R and B Money.

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Thankavali.

We are the authorities on ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Tank, I'm Valentine, and this is the R and B Money Podcast, the authority on all things R and B.

No, No, look, you have started.

I only got so right.

That is ourghest level.

I'm not gonna do a long into today.

I want to get bright to the ship.

Give it up for Sam Hook in the building.

You got a songwriter name, a songwriter name?

Did you name yourself?

Sam Hook?

And we're starting off.

I'm starting there.

Yeah, let's get to it.

So I was doing I was in a singing group.

We was like fifteen, sixteen years old.

He was in New York in South was on park doing rap hooks for these like gangster niggas.

Nigga name facing a nigga named.

Grim Face and Grim so Grim was scarier to me.

It sounds like young.

I went in the booth because I'm sure that's Grim Grim Reap.

Yeah, I'm sure, sure.

Yeah.

I went in the booth.

I came out and some was like, y'all Sam cooked this nigga, Sam Hook.

I looked at him.

I was like, I'm keeping that name and I'm blocking him on everything, like thank God, like he gave himself, like he's a he turned his life around.

Today he's a big homie still.

But I always thought I would have owed him some type of paper.

So him on some like on some comedy on some comedy type.

Ship was like, man, man that knows he ain't no Sam cooked the nigga Sam Hook, Yeah, facts, he was like I heard it.

I was like, this is every name he gave you, a cold name.

Shout out to Grim.

Do you ever give out?

Is that just just for check some.

No my credits Samuel Sam Hook Jehane.

Because it got expensive again.

I read that more than anything I.

Was about to say, I leave with that.

Hey ladies, Hey it's always that, Hey ladies, Samuel Jean.

Bitch.

No man, Samuel L.

John, Can I help you with anything?

Today?

We got like the fourth member of the foojis here.

Sam.

Let's go back to New York Man, let's go back there.

We're going.

Let's go back to the beginning, before before the gangsters held you hostage, before Grim held you hostage for hooks.

How did you.

Even get to a point where that was something that you knew you could do?

Or where you started.

My older brother he wanted to sing, and to me still to this day, it's my idol.

Yeah, so.

Legit.

I see him in the mirror singing, practicing, how he looks singing in church, and I wanted I wanted he singing.

In high school.

He's doing everything, He's getting the girls for it.

And to me, his nigger was Michael Jordan.

It's like he couldn't do no wrong.

So I wanted to be like him.

I would go to school and like sing to girls or you know, stuff like that.

And it started unfolding to where it was like, I want to do this for myself.

But when did you know you had a voice?

Did he?

Did he tell you.

I practiced on girls.

I could sing to a girl and.

That was that if she if she gave you a certain reaction that mirrord the reaction that your brother was getting.

Then you knew you had a little bit.

It was quiet.

Yeah, So it started young, started writing poetry and if I needed a song and sing.

One, and then you'd write one.

Yeah, I didn't even look at it like a songwright.

Now I needed a song to.

Say, And what grade is this that you're just writing?

Fifth grade, So you needed a song.

That I was with a crew.

So we all practiced together in fifth grade, Yeah, fifth, sixth, seventh.

Y'all was moving with an intention way too early.

Yeah, no, it's not way too early.

But you got great.

You have to find your advantages fifth grade.

You have to find your advantage.

I was fast, that was my advent.

That was sure, girl, how fast you want to race?

I don't know how that works for you.

I think you had to get in your talent show first to really get to it.

In fact, it's hard not to ask y'all when y'all started.

But this is my interview, right.

Yeah, this is I've always been doing this in some form of fashion.

I was in church a choired as a baby, so that's that's what mind started.

So yeah, we are you know for me church as well?

Yeah?

Yeah.

But I think my question is, like in fifth grade, right when you're saying, hey, we have a crew, let's write these songs and all of these things, what are the things or who are the people that you're looking at to make you even desire to do that, The things that are inspiring you to go in that direction.

It's whatever my brother liked.

I liked if he loved Royan McKnight, I love Roan McKnight.

If you love boys men, I love boys.

Samn.

That was a great artist too.

I don't think I ever found the passion for music because it wasn't right, and that was my passion.

It was wanting to be like my brother.

So I don't think I ever found the passion for it until like later.

It was my way in.

It was my language that I could speak other than doing dumb shit that that people respected.

What about high school do you do you do you find something that that that gives you a little bit more confidence in terms of standing outside of your brother and believing it's more you than high school.

I was a knucklehead, so it wasn't music.

We would practice it.

So I was born in Brooklyn, raised in Long Island.

So my team we had it was four of us.

Team was called Gemini three Geminis, but we lied into it.

All four of us was and those are my brothers still to this day.

After school we would go practice go right, But then it was like a whole other side of me just doing dumb shit.

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

Did you win any those sound shows?

Yeah, yep, it was like one twelve.

That money involved short shit like yeah, three five hundred dollars type thing.

And what are your what are your parents thinking at this time?

Are they are they seeing you and being like, oh, this is special or are they just like, Okay, this is just kind of his brother did it, He's going to do it.

And I'm just asking because did your brother ever do anything professionally?

He definitely started to okay, okay, and then had a baby and you know, turned into a farther money into business.

But my parents support wise, they didn't think it was real until I moved out.

So I moved out sixteen years old and it was like I remember, oh, so shout out to my nigga Lops So a person I grew up in church with in Brooklyn changed my life.

So he was one of the first people to believe in me with his own pocket.

Like he's your first investor, first investor, first like promoter, first manager.

That's my brother.

I owe him like crazy.

So he lived in Jersey, but we'd always travel to Brooklyn.

We in Brooklyn all the time for church, and so he started bringing me out to Jersey.

That's where I would meet like people related to why cleft and I'm fifteen years old, sixteen years old meeting everybody he knows in Jersey.

He had attended high school with jay Z's nephew colleague who ended up passing away, and colleague was starting a group called G and B Getting Money Boys.

Right, colleague's best friends was back in Brooklyn, and the star Korean stutdter Los introduced me to Korean Star in study.

So now I'm in New York and I.

Got a team in New York and I don't got to travel out to Jersey so much.

I'm part of GMB sixteen years old.

The group was over by.

End, and they have me going to tom Square singing for girls, you know, sing on the train like they would put me through practice to be a singer artist development.

And so i'd always be in Brooklyn mccorean study, always being Brooklyn mccorean study and colleague.

Before he passed away, he got his girlfriend, I'm not gonna say a name.

He's got his girlfriend pregnant, right, So while she was pregnant, Korean Study, who was like god going to be the godfather.

They'd always be with her, taking care of her.

So I show up and we all became crew and it was like GMB.

One day we at Danielle's crab and a lady walks in and I think I was sitting too close to Danieller.

So Danielle was four blown pregnant, so she ain't know what Tommy was.

She never seen me before, so she's like, yo.

Who's this.

I'm like, I'm saying, who are you?

Right?

And she was like, I'm Annie or Annie to you?

So I didn't know what was going on.

Who that was.

She had bags in the hand, she walked to the back of the house.

Cory Study is like, yo, bro, that's that's that's whole sister.

So that day we all end up eating hot dogs on way too young, drinking Heinnekens with chilling making jokes.

Y'all sing for Annie, and we all like chilling.

Right, Corey Studded made me sing for anybody that walked in.

It could be somebody grandmother, they could be you know, whoever, if they knew that person, then I had the talent.

They showed it.

So at the end of the night, Annie was like Yo Dan yell, I love him, invite him to the baby shop, and so that baby shower.

A few months later, I went to the baby shower my parents.

I got my parents and get me like a family bible, you know, in scripted with her name on it as a gift.

I went to the baby shower, and that's when I meet everybody that initially keeps like like changing my life.

So it's all the It's Jay's nephews, mel Ro, It's uh Tata's son, Spanky nephews, Ravel, like the whole squad like, and then they had my niggas j I wrote to me.

Everybody was in the basement and so h Korean studdy like they always do.

They was like Yo Sam sing And I had three songs on No Beats, right.

I had a song about weed, a song about shoes, and a song for girls.

Right this shit you like, yeah, the song about shoes.

The main lyrics like I like them, like I like my shoes clean, but never ta tos.

And so when I was seeing that shit, they.

Went crazy, Yeah.

I like them like I like my shoes clean, but never tied to loose right, So it was it was and then the weeds so and they went crazy over I started selling we like twelve years old, so everything that I was singing.

About was really yeah.

So they all took a liking to me.

We all chilling, we all laughing, were in the basement.

All the grown ups is upstairs.

It's like, yo, you want to be down with NBH.

I look at Corey and study like we GMB the niggas like nigga say yes, And so I said yes.

And that was the last time I went home to live with my parents.

So it was eleventh grade and I stayed in Jersey.

I was already always going out to Jersey the lowest crib and sleeping over his mom, calling my mom like Yo, what's sam me doing over here?

Or just so you know Sammy's okay, you say, if he's over here.

But that time was that's the last of it.

And so I was sneaked into mel and Ral.

They would sneak me into their crib and have me inside the crib because I had nowhere to go.

The nigga out here homeless with like anounce and a half selling dubs.

You see I'm saying, so I would just make sense every time anybody see me.

I'm helping.

I'm working.

I'm helping.

I'm working.

Los is helping me out.

And if I need to close, Los got me.

If I need the money, Lows got me.

Loos would go to work to support my dream.

Yeah, that's my brother.

And so it took like two three months for on Mickey now Uh Melil's mother uh to come downstairs.

And I wasn't making no sense.

Now I'm lagging mad comfortable.

Now she looked look at my face.

She's like, Sam, where do you live?

