0:00 First I asked my wife. I was like, "Hey, you know that song that that always like cute animals? It goes dude." Yeah, I know what you're talking about. And I was like, "Dude, you should know. You're a girl." And then I asked Siri, I was like, "Hey Siri, what's the song?" And that goes You mean like you try to Shazam yourself? But then I'm all off key. Tell you not to do that. Please don't sing into it. I think it's Terresa Ten. [Music] Welcome back to another episode of Careful Boys. We have lyrics born with us today. Legend. So after decades in music, as a new artist, after half a century in music, what um what are some like I guess like you must have seen some burn bridges, some bad choices, like what are some
0:51 experiences since a lot of people I think know your positive side of the story. Like what are some like setbacks or negative things that happened along the way where you could advise people like steer clear of that? Like that I did wrong or that you saw wrong around you? Yeah. You know, I I the I think you you probably heard people say this before, man, but like it really costs you nothing to be cool to people, but it can cost you everything being an ████ You know what I mean? And I think that's probably uh the most important thing that I've learned because this business, any business, it's all relationshipbased, man. You know, like I'm I know you probably heard the story and you probably experienced it yourself. I
1:41 mean, like so many executives I know were interns that I had met 20 years ago. Oh, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and so many people that you you you just don't know, you know, where people are going to end up or where they're headed. And it's just a better idea. It's just a good idea just to be cool with people in general. It's just karmically I feel like it's correct, you know, the correct thing to do, man. But, you know, I mean, it's a tough business, man. It's a really, really difficult business. And the more friends you have, the more allies you have. I mean, I know I'm also in a business where beef is very popular, you know, but I don't know. To me, it's not ultimately it's not healthy. You know, if I have disagreements with people, I prefer to settle them privately if they can be settled. I mean, not all conflict
2:32 can be resolved, you know. I do I understand that, too. Like, sometimes people are just not going to see eye to eye, you know? That's just the way it is, man. But I mean, as a rule, I just try to be cool with people, you know? I mean, there's people that I've hired, there's people that I've let go, there's people, you know, and for the most part, I'm still cool with those people. Yeah. Cuz for a while you had whole bands. So that that's a lot of people that you have to like maintain relationship. Yeah. I mean, and and I've been touring with a band for 20 years, you know, like like I've been again I've been touring with a band for longer than I have a live band. Yeah. And it it taught me everything about leadership, you know? It taught me everything about leadership. Is your band huge? Like you know how Zap
3:22 used to perform with like 40 people and stuff or like Earth, Wind, and Fire? That ████ is expensive. MC Hammer, dude. remember his camp. The plane tickets are crazy. No, no, but the the core band is probably so Uriah Ben Paxual. I mean, the core band is probably like four or five people. I heard uh George Clinton used to lose money on his performances cuz the like the audience was huge, but the ticket sales wouldn't cover the cost of the band and the performance. Yeah. So even though the show was like massive, it's like they had they had dudes just with maracas and that guy was getting paid, you know, like everyone's there was a guy. So for one of my birthdays, I love funk. Uh my wife bought me tickets to like this big funk show and uh wait where uh it was um and who was on the bill?
4:12 So is the one I went to? As a fan, I'm asking you like So Zap was there for sure. Um oh uh Lakeside cuz my favorite my favorite band is Lakeside. I love Lakeside. and George Clinton was and uh P Funk was there. Um there was another I forgot what band it was, but now they had they somehow found a 20-year-old singer with the same like vocal texture as their old singer. I forgot who it was, but there was a bunch. Oh. And the but when George Clinton came on, not only did they have like every person for an instrument, they had this guy with two spray cans graffiti while he's listening to the music. I'm like, dude, this is ████ crazy. That's part of the performance. Two like while he's like ████ like ████ listening to the music and I'm
5:03 like, dude. Yeah. I'm like, dude, this is crazy. Shout to George, man. Wow. Just the dedication, man. Check got split even more than Kenjis. I was at uh, you know, the NAM show, the the music comp the So, there was this random like booth and they were doing free performances, right? So, I sat down to watch like this new violin coming out and I ████ you not it was him and like a couple of people I was like, "Wait, is that Bootsie or whatever?" Couple seats away and I was like, "Oh my god, that's him." And then 3 seconds later he's asleeping. He's like he's like the girls just do the violin like that. And I was like oh my god. Yeah. And and on the same day I got a picture with Stevie Wonder.
