job at City Bank, moved to New York. I was a private banker at City Bank, you know, working with high networth individuals. I had an office in
New York. I had an office in Zurich, Switzerland. I was spending probably two weeks out of every month in Europe, two weeks out of every month in New York living the dream, right, I didn't know, but I quickly realized I wasn't living my dream, you know again, eliminating shit that I didn't want to do. That's that was my that point in my life. That was four or five years. It was less about finding my direction. It was more about eliminiting things that I didn't want to do. Again.
I was spending two weeks in Europe, and I had a son in Philadelphia. Like, I'm like, yo, I'm trying to be with my kid, Like, this ain't the life that I want to be, that I want to have.
What year was this?
This was ninety seven into ninety eight, So you were.
In Europe from the time when we were grinding.
I was in Zurich. Yes, I was in Switzerland.
Damn.
Okay, I was in Switzerland. I mean, did you see it? We were there two weeks out of two weeks out of every month. No, we never it never it never, you know, so that we never connected.
Are you are at this time?
Are you talking to to y'all, like talking about your lives?
And then yeah, I mean I mean an American attest to this, like during this point in the Roots career, Like I was the cousin that would come around and hang in the dressing room and drink up they liquor and eat their food and hang.
But then I was mail D call the original mail D coll.
But I would bounce because I had to work in the morning, you know what I mean, or I had school in the morning. But you know, yeah, I was definitely you know, still communicating and and and you know, I always say I was because of that, because of me and Tarik, because of the Tarik Malak introduction, you know what I mean, all of that I was. I was. I'm a root, you know what I mean, I was a root at that point. I just was a root in grad school and the root in Wall Street.
Well, I think we we met.
I think the first oh distortion, I forgot you're the eye in distortion and static.
Yes are you not?
Yes?
I am. I was the star. I was the star of the first two routes.
Yeah, you know, I forgot about distortion.
I know you were in proceed, but I forgot that's eye is the eye.
That if you just.
Right.
I totally forgot that joint. So okay. So at the time when.
Me and Tarique are sort of elevating this thing past just being a high school rap group and name only and trying to get joints at the gallery, yeah, making like the early organic shit?
Are you taking at seriously?
Like when Tarik's playing you like past the popcorn and like early organics things. Is is there anything sparking in your head, like all right, he's doing something or did you just think like, uh they corny? Nah?
Absolutely taking it seriously, you know, absolutely taking it seriously. When Tarn told me he was gonna drop out of school and and come back to Philly with you and concentrate on this group and he's taken malk I was like, yo, go you.
Know what I mean?
Because again, for me, a part of me wanted to be that like you know what I mean, Like you remember in high school I was rapid, but it was at a time where nobody wasn't making money and it wasn't no traveling. It was just like, you know, a professional hobby for lack of a better term. So for me to see y'all at that point, you know, focus and commit and elevating, you know what I mean. I was the one on the phone fucking calling Kobe at powernighty now like why don't you play the roots? Why
don't you play the roots? Why you know I work with y'all, you know what I mean? So it was I was I was absolutely taking it seriously and I was absolutely sort of believing in you know, the future, the vision, you know what I mean of what y'all were forming at that time. Okay, so what did you have to do?
Because I'm trying to get into how you got into the profession that you are right now?
So I know that my correct. Are we your first client?
Yeah? I mean I can tell you.
I'll give you two mess worry at the time when you came.
Afore words words as to how I got into this business, the words are Richard Nichols.
Okay.
So while I'm being the cousin that's smoking up, y'all, weed and drinking y'all liquor, you know what I mean, Me and me and Rich on the side, and a relationship because I'm also the cousin that's in grad school, and you know, I mean handling his business, you know what I mean. So Rich as all of you who know Rich as a you know, he was a visionary and he could see things before you could see him.
Right.
So I think during those times where I'm building, I'm just in the back and we're just talking and arguing about shit, and he's schooling me about life and you know why, you know, nbas don't mean shit in the real world, and you know all of Rich's philosophies. You know, he's really he's really testing me, you know what I mean, He's really testing me. And I remember it was nineteen ninety eight. I was at the bank and he called me and he was like, Yo, where are you at?
And I was like, I'm at the band, I'm at my job. He was like, YO, come by the studio after he was at some MEMBERSNY Studios is on fifty fourth Street. My bank was on fifty third and Alex So I walked up there, walked in the studio with him, and I think it might have been like Axe or somebody back in, one of the engineers.
Actually, and he had, you know, two bottles of red wine, you know what I mean.
We sat there, drank a little bit, smoked a little bit, and nobody else was in there. I think he was. He was He was mixing like a jazzy fa nasty song or something like that, and uh, he was like, yo, I hate this ship. And I was like, okay, what you what do you what do you hate? And he was like it is fucking managing this ship, like I hate it. And I'm looking at him, like what is
he talking about? And he was like, you know, just dealing with the agents, dealing with these dudes in their money, you know, dealing with the record label and budgets and and all of that ship. He was like, I fucking hate it, Like that's the part of my job that
I hate. And anyone in those rich you know was He's the ultimate visionary, the ultimate creative, you know, the fifth beetle to you know, to to to to the really the you know, the third and fourth beatle to Tarik's first and second from a creative perspective and a visionary respective and what he was saying to me was this part of my job is weighing me down. So I just was like, how can I help you know what I mean? He's like, all right, that's what we're
gonna do. You know, he gave me Carol Lewis's number. I remember he gave me Caro Lewis's number. He gave me somebody's number at the label, and and and and he gave me Miyoshi's number, and and he was like, YO, call these three. I'm gonna tell him you calling them, and then you can take this shit over. And I was like, but Rich, I don't I got a dog. I got a job, Like I got a real fucking job down the street, you know what I mean. He was like, don't worry about you gonna figure it out.
You're gonna figure it out. I literally left the studio, as you know, Rich's partner that night. And you know, I didn't know shit about the music business. But you know, I knew finance, right, and I knew business, and I knew the rhythm of back to my Mom right. I knew the rhythm of a negotiation and the rhythm of a conversation. And I work at the bank, and I know how to deal with these white folks, you know
what I mean. So there's no different than you know, someone I'm dealing with the bank and someone I'm dealing with the label. So I sort of fell back on the experience that I had my entire life, and Rich gave me the opportunity to figure it out. And it
was months of me figuring it out right. And you know, at a certain point it went from me doing two hours of root work and ten hours of bank work, and then at a certain point, I you know, be in my office to ten at night and realized, like, you know, I haven't done shit for my bank, Like I just wanted the phone negotiating tour deals and figuring out you know, mileage from from London to you know whatever, you know, what's the mileage and what's the gas called.
You know, I've been doing that. So I got to a point where I was like, yo, I again going back to my earlier point. I found what I'm supposed to. I've eliminated all of these things that I wasn't I wasn't interested in, and I finally found my passion, or I should say my passion found me. And I had to make a decision. You know, I was making six figures at the bath. I was twenty this is ninety seven. I was twenty five years old, twenty sixty, twenty five years old, making six figures at the bank.
You know.
And but I went talked to my mom again, you know, my my rock, and I said, Mom, I'm I'm gonna work with I'm gonna work for Tariq and his group, you know what I mean. My mom was like, oh really, and she's like, it's a yeah. He's like, what you gonna do? I said, I don't know, Like you know, I'm gonna be richest partner and we're gonna figure this out.
And you know, my mom, being.
An entrepreneur that she is, she was like, look, as long as you can take care of that boy talking about Darren, as long as you can take care that boy, you can pay your rent, go ahead, do you you know? So I said a prayer and jumped out on face. And I remember my first year I was making six figures with in the bank, and my first year with the Roots, I made twenty seven thousand dollars and uh, you know, took a huge break, but I always appop last day that I worked the last day that I
worked in my life. The last time I worked the job was that last day at the bank. You know what I mean, Like, that's the last job I've ever had. The last day I woke up and said I have to go to work was that day in April of nineteen ninety eight when I left the bank.
The thing is, is that, all right? Can you explain to our listeners what does it entail?
Now?
I'll give the pre story at least with us, the way that we were living very hand to mouth. You would do a show nine times out of ten. You know, we get paid in cash, even though our system was a little bit different. It was more of a socialist system, like you get to repeat, you get to repay, you get to you know that sort of thing.
And had like a little talance.
But you know, the first time I got my advance, you know, you would have killed me, Like I spent that shit in three weeks my van. Do you get what you get about? Let's see seven thousand dollars worth of records. Yeah, a bunch of pumas.
You know. I was, I was Billy Jean, I was I.
Was about say when I sorry, you say he was giving booms money.
It was like a hundred bucks trying to watch it joynts like glow in the Dark, Like I was just you know, Sean hates this story, but that.
Look he's pissed. He's already.
Man, Man, it's the truth.
Like thirty years later, thirty years.
Later, right, you just you don't think about like I wasn't thinking about like am I Like back in nineteen ninety three, Like nineteen ninety nine seemed like the future.
Like oh we won't be here that.
That's thet I think, you know, even coming back from the proceed video, my dad was still like you got to get a real job. Like I didn't see this as a sustainable future.
So curious how he tuned it up. Yes, can you.
Explain how an organization with at least thirteen people because we rolled like you know, there's a band, there's you know, staff and all those things. Can you just basically because a lot of people do want to know how the Roote's been able to be a thing, drive and be a thing when on paper we technically should.
Now yeah, like what was those first changes that you made? Sean?
Like you came in he was like, oh no, we gotta do this, we gotta I.
Mean well, also would threaten to fire me if I ever fucked up. I don't know if we'll go into his clients that have no if you I mean shor want to ask me shell shock, Like if I spend anything over like my nineteen ninety nine budget, I'm still like can I buy this bicycle? Or you know, I'm It's.
Because again, coming into this business, I didn't I didn't grow up in this business, so I didn't know the norms and the roles and the titles and the things, right. So when I started working with rich you know, I remember we had a conversation. We were in the studio one day and I asked him, I said, you know, what's my title? And he was like, I don't know. You know, He's like, what's my title?
