s02e03 | Yo! Shayne!
[00:00:00] Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Happy Saturday. And welcome to this episode of the Hilltop glove podcast. I'm your host DJ. And what, what my brothers skipped what's happening. Skip nothing much. None other Saturday. Excellent. Excellent. This is our 22nd episode.  So our second season  and today we have our super special guests.
Yo Shane, yo Shane. He is an artist producer, actor, photographer, and cinematographer based out of Columbia, South Carolina. Yo Shane is also the owner of RO creative media studios in west Columbia, South Carolina. I just want to extend a warm welcome and say good morning to you. And thank you for joining us today on the Hilltop glove.
How are you doing today? You're saying
excellent. Excellent. Excellent.  As I do with anybody that does come on our show and of course. It's about reaching out to  us, us millennials and other younger folks, and trying to teach us different ways to adult  in a [00:01:00] sense of taking care of our business in a proper manner, making sure that we, especially in business ventures, that we handle our business properly and as entrepreneurs  that we have the right spirit as we move forward and doing our business.
So. I always like to ask about people's background because we have so many interesting personalities come on. So would you mind giving our audience a bit more information about your upbringing and what influences, whether it be your family or other way wise in the community, et cetera, led you on the path that you're currently on.
I'm born and born and raised Columbia, South Carolina, born in Alabama. The court believe the li live in Leesburg and then finished high school in Winnsboro, South Carolina. And I don't come from an entrepreneurial background at all.  My dad, my dad has  has, and still has an auto shop on two nights.
But honestly never gave me any insights of being a business owner or anything in that [00:02:00] sense. Honestly, everything that you see me doing is from me reading and learning by trial and error. I'd never, you know, they never, I talk to her mom all the time. Like he never encouraged me to do any of this. You want me to get a plan?
And then, you know, being a musician early on, I had to learn, I had to learn entrepreneurs. You've had to learn business early on. How to turn, you know, 15 cents into a doll because being an artist is the most expensive thing in the damn world. Man. Repeat that, repeat that. Being an artist, the artist pays everything.
The most expensive thing in the world always has to get everything.  Fast forward a little bit. I got signed back in 2018 and when I got signed as an artist and one of the producers I was working with  [00:03:00]Brandon Phillips sailor. Because he saw my production work and he was like, why do you want to be honest?
He kept asking me why you want to be honest. I'm like, Emmy, I love performing. He was like, man, don't, you know that you go. 10 times as much as you would make making beats. Cause you'd like dope. I'm like, I understand that, but you know, and then I understand it, but most artists don't understand it. They don't understand that they're going to take out $10,000 before they receive a dollar back, you know?
That's the, that's the truth of the matter when you're dealing with that business. A lot of people don't understand that. And I thought that was interesting too, because you know, I was watching through your, your cook sessions and whatnot. And I was like, my brother, we were, we were just talking about this before we got on.
This dude's talented. Like everything's on point, like you could tell, he really knows what he's doing. He knows how to craft the music and stuff like that. And usually those people, like you said, they don't become artists. You'll stay in the background, you'll make your money back. They're doing production.
So, I mean, that kind of leads into [00:04:00] your doing yourself may in a sense of self-taught getting into this industry, but. How would you say one of the most defining aspects of art is the creativity put into giving it that the needed artistic feelings and expression. However, these elements are sometimes dependent on other variables, including cultural backgrounds, life experience of the artists and their.
Now since you don't just do  audio art or et cetera, do do music. You do shoot video. I looked at some of your cinematography. I saw your views of some of the music videos. Tough, very tough. Where a good word. I'm trying to tell you, brother, this shit was sharp. Yes. And  as a multimedia artist, who, or what inspired you to explore each of these areas of artists and why is being creative important to you?
And like, you can, you can. Kind of build on from what you were talking about earlier, about how the business works and understanding that being an artist is expensive. Artists [00:05:00] at three different realms. I am, I am. It's crazy because all of it leads to me trying to be a singer when I was a kid and everybody told me I couldn't sing.
And  because rapping is easy is they know it's ramming words together. I was pretty good at doing it. At nine years old, I was able to spit a freestyle and people were like, dang. I'm trying to do it. And then we ended up moving to Winnsboro. And when I was in Winnsboro, I was beat by and they was like, that's not cool anymore.
