EPISODE #000 - OUR PILOT

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. The show starts in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go. This is a Chah production. All right, all right, is everyone on the call? Now, Candy, AM, you around with me? All right, this is gonna be a little fun little ride. Candy, this is your virgin voyage. There should be a lot of fun. Twisted Critics all day though.

What are we? I mean, Twisted Critics, it's our podcast and we are them biasedly unbiased brothers stretching across the whole US who dig music and music business. This is our much-anticipated relaunch that originally began with myself and my cousin Tony Ganja in 2018. Now we have two brand new co-hosts, Rapper AM and Candelario. AM and I are active artists ourselves and all three of us are collaborators, radio reviewers, and current business execs at Hear My Voice Entertainment.

Not only that, but starting this year, the Twisted Critics podcast is curating our very own Spotify VIP playlist to begin and better help promote our special guests that we have on air and other songs that we just love and become fans of. You know our good and bad experiences in the rap game, our jobs around the industry, and many questions, messed up information.

We've heard at music conferences, we remember what it's like starting out, making our mistakes and being told false information everywhere you turn. So we try to direct answers, correct business practice, clear legal steps, and helpful research. It's our mutual love through all of our weekly calls, our ear for urban music, our mathematical eyes, that's got to have mathematical eyes.

On the radio chart, our reviews, the record labels, our heated song debates, we're going to go at it, I already know that. Our unasking guests, both business and personal questions, and our solidarity in sharing a few drinks, Salud, that makes it therapeutic, productive, and often wild platform for y'all to listen and be a part of.

You know, if nothing else, tune in with an open mind and notepad and a full glass to enjoy an informative, opinionated, entertaining, and twisted vibe and you might learn something. Please be interactive in sending questions via our various social medias. I will not only give you a shout out live on air, but also give you directions and steps to us three are believers in the motto, a drunk man slash woman tells no lies. Call it education to inebriation, if you will. And that's what's up, bro.

Now in terms of the Twitter critic schedule, we're shooting for Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays. Fridays will be the audio version of each of these podcast episodes launching on all streaming platforms, so check it out. And on Sunday, the audio version of each podcast episode will launch on YouTube. And on Mondays, any associated Spotify song selections from each show will be added to our exclusively curated playlist for our fans to enjoy.

I can't wait for that, because that's what I listen to on my long commute to work every single Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, so I can't wait for that. Now all Twisted Critics episodes will have a minimum of us two co-hosts at Meantime analyzing details on the week's Radio Sharks, as well as one or two special guests. Right now we got Candy and our hot seat that we'll interview and have helping us through each show.

Beyond that, we will always have a handful of segments, games, and banana peels that if we slip on them, it'll make us, our guests, and all you listeners drink a shot. I kind of want us to take a break since this is our pilot, and just break down real quick an elevator pitch if you want to call it that. Let the people know who you are. AM, you kick things off first, bro. Perfect, perfect. So my name is Arian Miller, aka rapper AM, aka Angry Man. I am 34 right now. Out of Baltimore, Maryland.

I'm a rapper first, battle rapper second. Farther before all of that, but we're going to say what we do. I mix, master music. I am a producer, photographer, videographer. I do a bit of boxing, I do a bit of MMA. I do a bit of everything. We always do this when I do this. Dash, Dash, would you hear me talk? Music, battles, photography, and a little sonnet will be running around here at some point. I guess I'll go next. My name is Doc J, but I also go by Joselito, or Jesse, or Doc.

I'm a MUT, part Puerto Rican, part Italian, part Slovakian. I was born in New York, but I lived almost all my life in South Florida. Until the last 14 years, my wife and I moved to Claremont, which is in central Florida. College-educated, from FAU, Florida Atlantic University. I'm a two-degree civil engineering with an emphasis on transportation design and copyright trademark law. Since 17, I've been a DJ, a learning producer, and a rap artist myself.

I've been on numerous mixtapes, and I've logged over 800-plus hours of stage time. I've interned at two legal departments of record labels, Sony Music and Epic Records. I have experience with production on mainstream level as well, selling a placement to Motown Records and Brian McKnight in 2004. Since October 2016, I've worked for iHeart Media and MediaBase as a national radio spins analyst. My office is on the third floor of the Kissimmee Courthouse.

You guys can find me there. Go in my cube and bother me if you want. Not only am I a CEO of Hear My Voice Entertainment with these gentlemen right here, but we focus not on the whole internet aspect of it, but actually brick and mortar, where we actually really develop artists, let them learn the music business side. We collect publishing, and we do the admin to go after the money that they're not getting right now. I also sit on music panels in the southeast usually.

My expertise is in urban music, music business, radio syndication, chart math I do every single Sunday, music reviews, execution of radio royalties, and I pull research for copyright lawsuits. And thanks to these two gentlemen, I am now a podcast host again. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm looking forward to it anyway. So my full name is Candelario Garreal. I'm Hispanic. I live in the southernmost tip of Texas, shout out Brownsville.

I'm basically I'm learning from the ground up on I'm going to, you know, being a podcast host, getting certification as CEO, other certifications that, you know, me and Doc had talked about, you know, being a talent scout, being a promoter, and basically I want to work with Doc and, you know, helping these other artists develop themselves as well. We can do that. But right now we're going to develop just a little bit of some tipsiness.

We all had a customary part of the show when we started out with my cousin Tony. So we want to keep that alive. It's called What You Drinking On. So right now we don't drink water here. We actually drink it with you guys. So like right now I got my glass right now. We are or at least I am. I'm drinking on some Captain Morgan. I got a couple cans of Coke. And in the case that we have to take a customary shot or WFW, whatever the hell that is,

I got some homemade mamawana. It's Dominican celebration drink. Got some very unique Dominican herbs, leaves, barks, and roots that make you get numb a little bit. And it's got some red wine, honey, and dark rum. So hopefully I don't take too many shots of those. But if I do, then so be it. What about you, Candy? What you drinking on? Our first episode of Twisted Critics. I'm drinking Twisted Tea. When we got shots, I'm drinking some Bucanas. AM, what you drinking on?

I'm sipping on some gin mare. I'm a big gin guy, Doc Lopet. The Mediterranean gin is very, very, very spicy. It's one of my favorite ones. If you both would join me on one thing, fill up your shot glass with one of your shots right now. It is bad luck to start the show off without a customary shot. We are family, we are friends, we are coworkers, we are nothing else. We are homeboys that like urban music. So please raise your glass with me.

Wish you guys a good Virgin voyage for Hear My Voice Entertainment and the Twisted Critics. And salud to each of you. Salud. So this WFW that Candy brought up, AM brought up, I brought up, let's dig into that a little bit. Segment two is the WFW, Wrong Fucking Word of the Week. Since this is our pilot episode, I want a little more relaxed, chill vibe where you're just getting to know us. We don't have to dig into the radio charts as hardcore as we normally do.

AM and I can explain the segments and how they work as we get to them. And Candy will be our self-appointed attorney and referee to get each other's backs or start the fight. We'll see which one starts. We generally do a 21 questions to our hot seat, but instead we're doing 21 questions to each other. And I want the new viewers to get to know us a little bit. I have to dot you up. You're giving Candy a whole lot of power. Giving him a whole lot of power. He's good for it, I know it.

You were the A&R that brought him in. So what I'll say this is we throw him in the fire and see how well he does when he works. So that's what's coming up right now. Candy, let them know what we're doing. Amal, you're talking to the judge during execution over here, baby. But we're going to see how much we're going to get to know about these guys. And hopefully they throw out a couple of dark secrets out there.

Speaking of which, at Twisted Critics, we do our best to make sure we and our guests and listeners mutually get the opportunity to take part in our Twisted Answers. So we'll alternate every show. One of us will pick a torturous buzzword at our banana peel called WFW or our wrong fucking word of bidetting. Every time someone says something says it on air, everyone must take a shot. No questions asked.

Since you worked so hard bringing this show back, Doc, how about you go and pick our poison for this afternoon? Oh, OK. There's a lot of responsibility here. But since I know how we wrote the slides and our outline and how this is going, I kind of want to throw some banana peels for this. Let's see. I haven't done this in a minute. So I'm going to go with the WFW, the term hit record or records. So hit record or hit records. If we say that, we're going to catch each other.

Sound effects, hand claps, make some noise, and we all taking shots. I hope you guys are ready for that. So segment three is going to be time capsule. You know, I'm not very versed in hip hop, so I know I'm going to learn a lot with you guys. You guys are. I don't know how I would. I guess the only word to explain like hip hop masters compared to me for sure. But we're kind of sewers. You know how there's wine connoisseurs, me and him are hip hop connoisseurs.

So I mean, I come from a predominantly most of these are Spanish, so it's going to be new to me. So let's watch our tongues today and let's get right with it with episode zero zero zero. Our pilot show this week will consist of dates six four through six ten. So we're going to do a quick look into those days in urban music history.

All right. So I guess that chimes me in. First and foremost, for our time capsule this week, we got to give props and get pay our respects to those that aren't here with us anymore. We definitely want to talk about days that some legends in hip hop and R&B industry have all passed away. So I'm going to kick things off and name the first three. June 5th was trouble. 2022 June 6th was Jr from the Cali swag district 2014 and Marvin Isley from the Isley brothers in 2010.

June 7th is going to be little fat. That's going to be 2012 June 8th is going to be Bonnie pointer 2020 June 9th is going to be Bushwick Bill 2019 and pumpkin head 2015 you know I'm big ph and big big big big ph and watching some of the old kocd before I before they went. You know I was doing one of the other grant funds before they came over here was watching pumpkin and hold on.

I love ghetto boys so Bushwick Bill is definitely someone I look up to but yeah pumpkin head. I have every single one of his albums and physical form on my wall and knowing the grind time Battle League, he's just, he was just a talented battle rapper and taking way too early from us, you know, so last but obviously not least, we're going to have June 10 Ray Charles and June 11th stack bundles.

Ray Charles is a big one man I think that kind of reverberates through all music not just urban or R&B but I'm pretty sure almost everyone has seen the movie right and know of Ray Charles piano skills and a lot of his signature singles. All right, well I'm going to make it a little happier know now since we got the painter specs with our IPs out of the way let's move on to the birthday celebrations for the week.

This is for all the Gemini fans out there, and am why don't you kick it, kick us off first, please. Starting with June 4 we have B day shout outs to Devin the dude, he's gonna be 50 years old ASAP, not Rocky, but Rock. He's gonna be 47. Brian, he's gonna be 54 and we're going to have DJ Muscley coming in as the young buck at a whopping 33.

I'm happy that you kind of showed and displayed the difference of ASAP Rocky and ASAP Rock. I love ASAP Rock I go all the way back to being a fan of Labor Day's. I've actually opened up a show for him in Miami at the IO lounge. And he's still like a wordsmith to this day I love the albums that he comes up with, and it's weird because he's an indie artist, but he still tours the world like that's the one thing I love about him. Happy birthday to all them cats that you just said.

We got Prince June 7 turning 65, Purple Rain. We got Sway Lee, also June 7 turning 30. We got Kanye West, June 8 turning 56. And we got Masego June 8 turning 30. No, I got a lot of respect for Kanye probably on that list and then I know with the Bump It and Dump It lately in the last year or two AM and I have really gravitated to Masego's music quite a bit. I didn't realize he was that young. I thought he was already in his 30s so that was pretty cool.

Closing it out would be me starting at June 8 we got R Kelly who's turning 56. Against popular opinion I really want him to get out and make R&B music again I still love his music. Buff loved the human beatbox and the fat boys he passed away but he would have been 56 on June 10. And Flesh and Bone from Bone Duds and Harmony on June 10 he'd also turned 50.

And from one of my favorite R&B groups, Joe to see we got Jojo turning 52 on June 10 as well. Happy birthday to all 12 of them out there. Happy birthday man. Next segment guys, we're gonna have the hot seat. Being our pilot episode and you're listening just getting to know us and our segments, a special guest will be sitting in the hot seat this weekend is actually going to be our co-host, you know rapper AM and Doc J.