I looked at her in her crib and said here, so everybody starts dying laughing, and she was like, nigga, how old are you?

And I told her my age.

I'm like I might be seventeen block.

It was like, you understand what you can get in trouble.

And then they found me.

So you're not going to school at this point either.

No, I'm waking going.

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

You're hustle right now at sixteen, Yeah, it's crazy.

N They found me a room to rent at that age, and my man Boge, it was our barber, his mother rented me a room for five point fifty So sixteen years old, twenty years ago.

This is when my bills started and uh saying out the street money that and lowers.

I'll never take him out the story.

Yeah, because I fucked my reup up, I'm good for that.

At that end, we're bout.

Yeah.

I just had really really forgiving big home.

But this man, this man makes sure I could Yeah, I mean I could get back.

Oh yeah, and then looking it off.

That was it.

It was selling bud and relying on looks and then relying on the squad.

Everybody took me in like yo, they needed to because I'm the only one there without.

So did their mom say you had to go after that day?

Immediately?

But that same day they that same day somebody was like, I think Bow's mom is renting the room and that was it, and I moved in over there.

How far was she from where you already standing blocks?

Oh?

Okay, got it, got it?

Got blocks for kids right, whole neighborhoods for us today, Like I would never walk that today, but I was trooping.

I ain't learned how to drop since until I was twenty four out.

Here, but they made sure that you stay close because yeah, I was true.

I was true to make sure he's me and rote to me.

And there was a female artist who after I got evicted from Bow's Crypt for not paying the rent, her and the family, Alexis Kiki Ak.

She and her mom took me into the crib for like eight months.

My man MONSI had my clothes on his porch the whole eight months, Like I was getting taken care of by my crew.

That's incredible.

And we would be in the studio, were grinding.

Oh everybody's kids though, yeah, everybody is two thousand and six, eighteen years old.

So I turned seventeen there, turned eighteen there and then mid eighteen before that.

So like my first meeting in life is the whole crew is like, yo, we're going up to whole script.

We're gonna perform.

Fans.

They gave us like a day's notice.

We all pulled up before that.

Holds nephews would my space was lit for us, because whole nephews would get the rocker feller change.

We all be able to my Space picture it up or do a performance with rock changes.

All.

You couldn't tell me I didn't have a contract nigga, especially in my neighborhood niggas I was out.

I was that nigga and so.

But the truth that was really happening is we barre in these changs and were stunted.

Yeah, but first meeting was at whole script.

So me wrote Timmy Jay Dot, I don't want to leave nobody out, the whole crew.

We all we all went up there, we all formed our songs.

I only had one song recorded that we played for him that day.

And then I said they want me to singing a cappella.

I sang now a compella and whole tap my man Manti like he got it.

And so that day was like inspirational, but it was like Yo, at the end of the meeting, it's not like we got signed.

Hope said, y'all don't do nobody no favors.

He was like, so, don't think you about to.

Get a favorite.

Let your name reach mine.

I throw your bone exact verbata.

And so I remember being in there like one, I'm looking around like this is what could happen if you really really grind.

And then two, I'm like, yo, where did this nigga?

There was a secret door that somebody who worked for him came out of with pizza.

It's like, we in this room right now, and you didn't see a door some way somebody came outside with pizza, and so I remember just looking at it like, you know, being inspired, but also saying being hungry, like yo, he said, let our name reach, We're gonna you're gonna throw some bomb, and so grind time for us.

It was like, yo, it's time for us to turn up.

One, I'm outside like I'm living in somebody basement.

It's not easy for me and my parents.

I love my parents to death because they don't play that one spoil uh you know, one spoiled?

What do they say?

One rotten apple and a bunch.

So at the time I would be against them.

I was like my dad's arch nemesis and everything you don't want for a son if you're a pastor, you know, or especially if your.

Pastor today is my best friend.

But back then I was just arch nemesis, like I was not the one, and so I wasn't going back there.

So it was like, yo, it's either up or or like I I got nothing else to do college.

I never even thought about that shit.

So we kept on grinding, kept on grinding.

The group started to like grow up and grow out of being a group.

So I moved to Lower East Side, Manhattan, sixth Street and Avenue D.

We was renting a we were subletting the cribbing the projects right, and my man, my brother's older my brother's man's had me paying the whole rent, but he was telling me that I was paying half.

I'm not eighteen years old.

So when I found out, I was heeded.

So I take a Greathound out to Georgia and that's my first time, second time going to Georgia to visit my older brother.

He was out in Augusta, Georgia.

And while I'm out there visiting my man, fifth a trive who from high school moved to Atlanta.

He was two hours away in Atlanta from Augusta.

He calls me, He's like, yo, you gotta see Atlanta.

And I'd never been in atl before.

What year is this two thousand and seven?

Yeah?

Yeah, right, So into two thousand and seven or something like that.

He drives two hours to pick me up.

Me and this nigga is like third grade sandbox and he had already found ways to like he was today, he's killing it.

He got a company called Millie Merchants.

All over Atlanta.

He's doing this thing.

He was already en route to being one.

Of the the illest hustlers.

Like back then, you know a g he had.

He was he'll hand out all AG's fly.

He had all accounts for all the club's ag on Jacob York.

He was.

So he had a way already out there.

So he's like, I'm gonna show you.

I'm gonna show you the A.

I'm competitive as ship.

So when we two hours away from Atlanta, I'm like, I think I want to show him something too, Like I don't want him just to stun on me.

So I called at the time, you know, Vaughan Vaughan Smith.

I called Vaughan and he was my manager, and I'm like, yo, you know anybody in uh in the A.

He's like yo, gino, he's he's he's running, he's uh the engineer for Neil go up there.

I had already been around Neo, because.

You know, being around everybody, I was around up Top and around those days is when Neo got signed.

So I called Gino.

Gino already knew him from from Brooklyn.

He had a studio on J Street.

So I called Geno.

I'm like, Yo, what you doing.

I'm about it being the A.

So he he tells me come up to Neo's studio everything travels about to show me.

It was like, nah, nigga, I just beat you.

I'm going to.

Neosh right right.

So we go to Neo shit and and Gino's like, Gino's like, Sam, you need to stay here.

Second he said it, I said, I am staying.

I was already getting double charged for the projacks up top.

I don't speak Spanish, and everybody in that neighborhood, it's like I'm trying to order eggs.

Don't even know how to say nothing.

So it was like, your fucking I'm just stay out there.

Nah, I know that I learned the hallway.

I tell you off camera.

Okay, So we get out there, Uh we tell you to stay yeah, and I said, fucking I'm staying.

So now when we leave there, we seen the plaques like it was only a year or two later since Neil came out and it was already a hallway.

Full of plaqus.

Oh yeah, Neil got cracking.

Yeah, if my man is in there, if you don't notice, like every time somebody had something, I was ready to leave.

Oh no, he's ready, no mad, Yeah, wherever I'm going, whoever the opportunity is, because it's not like I got a fullback plan.

My fullback plan and my idea as to how to ever get fed was pick up a pack and so imagine what I would have been without this talent guy gave me.

Yeah.

So I'm sitting down at Trass Crib the first night and he's renting a room in his big ass house.

I'm like, yo, TRAYV, you're doing it and this is back when you could craiglist a roommate type thing.

And his roommate calls him out, the person he's renting from Colls Mount and said, yo, I ain't tell you could have niggas up in the crib and the walls paper things.

So he probably thought because the doors closed, I didn't hear it.

So I heard it, and I didn't want my nigga to be in any type of pickle, or just be slowing them up.

I probably knew a girl or two in that lant.

I call a girl same night, she can't pick me up.

The way Travis tell the story is the next time he saw me, it was a few days later.

I already had an apartment.

The way it really happened, I called my dad, said, your dad, I found an apartment for seven hundred and ten dollars on seventeen p Street Street, Midtown.

Mindre, I didn't know what goes on at nighttime on them blocks in Midtown.

It gets crazy, so but fuck, it was the cheapest thing I could find and moved in.

The only friend I had out there was my man Drave.

I had my man theon that left since high school.

He lived in like Beuford Far a little far away is far that I had a rocker where Snorkel that my man Meil gave me, and the inside they had first I was sleeping at So I'm living in the studio apartment.

I don't have nothing but the eight hundred dollars my dad gave me.

I spent seventeen on moving in, so I got ninety dollars.

You see what I'm saying I do.

So the only thing I could think to do is like look around, find a pack.

So I'm back.

Then.

You know, apartment buildings had what do they call it, like business centers.

Yeah, yeah, and if you lived there, you could just.

So I'll be on my Space and make sure that anybody, especially girls like they could see that my MySpace picture had the Rockefeller chain, So I'll just lean my shoulder over so they could always see.

And then so I've seen this one dude.

I won't say his name, but he was getting money in the building and I keep seeing him.

He ended up being my plug.

He put me on, and then he also taught me how to do things beyond just the weed that I was.

Used to doing, like selling wise, and he got me into a world.

Now it's like I'm getting chicken and I'm going to see Geno at the studio and you know, and that went super sour.

So my main them that I brought up earlier.

We sold candy in like fourth grade, my man, my man's old little.

Sister, Tracy.

She she dated.

The security guard at Walgreens.

We give them twenty dollars, he'll let us go.

Still, older candy, we got to wake up early though he was the night time you.

Got to wake up earlier.

Fourth grade, we sold candy.

We would go bag up the candy into fifteen dollars bags, divvy it up, give people back, telling him to send us back, you know, twelve dollars or ten dollars, you know.

And so my man Theon his cousin out in London.

He had an og cousin out in London.

So his cousin out London got on my cell phone back then when we was kids.

