SPEAKER_03 1:46

Welcome to another captivating episode of the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Today we're thrilled to have a special guest who is making waves in the music industry with his extraordinary talent. Big Dre, also known by his stage name, Carolina Beats, was has a remarkable knack for crafting incredible mixes and sounds. Carolina Beats has been captivating audiences and redefining music production for the past four years. In 2021, he unveiled the creative masterpiece, a work that set the tone for his innovative approach to music. This was followed up by the much anticipated releases of The Cosmic Road Trip, released in 2023, and Carolina Beats Volume 1 and Volume 2, which were released in 2024. This solidified his reputation as a creative force in the industry. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to his work, make sure to explore his sounds on YouTube and Spotify. In this episode, we dive deep into Carolina Beats' creative processes, uncovering the inspirations and techniques behind his unique sound. So sit back, relax, and join us on this Sonic journey as we explore the artistry of Carolina Beats. Stay tuned. How are you doing today? That's a heck of an intro right there, man. We got some top-notch writers and stuff in here, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Thanks, Maya.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

Shout out to her, man. Speaking of which, I didn't even say this in the in the bio at all. But we'll get to why we got it. I'm telling you, man, there's a reason why this is on the table. That thing's heavy, man. I know it's really, it really is what it is. It's heavy, though. It's real metal. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:18

I love to watch people like, what's in the back? Here, hold it. Oh, God.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

For some reason, I think all the belts we got brought up on, the plastic ones from the stuff. You think it's gonna be like a piece of steel.

SPEAKER_05 3:31

Yo, you make your own. Yeah. You remember those velcro belts you put around your waist? Oh, yeah. And it'd be like the uh the little ab thing. No, no, no, no. The app no the ab thing. Yeah. So you put you like click it on there, and then you put like the jelly on your stomach, and you and it's supposed to be like an ab scope. Oh, yeah. My mom had one. I just took that off, and then I just had the rest of the belt as a that's when I was younger, man.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Okay, this worked.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

We'll we'll get to that. But um, we always like to start off with eat with each episode, um, just get into a little bit of the history about your childhood experiences. Um, just straight up, could you just tell us where you're from, what it was like growing up, and who or what inspired you?

SPEAKER_05 4:10

Oh man, uh Spongebob, South Carolina. I want some change below Charlotte. Hey, in the house, in the house. Yeah, uh, so that's that's uh where I grew up at Born and Raised. Uh just me and my mom really. Um just uh No siblings? No siblings. Not that not well, Paul, not that I know of. Nah, my daddy, he may, he may, wink, wink, wink, wink. Don't know, but you know, it is what it is. Uh but yeah, just the only child, me and my mom, as well, you know, she got sick when I was younger, so she's still alive and still going, but she had just had two breathing conditions, so it was kind of like one of those, I kind of had to transition to grow up quick because I had to be there for her because it was trying time with one of those things of well, she doesn't know what was going on, and it's really weakening on her. And at the time, her going from her bed to her bathroom was like breathing hard and struggling to breathe. So it was kind of like one of those weird times, so you kind of have to like grow up quick a little bit. Um, but other than that, I'm you know, decent little childhood. Got to do a multiple multitude of things and just explore and sports and other things of that nature.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

What specific sports did you play?