I get the honor to actually ask them questions and be referee. Ain't nothing like a little friendly game with 21 with Lickr and Bone. So rapid fire you know just off the dome. I'm ready. So to kick it off, I'm gonna let the younger guys kick it off so AM, you're going first. Alright, alright, right. Age before beauty or something like that. I don't get it. Something like that. Doc question one for AM. And where were you born, where were you raised?

It's hilarious I was getting an oil change the other day and I was sitting in Mynakee and I was talking to the guy that was changing my oil and a random woman that walked in and both of them had connections to where I was born. Born in Bangor, Maine. My parents were Navy. Yeah, they met there, had us there, and we stayed there for a little while, and we came back to my mother's home which is Baltimore. And I would definitely say I've been here since. So I was raised here, born in Bangor.

Okay, so AM question one for Doc. What were you like as a kid growing up and would you say you're more of an introvert or an extrovert? Damn, AM got like part A, B, C, D questions, but I love it. I love it. Growing up as a kid, I mean, I'm like, I was like, I am now. I like to care for everybody. I like everything to be a celebration. I want everyone to celebrate their wins. So family parties, get togethers, hensays, barbecues were all part of my growing up.

Dad barbecued a hell of a lot so I love food. And I was kind of a smart ass. I am a little bit intelligent. I don't know how intelligent I am nowadays. My gray hair is kind of covering up. But I think the intelligence kind of comes a little bit of smart assness. So I sometimes put teachers in their place if they're teaching the wrong thing to the classes I was in.

I would say I'm an introvert or extrovert. A little bit of both. Being a straight A student, kind of nerdy a little bit. I was introvert, but I also played basketball very well and I was on the varsity team for three years.

So I kind of got the ability to jump around the nerves, the jocks. I kind of get along with everybody as long as you're not an asshole. So it depends on the social gathering, how I am, but I like to make everyone feel like they're having a good time and I want everyone to feel celebrated.

So I guess in that, I do have a megaphone in trying to be an extrovert by making everyone try to feel comfy and have a good time and have liquor involved. But then in private times I am a little bit of introvert as well. All right so back to A.M. How would you describe your family dynamic growing up and what's it like having a twin?

Well my family dynamic was pretty close in that dad was in the house until I was in middle school and he was still active after that. So I grew up with both of my parents, which is always needed. Dad did damage to me. I was just crazy.

And this is awesome to speak about on here as a dad now. I try not to kind of commit to the same style that my dad did. I always know that as a parent you learn. There's no guideline, there's no books, you can't learn. We learn on the go. We learn in personal situations.

And when I say he damaged me, it was just emotionally, he kind of messed me up early. I had to figure that out. You know what I mean? I had to figure that out in college. My actual dynamic, really really good with my mom, really good with my cousins, really really close with my aunts, uncles.

And having a twin that was like having a second mother who was a witch but a princess at the exact same time or a queen at the exact same time. Our relationship got really really really good after she went to the military. So my sister was Navy.

But my sister went to the Navy and I didn't write it right because our relationship was kind of rocky. She asked me, she was like, why didn't you write me? I said because I don't like you. And it wasn't me sitting and saying, you know, like I don't love you, but I don't like you. I don't have anything to write. I don't want to write to you.

And ever since she got back after she was in the military, we've been like, like this. And that was early college, early college. So we, she's gonna fight for me and I'm gonna want to start putting people out for her. Shout out to AM's twin, Dre, too. She's cool people. Candy. I want to direct to you. So what did you look up to as a child growing up? AM knows my story, my background story. My dad passed away when I was 18 from suicide. I'd say I looked up to my dad a lot until he passed away.

And then we are we were raised at least at that point very religious so it's like there was that internal struggle of like oh the suicide lets you in heaven or not. So that was like an internal struggle I had to deal with. But then me being a nerd, very studious. I look up to anyone that's a really good public speaker. My parents also raised me not to see color, by the way, either. So like when Gina, I go to these music conferences, my wife, Gina and I, we don't care about culture shock.

We're the only white people in the room or like light skinned people in the room. We get along with everybody. And I've been like that my entire life. So by about age 11, I could say I really looked up to like the Malcolm X's, the Martin Luther Kings, and don't laugh at this.

But I like read a bio on Hitler and I, other than his theories and like the war he created, I actually really look up to how he uses voice to move people. So as weird as that sounds like it's like a mix of dad, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Hitler. I want to be that MC that can move a country like Hitler was able to so I guess I see the roses behind everything like the war. So am as a fan describe your personality listening to music in and out of social settings.

Me listening to music. I'm a lot better than I was growing up. I was a purist. I'm nowhere near that now. I hated, I hated anything outside of rap music and I don't care. And let me say this better. I hated everything outside of hip hop. Any, any, anything outside of what I would consider super rap, you know, Nas and older Jay and things of that nature. Couldn't stand it. As I got older, and y'all will actually see how I, how I speak and how I talk when I do the music reviews that I do.

I like Bob now I'm big, big, big, big, big, big guy. And I think it's in part to me rapping as hard as I read. Right. I still I still write battle racks and things of that nature I still watch battle rap and things of that nature but that I don't you know that is the most pure form of rap, because we met during that, but it's the most purest form of hip hop and rap that that we can tap into, like, like this.

We have to search and look for music like that. And I think I got a little tired of it. I'm like, all right. Let me not look, let me feel right. I agree with am like you got to dig for music now unfortunately with this new generation everyone thinks they're an artist now. Back then, I mean, 88% of people thought they were fans, and now that isn't like that anymore so I agree with am on that when you got to dig for

it but him and I that's where him and I differ a little bit. I'm still purest a little bit I will review stuff for labels because we get paid for it, but at the same time I you know what I go home and listen to is something totally different. But to me it's very therapeutic so I agree with him on what he said there.

All right, dog back to you, Doc, how do you, how would you describe family. Um, and he knows me I'm very similar to him. I'm very close to my family, especially when dad passed away was raised by a lot of women strong women like my grandmother's 99 and she'll be 100 on October in October. My mother is a dad and a mom at the same time, I got a ton of aunts, and then you go to Puerto Rico and I got a lot of people that are related to me in two different ways.

A lot of strong women have raised me and my brothers to both I have two brothers and two have sisters as well so I mean they strong women raised us, but things that like strong father figure for you though. When dad passed away I really didn't have when I had a guy I have a godfather in West Palm Beach was a or T's love him to death and you know I could, their family to ours, I mean they're anytime we traveled out to a Royal Palm, it was always that's my best memories

of my dad and him with cook pigs, big porks, and good times man so I mean the definition going back to am's question of family. Since dad passed away I learned, I needed to lean on music, that was my therapy, but on people that maybe they weren't family but now I absorb

that I'm a part of them family. Maybe that's one of my flaws but until you screw me over stabbing the back, I consider you family, after one or two meetings. That's how I am and that's the definition of family you don't actually have to be blood as long as you're there when

you're with you I consider you family so I mean am's been there quite a lot for me when I needed it and I'm pretty sure you Raul everybody else that's in here my voice will probably hear Doc vent occasionally I try not to vent out loud but occasionally. 100%. So I hear back to am based on childhood dreams, if you follow through on it, what fantasy profession would you be now. I would be doctor fucking house.

I am I asked this question, something I didn't know about you so that's why I wanted candy to ask it so I'm like I'm curious shit like what were you gonna be as a kid so I'm curious.

Throughout my entire element entire entire element, I feel like I'm feeling like my liquor that my entire elementary. I literally thought I was going to be a doctor right what the middle school thought I was going to be a doctor and someone was like hey, you know it's like 50,000, and then you got to go to school for three four years and then school for three four years and then you gotta go to school for three I'm like, doing that.

I would love to have been the second Ben Carson without him being an idiot and power six right I would love to hear from people, I would love to hear from people. I got into high school. And this is I do this thing where I have a whole lot of tabs open I'm not going to try to do this but I was really in the in the cannabis at this time I've been not the marijuana for the artist.

I remember being in a psychological class, and she was like, can you give us a quote and I was like a blind man see failures progress for the voice, the voice of the fact that this is a logic. She was like what does that mean I said what self explanatory.

But through that class and her challenging me right, I sat and I said, I'm going to heal people's brains. I forgot in my elevator pitch to say that I do have a bachelor's degree in psychology and I want to move from my answer is easy that like up until age 14, I thought I would be a mad scientist like working in a lab mixing chemicals and that never happened.

My mom always make always makes she like, she has a chance to bring up she'll bring it up. I always want to be a cryptozoologist like finding Bigfoot and shit. Yeah. Really. Yeah, like I was always so interested in all that shit. So, next question is going to be for you doc. So it'd be did you enjoy school, why, or why not.

Yeah, I got my, and again it was self imposed my parents weren't my dad was super strict for. He wasn't a smart man. So you're super strict for like doing yard work and stuff so my skill isn't in doing yard work or fixing anything. So my thing was in school I self imposed myself in kindergarten to never get a B in my life like VB whatever you want to call it. I had straight E's and straight A's until my 12th grade year.

I got my first two B's, and I graduated with all A's and two B's my entire high school, middle school and elementary school like age college that went out the window. Did I enjoy it I did for the academics. I was a nerd a little bit. So until I got to high school maybe when I started playing basketball I didn't like elementary school or middle school, and even the beginning of high school it was.

I'm a sensitive dude. So, yeah, take things personal and you know I don't like people picking on any nerd, not, I mean me but other people. And then when I started playing basketball it was like, now you accept me like this is some fake bullshit like don't pick on my other nerd friends. So right here again. What do you personally miss the most from your local battle leagues, and what do you miss the least. The least is honestly the drama.

He's going to come in here and give me a hug every once in a while. I might throw him on air so that one. What's up Drew. He can do this. Hi, hi doc. Hi candy. Hi doc. There you go. Okay. Honestly the aggression that I'm getting out is a very big dopamine dump that happens in a live battle, right, it's like a moment in time, where things freeze especially when you're remembering everything and or if you're free styling, and you're, and you're

doing everything perfectly and everybody's just like oh he's murdering this guy. He said he's going to do things to his mother and his girlfriend. Shaking a room. Shaking a room feeling the room shake, because you did something. Probably the craziest thing it's a drug. It's a drug and I swear to goodness once I get more time.

I'm going to I'm probably going to do verbal war zone that's been rapid overbeats, but I'll probably do that just because I want to make more music and it'll be easier to keep me engaged in music. What I miss least least the thing I don't miss is what I say about my local battle league is all the drama right battle rappers are weird. Right, because they all go around pretending to be someone that they're not right.

Now you've heard me. But you've heard me to get to that point from this voice here, it's a little bit. Right. But that's it. How does that work, like do you guys tell each other beforehand hey like these are things for for you wouldn't talk about or everything's game. Everything is it so that's that's the thing so it really depends on the league that you're in right so so we don't really know what we're battling, but if we know because we got a guy get hit in the mouth, when they say hey please

I'm going to mention this is a subject. If you verbally agree to it, then you verbally agree to it so you don't go back on it if they've happened because you don't go through with your promise. You know what I mean. I don't care about winning. I only care about then coming back to see both of them. Right. You want to put on the show. And again, the big thing about me not liking or the thing I don't like is we have to stop the show at some point and be real. Yeah, but then I don't.

In, in kind of comparison to him candy for me down here when I did the whole Miami for L'Oreal Boca Raton circuits those three cities. For us at least, it was always any anything is, you know, nothing is off limits. They're a little bit more Boca Raton wasn't Boca Raton kind of has money but for L'Oreal Miami even West Palm. The alternate leagues, everyone knows everybody and everyone knows your business. So, those are way more personal leagues where they would know.

You know, they pull out like a yearbook from your high school or middle school your book in a battle so I mean but I feel like that's kind of like, it's like, like to say all like you know, a banger your mom or a banger girlfriend I thought that's easy. I don't know I just feel like that's, it's not intricate.