And the first day that Theon got to sell, his cousin wanted to talk to me.

He was like, Yo, bro, I love how you're working with my little cousin.

Yo, you got him.

You got him really out here like getting money.

Like I love what you're doing with him, you know.

And so I felt I knew he was a gangst in London.

I'm like infatuated with thugs at this age.

It was like my parents is super like I was super sheltered.

So in church, I loved the thugs.

In school, I loved this my.

Boy, Yeah, exactly exactly.

So I brought that up to say that we always stayed in touch with him until the I moved to Atlanta.

So now that thea's I'm back in Georgia.

Deanna took a couch out of his mom's uh garage that she wasn't using.

That was my best.

He brought me a little TV, a little CD player and then I played my BCDs on that and I was in the spot, trapping my way out, just trying to stack right.

Yeah.

Period.

And so my first trip to London is because when I got when he put me back on with you, put me back on the phone withcause his cousin was like, yo, how you how you even getting around?

I was like, yo, I was mad, proud to tell him I'm a road star now trapping blah, really proud to tell him that.

He gets scared for me, and he's like saying, if you're gonna do that, come out to London, right and I'll teach you how to do it the right way when I get.

Out there, top boy.

And I was working out in London for three four weeks learning how to be a top boy in London.

And when he sent me back, I got really nice with it in Atlanta and so all this happens low and behold my plug and the robbing home of the finests.

So now you robbing me, I get better out of him than him.

He violates, and so now I got no plug, got no money, and I'm shook because I'm not built for no wild shit that I was going through.

And you were how old at this point.

Nineteen eighteen nineteen, And so Gino keeps calling me to the studio.

He keeps calling me to the studio.

My man, mister Tango's son became like my brother, and so he starts bringing me to the studio.

One day they set up the meeting because I'm fucking homeless at this time.

I'm living in I got evicted in Atlanta.

Everything when shot goes bad.

And so.

Mister and Gino set me up a meeting with Tango, ne Yo's manager.

When I just got there, you know, a skier, a skier found he was playing some producers that he had from Amsterdam.

Tango looked at him dead in the eyes, thatt them niggas suck.

And I'm sitting here one I need to make it today because I'm I'm sleeping in a vacant crib and the bluff with for my boys.

We turned the lights on, but it's vacant, so I need to make it.

I didn't know what making it looks like and how fast it takes to get it back.

So, and I'm scared because the way Tango just spoke to this nigga, I never seen somebody get violated like that.

And so now my hands is shaking and it's time to sing.

He's like, Yo, you got music.

I didn't have nothing to play, so he's like, YO, sing something.

I didn't realize.

I never learned someone else's song in my life.

I could have sang you every Day Struggle by fifth or by Biggie, but I couldn't sing a whole song from anybody in music.

Because you were writing your own song.

Yeah since fifth grade.

Yeah, so I said I got my own songs.

I thought I played it the same way I'd always played it, sing my own song and win.

Not for a person who manages the best songwriter in the world at that time.

My songs was and shit to what Neo was coming out with.

So I sing my voice shaking, I sound nuts.

Tangle looks at me like this nigga sucks too, right, and.

I know Tango, so I.

See, Yeah, it's exactly how it is.

How you're gonna get it, and and I love him for no fluff facts.

His son is the exact same way you ain't.

You ain't And you could get react certain type of way to it until you realize that you rather find out the truth now than let somebody watch you take the time bombing so to save my ass, Geno, Right, Geno's like, but he could write though.

Tango's response, he looks skinned, like Yo, them producers suck, he sucks.

Put them in the studio if they exact words.

Bro I'm talking about.

I'm getting like.

I'm already broke, homeless nigga.

And on top of that, it's like I just heard that I sucked, and I know I sucked.

My voice was shaken even on this podcast.

I'm nervous.

So I was finding out that the spotlight's not for me, you know, but not knowing that's what I was finding out.

I was just always trying to beause you.

Were you were being you were being pushed pushed as an artist.

Yeah, yeah, like that was the only thing.

Yeah, right, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, okay, yeah, he completely just tore that down.

It was quiet for that forever, right.

Geno's like, nah.

But he writes though, which was to me a lie because it's I didn't write for anybody else ever in my life.

So he said it in a way that.

Implies that you would right for someone else, period, And so that wasn't the fact.

But I looked at him like.

Yeah, double down like anything.

I don't care if it was mopped the studio.

Yeah that he MOPSA I would have did it.

I needed to stay right, and so a Skier was already getting shit done.

He was already scared.

But it's just those producers.

Tango wasn't fucking with Skier who's so hungry and taught me.

He taught me one of the dopest things.

He was like saying, you got to learn the kit.

I was like, what's the kid?

He said, keep in touch.

That's the kit for every relationship that you find value in.

When you when you're saying by, think of the next time you're gonna follow up, think of the intention for the next phone called you know, or even state if it's a really important, state, this is when we're gonna speak again.

And that's helped me a lot, even if I don't tell you when I'm gonna reach out to you again, I can write it down and keep my promise.

So he comes up to me hungry, like yo, and he fucked with his producers heavy.

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

Right?

I said, Yo, seventy two hours or something like that.

Right, this is grind.

This is a different error when niggas really grind.

He calls the engineer and tells money to seventy two hour session.

Sit Mike track Guru Johnson.

He's today Chuck Harmony's partner and he was the engineer for Chuck.

He calls uh track Guru Gruz agrees to do it.

It's either forty eight hours or seventy two hours.

Agrees to do this session on the first call.

So now he drives me up HOWLD Military's studio and I'm in his studio right, and me and track Guru in there.

He leaves us there with the BTCD from his guys.

And I remember in that session, me and Guru, I was trying.

I was trying to make phone calls and see how far he was from a customer.

I didn't know how to drive, so I would I think I asked him to bring me somewhere so I could sell a fifty or something.

I needed the money, and he was like, yo, bro, you got this opportunity.

You don't need to be doing that.

And he shit on me, made me feel real small, and I was super New York, super proud, super hard headed, and nobody could tell me nothing.

We bickered and I had to listen to him because it's like, without you, I can't get a ride.

So you said, no, I got I'm gonna stay in the studio, shut up.

And the way he was was like a big brother for those two three days that was in the studio.

In my first songwriting session for writing for other people, right, three songs of which one of them is my first placement.

So my first session, my first placement, I was writing like my life depended on it, right, So yeah, it's not like I got like a major hit out of it, but that's the life changing thing.

So it's J.

J.

Holliday his second album, I land a ballot on that call Forever Ain't Enough, right, And I wrote it about like my high school, like the girl that I loved right after high school.

And so legit.

Now it's like, yo, we got something to bring up to Tango.

Tango was the way out.

It's like if I knew a way, it was the way in front of me.

Is like he was there.

That's the way a skier places the record.

So I'm saying it backwards.

A Skia places the record on Jay Holiday.

Now that I got a placement, this is something tangles you want to find.

This is all happening super fast.

Though it sounds super fast, it probably took a month or two.

I mean, listen, there are people in this I was having this conversation the other day.

There are people that still don't have a place, that have been writing songs for years and years and years.

So that's what I'm saying.

Oh yeah, my first session, Yeah, first session.

A month goes by, you get your first placement, Like that's that's God.

Yes.

Yeah.

I was raised in the most God fearing family and I did everything to go against what I taught at home.

And bro, when I tell you, every bullet that flew since eighty eight never hit me, and we've been in situations where it could have.

At that time, I didn't know how to respect God or love him correctly.

I would call him when I needed them.

I was like a bad kid with good credit, you know, he just keep getting running up the credit line.

And so.

Tango ends up offering me a management in a publishing deal.

I signed that shit blindfolded, like I'm off the first record.

The day I signed my deal, I'm sitting at Tango's office.

He's right across from I signed that ship because this is something your signature.

You think like this is you think you got background music or some ship like that, Like, Yo, this is the day you about to pursue the happiness.

Clap up the street, listen.

I signed the deal.

He looks at me, said what you think?

But Loon's gonna come out the sky.

I get to work, nigga, and thank God for that.

Got to work.

I got to work.

Yeah, I got to work, and I was sleeping the studio.

Mister would let me crash wherever he crashed.

Wherever I had to sleep.

I thought that i'd get a crib after that, but it's like, yo, get to work, go earn.

It's not you're not coming in here and just take put something in.

And I got to see Neo Yo a few times.

When I was down Neo with I could call Neil like, bro, I ain't eat yesterday.

You think you hold me down.

Neil will be like, be right there, coming to the studio thinking about to give me two three hundred, dropped five racks on me.

Wow and shit, Neo and nobody could say nothing to me about that guy, and a few people about you guys, but legit a few times, making sure you were straight.

And then when I'd be like, yo, how am I gonna pay you back?

And when I'm a god I got you one day back, he'd be like, yo, bro, be great.

I didn't give you that as a debt.

I see it in you be great.

So that's my brother.

So going through all these things, it's part knucklehead legit, ungrateful for the family that I came from, and just going against all these greens.

I start grinding it out, grinding it out for some reason or another.

By two thousand and eight, we get the whole team flies out to New York to LA for the first time.

So I land in LA with meeting people.

This all the traveling you've done at this point, You've only been from New York to Georgia.

New York, Jersey or Manhattan, Georgia and now LA for the first trip.

First trip, so we're moving around, were moving around.

We end up staying there for like a month or two.

And on the last day of the first trip, I won't say their names, but my two homies they both had a crush on this this one girl, right, and they said, you're about to call it to the studio.

She had an internship at Depth chair and you know, you know back then you meet an intern in depth Jay and she in the building, you think it's lit.

So she comes to the studio.