You know, everybody was like, yes, I was beat boxing. Basically
we beat on tables and I was like
tables. So like, you know, I had to learn how to. Yeah, it was make beats, man, but it's crazy. Cause like I always tilt the music going. I always kept writing [00:06:00] songs. I was, I was like published, like when I was like 12 and a poem book and everything like that. And  and. Like, I just always had the creativity of life to put things together with words.
I want to tell a story with words. And  as I got older and I was doing music and  man, like I said from Waynesboro, if y'all know anybody from Winnsboro Winnsboro, The Mecca of like the stars from South Carolina come from that area. They come from that area, like  you know, little room, little bro came up there and got his swag from up there.
 18 Vino recently  rest in peace and, and, you know, a lot of the artists, like they, they mowed a van Winnsboro and  I was trying to do it in high school and. Maybe this guy named Gracie square. Well  I gave him my tape to give to a baby grace who had the record label. That little rule was on at the time.
[00:07:00] And  he was like, and I was rapping on these Miami bass type beats.
And I gave him, I gave him the tape and he was like, what the hell am I play this on?
And  they, they, they finally found the, I guess the play it on, they listened to it. It was like, yo, you need better B, but you know, I'm broke kid. I didn't realize that I was a dope when I was poor. Yeah. So like, shoot.  I ended up making, I started making beats on the computer.  This was, this was before it was known to make me some computer actually windows.
Lastly, before that I had a keyboard, I bought this keyboard from radio shack. And  it was like my last 200 and like 24 bucks man. And  I had a friend come over here over and he was a rapper too. And he, he showed me how to like record loops on my stuff. So basically I was, I was doing loops on this keyboard.
It was a cheap, cheap keyboard, but I wasn't [00:08:00] recording loops. And then I was recording until the tape player state.  Oh, this is the real way that this for the audience that they don't know, this is like, when you hear people like Wu Tang, explain how they were recording their stuff. This is what they're talking about.
They were doing it like this, like literally, yeah. From the, from the scratch. But listen, man, we was, was the coordinates, the tapes swap. It takes around layer and I was basically tracking out beats on tape. And then I would record the tape into the computer on that, that whole loop going into the computer, through just the sound recorder on.
And then like, literally I just did all kinds of crazy stuff. But then I came to this thing called micro studio on the computer and I started making beats on that. It was very generic beats. They didn't sound anything like I was making them the keyboard, but those beats sounded like a future of beats.
People like gravitated to how long, you know, this kid may be some computers. [00:09:00] And then, then I found FL studio.
It was called fruit loops. I had to lose three or four of those for one of them. And I, and I found that. And then that just changed my whole perspective on making beats. I ain't gonna lie to y'all. Making some of the best beats in the city. Like it sounded like I was on the radio already,
maybe. So I ended up selling a lot of people back then. And that's how I feel. It's a being a producer because of the fact that my roommate, but the whole, my whole thing stems from all my, all my artists, artists, and all my art stills from the fact that I feel like, you know, as a kid I could talk and nobody listens.
I felt like I felt like nobody listened to anything. I said as a kid, but once I started rapping or singing or play the music, I felt like I had everybody's attention. And the [00:10:00] same thing goes with film. No, I feel like I want to tell a story and you know, I could see him and tell y'all a story now because, and people listen now.
 I didn't realize I had that much influence. I'll tell you a story about people. Listen now. And we film, you know it now you can see my story. You can see whatever story I want to, I want to write and want to get to the audience. I'm a different type of writer. I did my first movie called karma. It was a hood film.
And after I did that movie, I ain't gonna lie to you. I said to myself, I don't ever want to be labeled. Black cinema cinema. So cheesy,
the first thing that pops in your mind, when you think black cinema is the one it's going to be voice over narrative narrating. Yeah, you're right. I really hate those types of movies. Don't tell me the story. In words, show it to me on film. [00:11:00] So tell me on film, you know, like, yeah, this all started 17 years ago, the movies coming on, I'm like,
it's black cinema. It's like, but it turns out to be cheesy. And the dialogue turns out not to be real at all. Exactly. Like when you watch a movie karma, if you ever get a chance to watch it, The dialogue seemed real and most time, because I'm working with non-experienced actors. And they can't remember the script.
Anyway. They just remember where the story is going, but they just started making them their own lines. But it works to your advantage. It works. Y'all if you obviously didn't kill labia.
No. Oh, shoot. People, people think that show is they think that show is [00:12:00] written.