I agree with you. The reason why I did pretty well in those where I'm a little bit different than am I don't want to put on a good show I want to embarrass you, I want to embarrass you to the point where you don't want to come back to me and choke. So, I only use personal so like a banger mom I banged your sister, none of that's truthful so I would never use that. But if you're the kid with a cleft lip in middle school I'm gonna make fun of your cleft lip.

I'm going to make fun of your physical deep, and I'm sure you can make fun of my physical defects too so it's, it's all fair game so I mean I think I am hit the nail on the head though it all depends on the league you're in and what city you're in I agree with them on that. I mean, it's candy if you ever go back and watch the real the archive of videos of am rapping the one thing I will always give them credit for is he is a funny battle rapper way more funny and humorous than I would ever be.

Sometimes he shakes the room sometimes he doesn't but it's always going to be funny. Now for Doc, you play any musical instrument, or have any hidden talents. Okay, um, I play piano a little bit some, maybe a couple dozen trainings in it. But other than that everything's by ear I don't have any formal training and like violin or guitar I have a guitar I just don't know how to play as terms of hidden talents I got a shit ton he knows that too from my, from my Facebook page.

I draw really well my best friend and I James immune. We've been friends since we were two years old so I've known him for 3839 years. He draws really really well but more graffiti abstract world I draw more real life stuff I'll draw the alligator I'll draw

the leopard the tiger and then I also draw a little graffiti too so I mean and you guys know that when I put up like written verses. When I write a verse I'm doodling as I come up with lines so on the bottom of the paper you'll see like a doodle like a hawks talent or something

like that. I love drawing. I never was a good cook, but I learned when I moved up here and I didn't have a job, how to cook well. I mean my degrees in civil engineering, I maybe not and mechanically inclined we're good with wrenches but I think of ways to fix things that other people don't think of. Say so right now for am what's your three memorable most memorable trips versus the three places you want to visit the most.

These are going to be different. I got engaged in Louisiana, and it was a good time. I go all out out there. And it was like the hood and I enjoyed that I don't know why I enjoyed that but I enjoyed that it was very very very home like I love. Disney World. I learned how to swim in Disney World, and I found out that I really like video games in Disney World and arcade outside next to the swimming pool, and they had these cool games it was free right these really cool games that I would play

there. I could never. It's so difficult finding old arcade games like that. And I have one more one more. Where did I go, I went somewhere I went somewhere North Carolina Charlotte Charlotte, Charlotte, I think that's North. I went to a place called Carol wins. It's an amusement park, their version of like six flags or virtually why that's that's here at a really really really good time, and this is going to be a weird thing to say but when I went down there.

I left at my aunt's house, and I never stopped dreaming. I dream every night and I remember all my dreams every night but I started to remember all of my dreams. There's three places that I would like to visit I would like to go see my grandmother in California. I would like love love to be on the West Coast for a little while, just to get a different vibe and see how the sun feels over there had to be just something like that over there. Just had because I'm a anime fanatic.

I don't I don't know if they really like black people to really just like black people over there but I don't care. It's a risk I'm willing to take to eat some of their, their, their authentic motion. And a third place that I want I want to go to Mexico. Almost every year. And I want to go right I'm not necessarily scared of the cartels or anything of that nature but I want to go in. Want to go enjoy with my sister enjoy she goes in and jump in caves and all kinds of stuff like that.

I see a lot of the videos and pictures, Dre puts up and I'm the same way it's, I love mythology so I my favorite three trips, obviously have been, I like Athens Greece best. I like Rome Italy and that was a surprising one because that was my wife's bucket list trip and I think I had more fun there than she did. And then my third favorite trip was not Cancun but Riviera Maya Mexico that's where we went for our honeymoon.

And we went to like to Lume and Chichen Itza and it's like I saw a wonder of the world like so that's like my favorite places so it's funny that you brought that one up. And then, if you're talking about Disney World you know we we live like a 21 minute drive from it so you have a place to stay at you don't need a hotel and you come to see it when you're growing up now. Yeah, we got it. We got it. We are, we make that trip. We have to go.

Alright, that's alright Doc so as a twisted critic. What's your go to alcoholic drink. My top go to alcoholic drinks. I'll put them in order for you. I got three. I'm a huge Captain Morgan dark liquor dark rum at all but I love Captain Morgan any dark rum dark Caribbean rum, I don't care where it's from. I've had a Jamaican when I was really good, but Captain's one of my go to hence captain. I love Hennessy. Believe it or not, Hennessy I like a lot.

Lately in the last year and a half immune my best friend James he put me on to. I don't like overly sweet whiskeys, but I do like just straight whiskey, and he put me on to smokey mountain salted caramel, and I'm like, that is the weirdest mix ever whiskey with sugar, caramel, salt, and when I had it, him and I had a deep conversation with it. I don't chase it with anything I don't mix with anything and I still got two bottles of it in my cabinet right now.

So vice versa for you am. What's your top three on the mixed drink kind of cocktail. Right. Whoo. When I was when I was out college right I used to string, what we call it a blue motorcycle or a blue motherfucker. And I never knew what was in it I just, I saw grenadine and I was like, all right, cool. They make everything in that everything 151 used to go in there before it was discontinued here.

So I had a blue one, two, three, and then they would put it in like a vodka, they will put a rum, they will put another rum they will put a jet. It was, it was literally what you would call a cocktail and I would drink those two all the time I have had a Bahamut nipple, and a, I would have a third drink. I like gin now, and I will never, ever, ever sit and say that I like a gin and tonic Adam, they're always disgusting. How do you feel about social media?

As a whole or for like music business, AM? I was gonna say as a whole. Okay, it's interesting. I have a love-hate relationship with it. Most of my family members, including my mom right now, I think it's because she's dating somebody, and that's very new for our family. She's hating social media because someone hijacked her Facebook page. So she lost thousands of photos and hundreds of videos.

My brother-in-law, a couple of cousins, a couple of my cousins, a couple of her cousins during voting season for the election, they get very nasty with each other. So yeah, so my belief, I love social media, and sometimes they don't, so I gotta pretend I don't.

I think you get out of it what you put into it, and I think if you have a lot of those friends like favorite it on your Facebook page, you see the trash they talk about, both opposing sides, not just the good side or bad side, both opposing sides. If you use it to keep in touch with friends, family, and old classmates, it's lovely. There are family in Puerto Rico I've never met that I'm now pen pals to because of social media. So I think you get out of it for what you use it for.

If you get on there as your soapbox to talk about how the COVID vaccine killed everyone, I don't wanna hear what you're talking about. But if you're there to talk to me what you're working on, how's your son doing AM, that type of stuff, you're using social media for what it's used for. So I love it for that reason. Okay, so right here. It's actually a back to back question for you doc. Okay. I don't know if anyone sees doc personal Facebook, how do you feel about the cookie?

Oh, good Lord AM you know that, you're gonna be a blast. Okay, so I love food. Before I moved to central Florida, I never weighed more than 135 pounds. I now weigh 194, 195 pounds. And I always fluctuate. You know, I'll go back to 175 and go back to 199. I love cooking and I eat while I'm cooking. So that's where I put on a lot of my my my chicha, my weight. I did not cook well and if Jean was here, she would definitely tell you that I did not cook well when we first started dating.

I didn't cook well. Mom did everything for us at home. Like again, she's a soldier. She did everything for us. When I first moved up here, I couldn't find a job for like 10 or 11 months. That's a long time that I have a job for a person that likes to work too much. So I took care of our dog. We moved up to Mount Verde, Florida, which is here in central Florida and kind of in the woods. So I the property hasn't been touched for three years. So I kind of had to make the pool swimmable again.

That took me two months to do. It had like lily pads. It was bad. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was bad. Trees grew wild. So like I had to I like animals. I like insects. I like snakes. So seeing that didn't bother me. But my off time, other than doing yard work and cleaning the pool, I'd watch a lot of cooking shows like Man vs. Food, Chopped, anything like that. And watching those things, I started picking up like these hints in my head, like I would love to try that. I'd love to try that.

I'd love to try that. And that's the way my brain works too. My wife prefers to the easiest way, like the easiest way possible. Don't do something, something very meticulous recipe. So she had a death. She went to visit North Carolina, her mother in North Carolina. And while she was in North Carolina, she was only supposed to be gone for a week. And then they had a death in the family in Puerto Rico. So she called me and said, hey, do you mind if I go there? I'm like, me and the dog are great.

She's like, are you living? Like, are you eating? I'm like, don't worry, I'm good. When she came back, I think the only thing I cooked good was like at that time were eggs, ramen, and burgers. That was the only thing I could cook good before I kind of was left alone. And then when she came back, she's like, oh, what is it? Trying to joke like when picking up for the airport, is it burger night or egg night? I'm like, you know, fuck you. I'll surprise you when you get home.

When she came home, I already had prepared for her a stuffed prosciutto and cheese pork chop with an applesauce puree and like wild rice and like Brussels sprouts. And she's like, where did my boyfriend go? And where did you bury him? And I'm like, I didn't have you here to tell me no. So I cooked what my heart desire. From that day on, now I cook whatever I want and she's 90% happy with it. So we're gonna move on to a very AM question.

So for the lady listeners, what's your tried and true go to move to inspire or seduce kinky this AM? To do so woman? Yeah, what would you? What's your go to move to keep things up a bit? To get the clothes to fall off. Fucking caveman. Gonna eat your pussy. Come here. I don't have like if we've gotten to the point where we're intimate, like and I mean like we're around each other one on one and we know what we're doing. I'm not gonna, hey babe, why don't you lay on the bed over there?

I don't really have that. Lay the fuck down. You know what we're doing. Put your feet up. See, I think I think marriage is what's me up. I'm like, I'm more of like a maybe candy will get my back on this one. I'm more of like I'll cook you a meal, have dishes done and oh, do you need a back rub? Oh, we know what the back rub is doing. Hey, if my shirt starts to fall off during the back rub and you feel my chest on your back, hey, that's hey, so be it. This knows what it means.

So wait, wait, why are you laughing? Because it's so I feel like people, especially that been together for a while, that back rub go to move is is deadly. It is. It is. But uh, so I hear Doug, what's your two or three biggest red flags that turned you off on a date? Damn, A.M. you and I ask the same question to each other. I'll give you three. I'll give you three. Um, I'm very easy. So this will be a short, no stories in this one.

I'm one of those weird people that have to be your friends before you do anything physical. So if you're not honest with me or have secrecy, that's the biggest red flag for me. Like I won't be even giving you my attention or time. I love big smiles like someone that can laugh. I mean, I'm corny, but if you can laugh at my jokes or where I bring you and people we hang out with, if you can't do that, that's a red flag.

You know, if you can't laugh and don't have a sense of humor, big red flag, bad breath. Yeah. I got, I got steak breath a little bit too, but yo, there's like, there's tic tacs, there's breath mints, there's swish. You can use a lot of things. Like just give me the benefit of the doubt of where your breath doesn't smell that bad. All right. Vice versa of you, A.M. same question. I'm about to tell y'all a horrible story. This is why she said I'm a caveman.

So I had a whole lot of nice sex, but her breath was always stinking because she had a broken tooth in her mouth. One day she was giving me head and she was like, I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom, but her breath was always stinking because she had a broken tooth in her mouth.

One day she was giving me head and her broken tooth was cutting my dick. I kept going. I kept going. I didn't give a fuck. I ain't going to lie to you. I didn't give a fuck. Fuck. I was bleeding though. I was bleeding, right? But I didn't care. I was like, look, we going to finish. Finish what we started. So red flag, not having a complete tooth. Literally a red flag. It was red as blood, red flag. So damn, red is my favorite color. Let me see.

A second red flag for me is also, it's a personality thing, right? I just really started getting in a red flag after my last relationship with you, Mommy. I had a woman that I was dealing with right after her and we did not agree in ideology. And it was the hardest thing in my head to deal with because I was physically attracted to her. I really, really, really liked her, but I was like, the way you do things, trash. Inner city kids will always die in the hood.