SPEAKER_05 5:15

Uh, I played football up until like eighth grade. Okay. I tried high school wrestling. This is the funny thing. I did two years of high school wrestling, eighth and ninth grade. Yeah. Both of them ended with surgery. So when the 10th grade year came around, the coach, and I like yeah, Coach Hansen came around, he goes, All right, man, we've had two years. You think we're gonna get through a full season? I go, nope, because I'm not coming back out this year. Because I was just like, you know, I don't know what surgery I'm gonna have to have this time. And now you go 16 years in, I never had a surgery, a major injury. But, you know, hospital wrestling, I I I don't know what it is, but I I I guess I was just doing some weird cheeks. No, my body just probably wasn't as strong. You know, I have aches and pains, yeah, but no, no surgeries. Yeah. But yeah, I did that for a few years, and then after that, I kind of just bounced around doing other things, you know, took some dance classes. Um, mostly in high school, it it's kind of a foreshadowing thing for me. In high school, I was the beatboxer. So all my friends would be the rappers, and I was just the beatboxer. They'd be like, Let you go, Drake, let it beat, we'd be at lunch, yeah, you know, lunchtime. And of course, this is the time of the infamous lunch table beat of grinding, and that's the that was the go-to, you know. So it's funny to think that, you know, back then, and then even so, I'm never forget hearing, I think I'm gonna say it's Holland Oaks, forgive me, uh, Summer Breeze for the first time on an episode of MTV Cribs when they had Shadow the guy that owns Virgin Airlines or whatever that was. Yeah, it's right at the end, it's right at the end of it. And I never forget hearing it. And I went to school and I was like, yo, I heard this beat, I heard this song last night, and if you use this, it'll be like the dopest thing ever. And everybody was like, Yeah, cool, but no one thought about it then when I actually got into production. I said, Well, I I always loved the song. I just went back and I did it the way I heard it in my head all those years ago. So uh I guess the music was always within me growing up, and even so, shout out to my cousin Anthony. He was a DJ. I would go spend my aunt Jackie's house, and he would be in the back room, and the rule was if he was DJing, I couldn't come in the room, stand the doorway, but I couldn't go in the room. So I would sit there and watch him DJ, and he just had a wall full of records, and he would just be DJing super loud. And of course, my aunt just let him do it. So I was always enamored by that. So that was kind of a growing up as well, and then all my older cousins, uh, because I'm like in the middle of like all my cousins, I'm like right middle child, Jake. Literally, yeah, yeah, you become middle child. All my older cousins, I grew up with them, and then my younger cousins, they grew up on me. Uh so all my older cousins, I got all my music from them, you know, whether just bounce around multitude of things, just you know, a little simple childhood, nothing.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

You said something that caught dancing.

unknown 7:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

What kind of dancing were you doing?

SPEAKER_05 7:58

Uh kind of like jazz, hip hop type stuff. Oh, you for real? Yeah. And people go like, you a big dude. You I'm just like, no, there's actually a video online. Uh they uh there's there's a uh a local DJ, DJ Cato, does the Afro pop events. Okay. And one year they did uh event at Camp North, at Camp North End. North End? I'm I'm forgetting up up upper end of Charlotte as a block party, and they was just kind of ended the night. He'd been playing all the soca and afro beats and reggae and stuff. And he was just playing no audition. I went up and then start dancing. Well, somebody recorded me, and later on that night it had like 12,000 views within an hour. Yeah, no big dude dance as well.

SPEAKER_04 8:39

And I was just like, well, told y'all to dance.

SPEAKER_05 8:42

Trying to tell y'all. Trying to tell you. So now people just like come across the video, they be like, That's you, like, yeah. Yeah. I'm not just one of these big dudes that's just like, all right, I need to towel and do the lean. Like, I can actually get out there and do some stuff. So nimble on the feet. Yeah, nimble on the feet. So uh yeah, so that was another thing as well. So I guess that kind of brought the music in as well, too, and my love of like choreography, not doing it or teaching it, but actually watching it, like just watching how it is impressive. Having an appreciation of like the Beyoncé choreography, the Michael Jackson's and Nicholas Brothers, a famous uh uh tap dancing duo, Nicholas Brothers. You've probably seen the one of their most famous uh dance routines is where they're doing the splits, jumping off the stage, jumping over each other. Oh, that's the Nicholas Brothers. And actually, one of Nicholas brothers were in the Temptatious movie as a dance instructor.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Oh, you're really about that. You ain't playing. I like the movie.

SPEAKER_05 9:36

I have an appreciation for the good dance choreography as well, too, and just watching it as well, because you know, it's that's you know, the music that you make, people dance to it. That's true. So you if you're not feeling it, how's that somebody's supposed to feel it? Yep. So facts.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Man, that's a cool segue, man, because um man, oh, this is gonna be dope. So uh obviously you produce music. Uh matter of fact, killing them, they just left, and he was just um antagonizing. Kill Rukin and G Mill.com. Every time he sees me. He's about to shake a beat out of you, bro.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

I thought you were gonna be impressed today.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

I say, yo. K Rukin and G build, bro. I don't know why we ain't working. So Meg, make sure you send him a beat because I got you. Look at the camera. I got you. There you go. Um, so as a producer, you're responsible for overall production of musical work, the flow, delivery, sounds, rhythm, et cetera, all that good stuff. Can you explain the level of detail involved in producing a masterpiece, mixtape, album, or body of work? Now, before you begin, this is a very important question for myself, Mike, and my brother, because one thing I'll uh we always pay attention to is the fact that it feels like music is lazy nowadays. So, with that being said, could you explain why that's the the level of detail that's in involved in it?