It's not written. No, no, no. For real, it's not written. You gotta be kidding me. Wait, Paul comes in and he don't want people to know that
he'd be like, all right. So this is. You say, he'll give you like some things to play off of, but this is where I want to go in the end.
He might give you some lines in between there to say to each other, some things that are popping his head as he's watching the scene, what you ended up the scene.  But as far as it goes, man, You're writing your own scenes on the spot. Okay. You know what, you know what I'm saying? And it makes a lot of sense.
Now I'm going to tell you why. And I'll always, and I was wondering how they set the scenes up because one of the things I noticed and if I'm wrong, correct me. But I always looked at  all the scenes and Columbia like this, you pretty much have two primary characters. [00:13:00] Right? You have like your league.
And you got like your support, like as far as who that particular scene and that story is about right. Engaging in dialogue. However, it seems like everybody else that comes in. I've always felt like they kind of improvise as they come in to kind of collude themselves in the store. And it works out really well.
Like I know there were a couple scenes. I know, I really liked, I think they were at the house. They were at the house and old dude's girl. I forgot the main character character's name, but his girl came in and she was asking him questions about something, but it was like, I was like, I, when I was listening to, I was like, oh, they're having a conversation.
She has some questions about. Okay. I like what's going on. You know what I mean?
It's very, the show is very ad lib. That's the genius about it? It is different because, because they're not actors, actors on that show that are, that have training. They don't have big [00:14:00] scenes. Oh Lord. That's interesting. That's interesting that all like. Nagi  Sammy noggin. He's a train head in CIS and all that.
When he came on the show, he didn't have a big scene at all. And he's been on, he's been on TV, like give him his little part and, you know, he's training Jim, his little part. But other than that, when it come down to keeping it real for the streets and for people to like relate to it, Yeah. He's like I'm taking the guys on the streets and giving them something to do.
I loved that about that. You know what I'm saying? I want it to be a part of season one more, more. So I want to come in as like, he called me about this show in season one. I told him the type of character I wanted to play and I can't get this character from anybody, even, even when I'm talking to the other producers in this writing and stuff like that, they won't give me this topic.
I want to play like this mysterious. Quiet guy. I want to play like that guy. I want to play like [00:15:00] the guy you're scared of because he is because he's so quiet. Everybody wants me to be this big gangster guy. And I understand I'm a big black ass dude, anytime. Like I want to show my layers of acting and he was like, there's no room for that in this basically season one.
I'm not in season. I got to be a part of it. Now I got to come here. I'll take whatever role you guys. I know. I want you to be the guy who  who is storage people that gives me something to work with. I can just thought people, you know, but it still made me like the, so those days. And it's funny because when people meet me in person, I remember coming out of the library downtown.
I used to like  this old lady stops me and was like, you smell. Oh my Lord. You see what I'm saying? Nah,
[00:16:00] well, it's a character. He's a character. I'm really a nice guy. How are you doing? I was about to say man, cause I mean, I was just all over your social media stuff, looking at your stuff, man. You, you have a man. I could tell you how to I'm a very gregarious and  attractive personality. I see. I know that has to affect your.
Your business in a positive way, in a positive way, in a negative way. I know that people feel like they have so much access to me because of the fact that I'm so nice. I'm such a good guy. And then when they realize that I actually have this asshole, it bothers them to the point where they're like, they hate me.
It's like, oh, Because it says it in the day, when it comes down to the business, you have to be able to twiddle on business. Hey, I can't continue to be your friend all the time, man. You know, everything about me is business now because I got bills to pay, man. I got a kid I'm [00:17:00] raising my son the same size.
So when I'm done, I got to buy him clothes
and a half shoe. He 13 years old, man.
And I'm like, I'm like  you know, I take them with me and I feel my stuff like that. So how do I actually make my mother. I think it work for every dollar he gets, because I, you know, my dad, I never asked my dad if I'm going to grow it up. When I  when I did ask him for money, it was for something important because I never felt like I never felt like I felt like I was an unseen kid.
So he knew when I asked for anything, it was mainly because I needed it.  My kids are kids, they grew up. So, so  in title in the field, And I wanted, you got to give it, but I told my [00:18:00] son early on, I taught them early on. Like you got to work for everything you give them. No you to wait for everything you get when it comes down to it, like, you know, wash these clothes.