You know what I mean?
And I was like true, I was like facts, And we sort of settled on these titles of creative manager and business manager, right, but it extend My role extended beyond what a traditional business manager did. Like a business manager in the business is pretty much your accountant, you know, or your financial advisor. That person builds your financial team.
It's the hub of your financial team. So that person is the one who interacts with your tax account and interacts with your investment team, and interacts with your insurance team and your bank and you know, all of the financial activity around your business. He's your CFO. For me, that was an easy sort of title because that is the that is similar to the role that I played at the bank as a private banker. That's what I
was doing behind network individuals. I was the hub of all of their financial activity and using specialists in the bank and bringing them in. So I was like cool, But my role with the roots or was more. You know, I was also the person that was responsible for touring, you know, tour strategy, toard budgets, toar execution, you know, every aspect of a tour.
You know.
Rich sort of handed that to me. And again that that's not your traditional business manager, you know what I mean, it's sort of part of the management job. So where me and Rich sort of had our delineation was all of the business aspects of management, dealing with the label, Like most business managers don't deal with the label, but I was dealing with manager recording, budgets and and and that type of thing. While Rich was dealing with making the records.
He was in the studio, you know.
So so those first couple of years was a period of adjustment for both of us because I came in on my flat shoe, ignorant to the business shit. And Rich although he was the you know, upon first sight or if you get in an argument with him, you know what I mean, you think he's the roughest, toughest, you know dude in the room, Rich was a softy like Rich was like doctor, yes, Like anybody can get anything out of Rich, you know what I mean. So for me it was like I was like, Doug, why
do we have all of these people around? Like He's like, oh, because we're developing this and this and that and this and that. We literally argue back and forth about the usefulness of individual or why are we paying this out of the roots tour money? Like why is this person getting their rent paid out of the roots tour money? Like are they not self sufficient? Like is this? Do
we have a deal with these people? So I came in and sort of instituted traditional business structure in a non traditional business, or at least tried to institute traditional business structure and a non traditional business. And it was the yin and yang of Rich's creative vision as well as socialist mentality mixed with my or capitalist mentality and hardcore vision that sort of formed this nice sort of pocket that we ended up in. Right, We ended up with the Roots Crew, but I also made sure that
the roots were cool, you know what I mean. If we just would have went with the Roots Crew, the Roots probably wouldn't be here by now. So I made sure, like, yes, we got the Root Crew, you know what I mean, which is, you know, planting seeds for a lot of other people. But I'm gonna make sure that the roots are cool as well, because that is the bus that
we're all riding. And it was that sort of that back and forth up front, which was a lot of back and forth, that allowed us to build the foundation I'd say, by like two thousand and two, two thousand and three, when we start sort of rolling post post things fall apart, post Grammy, that sort of allowed us to take this, you know, this, this beautiful journey that we've been on for the last couple of decades.
Did you know you'd be the bad cop to Riches good cop. I'm sorry, I'm here.
I mean at times I was most of the times I was the more. I was the financial bad cop to Riches good cop, but I also was the creative and business good cop sometimes to Rich's bad cop. Like we played ying and yang really well, especially with you know, the the label side or promoters or you know, creates, you know what I mean. We played we played our good cop backcop really well. But definitely because of my background.
You know, I played the financial bad cop and and and Rich played the good cop just because he was doctor. Yes a lot of times. But but we we we we balanced each other well. And I think you know, at the end, we at the end, we you know, we were both managers, you know what I mean. Like I I just said business manager without knowing that business manager was actually a role in the music business. I just like, Okay, I have the business handle of the creator,
so I ran with that. But I think that that that's the reason why we were able to lay the foundation for the roots and and and and I said this before another in the in other interviews. You know, we were we were also realistic, yea, Like at the end of the day, our goal was can these guys make enough money so that they don't have to go get a day job, you know, and and and make money and live off of their art, you know what
I mean. That was our goal. It wasn't like let's let's let's make sure that a mirror can drop around in the maybox and Tarik can have twenty five cribs around the country. It was like, Yo, can they pay their rent? Can they give their mom some money when she needed for a light build? Can they take a lady out on a date, you know what I mean? And and then can we go and do it all again?
So it was like having realistic goals, understanding the what a blue collar musician is I mean, because again rich come from Rich came from that jazz world where it was you know, blue collar musicians, you know what I mean. So understanding that, you know, a blue collar musician is, you know, living off of his or her art and they're enjoying that versus going and having a substitute teach and you know, playing the jazz clubs at night when they.
Can you know what I mean.
So it was that that sort of mentality that we always had, and obviously those goals increased over the as we got more successful, you know, those But we've always even to this day, you know, I'm you know, it's funny, I'll be in these rooms and I love the roots. I really do love the roots. And I'm like, name fucking three root songs. You love the concept of.
The reats, you know what I mean?
Three root songs? You know what I mean. But again, for us, that's always been our goal was, how can we take these virtuoso you know, performers, you know, Tarek and a mirror, how can we make sure that you know, they can they can create a living off of their talent because they're super fucking talented and there's nobody out there better than them. They may never create a hit record ever in life, but that shouldn't define, you know, their future and their ability to earn a living off of the.
Absolutely so you mentioned the socialist system versus the capitalist system, of which you know, I think people think I'm super exaggerating when I said, like we we really didn't start as far as me and Tarik like really put ourselves on payroll until like later later or later in life, whereas absolutely before were it was very socialist, like okay, again, your RNK gets paid and your car bill gets paid and that's how and you kind of came in and cleaned up shop, like, okay, well why are we So
do you, in hindsight do you feel as though that I think the socialist position sort of kept us pure.
But did you agree with it? Because the thing is that.
I agree with aspects of it, you know what I mean? I agree with aspects of it, but I think I think the way that things were set up, people were taking advantage of it, and people were taking advantage of Rich and I think he and I think he realized that too. I think that's why I got that call that night from the bank. But I agree with aspects of it. I agreed with the sort of creative community
that was being built. And for any community, the one thing that in any creative community, any you know, sort of a musical movement, you know, whatever you want to call it, you know, the one thing that's needed in order to breathe life into it is infrastructure. Otherwise it's just some one off musicians and artists, fucking you.
Know, creative.
Yeah, he's just doing it right. It's not a community or a movement without any infrastructure. And what Rich had was the vision to say Okay, we're going to provide that infrastructure, right, and without that creative infrastructure, Without that infrastructure, the community slash movement, slash everything that was happening that beautiful times that we all had from you know, ninety seven to two thousand and four where all of this
ship you know, really sort of took off. It wouldn't have it wouldn't have existed without Richard Richard Nichols pre you know, creating that infrastructure. However, the problem when you have you know, infrastructure without structure is that infrastructure would have would have eaten itself alive because there would have been too many people eating at that same apple, you know what I mean. At some point you got to be like, I'm cutting this apple in half, Tarekan the mirror.
This is your half, everybody else, this is y'all hair. If y'all can't survive off of this, oh so be it, you know what I mean. So that's where, you know, the the balance of being rich at least in that time was was that I provided the structure for the infrastructure. But if if it were just my way, it probably
wouldn't have survived either because I was too hardcore. You know this is about Tarekan the Mirror, and I think that that without the commun I think y'all thrived off of the community as well.
Think about that, there would have been no Black Lily, And think about all the people that.
Black Lily know, even the you know, the whole you know tele comment like all of all of that, Not that they were core, but they were part of the the orbit that that everybody sort of you know, revolved around. So I think, you know, to your point of me, I think this. I agreed with a portion of you know, the socialists you know ideas, and I think they they were part of the reason why we've been able to survive.
But you know, if we just would have stuck with that, I don't think we'd be where we are to that.
Okay, can you talk about the growing I guess the first two ventures that we really put our eggs into those baskets was okay, Player and Black Lily.
Now remember the beginning.
I think I had to really sell you and Rich that this was going to be the future. I don't think Rich really saw, you know, what the hell me and Answer was doing, you know, in the bedroom.
Trying was the easier sell Emir, which was the easier sell.
Where because you know, I I was done before it was Black Lily was the Jam Sessions, and so you know, the second third week, you know what I'm saying, Like, really, I'm not exaggerating, like Beanie Seagulls putting out blunt ashes on the floor like everyone in the room is a bona fide celebrity.
You know what I'm saying. Music really was the pizza guy, you know what I'm saying.
But just at the time, they are regular people using my living room.
As their hub.
And I got to live on the block of neighbors looking at me like I'm crazy, Like why y'all jam until two in the morning, that sort of thing.
So I you know, I went along with the.
Jam checked out. He checked out of the Jam Sessions.
Yeah, I call the police on us.
So my heart was with Okay Player simply because like I just envisioned a future where there was a virtual playground that I could contact.
And so, but it was a hard sell for Rich and Sean.
And there have been many times where like they were just like dog, let's just go, like let it die. And so at what point did you get that this might be something futuristic?
So we're talking. Okay, player, we're talking Black Lily. Which want you to talk first?
Either or because I feel like that's so.
Yeah, so for let's talk Black Lily first.
Black Lily.
Amir told the story one thousand percent correct. Like Black Lily started off as the Jam, the Roots Jam Session. The Roots Jam sessions are epic, you know, have been done for years, you know, in various places. Started in the Mirror's living room and you know sort of grew from there when the Roots Jam Session started happening in clubs. I forget the club that Malik Gioba used to have in New York. Remember we did that club the second
forty second Street. You know, we went from there then we went down to to the Wetlands and but the problem was it it became all fucking male rappers, you know what I mean. It was like a line at the side of the stage of you know, dudes trying to get.
Up and spit.