We work in that record plant and she pulls up to the studio when I tell you my competition, and then I just wasn't that nigga.

I was.

I wasn't the best friend you could have because I knew two of my niggas like the girl.

When I saw her, I said, okay, I got yeah.

Facts.

So I seen her and I caught her in the whole way, you know, the bat the long hall way to the back.

I caught her in the whole way.

I smiled at it, and.

I just grabbed her phone, put my number in it and said text me.

She texted me, So now I'll go back in the room, act like nothing.

That happened super Snake vibes.

Snake right.

So I'm texting, I'm like, yo, I leave tomorrow.

Tomorrow's like tonight's my last day.

I need to speak to you.

Something in me wanted to notice girl that night, and it wasn't about hitting or nothing like that.

So I was like, Yo, this was back then.

I didn't know how to drive.

I said, this is what you're gonna do?

You said, hug.

Everybody say if you're leaving, I'm gonna act like I know you're leaving too.

In fifteen minutes, I'm gonna meet you around the block right or Santa Monic or whatever block that is by a record plan and we gonna dip off and I just want to talk to you.

I didn't know her from scratch, but something in me wanted her.

So exactly what we did.

I duck off, acting like I had something to do.

Yeah, And she drove us to Luca Lake to it drove me to Luca Lake where I was staying.

She had so much respect for herself she wouldn't go up to the spot, So I'm like, it's definitely not a hit mission.

We sat in front of the spot, in front of her car and fell in love all night, just talking.

Now I'm pissed.

I get back to Atlanta, Atlanta.

You know Neo's crew niggas.

All you're getting is tough truth all day.

The niggas is treated you like yo.

You know, like yo, sim you know, get the shit done or that'sh's not it.

And then I got this girl in LA that I'm caring about more than music, and the people give me an opportunity.

I get back to La Atlanta and I miss her like crazy.

So it spends eight months texting this girl, calling this girl, texting this girl, calling this girl.

I write a song called Hustler for Kerry Hillshare and that gets me a flight out to LA again.

So to me, it was just a way back to her.

Everything was off, you see what I'm saying.

So they had me in hotels for a minute.

Manny and DJ.

Those was the people who like Manny DJ Ethiopia.

Those were the people when I first landed as a writer and off of like somebody else's time, like as a writer on my own strength in La.

They took me in bro and treated me like family.

And so they'd have me in hotels for like two three months for the first time, so she would be with me in all the hotels and so it was like, Nigga, we can't there's not another budget we could put you over.

I'm going rap Nigga's budgets for some reason, like on the hotel.

So it's like, we can't do this, and so Chuck ham and he let me sleep on the couch at the studio for three weeks.

I remember having forty two dollars in my pocket and it's like he knew I was broke, but didn't treat me that way every time he ate I ate dog.

I had sixteen dollars left after three weeks and I came in there with forty two dollars.

So that's how much he took care of you.

So shout out to Chuck.

That's smart.

Like I got so many people to think that.

No, yeah, angels, brother.

It's crazy.

Bro.

So me and her finally get an apartment and you don't go back home, you don't go back to I stay, bro, I stayed.

I should be the name in your book.

I stayed.

Just go through all the progression of where you never left.

This shit is great.

Whatever, it's sad on the move you're on the move, and I don't lose love from where I left either, right, So everybody.

That you don't burn those bridges.

Even though we were learning these keywords in the wind, like love, loyalty, respect, honor, we learned them the wrong way.

We learned them in the wind.

When I switched my life over start taking God seriously, those same store, you can learn.

Them rooted now.

I still love them, still honored them.

Made some people I may not be able to see no more because our lifestyles are different, and I've noticed things in myself that I can't risk being again.

But those words still stay in the same when when I'm when I'm rooted.

Yeah, so now you're in La lay something?

Yeah, two or three probably have.

I had one with Neo on his album Okay Okay, and that's you know, a lot of placements ago, but I land here with that one song.

Ethiopia Shows Me Love, Carrie Shows.

Me Love, DJ and more Milly Manny.

They showed me love and they taking care of me as best as they can.

Now I'm back being a dickhead, like Yo, money's low, What can I flop?

My girlfriend won't deal with somebody who traps So we're arguing because in order for me to stay with it, I'm looking at her like I'm forgetting that.

Yo, you could go get a job, you could go take a class, you could go you know, you could go bea You're reverting back.

I'm mad at her because she's not letting me.

Yeah.

Yeah, So we start arguing.

I land my first check in LA instead of saying yo, me and her finally got it.

The people slept on the couch together.

I would go cheat on her with girls who thought that little check would never run out right, end up getting caught.

Uh.

We break up.

That's the short of it.

And now I'm out here doley more connections whatever, and I gotta figure shit out myself.

So me and my old assistant we moved together right in North Hollywood for a year.

It's got to be two thousand and ten to eleven.

And during that year, mars from fifteen hundred enough and I would work with fifteen hundred enoughing in Inglewood when before the studio was the building, before the building was the school, like they were still the type of people they are today.

It's never switched.

Big brothers and advisors and just good.

Hearted like people and talented.

So Mars calls me up.

I mean people that would literally give you the plug.

Mars calls me up and says, yo, pull up to the studio.

I'm working with Chuck.

I didn't know who Chuck was.

I'm from the East, so if you say Chuck to me, I have no idea who that is.

Pull up to the studio.

My asistant drove me to the studio.

I get there, I'm wearing like a Mets jersey, the blue joint and the Mets hat.

And I walk in.

There's bloods everywhere.

Mind you, I'm from New York.

I'm not a gangster, and I don't really like all I knew about La was what I heard.

So I'm like, I'm out of pocket right now, you know.

So Mars introduces me to the game who is Chuck?

And while we're in the studio the first day, the way game is very similar to like tango.

So I was used to the language where it's like cut and dry.

Showed me what you got, prove it kind of energy, and by that time it's like I was already in sessions.

Mike Karen had me in so many sessions.

He saw something in me would put me in the studio like crazy, forever grateful for it.

And so by that time I already been sparring for so long that I knew that I could facts, especially in front of who dude.

I can't be on stage and do it, but that studio, I know I could be in there and impress whoever's in the room.

So we start working.

Chuck takes a life to me.

Mars is always looking out, making sure that he calls me for this.

I end up going to the studio niggas every single day for like three four months.

The niggas that I was so scared of when I got there.

I'm talking about niggas with like tattoos on their forehead.

I ain't understand the language.

It was like, Yo, these niggas is geez.

After a while, I'm sitting down with my man, uh watching fucking SpongeBob and laughing like Gangster is the same everywhere, And I'm the little homie that always got big homie love.

I think God always positioned me to have really really, really graceful and uh like great teachers in my ogs.

So meeting the crew, they become my crew.

I'm with them every day thanks to Mars.

I'm with them every day and Chuck inviting me in like a little bro that he just has to look out for for some reason.

I'm on all his mixtapes but since since we met, and then I get comfortable like I always get, and I'm working with Mike Caaren a lot.

And it was like those four line paramour kind of hooks where it's like or like the could you believe that playing like those types of hooks, them full line big Bruno type hooks was popping And so I had one that I was trying to get on like Loope at Atlantic, but it wasn't placing.

And so Chuck was working on him the record and everything was super gangster and I loved it, but it was like, yo, but you know that these full line hooks working right now?

Yeah?

So because I kind of said it to him in the room, you know, I should have probably pulled them aside, because I said, he was like, nigga, what you talking about?

So you got one of those?

And god, I had one.

I pressed play on pot of Golds for him and mind you just like him And in the scope, they wasn't going to release the record until they found the records released, and so that record I played in that song and he wanted to go against it because he tested me in front of everybody.

He was like a couple of niggas, like Nigga ass Hard.

I was like Jesus.

So that record within.

Two or three days, he did his versus two three days, he plays it for Jimmy Ivien.

Jimmy Ivien unlocks his budget, and then after that they had Chris Brown on it a few days later.

A month later it was out.

And the reason I love him a lot of people work with a writer and you kind of never hear them say thank you in public or even in person.

He would find cool ways to pay me back, Like he'll go on his Twitter and say yo shots to Sam Hooks is the hardest writer, and lo and behold, you know, I may not be what I was doing before, but brown papers still look good to me.

So a whole bunch of people from other countries will reach out, Can I get a hook?

Can I get it?

I'm out here, Wilin Hooks left and right.

It really became Sam what happens when a person of you, guys like stature, even what you're doing right now, there's gonna be people who see this.

They they believe in the story, or they believe in my work at their go my talent, and they're gonna reach out.

This is love, bro, But it doesn't happen with mad people.

I've sold independently in major, put together three hundred and fifty songs.

Bro, shiit threefty songs?

Yeah, independent in major.

You know how many nigga shot me out?

Less than one percent of that about one percent, it's like three or four niggas.

Yeah, that's crazy.

That's crazy because you've worked with a lot of people.

Facts.

It's not their fault.

I'm not tight, yeah, but it's just the way I don't see what they gotta go through.

They gotta it's too many people to remember.

But when somebody has it in them to do it, that's the part.

You know.

Writers don't get thank God for it, Tang go again.

I always got an upfront fee for record, unless it's my brother asking for it.

It's my first record, I got an upfront fee.

Yeah, so I knew how to ask for it the way they they would ask for it.

I learned from these niggas how to make sure you get your bag up front, and so I enjoyed getting the indie bag because it paid now.

And guys like Game Game put me in this video.

That's that That makes where I'm from be grateful for Game makes where I'm from be proud of me.

And these things help when people are speaking about you when you're not there.

If you know me, you know I'm not taking a picture of myself and I don't know how to promote myself.