Me and my son, I told my son, you know, this is the way his report card has to go. Every day. You have, you started $200 on a report card. Every age you have, we're going to add $25 to that 200 you'd maybe be we take it off $25 and you see me taking off 50. If every day you take it off. You're going to go, we've taken off a hundred dollars smart.
So his kid, you know, for first, all the way up to sixth grade, he was making straight A's. He was like, I'm going to make straight A's. Cause I need to buy this and buy that. And
so he, but he worked hard in school, smart kid now  since COVID. I can't really rely on report cards like naked. They just given these kids,
there's something else going on with that. So what I do now is basically now you got to get out here and work for him, but [00:19:00] now you gotta carry this equipment with me that he says, you know, you got to meet George Rogers just recently. I saw a commercial for Joanne Rogers, reasonably. And so he got to meet George, right?
He was like, at first he didn't know who the hell George was. I'm not a sports fan. And so my kid is not what he's a gamer about when he got to meet him. And George Ross went to give him a pass. And he said, I mean, I read hurt. And George was like, yeah, this is my super bowl ring.
You know what I'm saying? Speaking of business, right? Since you're on the side of business and, and create in creating wealth and talking about family and generational change  You have some studios, you actually owned a creative studio. And  could you explain to us how you, how you put that together?
[00:20:00] Cause I was, you know, looking at timelines, seeing how it was coming together. Could you explain how you put that together? That process. And  honestly, I ain't gonna lie to you. I jumped out the window with. And it is still for me being a couple of different places. I've owned like a recording studio before.
And you know, I work closely with 88 studios over in west Columbia.  Production team works out of there beatable, and that's what we wanted basically, while I was there, we wanted to build a place where people can come and come take pictures and stuff like that. But in that situation, over there in that building, I wasn't able to build it the way I wanted to build it.
 I just want, and it stemmed another again from me, like when I had to work out of the library a lot, when I didn't have office in my videos and stuff like that, they got that the editing room
inside of the editing room, you get to meet so many people. I, people that was in that room didn't [00:21:00] realize that they were influencing the things I was doing at my municipal. You'll just by having conversations.
I want to create a place like this when Kobe came and there, you couldn't go back to the library. I'm wanting to create a place where creatives can come and have conversations and, and it, and get their work done. And peace. Got you. Putting the plan, putting the plan together  for, you know, having a place like that.
How did you get, how did you get the building purchase?  Man. No. That's why I look, I know questions I'm asking. So like, when you go down to man, I put some weight into the side, Monica, that's important for people to know you, you have to start, you have to, because people don't understand, like how do you get a building?
How do you make sure you have the space? Cause like you said, you have to go. I tell you, I ain't gonna lie to you. I, I do. I ain't gonna lie. [00:22:00] I afford a lot of documents.
We didn't hear that. Y'all weird. And we hit it.
Oh, like when they ask you like, Income, you know, us as businessmen, we don't know shit about business. We really don't keep records the way we should keep records. And I had to learn as written in last six months, I had to learn is like very close to like how to keep records for your business so that you can show somebody that you make a profit in your.
 But when I went to get this building, I didn't have that knowledge. I didn't have that. I didn't have those records. I  everybody has one right here doing the PPPs and  I learned how to make a schedule C. And shows profit from the previous year, I made a bake one. I made a fake one. I mean, real money was on it, but I didn't use the schedule C for my test.
[00:23:00] Cause you know, I ain't even get into all of that
separate from the person I may, I may, I made one and I gave it to the people and they approved me and I was like, okay, cool. I had the money at the end of the day. It's all about money. They don't care. They don't care. They probably looked at a thing and might even know when it was late, but the fact that I had the money in here.
I actually like Britain or a media is our middle creative studios, by the way are our own media. Yeah.  It's, there's a rock on media.
I used to be, I used to be a rock. I want to be a rust. I wanted to rap with live bands and stuff like that. And so  when I, the vision I had for. What at two buildings, once that photos through your video studio, the other side, the creative space, where the suites, where you go to edit, where you have office [00:24:00] space to meet with clients and things like that.
And so I got two buildings from the same people I got there side by side each other, and basically I've just been renovating. I was renovating both of them. And then it turns out that mass last suites had. And so they they've been fixing on there for like four months. So as of right now, I'm not in that building.
I just have the creative  the creative studio side, but just still, I'm still making it to where at least one person can come in and use a computer. Like I got this 27 inch iMac back here with like 24 gigs of Ram morning drive and plug up, use the. To edit your feed videos, edit your Podio photos. If you want to use the space, you know, I got a membership program for photographers.