And you know, in the community that that that the Roots had formed, you know, there were female artists, most notably the Jazzy Fantasties, and they would either never get an opportunity to get on stage, or they'll get on and you know sing you know, four bars of a hook while some random rappers you knows, or they'd get on at the end of the night after four hours of energy gone and people were leaving, right, So Rich and Mercedes and Tracy, you know, came up with the
idea of doing their own jam session. And you know Black Lily. I remember it was you know, sort of a play on Lilla Fair because Little Fair was that
thing back then. It was sort of on Lilla Fair that they came up with the name and the Jadge and Fantasy was also signed to the Rooch label Mode of Records and rather than you know, and it wasn't a huge like marketing budget that that that they were given at that time, so you know, they came up with the idea of saying, you know, rather than randomly spend our money on you know, radio promotion, which who knows what that actually gets you, especially when you're an
emerging artist, how about we pull this money and again back to the C word, create this community. You know, let's build this this this brand, let's build this event. This weekly event that started off in New York, this weekly event, so you know, called Black Lily, which builds from the energy and style and and and and aura of the root Jam sessions. Right, so Black Lily was built off of that. It was, you know, here is
the next iteration of the root Jam session. And it was funded by initially by the Jazzy Fat Nasty's marketing budget. And I remember that first that first event we had was at the Wetlands and it was probably like fifteen people there, you know what I mean. But it was dope. It was dope, you know, and we just continued on the weekly basis and the crowd started coming and people heard about it was free. That was that was the other part of it. Early on, it was free, you
know what I mean. We just had the martest pre social media. It's like market you know, to get people there. But it was free. And that free event just started started growing and then it, you know, eventually moved from New York to Philly to the five spot, et cetera, et cetera, and you know, it grew to become you know, what people know is Black.
Lily, but never more than ten dollars.
It still never was more than ten dollars, and it became and it became you know, at a certain point, so post Jazzy Fat Nasty's budget funding it. You know, Richard Nichols commissions were funding it. Because again you got to realize this is the post, this is post Shawn g coming into the fold, right, So it wasn't like when we ain't using this Roots money to fund this Black Lively thing, you know what I mean. You know, we got enough, We got enough things that the Roots
money is funding over here. So you know, rich you know, mainly rich quite honestly was using the commissions that he was making off of the Roots to fund that five spot version of the Black Lily. And to your point, like we would you know, we charged at the door ten dollars, but that was barely you know, covering back line, you know what I mean. So it was a we lost a lot of money, but you know a lot of a lot of big musical movements if you look at him in history, you know, they didn't make money,
you know what I mean. They created, they created culture, but it wasn't it wasn't a profit center.
It's like we got Jazmine Sullivan.
Yeah yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely so, so that that's the history of sort of black Absolutely, they held us down, like yah is the family soul. We went on the Okay Point, so Black Lively was poppular. Then we built an Okay Player too, and we took all of the
Black Lily artists on the Okay Player tour. So then what happens to Black Lily when they're all out on the road for two three months kindred the family soul between in Asia and their band, which you know, at the time, again they ain't had no money at the time, so they just picked musicians that were passionate about the you know what I mean. And at the beginning, you know, I remember me and rich will look at him like they sloppy as ship, like not for teen and Angel,
but their band, it was just sloppiness. But after four or five, six, seven, ten weeks, you know what I mean, everybody comes back off the road. They owned Black Lily. They defined Black Roots would come and perform at Black Lily, and people would be like, oh, that's cool, that's cool. Where it's where's Frendrick? You know what I mean? And they still I mean again, shout out to both of them because they still one of my fas groups, like I love I love them. But yeah, so that's that,
that's the Black Lily story. I mean, Okay Player, you're right you when you and an Chad division. I stepped in early on because I just wanted to make sure there was some business structure there. Again, I didn't want this to be Okay a mere starting this business in his bedroom, and you know, he's going to eat into our roots profits and we won't be able to pay for our tour bus on the next tour because you know, he's buying everybody computers, you know what I mean. But
what y'all built was immediately special. Again, the community that that that that that that formed around Okay Players absolutely absolutely, and and the relationships and the music and the artists and you know, I think Will I Am was like, yo, y'all, would y'all were the first Facebook?
You know what I mean?
Like he said something like that, y'all were the first Facebook. It was it was all about the community. It was less about you know, artists websites like That's how we went into it, right, it was like, let's build this website, let's build that website. But yeah, you know you and you and Ange your participation in Angie's you know sort of vision and and craziness, you know what I mean?
Were able to were able to attract this sort of community that that that you know has has continued to grow and build.
So how did what were the first steps into you really building coming outside of just keeping us, you know, keeping the lights on for us and then you And there's two there's two phases. Yeah, your your empire at least as far as tour managing other artists, like what was your first rate and tour managing artists that weren't roots bas so so.
A business man, I don't again, I don't.
And this this is and this is a study in my life. Like the title, you know, my title, I don't know what it is. Like I call myself a manager, you know, that's what I say, a manager because people kind of understand that, but I do more. You know, it's it's not your traditional man. Anyhow. My second client was a young lady out of Philadelphia that I've known since high school by the name of Jill Scott. Jill and I went to brother sister high schools. I went
to Central, she went to Girls High. I knew her in high school. We uh, we went on a we went on a we even going a prom together.
But yeah, okay, because she's already told this story so that we needed to sound the same.
Y'all went to She went on a prom with a guy. I went on a prom with.
A young lady.
After the you know how after the prom you go to Great Adventures, right, So we were all at the prom together. Then the next day it was like four couples that were supposed to go to Great Adventure together. It was the three couples in me. My date didn't go with me, so it was, you know, I was the third wheel or whatever you want to call it. So you know, we hung out then, and you know, I sort of lost touch with Jill after high school, like you know what I mean. She was the girl's high jone.
And I remember.
Having a cassette to giving me a cassette with the original You Got Me beat and hook, and on the cassette was written the Jill song. I don't remember this on here. We used to be called the jail so the Jil song R it was, And you know I just ignored. I was like, oh, the Jill song, Yo, that Jill song, banging like yo, that Jill song. You gotta do that Jill song. Anyhow, at a certain point we were on tour and we were at whatever that venue that is across the street from Fenway Park in Boston.
You know that little club Fante that's right across the street from Fenway Park.
But it's not that it's not the Middle East.
It might have been a Middle I don't know what. It's right across a Frienway Park, but I remember we were, Yeah, we were in bound Chack and I heard this voice from the stage and it was Jill singing you do you got me hooked? And I walked out and I'm looking at her and she's looking at me, and I'm like, Jill Scott, like you are the Jill song and she
was like showing you know what I mean. And that was like the first time we connected was at soundcheck when she came out, you know, doing some doing some shows with the Roots. And you know, her husband or ex husband now was managing her at the time, and she had her and her lawyer had to negotiate with me the deal terms to get on that tour. And you know, I think she had, you know, a lawyer that was like, you know, she was a lawyer, but
she wasn't an entertainment lawyer. It might have been her girlfriend or something, you know what I mean, that happened to be a lawyer, and she was asking for all kinds of shit Like I was like, yo, sweetheart, like do you understand what this is? Like I'm gonna give you this amount of money and this is how we try, like you know what I mean. She's like, well, she needs to fly between each other. And I'm like, yeah, we're playing House of Blues, Like what are you talking about?
But because Jill was my friend, because she was my friend or you know, I had an own her, I called her and Lizell and said, Yo, I'm just gonna give you a piece of advice. Like this lawyer she has no idea what she's talking about, and she may ruin relationships. Like if it wasn't me, if it wasn't me, I would be like, fuck this girl. Let's just you know,
we'll figure out how we do this. This girl is crazy, right, So I think her and Lizel appreciated that, and you know, a few months, you know, then you know, Jill became you know, she started putting her record together and Touch of Jazz and you know, all of that, and her record came out July of two thousand and July two thousand and I think later in the fall, like she would you know everything, she was grinding or whatever, and they called me and was like, Yo, can you come
be a part of our team? And I was like, what do you want me to do?
Again?
It's almost like a Richard Nichols call. I was like, what do you what do you what do you want me to do? And they were like, you know, I don't, we don't know, we don't know what we're doing. You know you work with the roots. You know you know what you're doing, and we trust you. That was basic, the basic premise of our relationship. Needed the call and
the start of our relationship. So again I came in leveraging what I knew finance, so you know, I stepped in and looked at the money and tried to make sure everything was structured right business wise. I came in and immediately took over all the touring because I was the roots guy. We were doing two hundred shows a year, like this is how you organize your touring, et cetera, et cetera. And I just came in playing my roles again.
I never had a title with Jill. We always called ourselves business partners because you know, she went through a couple managers and then she's like, this managership ain't working for me. You know, me and Sean we just rock together. We're business partners. But people call me a business manager early, people to this day called call me her manager. But we're just business partners. We just we just build right,
we build together. So Jill was my second client, and you know, thankfully, both the Roots and my first two clients I always say will be my last two clients, you know what I mean, We've been together, you know, multiple decades. My third client, though, is the one who sort of set my trajectory to where you know, the next phase of my business was. And that was you know, me getting a call from Don de West in two thousand and four when Kanye had college dropout and wanted
to do a tour. You know, he wanted to do a tour. He wanted to do a college tour, and nobody on his team had ever worked with a tour touring artist. You know, his managers at the time, Gee Roberson, Who's hip hop, ol Branch hip Hop, they all at that point, they all they managed was producers. They had just Blaze. They had Yay. You know, remember Yeay was a superstar producer before he became an artist, so they were like the managers of all the superstar producers, so
they ain't no shit about touring. The business manager that he had, Kellogg and Amberson, I believe, was the company in LA. They were filming TV. You know, they didn't have any music folks, so they didn't know much about touring. And his agent was a lady named Karen Lewis, and Kar told them you need to talk to this guy, Sean G. Because he can organize, strategize, he'll have your ship, right, So they flew me out to LA interviewed like three people, and they hired me on the spot.
Can ask but be cause you mentioned that we did two hundred shows a year, where was that common knowledge? Like was that common knowledge in the business of like how the roots keep like able to you know, is that normal for a music act to do that many shows? Like what does a normal act do in terms of like what is it what does a gang start doing that time period?