How are you going to say that 100%? It's the truth. That's exactly what I'm saying. You're going to walk outside of your house and get shot in the face. I'm like, you know what? Maybe we don't need to deal with each other. Big ass red flag. For real. So I hear that being a new father now, who are some of the sources you rely on for baby parity advice? Hey, I'm not a pro or veteran at this. I suck at this actually. So I reach out to any friend I know that has kids.

So like, AM's got it before I asked him advice. Again, maybe because I grew up with strong women in my life, while I was in middle school, high school and college, more of my friends are girls more than anything. Nothing like all platonic, not anything like physical. So I've asked them before. I've texted them like, hey, when did your son stop having bad sleeping nights? And they're like, he's two and he still has bad sleeping nights. So I'm like, okay, well, I notice every kid's different.

So I take everything I hear from a grain of salt. But if I think I've asked 10 people the same question, I'll get a nice ballpark of what I'm looking forward to. And AM is one of those people. So those are my go-to people. Friends, AM, family. The only thing I won't do, Gene uses Pinterest and Google a fucking lot. And there's so much poison out there. So I'd rather ask people. Yeah, for sure. I'd rather ask people who have been through it.

So right here for you, AM, how has fatherhood changed any of your thoughts or approach to your own music? Fatherhood turned me into a lion and a person. I want to beat people up much more after having a son. So in terms of music for me, and we're going to say thoughts, right? Thoughts. I want to put more positive music out, right? I want to put more positive music out. I had a thing where I fell into being very socially conscious anyway, right? One of the last mixtapes I did was called Society.

And it was all me talking about things that are going on, people dying in the streets. But I had to really think about this, right? Because I was around in my city for the pretty great thing happening. I was actually in some of the riots that were going on here. So I always, after having him, I thought to myself, I got to make sure that whatever I'm doing isn't going to be too much poison for it, if that makes sense. Like I'm going to still do hardcore rap.

I'm going to still stand or shoot people in the forehead and things of that nature. But my overall message is going to be mental health. Because of it. So right here for you, Doc, four of your all time favorite non-rappers and non-urban artists. Oh, damn, AM. OK. It makes me think outside the box. I love Michael Jackson. I think he's the greatest artist of all time. He touched people in multiple genres. People before him, people during him, and people after him.

And I think his music will go on to touch people after me. Michael Jackson be one. I love Linkin Park. I love, especially when they burst on the scene, I love everything they did. The whole rock rap screamo, mixing it together. It blended so well. Other people have tried it and never worked so well. But especially their first three albums. Plastic material. I would never cut that out of my top 100 albums ever. All three of them. So Michael Jackson, Linkin Park. OK, here's a curveball one.

There's a lot of other people I could throw up there. I probably can name like 25 for this. But my brother-in-law, Alberto, shout out to Alberto, put me on to Iron Maiden. And I'm not a heavy metal fan in any way whatsoever. I'm not the biggest fan of Metallica, Ice, Earth. None of those people. Pantera, nothing. Iron Maiden made soft rock metal. They added, I love poetry. I read a lot of poetry. Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner is that type of record they put out. It's a nine minute record.

Ten minute record. But I love it. All their albums have a theme and all the songs fit that theme. I wish rappers followed that scope for the whole album long. Jay-Z kind of did it with American Gangster. Very few people do it well. And Iron Maiden does it extremely well. And it's not so hard in stream mode that I don't feel it. It's soft enough for I get it. It's a little operatic and it's a lot of poetry. But I love poetry. So I like Iron Maiden a lot too.

I've seen them live once too and they barely come to the United States. So that's pretty cool. So A.M. for you, what's your most successful song versus what song you own is kind of most important for you so far? My song about my father is actually both my most successful and my most important song. I literally was writing this song as he was dying. And you'll hear this song that I know he's dying. I know he's dying. I know, I thank God, I know this is the last time.

I was afraid to go to the hospital and see him, but I wound up seeing him. And he literally, he didn't die in my arms. He didn't die. I was there with his cold body hugging and all that. It was quite crazy. But in the back of my mind the entire time I was hugging him, I said, I just wrote this fucking song and I have to release it.

Did a video in a graveyard and it had been one of the most successful songs that I had on my YouTube without me having to promote it just because of what it feels like. Because trying to get up, I think. I had a voice, name it what, the last part of it. I can't listen to it though. When it came out, I still can't really listen to it. Wow. But I mean, it's surprising because you have some people that, you know, most artists, they have their most successful is a hit single. Oopsie. Oh fuck.

I heard you. Did he notice it? Did he notice it? Did he notice it? Yeah, I'm getting ready. I don't think Candy caught that. As soon as you said that I was like, yup. He's like, Doc, what you doing? He did it on purpose. He did it on purpose. He said it on purpose. He said it on purpose. He said it on purpose. He said it on purpose. He said it on purpose. He said it on purpose. He said it on purpose. He said it on purpose.

I did do it on purpose, but the meaningfulness of it, a lot of times these hit singles aren't the most significant song of some of these artists. And I'm happy that you're one of the rare cases that they're both, I mean, you're most successful and your most significant song is the same thing. So I raise a shot glass to that. Salud. Salud. All right, let's get through these questions. I want to talk about music. So the next one's going to be for you, Doc.

What's two or three of your achievements in the music business that you are most proud of? The degree is one of them. I think that opened the door for everything. Copyright and trademark law. Thank you, Florida Atlantic University, Professor Zager. He was one of the executive producers on Whitney Houston's first album. And when I walked into his office and saw the multi-platin plaque, I was like, I want to be that. Starting, hear my voice and building lifelong friendships with some people.

There's some people we voted off the island. Look at a couple people we voted off the island. But for the most part, everyone that joins you, my voice, I think leave it even Plies. Plies has been a person Plies and Jin. Jin's a battle rapper that used to be done with Rough Riders. They were part time members for like five or six months until they got signed. And then I never got a call from them ever again.

They used not just us, but they joined every membership they could to build their bio and resume to get the record deals. And I have no problem with that. I think everyone left, hear my voice with more knowledge and music business than they definitely ever had when they got to me. Yeah, 100%. And then third is a personal one, a fun one. I love sitting panels at conferences and I was at a Tampa conference once.

T-Pain asked a question to me and then asked two more questions afterwards because he didn't understand copyrights. And this is a multi-platinum artist. I don't normally get starstruck and I didn't get starstruck there. I think the only person I've been starstruck in front of is Wendy Day. I hope she's listening to this. But no, it was very humbling to me that someone as big as T-Pain would ask someone as little as me music business copyright law questions.

And as soon as I answered it, he's writing it down and everything. I mean, you could, it was, he was being humble and it humbled me. That's, that's, that's what I'll say. Like to see artists that have already made it, but now making their own indie labels, ask me music business questions and I'm teaching them. That was probably the third most that might move. That might slide to one and two sometimes too, but that's like the top three.

So for you, AM music wise, what personally is more important to you lyrics or beats? And you know, tell us why. And I know for me personally, I'm going to just put it out there. I think for me beats is more important. I think so. We are now. I guess how weak lyricism is right now. Yeah. You're not going to get any. That's the funniest thing. Like, and you saying that change, change how I felt about this question. Cause I would, I personally sit down, buy, buy, buy.

You're not getting lyrics, right? So you have to, you have to get something else and you cannot buy with in the background. You buy, you buy with everything being composed. Well, can you get that? That was, that was, that was me doing that. The cannabis and Wacliff. Hey, that cannabis first album was, was dope to me. I'm sorry. I'm a huge cannabis fan, but, but the, the beats on that were trash. The better beats he had, right. It felt, it felt better. Like I would have to ignore it.

I'd have to ignore it. Right. And that's the problem. It doesn't, for me, it doesn't have to be super dope production, but it has to be competent for us. Right. Because you think Nas and Nas is always one of those who have been attacked for his beat selection. Right. Uchi Wale was, I'm not going to say Uchi Wale was bad. Right. Okay. You'll say it. You'll say it. So we can say it. We'll agree on this. Uchi Wale was trash. It was trash. Right. The song itself was trash because the beat was trash.

We know you had to write for this. Right. And that's case in point for a person who's a phenomenal writer. Right. But the way I feel, I'm going to try to write around with it. The way I feel with this right now, we don't have lyricism in the game enough for us to sit and have beats that are going to, we're not going to have songs that are going to be able to highlight that. So we have to have something else take the place of it.

So I'll say, and I'll stand on it, beats right now are more important than lyrics. Candy, let me throw you two thought bombs on this because me and A.M. go back and forth on all this all the time. And I'll keep them really short. One of them was my wife, Jean, when we were dating. She came down to FAU, Sling K, who's also an A&R at Hear My Voice. We all went, Ricky B is a DJ down there. He had a break, your friend named Triggo.

We all went to go see the movie when it came out, Get Richard, Die Trying with 50 Cent. And Jean and I had multiple, I'm talking about dozens of arguments that girls listen to beats, guys listen to lyrics. That's why I'm a little upset with A.M. saying that, but it's okay. I think it's the time and place we live at.

We were watching the movie Get Richard, Die Trying, and when 50 steps in the booth, you hear the Dr. Dre beat, and then he puts the headphones on and the effect of him putting the headphones on mutes out the beat. So he's in the quiet booth rapping. And my wife looks over at Sling K and I and goes, is that what you hear? 50 Cent has the worst flow ever. It's the beats that make him famous. And we were like, I'm in love.

Because it's the truth, like I feel like 50 Cent has a very, very nursery rhyme flow, but the Dr. Dre beats, M&M beats really give him a boost. And a lot of rappers are like that. That's not taking anything away from 50, but that's where maybe I don't think it's just beat or just lyrics. My compromise with A.M. is does the lyrics that you're trying to write to it match the vibe of the beat? And if it doesn't, you have no business being an artist. That's where I'm at in 2023.

But I think we just did a song on this past week where it was kind of like a upbeat type of beat and like the lyrics were all said. If I was on the panel, I'd be talking shit about this. But yeah, I was just kind of like, ah, you know, I feel like that's kind of what's hitting right now. You know, upbeat beats with kind of pressing lyrics. I disagree, but okay. So, right here for Doc, which two or three artists would you say that your pen is more inspired by?

Like what inspired your writing style? I see what A.M. was trying to do with me. All right. I'll go with three. I'll say three make up Doc J. I love multiple rhyme schemes. So Cool G Rap is one of my favorite like low key artists that people don't know. He's one of the few dudes that invented multiple rhyme schemes where instead of rhyming Pat with cat with gat with bat, he rhymed like five words together and every line had five words that rhyme together. That's my style in a nutshell.

Fabulous does it, but sometimes his topics are kind of shaky. But I give Fabulous some respect for also respecting Cool G Rap as well. Cool G Rap definitely. I mean from how it goes, I mean, I think I stabbed my quote unquote imaginary girlfriend with a spear and throw her over a pier. So Eminem touched my soul with like especially his like first three or four albums.

Like I like the real life issues like the domestic, maybe not domestic violence, but what goes on in my domestic life, paying bills, paying mortgage. I want to be a regular Joe rapper. I don't want to talk about the car I don't own or the stacks I don't have. We have a very, very nice house. We have no debt. We have solar panels. We have that. I am comfortable with that, but I'm not going to be talking about like Bugatti's that I don't own. So I mean, definitely Eminem's there.

Cool G Rap. And then Nas is my favorite MC ever. I mean, I think the way he sticks to a topic and gives you that vivid imagery of the streets and way people that are a little bit less intelligent than him can understand what he's talking about. I love that writing. I've always aspired to be like that. So I mean, and then to throw like a 3B in there. I love Master 8, like his concept albums of like going to rap college. He's another person that inspired me a lot too.

So maybe like those three or four. So right here for you, AM, for for inspiring artists and rappers, how would you break down your personal writing process? I throw paint at a fucking wall. That's my writing. And that's like right now, and I'm not going to do it, but I'll do it. And this is this is actually something really cool, right?

If I were to write right now, which I could, I would go with whatever that pops into my head, even if I don't have a seat, I did not say philanthropy person here that did it, did it, that damaged me. I'm with John something with a candle be right. I'm going to run with that. That is now the rhyme scheme for everything that I'm running with. And I'm not going back and I'm not editing a fucking thing, Doc, because I feel like when I'm my most inspired, it's when it's the best music, right?