I know how expensive it can get to rent  photography space.  I was in LA earlier this year and I was trying to rent a photography space or video space. [00:25:00] And for the two hours I was there, it cost me, I think it was like 277.
I mean, they're rushing, trying to shoot this music video
and the video came out dope as hell.
He came my dope as hell, but he. Basically I realized, hold on, this is crazy that they're charging so much. I know it's LA, but it say time, they charged him damn near a hundred dollars an hour. The use of space and the space is no bigger than, you know, no bigger than mud storage room here. It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because it's their space and they charge, they set the prices. So with my membership program, basically I got people, they paid like $247 a. And then, then you, you get [00:26:00] the discounted rate of paying $20 per hour to rent the photography space, man, as dope man, that leads straight into.
The next topic, man, you're showing the importance of owning creative spaces, especially as, as, as  black owned creative spaces, that ability you have right there to set a price point that you know is assessable. So you can actually give people access to something.  And whatever is said, like, why do you think, like, can you, why do you think it's important that we own and manage those spaces?
And can we, how can we better network with these phases? Cause it seems like you're big on networking in these spaces.  Basically there are points of owning is basically being able to, I like it for the networking process and the process of it. I get to meet different photographers in the city. I didn't even, I meet people that I didn't even know where a photographer and I'm like, okay, let me see some of your work.
And I'm like, oh, you have a different, let's do it that way. But the importance of having it is just basically being able [00:27:00] to provide something for the community and for the creatives in the area. Because it goes back to the fact that I am an artist. I'm an actor, I'm a writer when it come down to write it film.
And if they like that. So if I am in here and I'm working with photographers and cinematographers come into the space, I might come across my next director or my director of photography and, you know, And I didn't charge him to use a slave. So now they got to work on my project.
Like I say, it's all, it's all about. Just trying to bring everybody together. I really, it comes back to me being a super nice person at the same time. I hate that. I'm so nice. Sometimes I won't want people around me. That's going on. Benefit themselves and benefit me in the long run as far as why I stay here.
Sometimes I'll watch a photo session and [00:28:00] I'll learn something new, you know? Oh, wow. You said you sit the light up that way.  Oh wow. You turned off that light completely. I got the big, I got the big strobe lights in here, you know, the 120 centimeter umbrella. Like Korean Korean Barry comes in and uses, uses the space a lot.
They have used the access of tools as well in the space. Oh yeah, you can use my stationary lights. You can use my led lights.  I even have it where if you need to rent a camera, you can rent a camera. I got two cameras. I got EMD and I got the Sony seven.
And they were my 73. I have the GMs lens with that. The 85 millimeters, you met the lens, which is great for headshots and you can rent those. You can read those and it's not. Man it's super dope. And it's, you can do [00:29:00] everything in that one spot. You can literally go in there, rent a product, shoot your stuff, edited, and then take out a finished product.
All they say all in the same area, I've always been a place I've always wanted a place where you can come. It's a one-stop-shop. Gotcha. When I, when I first started coming to Columbia to record. You know, this is when quantum beats was like, the minute
you went in that place and had Noah sitting at the table and he was doing graphics and they had  I forget the other guy's name who was sitting over here and he did photography in the back. And you got, you got a guy over here who could print up the CDs for you.
You could walk out and then with your whole project. And a couple of days and everything's printed up and ready to go sale. That's the type of space I always wanted, you know, but the problem with I've always been the guy to do everything. So, I mean, split it. So. But, you know, [00:30:00] I, I think too, and this is what a lot of  and I know you recognize this too.
A lot of folks in the rest of the country, they always recognize the grind, the hustle of the folks in the south, because we like to do stuff from scratch. We'll do everything independent and build it from, from the bricks. And that leads straight into the next point is, and this is pointing, you're making like, so.
When do you think, like we can do to better support the black creative entrepreneurs like yourself that call the Carolina's home because. I think we like, like I said, you could tell when y'all, ain't lazy, you're hard working.  How can we better support you? Well, see, that's what we do for the majority of these guys are lazy.
They want to hand it to them. That's the problem. Everybody wants everything handed to them.  I know that too, when they, when they come from. And right now I'm working with be bad. I don't know if you all know who she is. She's an actress and an a plus size model and she [00:31:00] wants to be able to, she now she's music moving into music.