So so you got to think about the time period that we're in and the time period that we're in touring wasn't sexy, you know what I mean. Touring wasn't a thing, especially in black culture. You know, in the in the alt rock world, which is you know, alt rock slash jam bard world, which you know, a mirors was our model. That's the model that me and you
rich In Tarik sort of built around. Was like, you know, the alt rock or jam band model, and fifty doing one hundred and fifty two hundred shows a year was normal with that world because number one, these bands grew up as fans of bands, you know what I mean, So it was part of their culture, their favorite bands when they were growing up and playing that guitar in their garage or wherever the fuck they learned their music, their favorite bands they experienced live, so it was live
was part of their culture, our culture, you know, as as consumers of black music, you know, especially hip hop. Live wasn't a thing. So we were a huge anomaly within hip hop by doing all those shows. You know, hip hop tour was you know, uh uh bad boy versus you know what I mean, whatever, You know what I mean, it was if you're not in the big arena with with with Pyro and all of that, you're
not really touring. You know what I mean. You're going after fresh Yeah, you're going after your big publishing checks. Are you going after your Adidas deal? Are you going to get another advance from a label? That's how you made your money, Like you weren't making money on the road. Who did that? So for us, we were an anomaly in hip hop. We were anomaly in black music by
doing all of that. So from a from an overall artist perspective and fan perspective, they probably didn't recognize it, but the business people in the music industry recognized it. The label heads, the label execs, the agents, you know what I mean, they all realized, like, oh ship the roots, you know what I mean, they're doing their thing and
they're a live bang like you know. So that's how I was recognized through Karen Lewis to be recommended to Kanye because of the business that we built by doing two hundred shows a year and making sure it's organized, making sure we're you know again, simple shit, we're on time, you know what I mean. We perform, you know, we collect our money, we pay our bills, and we wake up and do it another day, you know what I mean. That's sort of back to the blue collar, that blue collar musician, you know.
I asked one more question inside of this question.
Yeah, again, like if you look at marketplaces and maybe this is more of an agent question.
Maybe this is the Caroll Lewis episode. I don't know, but.
If, as far as I know, there's really around the world, who would you say that there's maybe at the most twenty three markets.
For us for the for the roots use us as.
An example, like how many marketers are there?
And people to the past, like is it normal for an artist, because that's the thing I want to convey to people.
Is it normal for an artist to play New York.
City seven times a year and still sell out?
Like?
How are you?
I just had this conversation with I had this conversation with an agent because again, you got to think about the time frame that we were in versus the time frame now like right now, it you know a lot of and because you know, I'm sure we'll get to the live nation side of my life. But because I'm working with artists from a different perspective, you know, it is short term gratification. It is Yo, I played the
House of Blues last tour. Why aren't I playing you know, Hammerstein Ballroom this tour, and I want to be in Madison Square Garden by my next album, you know what I mean. And I'm like, yo, y'all tripping like happening. Yeah, you we from a roots perspective. We played the House of Blues for fifteen years and we're happy about it.
In Halloween World, yeah, we increased all the financial was instead of trying to reach too far on venue size, we would just increase the ticket price, every ticket paying back, you know what I mean. So that's how we went from ten thousand dollars a show to twelve five.
Better save it at New Year's Even show.
So so that so that part of it, I mean, you know, we don't you know we there are there are probably you know, a good thirty to thirty five cities if you're a popular hip hop artist in the
US that you can play. If you're if you're if you're Drake, you know, you can go into going to Des Moines, Iowa, and Eugene, Oregon, and you know what I mean, Tallahassee, Florida, and you know you can you can hit those forty and fifty you know, tertiary or whatever is beyond tertiary markets but for most successful artists, you're between twenty five and thirty markets in the US.
In Europe, you know, you have multiple markets in the UK, you know, depending on again how big you are, from a from a from a pop culture perspective, from a pop culture perspective, depending how big you are, you have multiple markets in the UK. And then you have a handful in continental Europe, you know, in the continent. Like it's not like you're going too deep. You know, you're basically one city per country, you know what I mean. You're doing Amsterdam, you're doing.
You might hit like Helsinki, like you might see you know.
What I mean.
Germany you can hit two or three cities, you know what I mean, And you.
Got motherfucking uh like maybe kind of went up last time I went, but like you got that Berlin can go Berlin.
Yeah.
Yeah. So so you know it's there's there isn't a ton. Now, what's what's open the market? It's festivals, because you have festivals in these secondary cities in Europe now where you can go to Leon or whatever and they or you can go to to Portugal, you know, where you can't go do a hard ticket date there. You can go, So that's opened up. The amount of markets is the sort of festival economy over the last decade. But you know,
there is a limited amount of markets. And for us, what we did is we continue to just go back and play markets because you build that audience one show, one fan at a time, you know what I mean, and when it's time to grow, You'll know when it's time to grow.
And it should be noted by this time.
By the time you get to Kanye, you're not a one man band, right Like, there's like the office.
Maybe you've got some help, but are you.
Still yeah yeah, yeah yeah, right around Jill, Right around Jill. When I picked up Jill, I started, you know, I hired two people, you know what I mean. I was like, okay, now I got Now I got a company. You know, when it was the roots, it was just me. I was just trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. When I got jail, I was like, oh, I got a business. I got two clients. You know. By the time I got to Kanye, you know, I never I never really stacked up to you know, a
thousand people in sixteen offices. There's always been a pretty small, pretty small operation. But but but yeah, yeah, so by the time I got to Kanye, you know, I had, I had, I had some folks to it.
Okay, so in building your clientele, which you know Drake is well, I mean more than that, I who name all your clients because I know Latifa And again I know you don't have a title, but as far as I know, if money is coming down the pike to you, you are in some You're under that management Unbroke.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. It was. So that's why I say so with Kanye, I had this weird role of I wasn't as manager. I wasn't as business manager. I wasn't his agent, I wasn't as all of that. I was just a consultant in touring. So I you know, I worked with him. We we we worked on that very first college tour, which was the School Spirit Tour from college dropout. And you know, and when I say worked,
I mean I felt it was more tour strategy. Like I hired the tour man, I hired the production manager, I hired the whole team, and I worked with the agent and worked with ya on the overall strategy. And you know, I started with him on colleges. And I think the last tour I did with him was Watched the Throne, you know, with with with with him and Jay, and you know, I sort of took that trajectory went from with him. I went from clubs to theaters to
amphitheaters to arenas, the stadiums, you know. And I learned the big business of touring through my experience with Kanye West. As I started building that reputation other and building my relationships, other artists started coming to me for that work. So Ge Roberson, his next client after Kanye in two thousand and seven was Lil Wayne. And again this is two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight. Lil Wayne. You know, he releases Carter three, the biggest record in the first world,
a million of first week. So he's no longer some some hood as hip hop artists. He's a driving culture. But his touring was on some hood shit, like he was still getting brown paper bags from the ship clubs, you know what I mean. So G was like, Yo, my guy just did the glow and a Dark tour with Kanye. We need to bring him over here. So G and Cortes hired me. Again, I wasn't Wayne's business manager.
I wasn't Wayne's manager. I was just this guy who came in and built his touring business and we went from you know, strip clubs and brown paper bags to you know, I AM Music Tour, which was the first tour and we did I Am Still Music Tour after he got out of jail, and we've done America's Most Wanted and you know, built that up on that first tour with Wayne. You know, he had a bunch of artists that he was developing on this random tour bus.
And on that bus was Drake, a young young gentleman by the name of Drake, a young lady by the name of Nicki Minaj, amongst others. So, you know, I started working with g and Cortes and I started working with Drake early on and built the sort of infrastructure for him and for me. My role was touring, you know what I mean, And I helped, you know, build with his agent, Rob Gibs, helped build his early touring career.
I think the last tour I did with Drake was Club Paradise when I had you know, just just how the puzzle works. On the first European tour that I did with Drake. Drake chose an opener by the name of J Cole. You know J Cole and his management team. I had knewest management team. They knew my wife through the business and you know, on that Europe tour we built and they called me in in in London, they called me in there in their dressing room. Was like, Sean,
I need you to help us. You know what you're doing with Drake, what you did with Wayne. I need you to help us. So I worked with Cole from the Friday Night Lights period on up through his first arena tour. I mean a lot of the roles that I played with artists because I'm building their touring, I'm also educating their team. So I sort of worked myself out of a job at certain points and times, you
know what I mean. You know, when when Drake's contract was up with with with Cortez and Gina Man's company, you know what I mean. And his management team who came on is as bright eyed, you know, you know, sort of naive Toronto kids, but super smart, you know what I mean. They come ask me questions. They see how the ship run like it's it's not rocket science. It's like if you're smart in your attention, you pay
attention to detail. You can do this right. So at a certain point they're like, all right, cool, Sean, I'm good, you know what I mean. J Cole, same same thing. J Cole's crew. I love them, you know what I mean? I love them because they were super smart. They thought out of the box. They were always individuals, never really followed a pattern. Eve and Adam we would always talk about touring Envision and Rob Gibbs again their agent, and you know, at a certain point they were like, oh,
you know, your resources are my resources now right. I know I know a rigor what a riggor does, and I know I can call the rigger, you know, who hung my light's last tour, So I don't need you know, But I don't mind that because I think that's part of you know, i'll use the L word, but it's part of sort of my legacy in the business. Is I am joy, Yeah, I am. I am teaching these young,
you know, super smart future executives the touring game. So I went from Cole to Nicki, Wayne Cole, Nicki Drake, you know, and a few others.
But that was sort of and also I think that you're is you teaching them how to do it for themselves, not by themselves, but you know, teaching them like, yo, you can do this for yourself.
You know what I'm saying, with the resources that are available.
To you, absolutely now without it being all got you journalism disc.
No no, no, no, no no this.
What can you talk about managing expectations? You can actually use me as an example. I mean, I would like to think that you know, you've only had maybe two or three of those.
Four m a mirrorphone calls of what the fuck? All right?
One time I misread a price on a ay on a particular or on a simple item a mattress and a mattress, Well, I okay, I graduated from the W mattress.
Oh ship no rich put me.
On to Hastens on a Hastens mattresses and they're extremely pricey. The thing was, they saw me walking in the door. They must have thought it was a football player played with the.
Giants or whatever. I don't know. And you know I came in like I will be the first to.