These ways is the only ways people can find out about me good works and and love and respect.

So I'm always.

Grateful to Chuck for that.

Uh, pot of Gold came out, it did well on that same album.

I think it's that same album Me and you Just See No Evil with Kendrick and the next album.

Yeah, yeah, so is that I knew you before that though?

Yeah, I would probably be too scared around you, bro.

When I'm around greatness and like people that are up, like looking up to and listening to, I go right back to feeling like I'm a.

Whole scrib is just mad scared.

You know what?

I remember?

You know what I think because you did a demo right, Okay, so I didn't believe that was your voice?

Oh yeah, because the nigga don't sing like you talk.

No, no, not at all, not at all.

And I was like, who's who's Michael Lesk voice?

I remember that?

Yeah, he has a higher pitch.

It's something it's up there.

Especially back then.

Yeah, yeah that that was my first time, only time ever working with Kendrick is with you.

Me and you work twice so far now is it twice?

Yeah?

When we remix that's right.

Yeah, yeah, I know you know when I work with you.

I remember.

Me and Jay Valentine maybe two thousand and nine to ten, and.

We did it for you.

Yes, yeah, it's for you.

What's for you?

This is for you?

Uh, it's the.

It's the video where actually trying to be which I don't shoot videos ali enough.

It's a black and white video, which is crazy because the second black and white video I did turned out to be thank you for that at his spot?

Remember.

Yeah?

Yeah, so yo, it's an honor.

I'm the proud little homie to have no.

Listen, bro, you've you've always answered the call.

You've always answered my call, and for us, it's it's one of those things like like you were saying even about with the podcast, this is my favorite pot thank you bro, period.

This is.

But this is why we we've done the podcast right, because we want to celebrate the real ones and the people whose stories don't always get a spotlight on them.

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

Our thing is for people to learn the stories and learn, you know, the journeys and the different ways that people have gone about getting to their success and just even your story.

Like I know a lot of it because we really really friends in real life and we've said and talked and you know what I mean, I know your whole mindset of this shit.

Like every time you say and I had to get back to the pack, I know that about you.

You know what I'm saying.

So, but the casual fan, our listener or viewer doesn't understand that, you know, there are people who've had to because at this point you have three or four songs out placements, the whole shit.

You're still looking for the pack at that point.

Facts, because this business there's just snow guarantees in it.

It's snow guarantees of when that next placement is coming.

But the one thing that I've noticed with you all the time, and you kind of mentioned that you tapped on it was like you said, I got three hundred and fifty records so.

Independent and on majors.

You figured out how to get to the independent bag, which is very very important, which a lot of majors.

Yeah, and a lot of major label writers and producers they kind of, yeah, I don't really do that because you know, my fee is this and you're like, no, no, no, no, no no, this is my new pack.

Exactly.

And I respect that because it also kept your ass from going to jail in fact, you know what I'm saying, Like which a lot of guys they take a lot of different chances getting back into the streets or getting into the streets that they've never been a part of, don't understand the streets, and now they fucked up instead of saying, you know what, this can be my hustle.

And like I said, I respect that.

When I finally quit doing like anything wrong for the bag, I realized how hard it must be songwriters to get paper yeah, because it was mixed, so it felt really good for a long period of time where it's like, I know, we could go to the bowling alley, rent thirty lanes, we could do this, we could do that.

But the one thing that I'll say to anybody who's young and listening, I don't glorify that shit at all.

A life that you can't put on a calendar.

You're plugged, don't have a calendar or a schedule or a structure.

You know, you on his time, So you could never be on your own time.

You're waiting here, you're waiting there.

The things that are most important in your life that on your calendar, they shouldn't only be your obligation it's just fucking bills or when to ride to work or doctor's appointments.

You could turn your life into a menu that you picked out if you do things that are allowed onto your calendar.

And so.

I realized this.

So all this time that I was doing all that stuff and having all these friends and having all that fun, one I'm definitely shunning because you ever you ever smashed the wrong short, you wake up the next day you feel like you can't pray, you see what I'm saying.

So and then two I'm like.

That's married man, bro, just wow, forgive me yo, my dad, I never it was mad entitled, like I never built a relationship with my family because they could never know about my real day.

So it's surface.

It's like how you doing good?

How you doing good?

And so when I when I uh Lee and Roussell when they passed away twenty eighteen.

The things that when you live a life that usually I'm never going to say I was two feet in when you want foot in one foot out.

There's things that your big homie could tell you when you was eleven years old and say, yo, life no regrets.

You'll live with no regrets.

So you go home and you practice that.

What do you pick up instead?

Justification for all your bullshit?

So everybody's memories in your lifetime is just you justifying your bullshit.

You don't have no idea how they feel because you think you're right all the time.

And your things that caught the short end of the stick in my lifetime from ero to thirty years old was you know, I never had a real relationship that I can be honest with my dad, Like whenever you like, if I can't tell you about my whole day, I'm not being honest with you.

So when Lea and Rasseau passed away, let me tell you something, I probably never admitted it in person or to anybody or in public.

When they passed away.

Leah was my artist, Raseul was business partner in with us for Leah.

So and mind you, that's my sister, that's my brother, that's I love them.

They had my house all week long.

You know, we're together bowling, we're together, karaoke together, drinking, We're go eating at my house all the time.

So when they passed away, I remember the text threat, right, So I'm so quick to go public and say harpe and I love you and I'm feeling it.

But I didn't know what I was feeling when I looked at the text threat.

It's me curving every time they asked me for the last two three weeks or months, when they would ask me to do something productive.

Instead, I'm looking at my text message that I made up to make them say okay, so I can go chill with a joint or chill with my niggas and do the wrong thing.

Right, I'm looking at how I was avoiding them and giving them and thinking that I'm always going to be able to.

Round back and make it right.

You see what I'm saying.

And I don't think I ever felt true guilt until I realized how fake of a nigga I was to them.

It's like, if you ever think, like right now, you could believe the person I hand myself into you as but the surveillance is different.

Surveillance sees me weary and sees me scared.

Surveillance sees me panicked.

That's spirit and adequate, you know, all the things that people don't show when they want.

Their perception to be the true story.

But so it's like I started really feeling guilt, Like what did God see this whole time?

He saw the way there, they saw me there.

You see what I'm saying, But how do you look when no one's looking?

I hated the answer.

I hated started really just doing mass self work.

And once you put that one string of guilt, you never felt it before.

I look at it like tabs, like all the open tabs, thirty years of open tabs.

It took a thousand days to close.

I spent twenty nineteen, twenty twenty one by myself, my engineer, and my assistant.

Only two people I saw I was so buried in guilt and.

Grudges and grief.

I didn't know what how to handle.

And I had to do like a remorse well do called a men's tour, you know, and apology tour, like reaching out to people and saying, oh, I finally realized what effects that could have had on you.

It's people that I'm like, yo, let's go do a stick up.

You see what I'm saying.

And we're fifteen, sixteen years old, we're doing stick ups.

We think it's funny.

But one of them go get locked up.

It's not funny no more.

And if he learned from me and my guys, you got a whole future that's different because of us, so different things that was happening.

It's like, ya, I saw that this.

I'm on the same story that Jesus Christ exists on, Michael Jordan exists on, Michael Jackson exists on, Barack Obama, Will Smith, all the people that I love and look up to.

And I got a character in the same story that they're in.

It never the story of history don't start over.

So I got a character, and this is what I chose to do with it.

I hated it, and so I spent mad time doing like unlearning the conversation we had at the crypt unlearning things, and I got fell in love with time.

Like tank, if I ask you how many hours there in the day, what you wanna say?

I don't know how many hours.

If I told you there was more than twenty four hours in the day, would you believe me?

Exactly?

I believe that too.

I started unlocking that right now.

If me and you and Jay's on a Tuesday together, there's at least seventy two hours on a Tuesday.

And it's if this seven point nine billion people are counted for on planet Earth, that's seven point nine billion time twenty four hours happening Tuesday.

And I'm like, yo, we've been all focused on self, all focused on self.

We can't even plan correctly.

But how do big companies plan?

They planning man hours?

How do they break it down and how do they make sure?

Like and then I was so depressed going through so much, I'm like, yo, if I felt like I was in a jail selling.

God said, yo, what matters to you?

And my answer, if God is your CEO, You're gonna be like you do you matter?

And then I said, my family matters.

And then I said my gift and the effects it has on history.

And so it's like guys like, all right, cool, I'll let you out if you prove that to be your routine, your calendar, your checkoff system, daily in chronological order.

So you said I come first, boom, I need to see me come first from surveillance.

So I need to see you pray on your knees, pray out loud, read your Bible, write the notes that you just learned, write the laws you found it, and promise me something that you're going to do today from what you just read.

I need to see you.

Yo.

You don't got no relationship with your family.

You think you do because they love you and it's endless and it's un you know, unconditional.

But what does yours look like?

Have you ever gave them on conditional?

Look?

Do you even know how?

So I put my dad first.

I created a speciallyet, bro I put my dad first.

On the specialet, put my first.

It was God, what time did you get here?

Then it's pray.

Then it's read your Bible.

Then it's what is your takeaway?

Then it's reach out to dad, reach out to mom, reach out to my older brother Danny, my older sister, and that my little brother timmy my little brother Paul, nieces and nephews.

It says Wednesdays because I ain't got every day for the youngest, but my siblings, my parents.

You know, for a thousand days, I reached out to my father every single day.

Today, he's my best friend.

I popped up on this calendar.

Five am for me is eight am for him.

So if you got to be at his job and shout out to my pops.

He's the first Haitian funeral business owner in New York State history.