5:53 What? And then that's when he was looking this way. He wasn't facing stupid. Yeah. He was looking the other way. Yeah. You didn't ask for a retake. That's hella funny. No, his security guard was pretty annoyed that I asked him to take a picture for us, but I you you know, yeah, you can you I mean I I wanted to sleep on stage. You're just so tired from touring. Yeah, man. That ████ wears you out. I think that's one of the things that um why a lot of people quit, you know, is cuz touring is so physically grueling. Oh, yeah. You know, and you know, you're in a different city every day. you're eating like s█████ food, you know, for for for the for the for the average touring artist, you know, it's like I'm not talking about like super top tier artist,
6:44 private chef or whatever. You're flying in a jet from show to show, you know? It's not like that for the average artist, you know, like even when you're touring on a bus and you have the full crew, it's grueling, you know, it's grueling and you can lose your ass really ████ fast. like too many people, too few ticket sales, a show cancels while you're on the road, you know, ████ like that, man. It's like you you really have I really have to give it to these these artists that keep it going year over year over year, man. It's that's you basically. Yeah, bro. Is it true that uh uh artists make most of their money doing live shows? It depends on the type of artist you are, you know? It depends on the type of artist you are. Um, that's definitely part of it. If you're like a lot of the younger artists though, like they do so
7:35 well with streaming, they get paid. You know, it just everybody's like pyraph is different. But typically, classically, Yes. Yeah. Well, you were making music since you made music before and after like, you know, like when the Napster era Jesus. Yes. Before and after Jesus. Sorry. Go ahead. Continue. That one was BC. Shout to the Lord. Shout out Cow High. Shout to the Lord. The um Did that affect anything in your business when like when a peerto-peer music file sharing became a thing? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we definitely started to see the the the the game decline. you know there was just suddenly there was no money you know where you were once getting
8:26 you know I'll give you an idea man uh you know so so my first album I think did around 150,000 copies something like that independently that's nice that's considered gold right or no gold is 500 gold but when you're an independent label 150,000 copies times multiplied by $8 her. Yeah, you're making more than signed, guys. Yeah. So, compare that to 2 years later, nothing. Damn. Because everybody's downloading and file sharing and you know, and it was hard to I remember like if you want it cuz it was considered like underground hip-hop. So, you couldn't just go if they weren't signed, you couldn't go to like what was it like Sam Goody? Like Sam Goody or what? Yeah. You had to go to a hip-hop store. You had to go to
9:18 like a skate shop and then behind like they had the glass counter with all the tape workman's. Yeah. And then you had to go to like and they'll be like there'll be uh it'll be like a hip-hop store cuz you could get graffiti paraphernelia and you get skateboards. I remember. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Or you go to like some swap meet and somebody's trying to like do it out of a small booth and you could get tapes there. And I remember it was like you had to find it. Which means that the touring of live shows was the only way to really make money. Yeah. I wonder how the distribution worked back then like on on on your end cuz I remember being a kid going out looking for them and and then getting it or like someone had like the new Jurassic 5 and stuff before they got signed and whatever. That was like a whole scene in itself. Yeah. Yeah. I I remember when
10:09 Best Buy took my third album for the first time. It was like back when Best Buy so I don't even know if they sell music anymore. Is Best Buy even around anymore? Barely hanging out. They're around. Yeah, but I don't know if they got music like like Best Buy, Fries, whatever. They would have like uh CDs in in the front. What up, guys? Come join our Patreon cuz there's hundreds of videos dating back to 2019. Support the channel's growth and new ideas and tap into the closer community by joining our Discord. Come chat with me inside and then you can say funny things to me and get the opportunity to suggest new video ideas. Come join our Patreon. Thank you. Link is in the description box below. So that was like the biggest deal in the world when Best Buy decided to carry my
11:01 album, you know. How'd you pull that off in the cabinet? passed by, took my album, you know, because there's so many there's very limited shelf space, you know, and every label, every artist is fighting for that little slot to put three or four CDs in that, you know, but if you're in every single Best Buy across the at that time, across the country, man, it's just it's just different now, man. It's just different, you know? Now, CDs and vinyl, it's like merch. It's just like fan ████ Yeah. You know, super fan ████ you know? Like I collect vinyl, I collect CDs, I collect Yeah. They don't listen to it. Not necessarily. Yeah. Like an object. Yeah. No. Damn. How did you get that deal? Like did you have a manager that was brokering it? That came through the label. Oh, okay. I finally built up enough momentum to
11:53 where Oh, okay. He's doing doing numbers, you know. So, you know, so it it finally it finally came about. But yeah, I mean by and large our bread and butter was shops like that, man. Like you just described, you know? Did you did you have like a whole like a like when you built that label? Um how did you find the buyers and then the shops and to people? Is it just cold calling or bro? Yeah, we drove around from store to store to store like the amiebas of the world. No way, you know. Some of them were owned like like very very small shops like in the hood somewhere, you know, familyowned. I don't know. Yeah, I'll take a couple. Come back and see me in a few weeks. We'll see if they sold then I'll pay you. So, it's like all consignment. A lot of it was consignment.