Tell you shut up, sorry you got a king, because I'm just looking at a queen and I'm like.
Got that right? So they take what kind of kind of when you go into Hastins, they.
They they they you're supposed to They're supposed to you try one bed, and I still feel like they lied.
I feel like they lie.
To you and make that initial cheap bed so uber comfortable.
Then your mind's like, hey, let me try that one over there. What's that over there?
And you're like, oh, this is sud you know, maybe two hundred more and you're give that one, and then they got you.
Then they're like, all right, let's go to the next one. Let's go to the next one.
These motherfuckers actually just brought me to the top of the line. Joined I didn't look at the price because again Rich is like, yo, I think, I think you'll you know, you have better circulation for your legs and d D d D if you get this Haystens bed. So I got in the bed, fella stick like you lay down for ten minutes and then I say, yeah, I fell asleep. Okay, great, I'll take it, and here's
my office number, and I'm thanks. And I never looked at the price because you know, at that time, getting a W Hotel bed was a big deal because W Hotel beds were like seventeen hundred bucks again, which was expensive for w Hotel bed. I didn't realize that I just purchased a six figure bed.
I got a hundred thousand dollars. I didn't look at the price.
This is the whole night. This is bed, like the frame, everything has over the egg. That's all you.
Get.
Visit Monday right again, Babe Bill said that Hastings has two dots over.
Two dots.
J Z like j.
That's all you need to know.
You're gonna get charges out. It's like a white person dots.
There's like ship like whoa.
Anyway, So cut to.
Eight o'clock in the morning the next day, yeo, you would have thought I ran everybody's mom over with the car the like really, it's come to this now, like we we give you an inch and this is what it is, Like did.
You get to what the buck calling me?
And like come on, no, they were it was he.
The thing was is that Seawan's had some other clients that he's not naming right now that have done that shit like you get your check and you want to ball.
The fuck out.
And fifteen minutes into this curse out, I realized that oh shit, I just brought a one hundred thousand dollars bed, my bad and of course I got the price I can afford, or that they told me where my budget was.
But the whole point was how do you manage expectations?
Because you are managing acts and dealing with their money post two thousand, you know, it's way it's way past that baller stage. How are you Are you having conversations with them at the top of your business relationship? Will you tell them like if you color within these lines and live you know, da da da da da or you or is it just like you just get the Evans money from you know, Cincinnati, Ohio, and that's it.
I'll see you later, Like how do you manage?
Managing expectations is one of the key things to being a manager, a successful manager in music. I'm sure it's in film and TV or or in any sort of creative genre, right, you know, because when you're dealing with creatives and but and again, I didn't come in knowing this shit, like I've just learned it, you know, on the backs of my clients, like dealing with you and
dealing with Tariq and dealing with Jill. You know, just understanding the motivational aspects, the aspirational aspects that each of you have, What inspires you, what motivates you, what buttons can be he pushed. It's psychology, right, It's all psychology. That's that's the most important part of being a manager. That's the most important part of being in any relationship, right,
is understanding the give and take of psychology. So that's whether we're talking about a mattress or you know, we're talking about you know, damn I wish emir ended the show with this song versus that song, Like how can I have this conversation with him knowing that this is his world and his baby, but I know I'm in the crowd and you know what I mean. So it's psychology. It's understanding the give and take. It's compromised. Like one lesson that I learned and Kanye taught me, and I've
taken this throughout my career. So again, this is you know, two thousand and six, I think seven whenever that year whenever we started to Glow in the Dark tour, and again I'm four years in with Kanye at this point, we've done three or four tours together.
You know, what I mean.
We have a level of trust. He knows me, you know, meaning how I think. So we're going on this this big tour, biggest service career, biggest tour of my career, you know what I mean. And I go out and specifically go and hire the sort of logistics team. I put an all star team together of people. He had all his creator I ain't touched none of his creator shit. But he allowed me, as did Wayne and others, to like, all right, give me the team that's going to properly
execute this. So I go out. I hire Curtis Battles, who number one is black and number two is what's Eminem's tour manager. And at that time two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, Eminem's on fire, He's on stadiums and shit. So I'm like, I got the top black tour production manager. I bring in the tour manager. I bring in all of the tech teams. I'm hiring all of the logistics. He's dealing with the creator. At a
certain point, I start calling people. I'm putting it together, my budgets, going back and forth with the agent, you know, doing venue deals, calling the venues, arguing with him over you know, our point, and everybody went dark on me, like literally nobody would return my call. Curtis didn't return my call, Yay didn't return my call. Like nobody fucking return my call. And I'm like, what is going on? And it was like a two week period. I'm in
the middle of planning. I can't get any information. I'm calling, you know, Miss West.
His mom.
She's like, hey, Sewan, now I don't know. Everything seemed cool to me. You want me to ask around. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna get you into it. Let me figure it out. After a two week period, Kanye calls me. He's like, Yo, can you come to La tomorrow. I'm like, yeah, you know, I fly to La, go to his crib, sit in the living room. He's on his computer and he turns the computer around and I'm like what's this And he's like the tour, this is the creative what
do you think? And he walks me through it and I'm like, Yo, this shit is crazy and I'm like, yo, but what the fuck? Like how much is this cast? Like I haven't talked to nobody like and he was like, yo, I called everybody and said if you talked to Shawan g you're fired, and I was I was like why. I was like, why'd you do that? And he said, because I know. If I wasn't able to get my full creative vision, I would have talked to you along
the way. You know, I would have made a left turn and I would not have been able to get my full creative vision out because you would have been, you know, asking me how much things cost and how are we gonna move this? And I got my full creative vision out. Now, now tell me what you think about it unless And it taught me like that was a really deep lesson on how to work and deal with creatives, because at the end of the day, y'all are the motherfucker you know, a mere fonte to reak.
You know, whoever it is, y'all are the ones that's driving this car, you know what I mean. I just gotta yeah, yeah, exactly. I just got to make sure that it got gas in it, it got oil in it, and it's gonna get to where it needs to get to and it ain't gonna break down. And when you get there, you got some money in your pocket.
Right, So, because the show is they're not gonna holler Shanji.
Exactly. Or even if the show is good and you weren't able to do what you wanted to do creatively, you're gonna be unfulfilled. And who you're gonna blame for that? For being unfulfilled, You're gonna blame Sean g You know what I mean, you didn't let it out. So that lesson that I did with Kanye, that lesson that Kanye taught me I've taken throughout my career and working with creatives. It is managing expectations, but it's also a balance in making sure that look, I mean that not that matchless.
But we could tell other stories here where you know, there have been things that you needed or you wanted, and you know, we talked about it, and I'm like, you know what, this is what this motherfucker work is ass off for. This is why he's up twenty three hours a day to be able to do what I think is dumb shit, but it's aspirational shit for you.
So I can't I can't give you know, I can't overlay my thoughts on you know, your creative vision and what I just to put the barriers up, both creatively, business wise, money, whatever it is I got to put the barriers up so you don't fall off the highway, you know what I mean. But you're driving the car, you know what I mean?
Hey, Sean, can you tell us the time, like when it comes to the roots in jail, what was the deal that you've made that really made you take a step back and like past yourself on the shoulder or really go fuck yes, Like I'm finally doing what I feel like is fulfilling them, and like we we've done this ship. Nobody else has done this ship. Like this is fucking phenomenal.
I don't think there's you know, I don't. I don't think there's one deal, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think there's there's not like one big branding deal or one even the Tonight Show deal. Like I don't think there's one. What I get it? What I you smile? I thought? I mean even the whose picnic?
We're not there. Like the thing about the Roots is the thing that keeps us going is we never fucking arrived, Like you know what I mean, Right, We've never like arrived to whatever that mythical place is that you think you need to get to. We're we're always motivated to either do more or diversified, you know when I.
Say right, But they still had to be a moment where you went they didn't think we could do this, and we did that ship.
Oh okay, okay, gotcha for the Roots. It was the Roots pet in New York. Okay, it was when we did when we did, when we did Bryant Park. I I I literally stood at the back of the park we were on with Wu Tang and you know, I looked up in the sky and I shot the rich and I was like, yeah, look, look what the fuck we did? You know?
Because again I remember that night. Man, we talked that night. Uh you know, we I think I don't think w was on, but it was. Somebody was on. But we was talking and you was kind of giving me time. You was like, yeah, man, like this ship was work, like he was on, like you was. You was giving up like that.
So I remember that being a big moment for y'all.
Yeah, Ruth Picnic New York was probably that moment.
You know.
Again, it wasn't a deal, but it was that moment where it was like all right, you know what I mean, like, okay, you know we're there. But again, I think. You know, overall, it's the constant it's the constant growth, like the it's the what's the tortoise versus the hair mentality that we have that I'm happy when I'm happy when Alicia keyes twenty years into her career makes a fucking song called Jill Scott, you know what I mean. Like that makes me happy because that shows all of the work that
Jill put in and I was able to assist. You know, it's being recognized. I'm happy when you know Questlove is DJing the jay Z and Beyonce Oscar party and killing it, you know what I mean. And everybody there is like, oh my god, I'm twenty five, thirty years in Like it's just a constant ascension of people that you know, over the years, everybody always turned it. You know, who are these guys? What's up with her? The girl from Philly?
You know, but you know they at the end of the day, as long as we constantly ascend creatively, as long as we diversified business wise, and we can make sure that we follow our own dreams and every time we achieve a goal, reset and go for more goals, you know it's gonna work out.
All right, So I guess for you and me personally, you know, twenty fourteen was definitely a turning point once Richard died of of chemia, yep. And you know I definitely was going out my mind during that time period, and you know, I realized that it was just it was going to be a shift for all of us.
You know, I was like, well, damn right now.
You know, any creative musical creator, like usually I always have Rich to bounce off of, and there's always that eight am phone call that you have with Rich which is weird because Rich had am phone calls with everyone.
So I'm trying to have am phone call every day were Rich. I don't know how he did this.
Right exactly, Like in my mind, it's like Rich wakes you up at like eight seventeen and then you're off at eleven.