SPEAKER_05 10:54

For me personally, when I put out anything, uh I can kind of say not as much with any beat tape I put out, yeah, but with the creative masterpiece and with Cosm Road Trip and anything else I work on. I love a good concept album. Right? Because I don't, you know, people nowadays they get an album, because one dude told me he was, y'all went to the middle of your album and I had to go back to the beginning. I was like, good, because you missed you missing. It's a story. It's a legit story. You know, I, you know, the guys with the creative uh I'm getting words missed up. The creative masterpiece, that was the one thing I said. I said, I want to create like a story with it so that you could kind of follow along. Yeah, you can go back and listen to your favorite track. That's cool, don't care. But that first time or two, even three times, you need to listen to it as is all the way through so that you get the full out story and you understand where I'm coming from. Uh going same thing with the cosmic road trip, same concept. It's just the flow how it goes. And and I'll never forget when I dropped it, I had people going, like, man, that reminds me of some old outcast stuff with the little skits and the breakdowns and stuff like that. And I was like, good, because it takes you back to that time that we grew up on music where you know, when we used to get, you know, CDs and tapes, sit down, first play, and we would sit down, we would take this to it, and we would go through the book, we would do other stupid stuff. We didn't go straight to the song, one song that we liked. Like, all right, that's it. You know, if you did, that was a trash album.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yes. If there were two tracks on there, and it was always six or eleven, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

Serious. There used to be a there used to be a methodology. There's a methodology too, yeah. I was just watching the documentary. Um, I was talking about uh Michael Jackson's thriller, and he was saying that when he made Thriller, he was tired of like artists having one powerhouse song and the rest of the album being filler. So his whole approach to thriller was to make every song a single almost to change. The B sides are hits. Yeah, yeah. You know, it was either A side or the B side was hit. A side would be all the hits, and the B side would be like the kind of like the ones that were okay, but it really didn't matter. You had to listen to that first side. He wanted both sides to be uh a single thing. So for me, I love a good concept album. I love I love that. Uh, you know, I'm I'm not as big a Travis Scott fan, but I can appreciate his idea of making a concept album. Yeah. Uh I think with Kendrick, every album is a concept album. Yeah, you go back and you listen to that song that you really love, right? But at the same time, you get a full story behind it. And then yes, and then each one represents something different media-wise. You know, the the current one, Miss Around the Big Step, is a play.

SPEAKER_06 13:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:36

Damn media print as well. So it's like a concept behind it that you can get behind and tells a full-out story. Uh Forest Hills Drive is a straight-up concept album. Dope album. And a lot of people don't really give it that much because it's telling the story of growing up, leaving, making the success, find out it ain't really worth all the goo-gun got it. Yeah, the money is, but the fame isn't. It's not. And then find out, you know, where your true values lie. Yeah. But you know, people just like, oh yeah, it's just a dope album, but it's a concept album. It tells a deep story. So that's my approach with that. Um even when I work with other artists and we're just doing one single song, it's like, we're gonna talk a little bit. I'm gonna find out about you, find out, you know, uh, what did you grow up on? What music did you grow up on? What's something that you know you you go like, mm, my granny used to play this? Word? All right, let's dive into that. There's artists. We can go through that, find something we can chop up and sample. It gives you that, mmm, like uh, this dude named Jimmy Lee out of Sparnberg. And then when I started making music, I said, I want to make a song with Jimmy Lee. And I remember just sending him some stuff, and he was like, Hey man, I want to make a song to my mom. He was like, Can we do something with the dear mama sample? Oh, okay. You bet.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:50

So I just kind of went back, I didn't go to the two-pop version, I went to the original sample. Thank you. And I just kind of just repurposed it, a few drums, and I remember forgetting when he heard it, he goes, Dog, I'm crying writing the lyrics. And I was like, Well, I hit the stalls. I hit I hit the hit the emotion, I pulled the heartstrings. As well, you know, anytime somebody gets something, they should automatically be like, man, I I I it was effortlessly to write this because I felt it so much. So that's what I love to like.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

That's what I like to hear. That's non-lazy um music. You're putting you're putting effort in inspired production. Um, and that's what we're that's what we want to see. Yeah, you can't do it. We want to see inspired production.

SPEAKER_05 15:29

Yeah, you want to you wanna have that feeling. Like, anytime I hear Little Brothers Loving It, it's just like that. Ooh, they killed you. Like that one song that you absolutely love, and then happy rap songs, it just be any other song, man. You just be like, anybody hears Michael Jackson's Lady in my life that first that you feel it.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah, you feel it.