We should have it. Let me explain something to Candy. AM, let me explain something to Candy real quick, though. The reason why I asked that question, Candy, if you and I asked him to write a verse on a song about heartbreak today and tomorrow, we would get two totally different verses. So I guess that's why I asked that question. I would like I'd like to know. I've never been in the room with him. I wrote nor has he been in the room with me. Why? Why I wrote.

But we have probably totally different sacred writing styles. And I'd love to know how he did it. Like, is it just you write 16 bars or do you do double standard? I don't think I don't want to think I don't like thinking like like if we already pick a topic, we're going to write about the topic. I don't like sitting, saying and I know how you write. We actually had a conversation about how you write. I don't like having to build a 16. I built 16 in battle.

So that's that's that's the funniest thing. Like I literally got you have actually seen me write that. I have. They are themed right there. Topical right. I don't like going at him. Right. And I think for me, it's always been me and my purest form. And I'm not sitting there thinking I'm like I'm feeling and like you said, there's so many voices up here. You're going to get a different because I might love love today, but I might hate love tomorrow. But it's still love. Right.

I might be different about love through nature. Right. But it still is love. Candy, candy opposed to him. This is where the nerd in me comes in like me and being a straight A student. If A.M. sends me a beat or a hook and it gives me a theme for the song, I am going to drive around on it for three days. I'm going to pull out a notepad and write out some some thoughts, some bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. So about four bullet points. And there you go.

That gives me my I already know what A.M.'s rhyme scheme is. And him and I are very good at mimicking each other's rhyme schemes. I think we're both very structured well. Like once we figure out the multiple rhyme scheme, we could do the same shit. But where I get my points is I want to touch on like I'm doing a record with my nephew Cruxton Jose that you guys know, it's called Clown and the Carnival. And I'm sitting there. I already wrote wrote out my little cheat sheet.

I'm like trapeze artist, ringmaster, fighting a bear, bearded woman. I already know what my bars are going to be like. I now just got to put the dots together. So that's how I write. Gotcha. So right right here for you, Doug, if you could have a beer or a coffee that anybody dead or alive, who would it be? Damn A.M. Jim psychological. That's that that's psychologically psychology degree he's got. I would say two people, three people. I'll say three people. Number one. And he knows this already.

I think we've had this discussion before. I want to it wouldn't be a coffee. It would probably be a beer shot with my dad. But my dad, I'd like to know why and get some unanswered questions answered, you know, is even proud of what I'm doing and like how I'm helping friends and child and all that stuff, wife, everything. You know, dad and a combination of I'd love to sit down with Martin Luther King and Adolf Hitler.

I would like to think what they what was their process to get people to buy into what I know Martin Luther King. I've read some bios on him and he would write out the entire speech. And then when he three quarters of the way through it, realize that it's not hitting the people like it's supposed to and freestyle the last quarter of it. And I think I think I am I am and I are similar like that. But at the same time, I think I am like way, way less similar to that.

All of that freestyle for am but I would love to sit down with them and know if like, do they even like my style? Do they like what I'm doing? Do they like what I'm preaching? What I'm teaching? Am I touching the people? So those would be the three people I'd want to drink, maybe not a coffee, but a drink or a beer or shot or cocktail with. OK. So, you know, now now for your real question. That was just my personal question. OK. Do you listen to or prefer a podcast?

You know, so which ones do you listen to most? All right. So you keep it in the podcast. This is a pilot podcast. Who's our competition? I was raised for most of my life. I grew up in South Florida. So my mentor is DJ EFN. I love what he did coming up as DJ, his mix tapes, phrase, he had productions. Garcia is a personal friend of mine. DJ Champs is one of my favorite podcasts ever. A million dollars worth of game is really dope.

I love my little brother and I, Dan Mann and I love Joe Rogan's podcast. I love UFC. So I like listening AM to Michael Bisbin and Anthony Lionheart Smith's podcast. Love it. Oh, the era. What was the name of that podcast? The the blog era is another. They're more like it's sort of being podcasts where discussions. They'll pick one topic and give you a history of the topic. I really like that podcast to it. Probably in the last six months, the blog era.

By the way, all those are competitions to us. They definitely are. I think we should we should have a shot just for to our competition. We're about to kill it. Absolutely. I really hope Mr. Eric, Mr. DJ EFN is watching this. I want you on the show because he's got has a second child, newly second child, and he's a person that I look up to and I don't want to copycat. So I definitely would love him to be on our show and give us our blessing. Give us his blessing. Salud. So this is the AM.

This is kind of more of a personal tough question just for the candy candy candy. You got to say it right. This is more of I want to start some bullshit. I'm not trying to back over here trying. You know what? So I said of yourself, who's a couple HM HMV artists? Would you hear my voice? Would you often enjoy listening to the lyrics of the most and most importantly, why is it Raul? Shut up, my boy. It's not Raul. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not.

It's not. And by the way, you guys are sleeping on Raul. Candy, candy. Candy. There may be shots in a future record coming at Mr. A. Booty from the UK that he can't take personal criticism. And I think I've been the nicest person to him. So but I don't want to take AM spotlight. Who are like the top like one or two people you listen to it. Hear my voice that you you respect. There you would cuz I have to outweigh people. So that's that's that and it does not mean to me anybody else. So so deep.

So deeper question. Deeper question. And then why me? Then it's because I've been around him and I had to rewrite verses. You for the same reason, right? I don't like rewriting verses. That's just my thing. Don't make me fucking rewrite a verse, right? So. I'm gonna do it. If I do a song with, but so the thing is like when I do a song with both of y'all, I have to make sure that I kill y'all out the gate.

So do you rewrite it just because you feel like it's not as, it's a little closer than you think. So you got to one up them or do you rewrite it just so you hit points better than they do, like kind of towards the song. So Doc is gonna hit points better than me in general because that's the way he writes. But if he punches harder than me, I'm gonna make sure, that'll wrap up. Like I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna write more, another punch. If I got to try.

I think we should have like a hear my voice diss track just to each other. That'd be pretty dope. Me in a way, the people that listen to this, we have future plans for an EP coming out and maybe not a battle, but thinking back to the Wu Tang early 90s era when Methadmine albums to cow came out, there was a record, Meth vs Chef, who could kill the beat best, could have it. And I would love one day to do that with AM. Like I would love to be Meth vs Chef.

He could be chef, I could be meth, he could be meth, I could be chef. I just wanna body him. That's all I want. I'm here for it. And I will do my best to body you. So right here for AM, as a radio reviewer, explain how you personally approach each one of your single reviews. I throw paint at a fucking wall. That's who I am. Doc literally explains that he rides around and he will write for three or four days. And I know that Doc will ride around listening to the songs for more than one day.

I just started listening to the songs more. I do it in real time. Y'all should be able to see it in the reviews. I'm like, all right, man, this looks tough. And the verses are right, this doesn't look tough. So I want to hear it the first time and get my ideas. Because the more I listen to something, the more I listen to something, give me something. So, oh my goodness. Yeah. No, but I kinda, that was my initial approach.

But just because there were some songs that I kinda like, hey, you know, like it's not that bad. I had a different kind of feeling towards it. And I just, you know what? This song is okay. I'm a weak bump in a little weak dump. So I kind of changed my approach. I got to listen to them for a couple of days. Candy, let me tell you something about AM. So you know how like, Crux and got one, Rob got one. You might've even got one.

Like there's slap on the wrist for media base when we turn in those reviews to the radio. Oh yeah. Oh, I don't think I've gotten to one yet. Or you've gotten one before me. I don't think you've gotten one, a bad one yet. But AM used to get bad ones. And if it's the repetitive ones, usually he knows I do this. I'll try to protect you guys. I ain't gonna let you get all the slap on the wrist. I'll take the slap on the wrist.

They'll be mad about, you need to compare these records with the catalog of these albums. And AM will never do that. Nope. I kind of just compare them to like, as a radio listener. Yeah. Well, and again, you got to think of it this way. If you've been a fan, like what's a rapper that you really respect from like the nineties or 2000s since you're young? 2000s? Well, Eminem, like that guy's been everywhere.

So if Eminem dropped a record tomorrow, you naturally, the way his label wants us to review that is compare it to an Eminem record from that was a hit. I won't say the word. Sure, I do that because they're like, this past Post Malone song, I don't think it was a bad song. It's just, it's not Post Malone's best work. I don't feel like it's fair to compare Post Malone to Post Malone, you know what I mean? But that's what the label wants to do.

That's what they're deciding to give them for that record, a $2 million budget or a $500,000 budget based on our review. So that's why I kind of go that way. But I agree with AM, like at the same time, I mean, does the vibe sit well with me? Does it fit the current market? But I think a perfect example is that the baby record that we are reviewing, this is the current market, the Jersey Baltimore house style. And he failed miserably at it for me. I mean, he's still getting blackballed.

And he's getting blackballed on top of it. So is it the blackball that's making the fail or the fact that he would sound unconfident and clumsy on it? It might be a little bit of both. So like, just like Trash and the artist, and just because I personally don't like the dude, I don't, and this is before he had the, I don't like Travis Scott's music. Like he has some dope hits. I don't like him like as a person or as an artist. I don't. I like that you brought that up because you're in Texas.

The magic part of that is AM and I have talked about this multiple times on phone calls. We all have an artist that we gravitate to and we'll cheerleer for. And then we all have- To me that's Big Sean. I love Big Sean. You love Big Sean. I like, I love Big Sean too. Even that he's got his own label, FF to Death now. And he had the opportunity to sign to Kendrick Lamar and he did it. So I think he failed there. But then there's vice versa to that.

There are artists that are actually very talented that we will just, Kodak Black, I've never bumped, I think I've bumped one song of his. It was a record with him, T-Pain and Rick Ross. That's it. I have never bumped- It was. Florida Boy or something like that. Something like that. It was definitely Florida Boy. Yeah. So that was the only verse I've ever heard some Kodak, heard some Kodak Black that like actually spoke to me and told a story and was audible. Cause I was so mumbled.

I know AM and AM can definitely stick up for himself. I know AM will never bump a Fat Joe record. Fucking hate it. I knew you were talking about Fat Joe this whole time. Fuck Fat Joe. I strong bumped all the way up and that shit became a monster hit record. And I'm taking a shot. Oopsie. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Oh man. It's single hit record. I actually enjoy Fat Joe. Me too. Hey, AM. I agree with AM that I feel like the joke about him having Big Pun's rhyme book, Salute.

Yeah. No. Was Big Pun more talented than Fat Joe? Absolutely. But Fat Joe has such a consistent catalog of hits. I mean, it's like- You know what's weird? And it's just stuff that I kind of figured out. Artists that I enjoy, I end up, they end up having interviews in their daily life or they get personal stories. I end up really connecting with them. It's the artists that you can't connect with that you don't like, right? Yeah. And that has nothing to do with, I won't like their music.

Then I find out more about them. Man, this guy's an asshole. Maybe that's why I don't like his music. Now to Doug, what's the best career decision you've ever made? What's the worst career decision you ever made? Yo, I gotta give props to AM. He's asking some really good questions. That's actually some really good questions. Best career decision I've ever made. In retrospect, at the moment, I hated it. Allowing my wife to talk me into moving away from South Florida.

That was the best career decision I've ever made in my life. We were able to get a house that was four times the size of South Florida for 179, 178, 8,000. And now the market's ballooned up so much in the last 11 years, 11, 12 years, that no home in my neighborhood's lower than 430, 450. Oh wow. Yeah, so that was the best timing. The recession hit. I got laid off. I couldn't find a job for 10 months. She couldn't find a job down there, but then she found a job in Central Florida.

And I fought tooth and nail. All my family, all my friends, all my schools, all my battle leagues, all my music, all my conferences, everything was in South Florida. I had no DJ gigs in Central Florida. So I was fighting her tooth and nail moving up here. It took about 10 years, a decade. But every time we drove down to South Florida to visit family, I would wanna leave so quickly. And on the drive back, I'm like, why the fuck do I come down here? So she goes, what did you say?