But everyone has and so what in.
My mind, I was just like, well, shit, like Sean's the suit to Rich's creative. Now Sewan's going to have to be a creative and I'm going to have to do things that I hate doing, like vocal takes and like sitting there patiently, like putting stuff together. So talk about the shift that because I guess that's the period in which you made the decision to I mean, at that point, you would you were you were developing sports
Entertainment or s C s CFTE. Yeah, you had you know, basketball players, yet you were managing business, managing all these people. Can you talk about the transition from sort of amalgamating your your company into Maverick, which then goes into Live Nation, like how does it?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, yep. But before doing that, I want to talk about twenty fourteen because you're right, you know, at that moment when we all realized that Rich was was was on his way out. The first thing is Rich being rich, you know he was he was prepping me
for it. You know, Rich was prepping me for for years just you know, thinking back on it, just the conversations we were having and and you know, ship that we were talking about, and responsibility that were normally his, and the creative side that he would be like asking my opinion, and I'm like, you really want you want my opinion?
You know what I mean?
You know he would always say I was wrong with that. I gave my opinion, but he was just asking my opinion and things that you know what which photo looked good. I'm like, you want my opinion on that, you know, but he was prepping me for twenty fourteen. And I don't know if you remember, I had a conversation with you and Tarik. You know, I said, look, I'm going to step up and do a lot of shit, you know what I mean. But I am not going to step into the shoes of Richard Nichols. You know, from
a creative perspective, I can do a lot. Then I can build this and you know, tours and festivals and ideas and hire people to come build your dreams. But I can't. I can't make reference. I can't do vocal takes. I can't. That's just not who I am, you know what I mean. And you guys are going to have
to step up as well. It's not just me stepping up, So you're going to have to step up because this is a big ass void that we both got film and I think it is it is that sort of combination of my growth in the two of you individually growing. That is the reason why you know, six seven, eight, hopefully ten, fifteen, twenty years after rich you know, we're still sort of building, growing and driving. But as far
as you know where I was business wise. I mean, it's funny because twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen was the year that I sold my a portion of my quote unquote management business into Live Nation, into Maverick, you know, and Live Nation was building this mega management company called Maverick and Guile Siri was the head of the Guile Siria the manager of You two and Madonna. He brought in Clarence Faulding, who was the manager of Jason Alden and
Rascal Flats and Shanaia Twain. They brought in Adam and Larry Rudolph, who managed at the time Miley Cyrus and Britney. So you had black folks, yeah and and yeah. So at a certain point, at a certain point, these were all the deals that were done. And I guess someone within Live Nation said, you got a whole bunch of white men. You know what I mean, I got white Yeah. So they went after my partner, Gie Roberson, Remember Gie Roberson from Kanye I walked in, I met him with Kanye.
They went after him and said, okay, you managed Kanye West, and you managed you manage uh Lil Wayne, like, you know, let's do a deal a little bit of a sidebar all of these tour deals that I was doing, you know, Kanye Wayne dre Nikki. I was on the other side of the table from a company called Live Nation, So I was doing these deals from with Live Nation, so they knew me as the manager, the black dude that
did all of the big black tours. The guy who I was negotiating with on the other side was a gentleman by the name of now Hayman and the most successful black concert promoter in the history of the game bar none, and he sins right now. Managers Floyd Mayweather, and he's the most successful boxing promoter in the history of the game, bigger than Don King and Bob Aaron and all of them right now.
To this Haman was he the one? Was he the one behind the.
Superfess Rick James Michael Jackson like.
Mary J.
Blige, I mean, he's he's he's the guy.
So let's get him on the show.
Se so so, so I'm negotiating these big deals with al Owl's on the other side of the table, Like, Okay, this little motherfucker knows what he's talking about, you know what I mean, because you know he's like I never dealt with a young black man who knows touring like you do. So back to the Maverick thing. When Live Nation Slash Maverick goes and tries to buy gro Risin's company, Al Hayman tells Live Nation, Well, Gee Robson is great, but this guy showing g over here, he's the operator, you.
Know what I mean.
So if you're going to because at this time, me G and Cortes had similar clients, but we had three different companies. She had Hip Hop's in nineteen seventy eight, I had SEFG. Cortes had Bryant Management. So you know, in order to sort of complete that purchase, they said, Okay, we're going to buy Gee Roberson's company. We're going to buy Cortez Bryant, We're gonna buy Sean G because that is the machine that makes all of this work, and we're going to merge them together and then put them
under Maverick. So that was that deal in twenty fifteen where I brought they brought into my car, sold half of my company to Live Nation.
Are you interested in bedfellow Sean, I'm sorry, I was just thinking.
I was like, so you got management mixed in with live shows and production, just production.
I'm just thinking like Live Nation again.
You mean from a Live Nation perspective, I mean said Michael Rapino is one of the smartest executives in the business, you know what I mean. For him, he calls it a flywheel, and for him it is. You know, when he started, when he took over Live Nation, Live Nation was a bunch of individual regional promoters, you know what I mean. You had your guy in New York, you know what I mean, and he had his company. You had Electric Factory concerts in Philly, you had cellar door concerts,
and these were just the independent individual companies. What Repino was able to do was merge all of these business It was. It was actually Clear Channel prior to Repino. But you know what came out of the Clear Channel Divester was this merged entity of all of these individual regional promoters that created this one mega promoter business. But what a lot of people don't understand on the promoter side from the live show you you don't make no money,
you know what I mean. From a margin perspective, the artist makes all the money, right, you know what I mean. If I have Fonte come in performing, you know what I mean, and I do a deal with him. Ultimately in success, he's gonna walk out with eighty five ninety percent of the money, you know what I mean. The promoter margins are five to ten percent. So what what Rapino did, which was intelligent, super super genius, was he said, Okay,
I'm gonna build a flywheel around the shows. I'm gonna have shows which are the volume business, low margin but volume, thousands upon thousands of shows. But I'm gonna have venues and when you pay for parking and peanuts and popcorn, you know, at the shows, you know, I'm gonna make money off that. I'm gonna have media and sponsorship that sells sponsorship at the venues. I mean. So he's built a flywheel of business.
It's that almost like McDonald's, like you know with famous McDonald's quote, he's like, I'm not in the hamburger business.
I'm in the real estate business business, you know what I mean.
But the Hamburgers is would bring you in, right, the shows bring you in. Yeah. So so so to your point, like you know, it's your hand is in different areas, but it's all sort of a flywheel that works together and you know that. But again I came in under the austices of ge Roberson's partner, and that was that was Maverick management. It's funny because you know, I can't guy about this, but you know, when I came in with the Roots and Jill Scott, we were like the
folks that didn't belong, you know what I mean. Every artist was an arena artist. Every single artist in Maverick was an arena artist, except the Roots in Jill Scott.
But over time, you know, they start just like you know, just like I said earlier, like over time, you know, the managers started to respect you know, oh ship the Roots, Yeah, oh ship Jill Scott, and you know they start calling like, hey, can I can cuss a lot coming help produce this or you know when I think the key that that the pinnacle of that sort of disrespect at the beginning but ultimately led to respect, was when you two called an ascid the Roots can open for them, or no,
if the Roots can guess on their set at Madison Square Garden and you know they came out right in the middle of Madison Square Garden of course. So uh but yeah, so I mean that was that's how I got into a lot of nation. It was through you know, y'all need some black managers. And these are the three that you got to buy out. Though Jill.
Uh sells out Madison Square Garden, does she not? I mean that's one of the like we have.
We have sold out Madison Square Garden.
Yes, but you know what I'm saying from that, Neil sold class of two thousand.
Jill, Erica and Maxwell and Mary are probably the three and and and believe it or not, you know, Kim are probably the four miles.
You know they're strong.
But even man, you know, if tickets are going on cell not for look, Erica is you know, I've been down from day one. But Erica isn't going to sell out Manson Square Garden by herself.
Or maybe we've never sold out by ourself. It's all about strategic packaging. We sold it out with Maxwell, you know what I mean, Jill and Maxwell. We did two Knights of Madison Square Garden together, all right. Maxwell and Mary sold out Madison Square. So it's about you know, part of part of the touring is strategic packaging. Yeah, we sold out Amphitheaters with Sugar Water with Jail, Erica
and and and Latifa. You know, Erica sold out Barclays last year was Erica, Anthony Hamilton and I forget who else it was. You know, again, strategic The the beauty about that that world is you can strategically package and one plus one can equal three or four, and that's where you get to fifteen, sixteen, seventeen thousand. On their own, they're all probably like five six thousand, but when you put them together, it becomes an event.
Didn't that line of thought kind of lead to why there needs to be a Live Nation Urban?
Yeah?
Absolutely. I mean, you know, once I was in Live Nation officially, you know, with the venture on management, I just I just air beat them.
You know what I mean.
I was like, yo, you know, y'all not really fucking with Black culture. You know, like at the end of the day, Live Nation at that point did big really well, meaning you know, Drake blows up, he goes to arenas. No one does big better than Live Nation. You know, jay Z, Beyonce doing stadiums, they do big very well. But incubating culture, building partnerships, building festivals that are curated for specific audience, i e. Black audience, they didn't do
that at all. So after about a year meet Air Beaten, you know, the CEO and the chief strategy officer at the time. They, you know, gave me an opportunity and said, okay, cool, you want to do this. You know you think there's an opportunity. You're an entrepreneur. We respect you. We already have a deal with you. Go build it.
And besides the roots picnic, what did you build?
The first three deals that I did. The first deal was I flew to Dallas. I sat with a gentleman by the name of Kurt Franklin, and I said, Kurt, you are the jay z of gospel music. Why don't you have your own event? Why don't you have your own festival? Why don't you have your own series? He said, because no one's ever asked me. So we that year launched the Kurk Franklin Exodus Music and Arts Festival, which is the biggest, most successful gospel music festival in the country.