So she's rapping now. She's from New York and that hunger and grind at New York Homeland grant that she had. It works. Everybody that's working in the music industry right now. Oh yeah. They do that work ethic. I'm not, I'm not even, I'm not even talking about the work ethic. I know they got the work ethic.
It's just that community-based, you know, how in the south we'll work together to do certain things, but you know what we don't do, and this is why I always find to be weird at certain times. It's just like coming in with that support factor. I would love, I would love to say that, that, that that's one thing that.
We do lack and nobody supports each other. I'm going to talk shit. So
I have my production group  a stick. He makes me plays, plays keyboard for a lot of [00:32:00] churches do phenomenal.  And then I have sip, sip, sip. Sip sip. Sip is like the trap producer king in the city. Like I know a lot of guys get beat.
And so like he  but these are my friends. These are my homework. We built a team. And when I went to get into the space, they weren't supportive of this shit at all. And it was like, And it was like, you're leaving us. It was like, it was, I didn't feel no support. I didn't feel, I feel that. And so it was like, trust me, I'm on the end of that.
Like having to do with my. And, and like, even if I need you to come
to me, sharing a post about my taco Tuesdays here, where we just play chill music, you pay $10. All you can eat taco. And we got games got like, I like those [00:33:00] events. So you just, you just, you just come in and eat you. Gotcha. You know, state comes all the time, even though he doesn't even eat meat, he comes all the time and plays games and get a couple of drinks while you're here.
 Sip hasn't come to one yet, but support in in the south is like very lacking. My mom has it. My mom hasn't even been to my state here. Oh man. It's not like I've given her a car. Oh, man,
it's a lovely space. That's all I'm saying. It's not like it's not threatening. And that it's mapped professional. Exactly, exactly. So I like literally in her first time seeing my. In-person we'll be Thanksgiving. Cause I'm doing like my family Thanksgiving thing here. Smart. That's gonna be her first time seeing my speed.
And it's not like she lives far when she's still living in Winnsboro that's 45 minutes,
[00:34:00] but like, yeah, it's.
Kevin. And I, we, we talk about the fact that in this, in the city, right. They'll do certain events and whatnot, and sometimes it'll be crazy. Like you would think crazy same way. It's the same people that come in every time, like, Hey, I noticed more people out there that are here to support stuff, but that's something I think.
I hope it will improve, man, because like you said, with folks like you creating these, these atmospheres and these areas where you can get this stuff done, I think just out of need, hopefully that will show. And especially even with the stuff going on with COVID or whatnot  people are more apt now to stay and do things local if necessary, because I hate to say it's not as easy as it was before to go back and forth, back and forth, unless you're.
And ready to do such a thing, you know [00:35:00] exactly. You can't just be popping like that.  And it also, this is another thing. I mean, that leads into one reason why we want to have support. We want to be able to do stuff local too is because of saving and saving a time and the ability to have more. A better balance between work and family.
If you don't always have to be here, there are travel all the way, half cross, halfway across the country just to get something done. So this is something we always talk about on this show too, because for folks in our, in our age range, one thing we, we work hard and usually that could cause a bad. Like I said, it can create a bad situation for family.
And so how do you find a balance between doing your work, getting your stuff done and still being a part of a family and carry on as a father? Well, the way that Carolyn and his father with my business is mainly, like I said, I give my son jobs to do when he comes with me. Cause I'm always working.
[00:36:00] There's no, really no downtime for me. The moment I get off the phone with y'all no, y'all get off this podcast, which I love y'all y'all platform and everything you man, when I get off of this, I gotta make phone calls to clients. Cause my assistant.
I got to make phone calls to clients that want to rate the space and try to set things in stone. And  you know, this is for me, honestly, I have enjoyed this conversation. This is also a work for me to get the space out there. This is also promotion a promotional tool for me to talk about the things I have going on and the things I want to do.
So, so, so like  I always have to bring my son. When he comes, he says something to his boss on the TV here, and he spends the time with me here. And then he might take a break. He helped me with what I got going on and go, you know, I know that feels good to be able to do that with [00:37:00] what you're saying in the space and the space you think I'm reaching, I ain't even raised, but you know what a beautiful thing about that don't Shane is the fact that, you know, for him growing up, he has a reference point of ownership of saying to somebody in control.
Of their own like life, as far as how they go out and then make a living your own career for suits. And that leaves that, you know what I mean? That sets that baseline for him. Not that he can't go out here that he might not work for anybody else or anything, but he knows he has a variety of options.