But like, if I call him before he gets there first few days, this is somebody who is used to expecting the worst in me.

But I realized, like yo, dust settles, it turned into cement.

So if you humble enough, you young enough, you grab the chisel.

You don't give up until it's in the form you wanted in.

You see what I'm saying.

So I chiseled away at my relationship with my pops.

I did not give up on him for a few days.

It was discouraging because I'm like, how you doing.

He's like, well, I sent me, like what you need?

What do you want?

Yeah?

Pops is stern, but he's mad understanding.

But I also realized things like this, like how was your day is a beautiful question to ask intentionally, a sucky question to ask unintentionally.

So how's your day?

Good?

Sucks?

How was your day?

Not?

For real?

Tell me about your day?

What was your favorite thing you learned?

What's the worst thing when you I started requiring him to speak to me.

I made him talk to me.

Bro discouraged a few deb times and wanting to drop it, But I'm like, nah, something that in me says, don't give up.

Keep doing it.

I call my Pops every single day, by the day nine hundred.

So what happens to you when you look through your days?

Find out what information is worth carrying, what information.

Is worth dropping?

You're clearing your cash all them open tabs.

Like if nobody asked you how your day was for thirty days, you might not even ask yourself.

So now you got thirty days open tabs and your buffer?

Can it start tricking off?

You?

See what I'm saying.

I was requiring my pops would live seventy years at this point, to look through his days, and the first time in his life somebody's requiring him to say, this is my favorite part, this is what I could do better.

He got so used to doing it.

One day, my sister texts the family chat.

She's like, Yo, something's wrong with Poppy.

Right.

I'm like, what happened?

I'm three thousand miles away.

What happened?

She's like, Nah, nothing like that.

But this guy just asked me how my day was.

Yeah, yo, but yo, little things like Yo, what are your assets?

Bro?

Like everybody want to talk paper or talk purchases.

My biggest asset is my relationship with God, my relationship with my family.

These two things I build on like their business I check off.

You've seen it.

I showed it to you.

I checked these things off, like that's the start of my day is business.

I make sure that I could check off that I and then the days that I slack and don't reach out to on this spreadsheet, I could see, yo, Sammy, you haven't checked on them for three days.

You're not watering your flowers.

So these things, to me is kind of became more important.

And I could tell that even having that type of structure, that type of routine, changed my life and it leaked into my business.

Now I have because of how depressed I was.

To get out of it, I leankeed on God lengthd on family, created routines, created structures, and I'm starting to realize all things need structure.

The reason the first few times I invest in artists it don't work.

One I'm bad leader too, I have no structure.

Three, I'm trying to carry anything on my memory.

I'm gonna shut down.

I'm gonna lose.

You can't You're not a canvas for success in that type of thing.

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

Right, had operations and as system.

So when this is shared to that middle link, if it took me ten hours to go through something, but I got a team of five and it takes fifteen minutes to explain you see what I'm saying.

I'm not spending fifteen thirty forty five You feel me, it's sixty on telling nobody else.

I could tell it to the middle and they have a checkof system for the company that checks the middle moves every lock to the department, set department, And I started just learning, like yo.

This structural shit really works.

It gives us a lot of time in the day.

I used to God gave me a big crew with but I had no direction, no good leadership, and I wasted time.

So if my crew was ten people willing to give eight hours, there was a few days I could live in one day on a plan.

But I didn't see it like that.

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

It, and texted to you.

So there's a thread that I could copy and paste into my system.

So my team can see what's going on full transparency.

I studied eight hundred numbers and I'm like, I call all eight hundred numbers in my phone and I'm just studying, like asking why do they have their people that work for them answer questions like this?

And the person who picks up the phone is like, how can I help you?

When you finish helping me, you ask is there anything else I can do?

Your business is asking for more work at all fucking times, and me, I get a bag.

I don't need another bag now, I need to go stunt.

Nah.

Business has to be up and running.

There's somebody got to be at the door asking for business, and so learning all these things, and I could say I spent the last five six years just unlocking coldes, writing protocols.

Because you can't leave your talents to your children.

You can't leave your swag, you can't leave your personality, but your protocol.

You could leave it completely short.

And give them a protocol to anything we learned that hasn't been written here ayed it in.

Will be a college in fifty years.

If not, we'll be it will be a college.

Nobody knows.

All of our children have access to protocol how toos whatnot and then teach them how to refine it, because as time passes by, you can make it better.

But I felt like yo in order to take my l's and turn them into things that I could be grateful for.

The biggest things I'm grateful for is learning how to spend time with my family, bro and how to to see the wrong and doing the wrong thing, and how to be accountable, and how to structure my day to where the things that matter happen and all the things I can't control don't bother me.

And it helps with your stress.

It helps with the things that we go through.

By making sure it's written out of you and shared to a team that you trust.

Like kings and queens have a hand they have a historian, they got to somebody in every department.

We're kind of thrown into the world without even identifying the departments.

No structure.

Yeah, like you said, that's what it just comes down to.

And then moving into a business.

Like music is probably the least amount of structure you can possibly have in any actual business.

And that is why most of the creatives get the you know, the bad end of the stick.

Facts they have.

It's like they'll go against it and their brain to explode if they got to taught that it affects your creative right.

And that's why to me, you are also so important to this podcast and important for you to come here to talk about the business that you've set up while still being creative.

Gotch you you know what I mean, because we try to.

We try to.

Explain it at times too, just from what we've done ourselves of becoming our own business and our brand and building it out and still being creative, you know what I mean.

But I think a lot of times it's kind of passable with Tank and.

I because they're like, oh, well, you know, y'all just gonna saying are you just go this or you could just go and you just and it's just, you know what I mean, it kind of gets written off to me.

Maybe maybe not to other people, but to me it does.

It's like, I don't think they fully understand the scope of what we've had to do to literally be able to really survive this thing and create a brand like R and B money.

This is not just off of talent.

This is you know, this is real, you know, meetings of the minds, you know what I mean, and you know, we haven't implemented a structure like you, but I'm paying attention because that ship.

Now we're going to ship.

Those things that you've done are really really important to you know, to a business that holds no true structure.

For real crier, it's the biggest way.

To love is if I we're all smart enough in this room, and some people outside the room may not be.

But if we're smart enough to say, yo, oh, snap yo, I got five people giving me eight hours a day, I'm doing more than twenty four hours to towards the planet day.

You know, So say JP Morgan got three hundred thousand people giving him roughly ten hours right a day for work inside of his structure protocol places that he can find.

That's three million hours that he can find, a glitch on where to reprimand a space on where to hire, or a place to like something's done well.

It's time saved to him in his structure to where to promote.

Absolutely three million hours eighty two hundred years a day he's living, but three hundred thousand people have a place to stay, food to eat, families, take people that didn't know what to do with their time, necessarily yet can like I want to be one thousand hours by the time of forty.

I want to be ten thousand hours by the time about fifty.

I love it.

Let's talk about these songs, gotcha, Let's talk about these songs.

We talked about the business side of it.

So how do you get to this space now?

Because you're in LA, you're writing these records and you know you got album placements and you get your first single with Podigo.

Yeah, that's your first single?

Correct?

How does that lead to trays Na?

There's probably a few songs in between, but trays Nina ste Lo O Brin from Ridiculousness for listeners.

My brother, one of the first friends I made in La.

Legit like just would wanted to bring me up to people, bring me the drama, bring me to Rob, bring me to just to introduce me and like, yo, keep like they like He's like, yo, keep saying.

I had a song called Smartphones that I have written and then it was circulating trying to get placed and Stee logos and plays it for Trey.

Doesn't I didn't know he did.

I get a DM from Trey on Twitter.

He's like, yo, bro ste Lo just played me the smartphones record, Yo, I need to cut this, y'all right?

And so.

I called my older brother.

My older brother was in time for that.

I think we got him in the stems immediately and we went up to his crib in the hills.

And first thing Trey does before we thought we was gonna go cut it with him, he's like, Yo, pull up, I'm about to cut it.

When we get there, this shit's cut.

And it's perfect, and I'm like, yes, thank you Jesus.

He plays it for me and my older brother, which is a dope moment because that friend ship turned out to be that that relationship turned out to be a brotherhood of a friendship that I never ever ever stopped being grateful for.

He the first person to give me eight or nine songs on the album HM Ship.

Yeah.

We hung out, We played two K we played basketball, We chilled with girls.

We chilled with the boys like with my with the Homies pause.

We chilled with the homies like but we was legit, like always together his crew and mind you up until this point, I was like lone wolf unless album chilling will shorty.

And so, or unless I'm with my crew that we do the other thing with.

So to have a crew again, because Neo's team never stopped being family, but they was in a you know.

And so to have another crew again of young niggas just like myself, knuckleheads just like myself, it was like it was a blessing.

So legit, we start off with smartphones.

The label loves it.

H Trey cuts himself, so it makes it easy.

You could just pull up to his crib studio.

You could cut the whole album.

Were playing two K, listening to beats, writing songs.

We did cake, we did you Ain't Shit, Yes, no, maybe late night shit, mister still your girl, all playing two.

K, my nigga, Yeah, I'm kyrie, you know.

Yeah.

So the non record, Trey hits me.

He's like, yo, I got Musta coming to the studio.

But we had already known that we was going to go to the jay Z show, right, So when we all get there, Mustard was signed to Rock Nation, me and Trey was already going, and so all of us had in mind and like, yo, damn, we got this session today, but we want to go see the whole show.

Yeah right, So forty five minutes it took to write that song.

It was it wasn't ever a throwaway.

We heard the beat and it's just media.

I think I went outside.