And I and I say gospel because I mean Bishop Jakes has you know, the essence of gospel. But it's bigger than music, you know what I mean, It's it's everything. So his is much bigger. But you know, we've had every you know, we've had you know, all of the who's who of gospel has performed on it. And next year. This year we were supposed to but next year we're going to expand it to It's in Dallas now, but we're going to expand it to multiple markets. So that
was deal number one. Deal number two is I called a fellow Philadelphian by the name of Troy Carter, who was running Spotify at the time. Spotify had this playlist called Rap Caviar, which was driving you know, I mean at that point, rap Caviard was what Mike Show DJs were to us back in the day, where it's like, this is how rap artists get broke. You know, you got to get on the Rap Caviar list they had.
Troy was running the company and Tumabasa, good friend of mine was was he was Rap Caviar, he was the curator. So I went to them and said, you know, you are the new radio and really the only self sustaining profitable model in the radio space is radio shows, you know what I mean, the summer jams and the powerhouses. So let's build the live iteration of your playlist called Rap Caviar Live. So we built that fifty fifty venture between Melivenish Urban and Rap Cavit and in Spotify, and
we took and built that music series. And the third deal that I did is I identified these two young brothers in DC that you know, had their finger on the pulse of culture. Had like this many sort of smallish festival that they did, did like seven eight thousand people, and it was called Broccoli City Fest Broccoli City. And you know, I came on my radar because as I was, as I booked the Roots Picnic every year, of course
I'm on my own shit. I'm like, I'm the best curator, you know what I mean in this in the space, you know what I mean. And agents and artists started saying, well, I play the Roots Picnic as long as I could play Brocoli City. So I went on a mission, like what the hell is Brockley City? And I went and met with the two brothers Marcus and Brandon too, really smart young brothers and from North Carolina. I'm both from from Yes, that's the homie.
Yeah.
And I invested in them, you know what I mean. I didn't try to take over. I didn't try to make it Nation Urban Festival. I said, look, you guys got a vision, you got a finger on the pustal culture. You know your audience. What I want to do is build, put, get invest, and build the infrastructure for you so that you can grow and scale. And we went from seven eight thousand people to thirty five thousand people. I moved into RFK Stadium and built.
And grew and this year we didn't go down.
We probably would have had fifty thousand. It's the largest gathering Black millennials in the world because I'm the oldest person there by far. It's it's eighteen to thirty, eighteen to thirty, you know what I mean, period. And so that was the third That was the third thing. I mean. Since then, I've partnered with her Gabby, with the artist her. We built a festival called lights On Festival in the
Bay Area. You know, We've I've taken a start producing the Miami Jazz and the Gardens Festival, and.
In d C.
I've do some you know, smaller emerging artists platforms you know Audio, Mac and others. But those are the first, Those are the first three deals that I did. Was were those three?
Can you explain how you build a festival from the ground up like one of the one of the times where I dread the most as a Philadelphian, it's usually around March because that's when everyone starts hitting.
Me up, like yo, can I get them with Roots Picnic?
Can get And I'm like the oh, we start building the picnic two months after the Roots Picnic like August. So can you just explain what goes into building a festival, like the calls you have to make, the like this is done ahead of time?
Is it?
Like?
How do you how hands on is it for you?
I mean it never stops. It's twelve months a year, you know what I mean. You know, if you talk about the Roots Picnic, if you talk about Brocoli City, if you talk about some of the some of the events that we have that that that I have, it it there. There's a there's a process to it where it goes from like you said, ideation. You know, let's
say a festival starts in the fall. I mean I mean festival plays in the summer usually you know, late summer, is you know ideation sometimes actually ideation takes two or three years, you know what I mean? Like for the Roots Picnic, most headliners we've talked about two years prior, Like we talked about Pharrell two years prior, and it took us two years to lock in the deal, you
know what I mean. Same thing with Usher, you know what I mean, we talked about So so you know, that ideation process never stops, but you know, it starts soon as the previous year ends. Then you go into the booking process because as the festival economy and market
has gotten bigger, there's more competition in the space. When we first started Picnic, we were we were the only ones that were looking for sort of alternative urban black R and B hip hop like nobody else, no other options, So we can you know, call and be like, what's
up you want to play it? But now you know, between the sort of regular mega all things to all people festivals like the Bonus and the that yeah that are that are now being tinted black, between those and then the other you know, sort of culture facing festivals.
Now it's a lot of competition. So you start that booking process, you know, nine ten, eleven months in advance, and you need to have you know, I got a I got a team of young people that have their finger on a postal culture as you know, a mire, I send out a group text to our entire team. Who y'all listening to? Who y'all want to? Tell me? Who you want? A mir Tell me who you want? You know, Dawn, you know anyone that's like, you know out there, like talk to me, send me main, send
me videos, send me clips. Because you almost have to be a predictor of what's going to be hot at two periods, A when your tickets go on sale and B when you play, and those.
Are two different periods.
Probably your two story was napping U I'm gonna things.
What's his name?
Nack Lamore?
Yeah, we got back Lamore right in the nicked time of Like I mean.
Yeah, there's a lot of stories like we got kid Cuddy, like you know what I mean, super early weekend, you know the weekend. Yeah, I mean, but again, that's a team that's a team based effort. It's not just Sean g or Meir Thompson sitting in our rooms, you know, saying this is hot. It's a team based effort, both official people. But then also you know, the last three years, my son has booked four or five of these acts. You know, my fifteen year old I'm like Sean who
popping like, oh, you gotta get young boy. You got to get this person. You got to get that person, you know what I mean, Because it's a balance.
So being a sons, can you just a quick callback because we talked about your first son, but can you just tell people what your your first son is doing now?
Darren Darren's a sports agent and c.
There you go living your dreams.
Just moved to l a wow.
From a baby having babies.
But yeah, it's it's a never it's a NonStop processing there. It's just you know, it never stopped because once you book, then there's the marketing, you know what I mean. And you got to put the marketing plan together. You got to understand what the marketplace is saying. You gotta understand how you hit your audience. You got to understand how to break through the clutter. You gotta understand when other
festivals are announcing. And then you know, once you get out of the marketing phase, hopefully you sell tickets quickly. And then is execution. You know what I mean. You're you're you're you're transforming empty fields into concert venues, into experiences. So it's more than just the stage it's the creative concept that goes along with how do you want these
people to interact with all aspects of your site? Like it's not just who you put on stage, it's who are your vendors, where are you going to place your vendors, what are your prices? Who are your marketing partner, your brand partners? What are your activations?
So Sean, doesn't all that go out the window now because uh, for twenty twenty.
I mean, hell, yare for twenty twenty, but no, twenty twenty one, we'll be back yep.
Okay, well all right, so it's April, Nah, it's May. It's May of twenty twenty. Like how much gray hair are you getting.
During this people?
Uh?
I mean? And you know, with the Roots picnic, how much work we put into that second day like we had the first day, which we booked the shit out of Because part of the strategy for us and The Mirror has been driving this for years, is how do we get the Roots out of the headlining slot because if we ever want this to be Lallapalooza, we need the Roots to ultimately play the role of James addiction. You know, Perry Felt, you know what I mean, like,
how do we get the roots out of it? So we finally figured a way to get the roots out of the headlining slot while still keeping them in the festival. We were selling tickets like hotcakes on our one day festival, and we Tarique Emir myself. We spent six months negotiating with Missus Michelle Obama to come and headline our day two. We were about to shock the world with that. So we finally had it deal done, putting together the creative and COVID hits, you know what I mean. And so
it wasn't just the roots picnic. I had Broncoli City Festival sold out. It was sold out two months in advance. I had Miami Jazzmine Gardens that weekend in March when everything shut down, headlined by Mary J. Blige, Jill Scott, Anthony Hamilton, Charlie Wilson.
It was live Crew, y know.
We were we were we were better than essence. We were better than essence that you know. But again we had to stop. So I had a ton of festivals that got shut down, and you know, ship, I was depressed, dog like, I was fucked up, you know what I mean, Because I spent I spent the first four to six weeks of COVID undoing my last ten months of work. It's like building a house and you get to the front door. All you got to do is put the front door in and then the bulldozer comes and knock
knock it down. Was like fuck, you know, I just eight ten months building and ship. So it was it was super super you know, sort of depressing. You know, I was. I was depressed. I was upset, you know what I mean. I was, I was hurt, you know what I mean. It was all types of emotions.
When did it change? When did that change?
When spirit?
I'll be real when we don't in with the route we dove in on our on our YouTube page, you know, we sort of we sort of rolled up our sleeves and and and got creative and started coming out Quest Love Supreme Live, Quest Loves DJ, you know everything that you know Tariq's you know, the Thought Interview, you know, our our emerging artist platform, like like we got the creativity is the thing that that sort of was like, oh shit, Okay, this isn't the time to be depressed.
This is the time to roll up our sleeves and we become entrepreneurs again. Like I I talked to Tariq a Mere Jill More during that period because you got to realize, like it was like a well we machine. With my management client, it was like, Okay, we got tonight's show. I'm going to stay six months ahead of the guys, you know what I mean. I got an execution team keeping feene Teina Faris Monir, I got a team that handles the day to day. My job is to stay six months ahead so that when we get there,
it's something there. So it was sort of like a well oiled machine. What this did for us was it forced us to become entrepreneurial and creative again. And this shit's been fun as a motherfucker. I'll be real with you, all right, So what does that future look like now? And I know people talk about, man when we get back to normal, but it's like, okay.
So when so all right?
So when when when the the line finally gets flattened in the United States and there's we're COVID free?
Am I still.
Going to blah blah blah club to DJ YadA YadA YadA.
You know, what do I do with the thirty thousand? You know?
Audience members that I've gotten on these six platforms, virtual DJing yep, Like is that a monetary future?
Like?
How absolutely?
I think you go back? Or do you stay the course?
We will never in the live music space, in the live entertainment space, we will never return to February of twenty twenty. Okay, that won't happen. That won't ever happen again.
What does that mean?
What that means is like the way that the Roots Picnic look when we last did it for the Things for All part twentieth, what would be different? I mean, I think Live Picnic twenty twenty two, Lite will return and Live will return at scale.