12:43 A lot of it was consignment. You know, we pull up to a spot. Literally, that's where that that phrase out the trunk came from. You know, you pop the trunk, I'd have a couple boxes, take my record. Who are you? You'd have to give your spiel, you know, come back in a couple weeks. Hopefully, you sold, then they pay you or not, you know, but then when you finally build up a sales history, then a distributor will finally take you on. They'll take it. They'll send it to all their stores and all it. It I mean, I think about that ████ now and it's like archaic. You know what I mean? Like I might as well have been selling like pies or some ████ you know what I mean? Or like bakeries, you know what I mean? It's crazy, bro. It's just like I think about those times now and it's like, you remember that ████ when we used to take
13:34 the, you know, take the uh take our tapes, you know, to Amoei and ████ like that. Like, you know, it's it's Was there like a standard cut that the store would take and it's like I'll buy for this much wholesale or whatever? Yeah, I think there was. I I I think it all averaged out for an album like between $5 and $8 is what we would get, you know. Oh, and then they would sell it retail for like How much was this? 15, you know, and if you were on sale when it first came out, it was 10 bucks or 11. I don't Yeah, that's right. You know, dang. Was there ever like an an act from that time that you're like, man, these guys deserve to get signed so bad, but some for some reason it never happened or like they should have been bigger than what they were? Yeah. Um,
14:24 I always felt like I wanted to, me personally, I wanted to see Souls of Mischief get bigger. And I wanted to see The Far Side get bigger. Yeah. Those are two really good. Yeah. They're like, what do you call it when it's like they're like in like they're famous within a niche, but they're not mainstream. Like cult classic. They really are. like they have a cult following and we all remember oh 93 you know it's like oh that was that was these were great songs now don't get sorry continue no but there were great songs right but then they didn't go beyond like into the mainstream right or maybe they didn't go beyond a few songs that that hit kind of um singles or whatever well and we were talking off camera before like now Far Side is gold platinum now Souls of Mischief is gold and platinum but I think at that time we
15:16 were Like, god damn, why is this not And I think a lot of people have that like hitting harder. Yeah. Why is this not ████ triple platinum right now? Why is this not, you know, and I think as fans we all I mean people leave that in my comments, you know what I mean? I think as fans we all have those we we feel so passionately about a group or an artist or you know I think we all feel that way at some point about somebody, you know, and for me that it was those two guys, you know, those two groups of guys. I got a question. Like back in the day when we were listening to like J5 and Dilated and all them, I had the impression like as a young person that these guys were underground and they didn't like mainstream cuz like Charlie Tuna I think had a verse where he says like while underground doesn't like you the media might and it felt like there was a separation line and I didn't know that like there's like a sellout culture.