I used to smoke a lot, went outside, smoke, came back in the studio and I was just joking around when I heard the beat and like, oh, Nona right, And we just kept on playing around and tell the shit like we had to get something done and wrote the record and literally like twenty minutes, cut it in twenty minutes.

Final vocals is still from the first day and popped out to the whole tour.

So what y'all?

Pretty much the demo turned into the record.

Yeah.

Trade is really good at cutting quick and cutting his own vocals.

I think the only thing we did later was a bridge.

Okay.

I remember the text Thrad where it was like yo yo, I think I still have it said.

He's like, yo, bro, it's just a single.

He tagged me and Mustard in the text Strad were just like yo, let let's go.

I didn't know.

Ill.

I was still mad that the smartphones wasn't taken off like I thought it was, because that was the true story of my life.

Like me getting caught to you got caught up.

Yeah, So but one thing you could say, is like one, you tell gods your plans, you're gonna laugh, but in two, like y'all, you gotta uh sit.

In the car, know who's driving, and don't join the weather.

You could drive through fire, drive through lightning, you could drive through rain, you could drive through a sunny day.

You're sitting while he's driving.

And so today I can look backwards and appreciate that time way more than I did during it.

That time I was probably more focused on chicks, girls, women, And.

It's kind of been in your life.

It's always you know, it's an excuse to chill with my day ones or an excuse to chill with girls.

Major distractions and for most of us.

Do inspiration and motivation keep doing his stay?

Yeah, they ones aren't distraction, but the reason for it.

So let's say, let's what what causes our mistakes.

You go down to yourself at four years old.

I don't know if you're anything like me, but I didn't have Jordan's.

Right, I'm with you.

So I go to school with the thousands, some pay less or there was a store in Brooklyn called Bobby, So I'm you don't want to buy it?

You see that Bobby's back.

Come in.

You can start crying.

Milwaukee, it was today.

I'm really grateful for my parents for not giving into their kids telling them that you should purchase this.

Because everybody thinks it's cool.

They gave us what we needed.

But back then, I'm like, what are those You know what I'm saying.

So you come home, you go to school, church and family don't give you emotions like desperation and adequacy, heartbreak, you know, or doubt.

They build you up.

The church is reminded of a kingdom with school's like a jail.

So you go to the jail.

And now you go to the jail and you're sitting in there.

It's thirty kids in the class.

One baddy right, and you look down like there's no way I'm not the one who bags.

So you got to walk home with this desperation thing, you know, and it hurts a kid, bro, it does.

You walk home with feeling less than and you never thought you was less than to that day.

And your parents keep telling you like you'll be happy what you have.

They try to make sure you remember the facts, but you're not hearing it.

When you got to sit in that classroom, that's just like general population, and you looking weak out there and so legit like I could look back and then the reason I could forgive myself and forgive all these all my guys, and we're all good no matter what where we ended up, you know, with children picking up emotions, and we're making room friends in the in a in a room that sponsors by a wrong emotion, friendships in a room that's sponsored by a wrong emotion.

So we if we all have desperation in common, nobody gonna find desperation wrong.

How's it gonna feel when you got to take it out of you?

You might not agree with the people you saw your whole life, so like it goes the same way, so some of the me being distracted.

It leads back to just simple emotions that you walk home from school that shouldn't ever be your few.

You can use them like your fuel, like even impulse.

You know a lot of niggas get pats on the back of impulse, but it got you here.

They fuck with you, but this impulse keep you here.

No, So at some point you got to take out the thing that once fueled you and be fueled by something you can keep sustain.

Yeah, yeah, I.

Agree, And disagree with that.

I think because the fuel, whatever that is, it's different for each person, right, And whatever that fuel is, you have to you gotta keep that light, you gotta keep that gas going.

That's the more profit.

But are you not get away from feeling life?

Do you want if pain makes you write the best songs and when you're happy you write trash?

Do I want you to be painful so we can make some chicken?

Or am I happy you can feel better?

Well?

I think that in looking at it that way, you can say it that way, but I think that I think that what happens is this, and I love that that you brought that line, is that it's not necessarily that you write your best songs when you were in pain.

It was just there was just an overwhelming connection to the pain that you were going through that connected.

It's just a difference in time.

Right, So I'm writing these sad songs.

I'm a great I'm a great sad songwriter, right.

Great.

But I was like, I said, no more, you know what I'm saying, you can tap in.

I'm not said, but guess what I connected so great at that to where when I wasn't going through it anymore you almost feel like you're not doing good work because sometimes the response isn't the same.

But that's that's based on the demand that people have gotten used to.

But I said, listen, I'm going to keep this happy in this sex music in your face until you understand that this is what I'm on.

That was work, But my best work is all of my fucking work.

It always is, and and and so whether whether it's motivated, whether I'm being motivated in the trench trying to survive, or whether I'm thriving and I just feel like cooking up a tune.

Motivation, that's a good thing.

Desperation.

You could be down today, I could be below down.

Desperation ain't gonna hit my system.

But what I'm saying is that you've been able to figure out your way in desperation.

We all come from desperation.

I think it's is not repeatable, but I think, but I think that fact of course, if we if we take it into because.

Art, because that's something that becomes a blessing for creatives.

The fact that you can write out your pain the therapy for sure, and then.

The ability to.

Turn it into finances, to literally turn your desperation into finance turn not even desperate, but yeah, just your pain into making some money.

You know what I'm saying, You think about I mean for me, I think about you know, being a writer on a record, like how could you for?

Mario literally wrote that about young relationships I was in.

Did I exaggerate some shit?

Absolutely?

But did I feel a way?

Hell yeah?

And now I'm going to write a song about it and feed my family for the rest of my life off some dirty shit.

I'm not ungrateful, in no way being ungrateful.

I just I just think, like within what we do bro like that is just it's a it's a last thing to be able, like I said, to make some money off of some pain that we've been through.

And to make it way and make a way I think is relatable when I'm talking about this.

It's not about we get a yo.

It's like that having one foot in and one foot out of doing we get to pull from that room full of people who don't have the same talent and ways to make that emotion turn into what we're able to make any emotion turn into.

And it's a sad thing to see.

It's like, I don't want for my guys who don't do music and don't have a place to express themselves that could profit them to be few by these things.

Yeah, that's the only thing I was saying.

It's like those don't It's not it's not for us.

We're supposed to have, like faith, we're supposed to have like you know what I'm saying, happiness, peace, like the coolest things to feel.

Be your life's story.

Like when you look backwards, you can say I remember feeling peace throughout all of that.

It gets crazy no matter what, but I could look back and say I felt this last five six years.

I felt happiness, you know, I felt still, I felt I felt faithful ship that is worth it.

I felt inspired or inspiring.

I felt like that was that is that is?

That is your your path?

Yeah, right, and and and aligning.

I guess to what your purpose has always been, which is why you feel the way you feel.

You've always been missing or looking for something, and so that piece that you feel now is in a sense finding it.

Straight up right, you travel the whole world to find it's your family you love the most.

But then you got the flip side of it where you got you know what I'm saying you got the niggas and pay the fools, Like, yeah, I.

Feel you, But I love this ship, my brother, right before I got it.

I gotta do this ship.

They still got They're still gonna love you completely throwing that ship.

But your purpose was different, your path was different.

You know what I mean?

What your what what ended up ultimately being your sustaining fuel.

It's just different.

We we are.

We are different no.

Matter how much, no matter how much streak we've encountered, hm, we always find our way back to this.

In some way shape.

Bro, that's a fact.

And this room turns into a hallway to where outside of being legends in one field, there's other rooms in the whole way.

Now y'all got the best not even R and B the best podcast out, you know what I'm saying.

And then there's more things and more things and more things.

The whole way turned into a fucking mall and.

Receive them all.

I think the.

Airport straight up, I see it that way.

I think planning myself.

My boy changed my life.

He said, make sure the next thing you do is planted, not buried.

And when he said that, I was like, man, I've made mad buried decisions and it didn't grow.

Oh you gotta think it's next?

Yo, Yo?

Does this sound like something I should be doing.

As a creative, as an artist?

Right?

As an artist?

What would you say?

Is I want to your proudest moments?

I say your proudest moment?

I say, what's one of your proudest moments?

Naked by Element.

We was in.

Encore and my younger brother was living out with me, helping me build out and plan out this family business thing.

And he came to the studios, me him engineer Element, and the whole day was just like it was a dope thing.

So in twenty fifteen I set up something called an FBE opportunity list.

When most people were starting like at my level with a started creating like a publishing company.

Instead of doing a publishing company, I created a process called a family business Opportunity list.

This is where instead of owning, buying and owning a percentage of your future, I would share an opportunity with you real time.

If I landed for you, I got you agreed, saying that if I share an opportunity landed on your behalf, I get set percentage up front and back end of publishing so I had by this time, I probably had fifty sixty people on this list that I could reach out to anytime I get an opportunity.

So even if I knew what producer would be there, I'd still reach out to the people on that list, saying, you know, I'm going to work with this artist, send it just.

In case I'll leave her with it or whatever.

So in that day, I go up there with a bunch of guitars because she signed to my boy must and I would never be disrespectful and bring a beat to a Mustard session, So I brought guitars, knowing that Yo, he could add around it if we ever choose to do this.

Yeah.

The guitars were from a young sixteen year old producer named Omer Fetti, who by two thous was twenty, was the biggest producer in the world at that time.

He was my little bro.

He was in tenth grade at Calabasas High School, and I brought his beat.

So she I think she had already written to all the beats that were on the pack.

Must's in London working for Rihanna, So I text Monster like, YO, I didn't want to violate.

That's my man, that's your program.