Cause he's seen his father do that. You'll find that you're finding your way in life.  Not everybody is. To be an entrepreneur, newer, not everybody's meant to be a business owner when they tell people all the time, you get your LLC. And it's so much more than that. It's not that easy. You mean you? Yeah.
You can spend that a hundred percent about all this, whatever, get your LLC, you know, it can love you or whatever, but at the same [00:38:00] time would you go to add today? If you not working for home, you need a Bayview. Now you need proper licensing to do whatever you need to do. And it goes, it goes into all that.
And my son goes with me to these, these places to get these licenses. So he sees it, it costs money, it costs money to make money.  I do want him to know that it's okay to go to college and get an education and go work. Be a doctor, a lawyer  be a. Biochemists chemists scientists or something, cure castle, man, go do this.
You know what I mean? Honestly, if, if I, I grew up, like I said, where I grew up, they didn't teach us about entrepreneurship. You got out of high school, you went to work in a plant or you laid bricks or you. Yeah, that's really the generation we came from. And it's crazy because I'm a certified Carbonite and Mason, and I've worked in a thousand plants in Columbia.
Oh man. [00:39:00] He is a certified car DMAC.
If you come to the studio, you'll see some stuff in the studio.  You go through a recording studio. I don't know if anybody been following my snap on my Facebook. I built the booth over there the other day we built a new booth. So yeah, I was wondering that's what I was wondering how he was doing that.
My fault, that explains that they didn't know they didn't, they, and it's funny, they're my friends. And I've said this a thousand times. I can do. I said it's downtime and they didn't know
black carpenters and masons.
Let me go ahead and do this when y'all basically got everything almost put together in three days. Wow. Now I got to go back in and do some electrical work.  But other than that, they [00:40:00] got a booth. Now they got, they got a booth with a window. Cause before at 80 studios, it was a whole separate room for the recording.
You can see each other, let that, that takes you back to, they were wondering why I was putting so much into the look of my building and they didn't understand. Now they. It's all about the look when you want customers to come in. No, I get booked. People don't even know how big the space is, but they, they get, they get booked off of the parties and baby showers and stuff like that off of pictures based off how this place looks innocent, man,
I hated walking into a studio and not feeling comfortable. One thing is please stop smoking. Y'all builders to
smoke. I can't bring my kid, my kid with me all the time. I [00:41:00] got to bring my kid in. Then he got to have him walking. I'm walking your studio and I smell, we automatically I'm like, man, shit, I got to go came, came be here. Let me go. And now I got to go shot with a white guy because magazine allow smoking in there.
Cause he knows that that smoke from the clog up his sticker, some kind of way. And the crazy thing about it is those same people, right? Won't even question him about the fact he doesn't have any smoking, but if you tell the smoke and then they question you it's wild. I, I hate it. I hate it. Now I'm gonna tell you that when it comes down to my music now, because I'm not drunk, code projects are record.
All my music recorded.
 I met Corey through, I want to say I met Corey through Steve Ray. I don't think I know Steve. Yeah. Steve red, Grammy nominated artist and producer. I mean, artists and instruments from hockey and soccer from Hopkins, him [00:42:00] and his brother been into the ground. Oh  he plays on, he plays on the blind boys and Alabama's  stuff like I got to work with.
I got to work with Steve Ray. I met Steve, Rebecca. I want to say 2009. And  I made him a big close friends ever since.  He took me to Corey. I got to see how Corey works and it took me a while to get a session with Corey.  This man, I mean, we're recording maybe a few years now, so. And Corey, you got to record, you got to book a month in advance.
Well, it ain't even that he's just that damn busy. He's booked that far out that far out. I missed the session with him. Last week on Tuesday. Cause I forgot. I had talked about Tuesday here and I had booked it a month ago before I started talking to him and I missed it and I call Corey. I said, Hey man, please tell them you got something later on in this week that somebody canceled.
And he's like, nah, bro. So it was, that was like, [00:43:00] when you can, when you can get me to say.
He looked at Stanley. He tells me the guy because of the fact that he has a certain level of professionalism and I'm learning from watching him to professional matters. People have no problem walking that far in advance to record. So they know what they're going to get. They know what the product is.
They know that the atmosphere of the space when they come in  and I love that his space is like a creative space as well because I've met artists there as well.  I've met artists there as well. I met a guy who he raps and he plays bass while he raps. And he's, he's a dope, he got a different style.