16:06 I didn't know that they wanted mainstream. I thought they just wanted their whole underground to just grow and stay under but be big. Mhm. That that definitely was a thing. Is that how they felt? That was definitely a thing. Like, you know, credibility was a thing, you know, and pop success was it's it it started to change, I would say, probably in the mid 2000s, like when we started to see legitimately great artists selling a lot of records, you know, people that we respected selling a lot of records. But there was and ultimately I think that this was not the healthiest attitude for us as artists and the business where we were like got to keep it real, you know, no hooks,
16:57 [Laughter] all versus the bars, right? Bars. ████ the radio. They need to come to us, you know. No dance music. Yeah, that's funny cuz that's that's how B boys were too at the time is that we didn't want to hear anything new either. We just or nothing from the from pop. Yeah. No, I remember there was a time when like after, you know, gangster rap and all that, then people wanted an alternative of like, well, I'm going to listen to conscious rap now or I'm going to get into the underground scene. And then um you know like Hip-Hop Summit came around and then you would see like real hip-hop like people like KRS1 doing like and then there was that one guy the freestyler he uh what was his name? Supernov and then you would see like real dudes
17:47 be like pull out stuff out of your pocket and you see real hip-hop go down and you're like wow this is amazing right? But then but then it got to the point where it's like the musicality is kind of not there and everyone's just battling all day with no hooks and and and it's like it's a different art form. Well, it changes once you start partying, you know what I mean? Like when we were just going to jams, we were like it was a flex to know who swollen members were, who pull right. You were like, "Oh, I know these guys. I'm going to put you on." But then when you started going to parties and they didn't play none of that, you just had to dance socially to pop music and it just sort of slowly you started to accept it. It's weird. I love how me personally I love how those values changed. You know, I love that. You know, I now it doesn't even matter. And I I'll
18:37 tell you who I think who I think really helped break that barrier. I think in two different ways. I think Big Biggie broke that barrier because he was doing like largely undergroundish sounding stuff like earlier. I think Black Eyed Peas broke that barrier. Massive massively. Yeah. Pre Fergie they were a part of that scene era. Yeah. I I don't think they get enough credit in the culture to be honest. You know what I mean? Like I really feel that way cuz they're like legit lyricists like they were like and B boys. Yeah. They were just around. They were just at the events like everything. I think um uh Jurassic 5 broke that in a in a in a way, you know, like they started becoming very big touring artists like they were opening for Dave Matthews Band and like that's crazy. Holy ████ That's ████ insane.
19:28 They were on stage. I remember seeing them on like they're my you know friends of mine, but I I would look at them on stage. They've got earphones and ████ like in-ear monitors and we were like y'all got in ear monitors. It's big time man. I still feel like that about dancers. Me too. Yeah. So like did your camp ever have beef with another camp? Cuz your community was so big. Like never had no beef. No. There was competition. Wow. There was rivalry but no we did we ever have beef? No. Damn. So no distraction. It wasn't like that man. Especially on the West Coast. It wasn't like that. There was no beef. You know, I mean, by and large, by and large, in in our lane, no, it wasn't like that, man. You know, that's a really good question, man. No, there wasn't. You know, I I would say also, uh, just I think Far Side broke
20:19 that barrier, too, because their songs were so catchy and so hooked up, dude. Yeah. You know, that I think they they they showed us what underground hip-hop could be, you know? I feel like you had to be so catchy back then cuz you know how now you could be like, "Oh, what's that song?" And then you can figure it out. But back then it's like once you hear a song, you got to try to remember the lyrics or something and you ask your friend, "Do you know this song?" And you won't know for like weeks. It goes like you got to hum it. What's that one? Uh the um Can't keep running away. Well, that had Yeah. Some songs didn't have an identifying. No, for real. But I saw it on a skate like music video or not a music video, like a skate video. I was at a skate shop and I was like, "Damn, that song's so cool. What song is that song?" And I'm like, I don't know what it is. But I hear it again a month later and I'm
21:09 like, "It's that song for the skate shop." Well, that's how we would describe it is you would just go by the beat. It's still going like for for Holy Intellect. I didn't know what I couldn't tell what the name was and I was like, "What's the song that goes?" Yeah. And people would be like, "Oh yeah, Holy Intellect." Yeah. And then people were like, "Yeah, it's poor education." Like recently I was looking for the a Tik Tok song and I was like, "F███." And it's one of the worst ones to type out. So I I first I asked my wife. I was like, "Hey, you know that song that always like cute animals. It goes dude." She goes, "What the hell are you talking about?" Cuz it's all dudes, right? And I was like, "F██████ ████ you're you should know you're a girl." And then I asked Siri, I was like, "Hey Siri, what's the song?" He goes, D and just gave me some ████ ass like dude. Did you you mean like you try to Shazam
22:00 yourself? Yeah. But then mama off key tell you not to do that. Please don't sing it. I think it's Terresa Tang. It was so ████ hard to find that song. The finally found it. Teresa Tang. It thinks you're just speaking Chinese. What to do?
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