I'm gonna call you and ask you, yo, do you think I could I got some guitars.

We kind of stuck.

She already wrote everything there.

He was busy.

He's like, yo, yeah, you could pull up the guitar joints.

So I go back in there.

I have a conversation with Ella.

I say, yo, if all of your exes were in a room together, what would they all agree that they don't like about you?

And she gave me a list.

I start writing down the list of all her answers.

The song comes out.

Take away the big shirts, the tattoos, the sweatpants, the vans.

Okay, I don't wear no makeup, no person in my hands.

These are all her answers.

My rest and bitch face is mistaken for the mean girl.

But what if I told you there's nothing I want more in this world and somebody who loves me naked?

And I wrote the whole song about in front of my little brother, so he got to see me kind of maneuver.

It wasn't my first time working with Ella at that point.

I worked on every ep she had.

But it was dope to have My little baby bro moved out when he was eight you see what I'm saying.

It was dope to have my brother poorly with me and him in the rooms, just witnessing it and sharing that time with me, and she cuts it.

She kills it for Christmas that year, right, I didn't buy nobody know, my siblingss no gifts.

Uh.

The reason it's my favorite placement is I gave them a percentage of since I had my percentage of with the producer that I brought in had, and my my percentage for writing the whole record, I have more than enough to say to my siblings, Hey, his this percentage to split.

H Now, if you go look at the credits, all of my every one of my parents' kids got a double platinum song that they're the right.

Or yeah that's that's I can't beat that one.

Yeah, mister Sam Hook, not to be confused, Sam Cook, he could be in your time, your top five R and B singers.

I made a list Brian McKnight anytime, anytime, Lauren.

Hell Yeah, yeah, yeahs I'm on, Robert Beyonce, Yeah yeah, I come on, part of High Chris Brown, I mean, why not, come on?

Come on?

All right?

Then I did another list called the Lightning round.

Right, we got Lightning introducing podcast.

Lightning Round, Sam Cook, Marvin Stevie, Wonder Boys to Man Kimberrock.

It's impossible to do five ship.

You do what you want.

A few people do that.

This is how you distribute that publishing.

I know what you're doing.

What you're doing.

That was great.

Top five R and B songs.

Stevie wonder if it's magic m Brian McKnight six eight twelve.

Yeah, that one got me.

Uh Lauren Hill's Education.

I think that's track thirteen on there.

Chris Brown crawl Wow, and obviously eliminate Naked.

Great great song fucking writing.

Geez, you know, g you gotta you got a Lightning Round for this.

Honestly, I know how you do your version of I Can't Make You Love Me.

It's a great sound, my brother.

Yeah, weather through that one.

What long, long, night long?

That's the workd everybody know and they know the delivery, bro, Yeah, my brother.

Let's make a voltron.

Let's make a super R and B artists heard you, all right?

Who you gonna get the vocal from the performance, style, from the styling, the heart of the artists and for you, who's gonna write for this artist number one, where you gonna get the vocal from one.

Vocal female male.

I'm gonna go Kells and Brandy put together.

Jesus Christ, that'd be crazy.

That'd be nuts, Kells and Brandy together nuts.

I like it.

Oh, performance style.

Female male Beyonce Chris Brown put together.

You said vote on.

That's a votre.

Crazy, Like what you like?

What are you doing?

Styling the drip?

Rihanna Farrell he got happy.

For real R and B and.

Yeah, Yeah, you banged with that right cooking passion of the artists, Marvin Ga Whitney.

Yep, yep, it might be the best.

Actually created my own little portion.

Call who's gonna write it?

That's what that's the last one you do that for for you?

Yes?

I bet who's writing for the artists?

Myself?

Neo poo Be, James farn Lroy Money Long, Babyface all in the same yoke.

He's gonna do.

A little honey in that room writing.

Be happy to see it.

Oh your name monster?

Also, who produce it?

Who produces it?

Right?

Mike Will made it?

DJ Mustard, Oma Fetti, DN, DJ Camper.

Yeah, go to the album.

Take the artist.

That's a run I'd say, run.

Yeah, that's a that's a Dionne Warwick, twenty years of hit records.

Run.

No, that's a that's a deity that you created.

It's a god.

I had a lot of time to practice.

I watch every episode, man like every time I'm watching my structure.

Structure, that structure.

I've said that.

That's what I was about to tell you about the best.

You had the best structure, you too much.

You created structure.

You're also ready.

You're ready for every motherfucking thing.

That's what true.

Nah No, but I'm faithful for everything.

It might look ready, but I'm not scared.

There's there's the difference.

Right now.

We have the very important part of the show.

It's called I Ain't saying no names.

Tell us a story funny or fucked up?

Are funny and fucked up?

In the times and the journeys Sam Hook?

Maybe when he was going to you know, collect the pack.

No, Nope, maybe when he was selling the track, selling the track.

The only rule to the game, you can't say no names.

Yeah, this story ties into kind of what we was talking about today, not distractions, but things.

Yeah, my distractions.

Wanting to impress people, want certain people to see me and wanting to chiller girls.

This story has all of that in it, mixed with.

How stupid I was.

So I fly to New York with at the time of very popular video fiction, right, and I'm more hyped to show her to my niggas than I am to even hang with her.

Right.

So we laying I put on I g that that I'm out there.

So one of the biggest producers in the last fifteen years reaches out to me when he sees I'm in New York.

He's also in New York.

He's like, yo, pull up to the studio.

I said, nah, bro, I can't.

I got so and so in town, and I tried to stumn on him.

He's like what I was like, Yeah.

I was like, I'm about to go to this part of time and show off.

This is corny of me, just so you know, I think this is corny today, but this is how.

This is how it happened.

So I do that day one.

Day two, I'm like, nah, but you know I got my niggas in Jersey.

He calls me again day two to pull up to the studio.

I'm like, but you know, I got my Jersey niggas.

I got to bring it there too.

So day two he the day three, I wake up and I'm like, hey, so and so, Bro's gonna kill me if I don't show up to the studio today.

It's day three.

I'm not even gonna let him call me first.

I'm gonna call him tell him I'm on the way.

So I go up to the studio the studio.

Can I say names of studios?

Yeah?

So the studio was quiet in Manhattan.

And when I get off the elevator, so I go by myself.

When I get off the elevator, I see a bodyguard that I'm sure I've seen in met or seen in tabloids or scene.

I know him from somewhere, but I'm not putting one in one together.

I'm more what's more in my mind is feeling bad for the last two days and not showing up for my dog, the producer.

So I go to the back room.

All of his production team is there.

I'm like, yo, where's Bro.

It's like now he's in the main room.

And so I go in the main room.

Mind you, Nobody tells me shit.

Walk in the room, I'm like, what's up there?

Before I put a g on the gull right, I see top two biggest artists of all time, just sitting on the couch at least top two or top three.

And then the gug came out like good.

I was like.

Working on the land and then salt to the wound.

My man, the producer, he says, hey, yo, so and so this is who I've been telling you about for the last two days.

I'm just like damn.

Right next to her was sitting was actually uh the chairman of the publishing company that I was at that you just signed to.

And he's just sitting there like dick right, and I sit down.

Just small, bro, I'm small, like I just I fucking shrunk.

And my man, So she gets in the booth and she finishes the final vocals that they had written in the last two days for a record that probably lasted as long as fuck number one on Billboard and then the next year it was on Super Bowl.

And so that's my my I ain't saying no names.

Uh story Yeah.

One, don't be a cornball and try to show off girls see your niggas.

Two when opportunity, cause you can't let it be the truth about you, uh, that you ignored the ship for a distraction for something that meant nothing, for something he wasn't even intentional about.

That's what I take from it.

But it's hilarious when I tell you who was there and what happened.

Oh many, Fuck, that's funny and fucked up, right, Man, it ain't that funny?

You was on some funny shit.

God, that same person, that same producer called me in on another mega artist, and that time I fucking listened and I ended up on too, on the album that's probably like seven million sold right now.

Yeah, good good.

But I could have been on both, if that makes it feel better.

I was a dick, straight Sam.

I hope.

Were worth it.

I hope you can still tap in with that from time.

Think I'm just outside.

I retired that.

Like, I'm not talking about you.

She owed you that people shipt you away from that, my god.

Saying man, you you you are a brother that goes without saying.

But your talent, your hustle speaks for yourself.

And I think you know.

The beauty in this conversation man, and people getting to know and understand more about your makeup.

You know those things you said at the end, you know, really finding the value in that relationship with God and your family like that.

That that is a foundational That is a foundational tool that if you don't if you don't have something like that to hold on to, especially in this place that we're in, you'll find yourself flailing in so many different directions.

Man.

And you know, as we talk to the people who are listening and the people who are aspiring and inspired by you, I pray they really heard that, because that was that was That's incredible.

Yeah, that's incredible that that that grid and that checklist and that being intentional about your purpose.

Man.

Can't beat that.

Man, I appreciate you.

You can't beat that.

So I appreciate that more than anything about you.

I know you're talented.

I know you can you can write, you can write a hit in twelve minutes.

And I got all that.

I got that.

But the intentionality, uh, in terms of your relationship with the Creator and your relationship with your family.

Man, that's the goal.

That's my biggest assets right there.

That's that's the biggest asset.

Ladies.

My name is tank Man.

Valentine, and thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you very much.

About to be some brown paper bags coming in I want some of them too.

I'll take up back.

We'll be on that opportunity.

Sam.

My name is and this is the Harmy Money Podcast, the authority on all things R and B.

And this has not only been a lesson in music, this has been a lesson in life.

Man with our brother.

This is Sam.

I appreciate you, appreciate