He's dope. He's real. I wish I could remember his name right now
because I like to put people at too, because his album is fucking sick. His album mistake. [00:44:00] You don't need to be. You don't have people tell me all the time, Shane, you all need to be in South Carolina. If you can tell me that all the time, myself selling goddess, I've never had to say that to anybody like bro, you don't need to be, this is not the place for you.
There's not a place where you did not go. I don't understand what you got going. They don't know. They're not going to understand the genes that you're doing right now.
 I get told that all the time. I get told that all the time  from when I was in the barbershop one day and I was talking to, he used to be backpack Shorty's manager. And he was listening to my music. He was like  he said he wouldn't listen to my music. Then I could tell he had been watching on Facebook because he said to me, he came up to me out of the blue was like, Hey, get the fuck out of south Atlanta.
Keep going, because I'm not ready for it here. He says, the world is going to understand it, not South Carolina. So honestly I don't promote any of my music inside. I have to move all my [00:45:00] stuff outside of South Carolina, Miami, Atlanta, New York  California. I promote a place like that, of a motor in Africa, which is I wouldn't Barrow and everybody in 2009.
I'm getting, yeah, I'm getting booked for shows and then Kobe and his knocking fly. You got damn country.
I went about a criminal criminal.  And then some of my skits sent me, like sent me through the roof in Africa and Zimbabwe Nigeria.  Cape Verde, I literally was, I had shows booked out that image and you know how this industry is. If you do you stay relevant or you fall off. And so I'm now I'm struggling, trying to figure out ways to make money, take it back up.
So I'm leaving the music behind because I'm over here struggling to make money in this other areas. In these other areas. [00:46:00] That's more lucrative at this moment because like I said, it costs money. To be honest, it really does. Speaking of which I know we're about at that time, but before we close out the day, I have to know.
And I want you to make sure you drop this information for our folks to what current projects are you working on and where can our audience find you? Where can people find you? Okay, well  I got two albums that I'm working on. I, I was going to be a, well, two EPS not working or it was going to be.
There's going to be three of them, but I decided to combine two of them together. One of them is called clean slate. It's almost like a low-fi jazz R and B out.
And  that, that, that one has the song equipment on it. And it's like, it just has that really chill vibe to it. And then I have a. Ocean avenue, which [00:47:00] is I had three, like I said, it was three of us Babs and then ocean avenue. And I just sat them for all of it on ocean avenue and ocean avenue has no R and B a little bit of rap on it, but mostly  it just very ethnic and experimental sound.
When it comes down to, I want to say it sounds like the island, it sounds like Africa. It sounds like once those are done  and they should be, I'm literally looking at releasing those before the end of the year, clean slate is completely done.  And actually now I think about it  ocean avenue has done as well.
So basically I'm just putting in motion now. Now I got to sit down and work from a business plan in Ohio to promote it to the. Gotcha. Please let us know when you  when those things dropped so we can promote it and listen to it as well. So we can get some of those songs on our playlist.  And definitely if y'all were to find me, you know  I am your Shane on Instagram.
I am your sane or snap. I am Shane on [00:48:00] Peter.  I am, you're saying on Facebook. You know, I, I tried to be smart. I always like when people have the same monitor across. Cause if not, you can get confused. If anybody wants to just send me money randomly, I don't cash out the money side.
Now I do plan on starting to shoot a film in the beginning of the year. So I will be letting people know when I'm holding auditions.  I really want to shoot this one field. My guy called him well, it's a working name is mistaken identity. And  it's about  these two musicians. Who get mistaken for the, and so when they it's crazy again, please let us know when you get that thing wrong.
Let us know what's going on with that too. Yeah. So it's, it's going to be, it's going to be a dope Bab it's lab [00:49:00] music being played throughout it. It's it's it's going to it. It's actually going to incorporate everything I do. Oh, well, shoot.  Just for  I guess  Professional points. This will conclude this episode of the Hilltop glove podcast.
I want to thank our guests, yo Shane for joining us today. I very much appreciate it, brothers, that interesting conversation. I got to learn a lot about stuff that I thought I knew. And I know our audience is also going to learn about stuff too, for listening to this. And I just want everybody to know who, whoever listening to the Hilltop glow podcast out there, et cetera, and why why to have a blessed one a day.
Be safe and we'll see you next time. Peace.