So it took me a decade to get to that point, but that's the best decision I ever made. I mean, we're good with money. We're good with jobs. We're good with location. We're still in a private where we live at. So like when you guys come here and visit, we can throw a party and not get in trouble. So I think that's the best career decision I ever made in my life, or allowed Gene to talk me into making my life. And I was being an asshole about it. I didn't wanna leave.

Worst career decision was going to college the very first year. I was still doubled majoring, copyright, trademark law and civil engineering. I was actually a mechanical engineer major. And my, what do you call it? Admin or moderator. What do you call a person that talks to you? Not a counselor, but a... I know who you're talking about. Yeah, registrar.

Yeah, whoever it was, talk me into, no, civil engineer is the way to go because you're the person that pulls together all the engineers and you're the first person to get paid. Great idea, hard major. So I didn't get my straight A's in that. And then when I got my dream job, like I didn't even really have to apply for my dream job. Headhunters came after me. That's how good the market was. And then 2008 rolled around in the markets, the recession happened.

And I was one of the first 31 people laid off. Like we don't need civil engineers. We don't need a third party to pull everyone together. We could just talk to each person. So me changing that degree probably was probably one of my worst decisions. So for AM, with the Twisted Critics as a brand, what do you look to get out of it and where do you think you're gonna accomplish? Having a voice larger than the voice that I already have because I already do two different podcasts.

Me and Heavy haven't restarted ours, but we are. So doing a podcast like this branded in what me and DACA are already doing for me, I feel like easy, right? It's gonna be a very, very fun, fun, fun, fun, fun thing. So what I think that I'm gonna get out of this is gonna be exposure for me, it's gonna be exposure for everyone in here, my voice. And hopefully me and DACA and you can start to get some money. Oh yeah, for sure. I agree with him a thousand percent.

We are trying to present trends that we, numbers, stats, that we could take an artist that's unknown. Let's take our mutual boy Raul, 18 or 19 monthly followers. We threw him on the Twisted Critics VIP podcast playlist. And we haven't even had an episode yet. And he climbed up to 301, 302 monthly listeners.

Maybe I'm one of those monthly listeners, but at the same time, I wanna use those percentages and we wanna prove to artists that we can make them blow up a thousand percent better than they are. I think it's a bigger voice, a bigger podium. We are experts at different things in this music business. And I think the comparisons, agreement and debates will show that. And like you said, this is another stream of income coming in. So I agree with him on every answer he gave.

So for you doc, how will you know when you've made it? Hey, I made it already. No, I'll say this. I want to be the voice for major labels to listen to, to get their legal business off the ground and instructions from. That's when I'll know I made it, made it, made it. So that's the easiest way to answer that. Okay. So, Anne, for the podcast, who would be your top two or three dream guest interviews for, let's say, for Twisted Critics?

Million dollars worth of game, so probably, I like the guy going, I am asking. Oh, yeah. Right? And it's another one where they separated from that. I can't remember. The Pivot? And if I could just, yeah, I love both of those shows. Right? I would love to do an interview with both. I did four, four, and it's more than four people, but that's my answer. Now I just want to party with Shani, man. With Shani? Share stories. That guy's a, oh man, that guy's a savage.

I know for me, probably one of my dream interviews would probably be for sure Big Sean. Hey, Anne, lead us into my favorite part of the show. Fenton number five is going to be 100% facts. With this segment, each week we'll start to get into the guts of radio success. Facts about how artists are performing at radio and what Doc J does for work at media days. Do you care to go into a little bit of what you're doing? I have no problem doing that, sure.

At Urban Radio Spins, as a Urban Radio Spins analyst and a coordinator for reviews, I primarily oversee verifying song copyrights and ownership, contacting Terrestrial Radio Station PDs, which are program directors, to monitor weekly spin counts. On Sundays, I do the media-based math to build the rank charts. Those get sold to Billboard, and then you see on Monday the Billboard charts. And at the end of every quarter, we execute radio performance royalties to the listed artists on the copyright.

So basically I pay the artists that are on the copyright of these songs that you hear on radio every quarter. So I really didn't know all that went into, like into that whole process. I just thought people uploaded songs, and then with popularity in the band, it just kind of organically, they got airplay and became hits. Like anything else, it's an easy process. Is there any actual definition of a hit? And how lucrative in terms of money is radioed to an artist?

Candy, you make me getting very close to saying the WFW with that question. I'll try my best without saying it. So popularity views, streams, and all that stuff helps. But to the industry, those are just vanity stats. Because one, they don't come with verified ownership, publishing rights, or any registration whatsoever. And then two, a lot of these views and streams can be farmed, they could be manipulated, they could be bought, and they can't be validated.

So I mean, there are some artists that will brag about having 500,000 to a million views, but they can't sell one CD. So it really depends on how you tap into your fan base. Easiest way I can explain it to both of you guys, is what I say at conferences, think of a new rap song as a new car. Can we physically, can AM physically drive this new rap song, this new car, after his parents taught him how to drive it?

Sure he can, he won't get in an accident, he knows how to make a left turn, he knows how to use his blinker, he knows how to make a right turn, he knows how to drive. I don't care how many people like, or hit like, or how many friends he gave a ride in this car, if he gets pulled over without having a driver's license for this car, regardless of how many people like it, or if he knows how to drive, he's likely getting a fine and going to jail, because he doesn't have a copyright.

And that's what music business is, without a copyright, without registrations, without performance rights, you don't get that end of being a rap artist, you're just a viral star for one second. That's exactly what music business is right now. Close to 90,000 songs are being uploaded, but platforms per day. Of those 90,000 songs, 94% of them aren't actually owned, so therefore someone like me doesn't have to pay 94% of those 90,000 songs, simple fact.

Yes, it's a process, the start, it all starts with a copyright, performance rights, register in it, et cetera, et cetera, before you publicly release it. The big word is before publicly releasing it, everyone will throw it up in the social media, YouTube, and they already ruined their profits. And yes, by our and performance rights orgs definition, a song becomes a hit, 95,000 spins per quarter at radio.

And there's obviously tiers to different types of radio structure, like are you being played on a college radio, satellite radio, terrestrial radio, each of them pay increasingly different. At college radio, you get six cents per play, at terrestrial radio, you get 9.8 cents per play and somewhere in the range of that. But if you have a hit single, Oopsie. Oh, fuck. you get a financial boost as well.

Versus streaming at radio, we pay 2,780% more per individual stream or spin, and more money than internet does. And that's before Spotify takes the 30% off the top for their feed, and before they cut out the freemium decreases for the accounts that are playing you without paying for their account. That's how I break down the 100% facts. Radio, we pay differently than internet. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, that's actually like a whole lot of good information, especially for an up and coming artist who doesn't really have a whole lot of knowledge just on the music business. But here we're gonna move on to the number one spot. So let's see who actually performed the best radio last week and snatch the tippy top spot on the spark. On the chart. Tippy, tippy top. All right, at Urban Radio last week that we calculated last Sunday, it was taken by Metro Boomin featuring The Weeknd and 21 Savage.

It had over 4,858 spins per day at national radio, and it's already platinum as of February 27th this year. Andrew, phone a roll. Sorry, y'all. It was shipped 12-13-22 by Boominati Republic Records. They viewed at number 39 on Urban and number 25 on Club. Produced by Metro Boomin, Boomin, and Dahila. It samples Mario Wynans and Diddy's 2004 hit I Don't Wanna Go. Wynans himself returned to contribute backing vocals along with Travis Scott.

Already a big hit and likely the largest on Metro Boomin's recent album. Plus right now it's getting another radio boost on the recent remix featuring Diddy that they just released at the end of March. I was saying it's a new record, it's a big record, and I think them doing that remix with Diddy kind of makes a full circle because Diddy and Wynans were in the original. And it's just kind of like when Lil Nas X did Old Town Road, he brought in different features to keep it staying at number one.

I think that's what Metro Boomin's doing. He's keeping it at number one for a little while. So it's gonna be a big hit for a while. So here we have new breaking singles. We are on each episode. We're gonna quickly break down which new singles are entering the Urban radio charts. Looks like we have four of them this time around.

Even though you hate the song, even though you hate the song, Shake Some by the Baby, Shift the Radio on 52623 in a day, at number 37 Urban with over 963 spins per day last week, distributed by SCMG Interscope, produced by Charlie Heat, and also debuted at 46 on Rysnick and Club Stations. I agree with that. I think that was more of a club record than a radio record, but who cares? Another new breaking record this week was Area Codes by Kaylee. It shipped to radio on April 14th, 2023.

It debuted at number 43 at Urban with over 804 spins per day last week. It's distributed by Trump Card Incorporated and Atlantic Records. It's produced by Tate Kabang and YG Beats, currently viral with over 545 million TikTok views. I think that's what's boosting it to radio, by the way. And it's also being shipped to Rysnick and Urban Club Stations. I foresee a chart in there within a week or two as well. Yeah, it's an interesting record. That's actually really dope to see this name.

Tate Colben is an artist from Baltimore. He had been having legal issues and he has not recorded anything. So I guess he said, I'm gonna go ahead and start producing. That's really awesome to see his name on there. For me, we have Fox, Koi, I've never seen her name right, Lare. Koi Lare. Ship the radio. Koi Lare. Koi Lare, this is Fish, Koi Lare. Ship the radio on 5523, debuted at number 44 at Urban with over 744 spins per day last week.

Distributed by Uppkown, 2.0 Republic, produced by Johnny Goldstein. He sounds also currently at number 19 on Rhythmic and Club Stations. And the last breaking record this week, the debuting record was I'm Geekin' by DDG, featuring Lil' Tyler, I'm sorry. Ship to radio, 42723, debuted at number 45, right at the bottom of the charts, with 665 spins or more per day last week. Distributed by Epic Records, where I used to work at.

Produced by Earl on the Beats, Beats by Bang, and Tom Levesque, that's a lot of producers. And also debuted at number 42 on Rhythmic Club Stations as well. So what's pretty awesome about some of these songs is about three to four of them. We actually review them, and y'all can check it out on our review panel. Just because I wanna stir the pot a little bit, let's go ahead and start with Shake Some. I know you guys agree a lot on that.

We hate it, but what I thought, I know he came to bar the morning, tried to do, call it the spanky leg. It's a dance that we do that we shake our legs, right? And he did it with some local dancers here, and he did a horrible job, but it was funny to me. The beat itself reminds me of a Philly, Baltimore, and a Jersey kind of trend. And I enjoy this particular trend, because I grew up and I still dance to this.

I actually have a couple of songs right now that I've been dancing to, or by TikTok, that has this club thing that they've been doing. But I think that it will get a lot of plays in certain regions, like here, Jersey, Philly. And I think that it's gonna go viral on TikTok because of it being a dance song, right? We used to have dance songs back in the day, like, like, like, Soulja Boy, Don't Are You, but these are literal dance songs now.

Like, you're gonna actually have people out here pop-locking, not doing that Philly TikTok to movement thing. Said it's gonna be 40, 50 urban, 40, 50 club, and I gave it a week from. I know he's Black Ball and the mix and EQs. Not the best, the vocals, the vocals were a little too loud for me. And I think I rated it low by mistake. Doc, you told me that. Yeah. It's debuted at number 37 on club, so you would already be wrong with your prediction. Just a little bit.

To go against AM, and to defend myself a little bit, I didn't hate it. Strong dump is hate it. Weak dump is dislike it. Weak bump is I like it. Strong bump is I love it. So to me, I disliked it. But where I disagree to AM is what I said on May 25th when we reviewed it formally. I said DaBaby's new single is a Jersey Philly house club type of song for twerkers. Charlie Heat laces a basic rowdy loop of metallic sinks, stock high hats, siren alarms, and punchy 808s.