I think that part of it is going to be driven by science and governments, you know, mainly science meaning you know, whether it's testing vaccine, whatever that ends up being. You know, you can't replicate the emotional connection of being in an audience and watching your favorite artists. And I think that will return. But I think the difference is, you know, COVID was the symptom, but what the live music industry is actually going through, It's not COVID. It's
a technological disruption we're going through. This is the first true disruption of technology for live music recorded music went through it from LimeWire to Napster to that ended up, you know, that sort of six to eight year process of disruption ended up with Spotify, Apple Music title where we are now, right And if you guys remember that was a really fucking uncomfortable time when Napster was in and live people were like, the industry's gone. Record labels
are never going to happen again. Why are we doing this? These consumers will never buy anything because they can trade files for free, all of that. But what ended up happening was the industry embraced technology at the end of it, and the business is bigger than ever right now. And that's the same thing that's going to happen live. What we're seeing with these live streaming platforms. We're seeing with
the consumer engagement. If you think about the level of digital engagement from music consumers when Fante, if I told you you were going to be sitting on your fucking couch for two hours watching Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight play music and enjoy it, if I would have told you that in February, you'd have been like, what.
Nigga, my my moment for that was versus was the primo and uh, and.
That was the moment where I was like, yo, the world has changed.
Forever like these but that engage my house watching two dudes play record and that's the most important in the world right.
Now, and enjoying it and looking forward to it. So that level of consumer engagement, which probably would have taken a decade for us to get there, happened in six months. That's going to transition out of COVID, and you're going to see cottage industries that become major, cottage companies that become major companies that are building companies around that digital distribution and digital engagement. That's not going to take live away. It's going to add on to the live economy and
you're going to now see a bigger industry. The pie is going to get bigger because now you have brick and mortar lies, remember Blockbuster and h and I mean, what's the what's tower record? You'll have You'll still have brick and mortar line. Now you want to have virtual line and together you're going to twenty twenty five, the live music industry is going to be two three times the size that it is now. Just like recorded music is bigger than it was, you know during the during
the Limewires. It's what Eric, It's going to be a point it's going to be a point of uncomfortable. It's about to say that two or three years where you're going to see big major players like Tower. You're going to see big major players that were the ship in twenty nineteen and twenty in early twenty twenty in the live music industry. If they don't adapt, they're gonna be gone.
So Sean, is what Erica did recently during the COVID is that the future the whole subscription live show thing.
You think the beauty about it is. I don't know the future. I say it's fun ship. That's the fun part. The fun part is we are in the Wow wild West with Ship. Erica came out and said, well, all of y'all platforms, I'm gonna build my own platform. Is that is that going to be? Is Erica gonna end up being Spotify? Or is she gonna end up being LimeWire? You know, I mean, I don't know, you know what I mean? Like like Twitch, Twitch is you know, it's
a huge gaming platform now has a music strategy. Are they gonna end up being Spotify orre they gonna end up being Napster. I don't know. But that's the great part. And again depending on how I came up, and this I always and you know what I mean. I'm not just saying this because you're on the phone. I say it in meetings with CEOs and presidents. I'm a root, you know what I mean. I came in this game of route and we figured out how to make this
ship work. We figured out how to make a twenty plus year, thirty plus year career off of one and a half hit songs. When when it's time, when it's time commercial right there, you know, when it's time to roll in the sleeves and figure some shit out. In a period of time where it's discord and everybody's confused, you know, some people are gonna fall off the wayside. I'm having fun. I'm coming up with ideas, creativity. Let's
figure this ship a Mirland. Why don't you dj? And you know from your barn in New York, you know to why don't it? It's this is the part here that it's fun because I don't you don't know what the future is, but you do know, it's not going to be where we were on February twenty twenty.
And you get to create it. We're essentially absolutely absolutely and the.
Winner might be some kid that's sitting in you know, his bedrooms homeschooling right now, Like he might be the next Steve Jobs of the next you know what I mean. And it ain't gonna be somebody that's the CEO or somebody that's the president right now. There's gonna be some kid that's sitting there doing virtual school right now, and that's going to come up.
With the answer.
All right, man, did I just hope?
I just hope your Roots fan, whoever he is the Roots?
So did I?
Well?
Wait, I forgot there's one thing that we forgot to mention you also going to a foray of developing with two one five Entertainment.
You know, actually, like what what is I find myself.
Trying to step away from platforms and get less and less jobs. But now that I'm listening to this story, you're actually quest low like just between lot Nation two one five Entertainment us developing these these movies, these plays, these television shows. I mean, at what point are you going to Chef Gordon the thing and just be like all right, Alice Cooper, let's just right off into the sunset.
And you know, do you have do you have a master plan written out in which you just like all right, I'm cool, or you let your.
Son take over? Or for me, is he is he on that level yet where it's like.
Which which on the music side? You know, yeah, like it's my it's shown, it's my fifteen year old. Like he's he's he's built for this and he's he's telling yes, he's telling me about you know, this person doing his bundle and you know how it's super creating because everybody's bundling with their T shirts, but he bundled with this and that, and you know, we look at the numbers, look at the streams. He's he's not not not a proactive thing for me teaching him. He's just I see it.
I smell it like Darren. I smell sports Like Darren wasn't into music and this my business. He took what he learned from me, what he saw. He's took my hustle and my grind and applied it to his passion.
You know what I mean.
Sean is absolutely built for this music game. Like that's that's you know, I see it. I'm like, all right, dude, I'm gonna be working for you, so you know what I mean. But yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't have a I don't you know, I don't have an exit plan meaning exit plan from a you know, I'm gonna go get my house in Hawaii. Like for me, it's about passion, Like if you all the things I'm
involved in is because I'm passionate about it. Like their clients that have fired me, you know, like I said earlier, because I sort of worked myself out of a job, their clients that I fired. Like if I don't fucking wake up and inspired by you or you know, every day isn't gonna be inspiration. Some days I wake up and be like, man, what the fuck I'm here? Come on dog?
All right?
So when's the first phone call start? Like, when's the first like when does your phone start ringing? Obviously you have a rule in the house that no more phone calls after black blah black out, because I could be imprisoned somewhere and I know you ain't gonna pick up the phone.
But that's part of that's part of hiring a team like you call near, he gonna pick it up. But years but fifteen years ago, I was that dude that picked up their phone, you know what. You know, I was the one riding up when somebody got locked up. But now that's part of growth. It's like, all right, y'all do that. But it's funny my phone calls, you know, now that I live in La I usually start my phone calls around seven. But when I'm being creative and
my team, you know, always jokes to me. Sometimes that last email comes from me at three or four in the morning. Like my mind. As I've grown in this business, my mind has started to work more like an artist, unless like a suit Like I know, y'all always used to say, like, you know, creativity don't start until after midnight, and I'd be like what y'all talk about? Like you
got to sleep. But as I've gotten older, that's when my creative ideas come because during the day, you know, I'm doing phone calls and zooms and shit like that, so I'm able to.
You gotta wait to everybody else's asleep so you can really exact exactly.
But yeah, my day usually starts at seven. You know, seven seven thirty with calls, and you know, especially during COVID, I'm able to work from home, so I you know, between calls and my kids, you know, the balance is good.
I see.
All right, Well, I'll be hitting you about adding more acres to my property and.
Oh shit, and you gotta battle Jeff more acres, more acres.
Oh no, I'm about to sun Jeff in the second. And anyway, no, I think you know, I had to learn some shit. And you know we've been.
We've been business partners for what twenty plus years already.
Ye, we can definitely name this episode the lesson like there's there's some lessons in him.
Absolutely. Yeah, all right, well you know, Sean G. Thank you. I'll be bugging you later tonight.
Oh good, Well, make sure y'all send me that edit because you know I ain't signed that so I can should tell y'all any time.
Than let us never about the career of Davy l Yes, so fine, anyway, all right, and I just say, and I'm so.
I told you this before, I told both you and me this, but it really is inspirational to just to watch and see what y'all brothers are built over these decades man, and you know, and I just think you for the opportunity, you know, for bringing me into this and uh, you know, you hit me. And it was just like, hey man, the mirror is doing this thing you on in And I was like, all right, I mean,
you know what the ship was gonna be. But but you know, I just I just you know, ad my work ethic in the hustle, and you know, for I know how hard it is to build something on your own. So I was gonna just you know, salute you man, and just give your flowers and just say yeah, Sean.
Definitely appreciate it.
We all have our own Shan stories.
I wouldn't have got my own radio show back in Philly fifteen years ago if Kobe Cole would asked.
Sean ge who he was the host for this show?
Wait what?
Yes, That's how I got Sunday Morning Soul because Kobe was on the call with Sean and he was like, I want to do this specialty show about soul, and Sean he was like, who'll be a good hell Sprach.
And how yeah, I didn't know that.
I thought.
You know, me and Sean had many a morning conversations on the way to work and stuff like that, like it was a bill.
Yes, And he finally told me when I was able to have my allowance to buy my weed, which was also very exciting. I remember the day when he said, like, you can now put some money aside weekly for weed thinking.
And I regret telling the story because now you that was great.
That great.
I'm gonna stop talking about you.
I would have love for you to say I took it back, but that's.
Fine, dots, No, I did take it back.
Okay, okay, good, all right, dude.
Sure this has been the more more informative that so.
I already learned from Alan Weeds that managers aren't going to do the tail all ship on the so you know, I feel that this show is effective enough without talking about you know, artist fuckery that is going down.
It wouldn't serve the episode a great way to build. I never say this enough you.
You definitely take on the gray hair that I successfully avoided right now, and I have.
A lot of it.
Anytime I see my my my barometer for how.
My life is going is based on how much gray hairs. Right absolutely, I'm like, all right, all right, it's a good month. I'm amazing all right, well on behalf of the team, Sugar Steve. We still FLI Chustine right now, Yes, yes, I see you, I see you. Pay bill and take a little and all right, yeah, thank you showing ge uh this appreciate and signing and off we will see you next week when the next Joe around request Love Supreme.
Thank you, yo, what's up? It's a sponte.
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