Sort of a cheap knockoff of Lil Uzi Verts, I Just Wanna Rock You, which I strong dumped. Beat has potential. I do like the beat a little bit. Yet not all rappers can ride this type of style. Vocals are better mixed and less mumbled than Uzis, so that's why I'm not strong dumping this. But for DaBaby, this is done in such a confident, lacking, choppy, uncomfortable flow that I just couldn't get with. Real short to it, just two minutes long.

It's viral for sure, but very below average, forced and uninteresting. It's not a strong radio single to me. It gets spins because his name, even if he's being blackballed. So I'm guessing 15 to 25 at Urban and 15 to 25 at Club, but it's really unmemorable to me. So I gave it a weak dump. I didn't hate it, but I just like it. So obviously you guys agree to hold up. So kind of describe what y'all think about area codes. Oh, by Kaylee.

OK. On 525, when we reviewed this together, me and A.M. and the rest of the panel, I said, modernized, snap-heavy, tick-tock, twerky flip of Ludacris' 2001 hit, co-produced by Tate, Kumbang, and YGBeats. It's a minimalistic beat of some slow looping bass drums and finger snaps. Odd of Kaylee being from and born in ATL, yet the song sounds very Cali to me, very Cali vibes I got from it. A calmer, bassy cadence and her basic lyrics get way more raunchier than Ludacris'.

Lyrically, it's a girl point of view of the amount of hoes that she has in every area code, including the bros. I get the topic. I mean, it makes sense. It's not trash. I don't hate it. But only thing I like about it is her silly ad-libs. I didn't really like her lyricism. I didn't like the hook. I didn't like the beat. Possibly young girl, it girl type of hype. And I think it has some tick-tock appeal. But it's short, lazy, and a bit boring to me. Nonetheless, it's viral.

It's a major label budget now that she's signed. And I feel it will chart in the 20 to 30 range at club and 40 to 50 range at urban. But it'll be short-lived. So what I said, I said I heard this today and I hated it. I'm going to give it a strong thumb. The lyrics weren't bad, but they weren't good. The lyrics were bad. The beat felt like it was made at a lunch table with the thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, shit that we used to do with the pens and whatnot.

That's what it felt like to me. It was mixed like shit. The lyrics are boring, and the ad-libs need to be thickened better in the EQ. I couldn't listen to it the other day when I first started listening to it, and I cannot now. Why the fuck is she whispering? And the hook is trash. 40, 50 club, and I said it's not going to chart in urban. It's going to chart in urban, bro. It is. Y'all kind of get that for sure. But we agreed on that at least. So that's just a- We agreed on it.

What about Poirot Ray? I said the song will do well because of her recent pain. She's famous. And she's very polarizing with her little booty. I like her on a lot of songs, but this song, I think, is right up the middle for me. I like the vibe in the lyrics. The production, for me, I wasn't really feeling it. It was like a boring, timbaling beat. And the piano, Doc, you know I'm big on piano. If the piano's bad, I'm going to say it. The piano in this track is fucking lame. The mix on it is good.

I enjoyed the mix, but I just hated the beat. The beat was actually mixed good. I just hated it. Everything about the beat, hated it. I liked the first verse the most, and I enjoyed the second part of the hook, which is almost like a bridge. It made me want to dance. It was right up the middle for me, but it was not enough for me to hate the song. 20-30 Club, and I don't think it's going to chart in the urban. I agree with AM on the rating, but I didn't hate the beat at all.

What I said on 525 was cool little high energy, early 2000s club bar. I'm impressed by producer Johnny Goldstein, because he usually does beats for Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber and artists like that. But this is a rap song? Yeah, he's way more pop than rap, so this is interesting. I'm impressed by him by the vibrant cowbells, the spacey synths, the heavy bass, the infectious claps. It reminds me of what classic Neptune's beat sounds like. Not so much Timberland, as AM said. It's well mixed.

I like the crisp, coy, la-ray vocals for once. Usually her other records, she's a little bit more distorted. Her composition actually tributes Neptune's as well. I think she even says their name in it a couple of times. It's simple, cocky flow, putting her haters in their place and bragging about her catalog's hits, hence the term bops. It's a tad short and repetitive, yet the dancey beat fuels it. And I think the beat will make it ride.

One of the fun, better bops from coy, la-ray and vintage where I envision cats my age like Harlem shaken to it a little bit. So I predicted it to be a 5 through 15 at club and a 10 through 20 at urban eventually. And it should be considered to be shipped to pop as well, in my opinion. I'm going to make myself go higher in my urban. Yeah, you got it. All right, so this is another section of 100% Facts. This is called Just the Stats instead of Just the Facts. Now everyone knows I'm a numbers guy.

And like the old saying goes, men lie, women lie, but numbers don't. It's about here in every episode that we'll fire through the more meaningful stats and actual movement on the national charts at Urban Radio and giving our opinions. So AM, why don't you kick it off the best risers right now? Biggest three risers this week is going to start off with All My Life, like a little dirt feature in J. Cole. Up 10 spots from 26 to 16, 51.9% more spins. Now it has 2,722 spins per day.

Always by Daniel Caesar. I fucking love that song. Up 9 spots from 44 to 35, 29.3% more. Now it's going to be 1,011 spins per day. Peaches and eggplant. Hate the fucking song. Up 8 spots from 38 to 30, 40.2% more. Now it's 1,489 spins per day. 2,722 spins per day for that Dirk and Cole record is fucking awesome. Kandy, why don't you go into the biggest drops of this week? So the biggest three drops of the week is number one, Do You Mind by Vito featuring Chris Brown.

It went down 9 spots from 25 to 34. So it's getting 44.9% less now. So they're hitting about 1,036 spins a day. Number two, we have Painting Pictures by Superstar Pride. It's down 8 spots from 6 to 14, 28.2% less. Now it's still hitting 2,784 spins a day. So it's still getting a good amount. You got number three, which is Forever, Lil Baby and Friday. Down 7 spots from 17 to 24. It's down 18.1% less now. And it's still getting 1,993 spins a day.

That painting pictures, that Superstar Pride, that's an indie record. I'm actually surprised it went so high at number six. So I think I was even wrong with that in my review. So that's a little props to that. But I'm going to close out this section, just the stats. And I'm going to go over respect to the indies. We're going to talk about the top four indies that are performing better than mainstream artists.

At number one, we have Already Know by Young Pooda, Angelica Villa, and A Boogie with a Hoodie. It's up to 28 on the urban charts with 1,572 spins per day. And that's a 2.1% increase. Number two is Stop Playing With Me by Pretty Porcelain. It's up to 33 on the charts. 1,150 spins per day. That's up 2.6%. Number three, Fake Love by Tink. I actually really like that record. It's up to 38 with 930 spins per day. That's a 9.8% increase.

And the biggest increase of the week is number four, I'm Baby, Ambray, and Jack James, which was a huge adult R&B hit. But now on the urban charts, it's up to number 40 with 887 spins per day and 11.1% increase. So this next segment we got is going to be called Radio Rips this week. So it's a good one.

As the title suggests that my boy Candy said, this is our section where we give a final farewell to the urban songs or artists who officially died and fell off the charts and out of national rotation. So we're in the ending of March 29, 2023. That's where we're killing them off at, and that's where they fell officially off the charts. This week we had five condolences that we equally have to pay respect to. Some of them I'm sad about. Most of them I'm very happy about.

So Candy, since you knew it this, why don't you kick it off first for us? First one we got, Players by Quilla Ray. It shipped early December, had a six month run at peak number one, earned a gold plaque. Shout out to her. That's dope. I just started playing this Stupid Freaky T songs by Tia Corrin. Shipped early April, two month run, and it peaked at number 16. I like the song. I like the beat. I like the beat too. I don't like the song, but I like the beat. I Got No Love by JK Maxx.

That's an indie record. It was shipped early February, had a four month run, and peaked at number 14 on urban charts. We got Seven Rules by Lil' Donald. It shipped late February, had a three and a half month run, and peaked only at 27. Still great, but. Being the one thing I like about that record, before I even digs into that, the one thing I like about the record, I know his manager. I know the label they're at. They're not signed to a major. They don't have a major budget.

So for an indie record to kind of have that three and a half month run, and they're really trying to do it with a physical run where they're selling singles and merch at every stop they go to, I have a lot of respect for that record actually. Especially top 30, it's not bad at all. I agree. Right now, the last one is going to be Just Wanna Rock by Lil Uzi Vert shipped late November, 6.5 month run, peaked at number one, and it earned a two times platinum plaque. Damn! Double platinum. Boom! Boom!

So Doc, I just want to ask you to be a little petty. Which one of these do you think, or are you most happy about that kind of died off? I mean, you saw me when I did my thumbs down when A.M. was talking. Of all those records, I pretty much liked all those records except Uzi Vert's Just Wanna Rock. I'm very upset that that went to number one. And the fact that it's double platinum, I think six and a half months on radio was way longer than it should have been. But hey, whatever. It's a new wave.

That Jersey Baltimore Club's house is trying to come back into the public scene, whatever. What about you, A.M.? Which one am I happy? I'm not necessarily happy about any of them dying. But since I kind of just got to the 3BT song, I would say that one. And I'm not saying that I'm happy about it dying, but I do see why I did that. A.M., get your hat ready. I got it.

So this is one of my favorite parts of the show, where we make the listeners, people who emailed in their questions, the stars of the show. A.M., you got your hat ready? I do, I do, I do. Copy, copy. If you don't or did not know already, we have a Facebook fan page. It's www.facebook.com slash slash slash. Twisted Critics, a mailing list if you aren't already subscribed, please do that. And we have a Twisted Critics business email. The twistedcriticsatmail.com, not Gmail.

And y'all should know, because we blasted y'all shit for the last three weeks about things like this podcast. All right, so where anyone can send in music that they would like a deep dive and answers to. Each episode, Candy will send over all the questions that we received, and I will blindly select two of the lucky fans for me and got to answer live on air. So who we have right now, number one, we're gonna have Tony Gonzalez from Sleepy Hollow, New York. Okay, so hold on.

Tony Gonzalez is the original Twisted Critic. That's my cousin. So it's only natural that we answer his question fully. What is Tony Gonzalez's question, Ian? What he wants to know, when an artist is signed to a record label, are they considered an employee or an independent contractor? He also wants to know, is it the same? What's the difference? Let me answer this as simply as I can. So it's neither, Tony. All right, so when you're signed to a label, you are a client of theirs.

An employee would be someone that actually works for the label full-time or part-time. You went through an actual job hiring process where you got interviewed. And then the benefit with that is you actually get benefits, health benefits, dental benefits, retirement plan, pension, and all that. The second one you said was what, an independent contractor, Ian? Yeah, independent contractor was the second one, yeah.

All right, so independent contractor, Tony, is someone that the label contracts for a time-length contract. It could be six months, it could be three years, whatever it is, for a specific service. So that'd be someone hiring you for a work-fire journalist or someone like me for doing copyright coordination or for someone to coordinate the record poll to get their reviews, like AM and I do on the panel and Candy does now too. Those are all independent contractors.

So you're neither an employee or independent contractor. When you sign a contract with a label, you are actually a client of theirs and you have to adhere to everything you agreed to and negotiated in that contract for the time-length of that contract. The minute you sign that, you're stuck to all those clauses that are in that contract. Definitely isn't the same as the other two because the other two come with pay. I mean, you do get paid as an artist.

You sign a contract, you get paid certain amount of percentages, but they come with benefits and the artist doesn't really get those benefits. So huge difference. All right, so I will pull some of the hat right now. Thank you, Candy, for sending the email and these over, by the way. Got you, got you. I will pull. You got it. We've got Grayson B., an 18-year-old from Lantana, Florida. How do you balance the business side of music with the creative side of music?

AM, why don't you start that off and I'll chime in once you're done with that. So for me, and it's awesome because I just got to the point where I'm doing more of the business side, I was all creative side. So I have to just make sure that I feed both of my demons, right, and my demons being the business and the creative side, meaning I need to make sure that I have all of my ducks in order for all of my copyright.

You'd have all of my ducks in order for all of my publishing, have all of my ducks in order for all of my sound exchanges and everything that is pertaining to the business side of the music. I myself know that it takes a while for these things to get done. I have to make sure and ensure that I am still writing and putting things out for promotional purposes. Is that what you got?

I will say now that I've moved to the courthouse, I've been heavily on the business side more than the music side, but I just had a conversation with me and Kandy's boy, Raul. When we say a music artist, the typical definition of an artist is 90% business, 10% talent or music talent. He doesn't understand that yet and I want him slowly, and he knows that, and I want him to slowly understand that.

There's a definition of a band member or instrumentalist who's a studio rat that does nothing but make music, and then a music artist that actually knows the business side 90% of the way at least.

So kind of the piggyback of what A.M. said, you definitely gotta have the responsibility in your head to separate those, but you gotta know about, you gotta actually willingly look out and seek out the education of it, the business side, the copyrights, the performance rights, the registrations, everything. Where, how do I balance them? I've been doing a horrible job balancing them. As you take on more and more artists, you also have to do the business side of them.

So it's almost like you gotta grow up. My 40 plus year old self has to understand that, hey, if anyone wins, that's also a win for me. You gotta set priorities. Kind of like when you do school, maybe that's the nerd side of me and the studious side of me. What's the priority? If I wanna only make my music, A.M.'s business side might fuck up, Raoul's business side might fuck up, Candy's business side might fuck up.

So now I gotta take the priority of like, if I don't balance those right, I'm now fucking up three people versus just myself. What helps me a lot is make a calendar. Put it on your wall, know when you're doing what. I gotta make you guys stay on task, even if it requires me to stay off task. Prioritize what's more important. Think about who gets hurt most if you don't do something. And prioritize those in order and knock them out in order.

There's also a thing called the snowball effect that I learned from Dave Ramsey. Try to take the easier ones and knock those out quickly and then you can work on the harder ones easier and you have less things on your to-do list. That's a big thing to help me out. So it might help you out too, Grayson. I like that, I'm okay. So the one that I chose, it's gonna be by Andrew C, AKA Drew Story from Claremont, Florida.

If you make a song using an exclusive beat bought from a producer through a company like BeatStar, are you able to have your own song copyrighted? So A.M. and Candy, Drew Story is a person that's very good friends with my brother-in-law, Alberto. He's a rock artist that goes by Drew Story and he actually lives here in Claremont. That's cool that we picked his shit. He's got a video that's really floating around right now. Good kid, I love him and I like drinking with him.

So I would like him to be a future guest on our podcast for sure to bring that rock element to us. But to answer his question, him and I have had this discussion before. Are you able to copyright the song? Well, that's the problem with, what did you originally sign? Because the agreement you signed with the producer on BeatStars, which are generally templates that are illegal to begin with, whatever you signed to, you have to adhere to. And that predates the copyright.

So if you sign for exclusive rights to buy a beat, high price, whatever, and it says you can't copyright the record, you can't copyright the record, even if you own the exclusive rights to the beat. A.M., do you have any experience with that at all or no? I have a couple of weeks right now that I had. Me and you talked about the one song called Sad Songs that me and Sinead have, we have right now.

And I did a BeatStar for the, I used BeatStar to get this beat, really good song, really good song, but I read my contract. I cannot copyright, so I have to figure out a way to lay those vocals over top of something else. That was my first and last time. That was my first and last time. Having me as the broken record in your ear, I hope that's the last time for sure. And for Andrew, the answer is whatever the contract says.

And again, I think you guys are at a disadvantage being younger in this new generation. Maybe back in our generation, the 90s and 2000s, you actually reached out to producers and met with them in the studio or got shipped a beat disc, an actual beat CD. And no one heard that, but the people they're trying to sell beats to. BeatStar's real, I mean, BeatStar's in 2022 has about 14 or 15 injunctions that can turn into lawsuits because they're illegal templates.

A contract for production isn't one size fits all. You have different clauses, you have different things you've leveraged, different things you negotiate, different clauses you have on there. But if it's exclusive by definition, you should be able to have your own ISRC code, your own content ID and damn sure your own copyright. You don't have any of those three, you really don't exclusively have the beat.

The other thing you got to think about this Drew, and I know the next time I drink with you, we'll talk about this. Think about how many people bought an exclusive lease or non-exclusive lease to that beat. That many people, that many dozen people have the record out already that you're gonna be penalized and cut different forms of profit that you can get from it.

I rather work with a producer off of BeatStars that I'm the only motherfucker that heard their beat because when I copyright it, we'll get all 14 forms of monetization. So that's my best advice for you. To answer your question, are you able to? Yes or no, depending on what the copyright says, but you should probably be leaning more to the people that aren't on BeatStars where you can write in the contract yourself, I'm allowed to copyright it and they agree to it. We move into the fun part.

Just in case we haven't drank enough, which I feel like we have, I feel like that's talking different, I'm talking different. I can't tell that Kennedy's talking any differently, but this is about what we talk about. We may change that, we may change that right now. What we doing, Doc? Your boys here at Hear My Voice and Twisted Critics are now Spotify VIP playlist curators. So we'll use this game and segment of the podcast every episode to test our music knowledge, memory and fast wits.

And when I say fast wits, I mean about 10 seconds. A theory proposed in 1929 and resurrected by the film industry in the early 90s was the seven degrees theory. And this was a joking concept that every actor or actress was somehow related to or a co-star linked to the actor, Kevin Bacon, and by seven connections or less. So we mutually are wanting to test this theory out in urban music business as well. So this is a rapid fire game, roughly 10 seconds per round.

So you can't use Google or Wikipedia or nothing like that. No cheating. Where we connect eight records, so seven connections. And whoever messes up those connections, we have to take a shot. So hopefully we mess up none of these and I ain't gonna take any more shots because I've had enough today, but we'll see what my boy Candy brings to the table. And for each mistake, you listeners have to take a shot with us. It's only right.

So Candy, you being from South Texas, from the Valley as you call it, like in Cumbia music, Mexicano. I know you know some rap songs. So who are some, what is one of your favorite rap songs that you can remember that's like? Probably Big Sean, I'll fuck with you. Okay, I ain't fucking with you. I remember that record. Okay, so I got 10 seconds on the clock. I gotta connect that to a record through a collab-o. I'm gonna connect Big Sean to Kanye West, Marvin Gaye and Chardonnay.

They both collaborated on it. I like that record a lot and it connects me and Candy with no drinking involved. AM, your turn. What connects to Kanye West? So I'm gonna make this, I was, I'm not making it a little difficult, but I'm not gonna make it difficult. Yes, I am, I lied. I'm making it difficult because it's Candy. Candy, it's gonna be Kanye West and Twister and we're gonna do Overnight Celebrity. Woo! Shot. Overnight Celebrity. So you got Twister. We're taking a shot.

We're taking a shot. Yeah, I'm gonna take my shot. I wanted you to try first. I can't even try it. Oh, hold on, that's messed up, so. Candy, and I'm gonna only do that to you one time. Next time I'll choose Jay-Z. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So I gotta take a shot because of Candy making me take a shot. Candy, when you visit Florida, you're gonna have to try some of this Mama Wana. My- Oh, I'm down. My arm hairs are very numb right now. Salud. What you should have done to AM was he said what?

He connected Kanye West to Twister and Overnight Celebrity. I'm gonna connect Twister to Jamie Foxx in the single Slow Jams, which is also ironically produced by Kanye West. That's my pick. So AM, you got Jamie Foxx. Who you connecting Jamie Foxx with? You know what's crazy? I don't have anybody that I can connect with Jamie Foxx, and that's bad. That'd be really bad. All right, so we take a shot. We're taking a shot, but I will give you a lifeline by Wikipedia in it.

So I'm gonna give you Jamie Foxx. We're gonna pick an easy one because I don't wanna take any more shots today. All right, so there's another shot. You guys are my proof. I'm not making it up. I'm not cheating you guys. All right, I'm gonna take Jamie Foxx and combine them with Ludacris on the record, Unpredictable. Would you believe I was singing the song and I said Snoop Dogg, so I was wrong anyway? All right, Kandi, can you connect Ludacris with anybody? With Justin Bieber.

Ooh, that's a mean one. That's hilarious. So what's the name of the record, though? Baby, baby, baby, okay. It's on me. Justin Bieber did a record with Daniel Caesar and give me on Helm Me AM. It's called, is it called Peaches? Peaches? It is called Peaches. Yeah. All right, I got out of that without taking a shot. This is gonna be a very cool playlist, by the way. Right, it is. So last but not least, that was a train wreck as it was.

I think we took three shots for seven or eight records, but that was a lot of fun. You listeners out there, you can check out on Spotify our VFP playlist called The Seven Degrees from Entwisted Critics. We'll have seven new records every week, but take us home, Kandi. We got one more slide left, I think. I'm just gonna read it. I can't even speak right now, but I don't even feel my tongue. That I'm gonna study for sure. I'm gonna start taking all these hip hop quizzes.

I'm gonna start going through all these songs because I don't know if I can handle another one of these. That was the middle of the day. Kandi killed us, right? He killed us, but it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad. We saved him, we saved me. I killed us too. I feel like it went pretty smooth. But all good things must come to an end. Doc, Kandi, I've enjoyed this. I'm gonna keep enjoying this. I've had a whole lot of fun. I learned a lot.

I drank too much, and I cannot wait for the next episode. I can't wait. We're gonna have Tony Ganja on here, my blood cousin and the original Twisted Critic. I just wanna give a very special major props to both of y'all, the co-host, rapper AM and Kandi Villareal. I'm very happy and real excited that we could connect like this. We made the show a reality finally. I think AM and I signed the very first contract back in November, 2022. This has been a long time coming.

Lots of dope convos, radio stats, and guests to come in our near future. Before we get out of here, big ups to you, both of yourselves. I want both of y'all to plug what you guys are doing next week and what you are planning to do musically, AM. So Kandi, why don't you kick off first? What's your next week looking like? Honestly, I'm gonna just kind of help grow the podcast a little bit organically and just kind of talk to people. I'm gonna study a little bit more because...

No. Yeah, I was feeling it. I don't wanna talk to them no more. We went from here to here, by the way. Just letting you know that. But yeah, that's about it. AM, what you got going on next week and what you planning for the near future musically? I'm running tomorrow, running five miles tomorrow, running five miles the day after that. So I'm trying to run as much as I can, get my health in order. Plug myself. I'm always working on music, always.

I have a bunch of EPs that Doc knows that I'm working on. I've been producing a whole lot, so I'm gonna try to write more to my own production. You can find me everywhere. Just look up Angryman410. All of my social media, no matter what it is. Even my OnlyFans is connected to that. I have a website, rapperam, rapperam.com. You'll hear me say that all the time on TikTok. I'm probably gonna do a bunch of freestyles on TikTok because I do that every single day.

I'm probably gonna dance tomorrow at this... I'm sick. I don't know if the listeners and Doc and Candy can hear, but I'm just sick. I know it's the last couple of minutes. I'm happy that I was able to make it through. I was able to make it through, but that's it, rapperam.com. And for me, I mean, it's watching Joseon going to work at the courthouse, and we're trying to close on a deal with Media Base and another special company to do a EP.

I'm very excited about that because I think AM and I are gonna murder every record that we get sent for that, and we'll be producing some of those ourselves. The project that's on the horizon for us is called the Firing Squad Funds EP. And like Candy said, I wanna promote the hell out of this podcast and get the most views as we possibly can.

And I wanna beg you guys to check out the VIP playlist on Spotify because AM, Candy, and myself, and everyone else in here, my voice, have taken our time to build this playlist for you guys. And the more of you guys that follow and like it, hit that heart button, the more money we actually get to make. So I mean, I drink quite a bit.

And another thing to that is I'm gonna make another salute to you guys because this wouldn't be a possibility or a real life thing if you guys didn't join in and do the work with me. So I appreciate you guys. I also wanna shout out Spotify, shout out Doc. It's gonna be a good adventure, man. It's gonna be awesome. Peace, have a wonderful day, have a wonderful weekend, and see you guys in the radio charts next week. There you go, peace out.