SPEAKER_05 15:53

It's like you, like uh, because he's about to drop another album Monday, Tyler Creator. Yeah. Call Me If You Get Lost. That first track. It's a West Side's gun original. Yeah, you know, the sun beaming, and that heavy bass line comes in. It's like every time I hear that, I could I'll just replay. I'll just skip back. Keep going back. They hear that. Yeah, they hear that part because it makes me feel something. Like if the song makes you feel something, then job done. Yeah. You know, people say this Rod Wave song, I love it because it describes this. Good. He did his job, he touched your heart with the music. You know, I can say any genre, it can touch your heart. They've done their job. Yeah, you know. That's fine.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

I agree to that.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

What's that? What's that? There's a French word for that when you are overwhelmed by a piece of art and you like, oh, there is a word for that.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

No, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

I've learned that this year, and it comes up all the time now, because that's like that's a real art experience. You walk in and you see something, and you just like you see the painting and you go like, oh.

SPEAKER_05 16:54

Like, I've kind of had I've my brother, you know, God rest his soul, the mad artist, Roger Cardell, who got talent painter, actor, singer, rapper, like he could have had the world on his hands any way he went. But people would see his art, and even after he passed, people would see his art. I'll never forget the day that we had to go to the apartment and find him, and the cops were walking out going like he's an artistic genius.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Like from seeing what was around him.

SPEAKER_05 17:26

And in his apartment alone, they were just like they said, and I never forget one of the cops go, the world lost a genius today. Because he was like the artist, which is crazy. Um but when people get that feeling, they're like, wow. Yes, exactly what you're talking about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

Man, that's crazy. Um, I just I I I that just it it you know, it kind of I don't say it grinds my gears. It it kind of makes me wonder then, like, for folk who are not looking for that from music or art, what is your reasoning for listening to music? Or looking at the artist.

SPEAKER_05 18:05

Oh, this is my favorite artist. You know?

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Then don't say that part, because that's the part that gets me. You're saying it's your favorite artist, but you ain't listening to it for the art. So what I like to say is that's my favorite marketed performer.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, that's it. Okay. You know, there's something to an artist though that is like like like it's almost archetype creation. It's you know, like that persona that you're putting out there is something that people are then aspiring to, and you listen to that track because you want to be ratchet right now. You want that power, good point that strength. Good point. You know, and then absorb the ratchetness. I'm serious. I'm serious. Before you go out to the club, like you're not. I am Gucci man. Like you absorb the ratchet.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

But at the same time, he's kind of right.

SPEAKER_05 18:44

Like, you're not gonna go out to the club listening to like something that's really chill. Hey, you if you're like, hey man, if you like. We're gonna be all night, we're gonna have fun. We probably gonna listen to like some old Gucci man. Jeez. We're gonna be like hype on that old no confessions. Yeah, no confessions, no. No, no, no, no, probably gonna be like, hey man, just put on old Lil Wayne mixtapes and stuff and let's get hype. That's what you're trying to get into that mode. And you know, I'm I'm not gonna sit and say there's not wrong with music, you know, lane to go. Yeah, you gotta have that. Yeah, that's the thing. I want you know I want to feel like that. I gotta feel that way. Because I mean, because there's certain people, there's certain artists, they just pump out songs. Yeah. And they just put them all together and they just put it out, and that's the album.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:30

And then you got those people that take a while. Like, look at all of Top Dog Entertainment's artists. Oh, good point. They don't put out albums like that.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

No, they don't.

SPEAKER_05 19:39

You got Scooby Q's Blue's, and when was the last one he had one? Crash Talk. And Crash Talk, I want to say it came out before the pandemic. Yeah. Ab Soul's about to drop. How long has it been since Ab Soul's dropped? We've been trying to just get him to drop.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

This is like pulling teeth to get him to drop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:52

But you know, that's that's that's J Rock. Same thing. Isaiah Rashad, he's about to drop. So that's that longevity artist. It's that longevity, like putting the work in, and even so with Cole. Cold's the same way. Yeah. You get it rare in between. So when you come, the music just stands out a little bit more, and it it the time of it stands there a little bit longer. And like you said, going back to the thriller, how it changed the music industry from hey, here's maybe two singles and a bunch of fillers to every song's gotta be a hit because you want people to just literally listen to the whole track. Yeah, you don't want people to skip and go to you know, fast forward this song, fast forward this song. You think about all those other great hip hop albums. Like, yeah, how would that sound if they were just like, all right, I'm listening to Protect Your Net. Alright, I'm gonna go to the next one. You know, it's like every song was like, oh, this is the one. You would be like, oh, this is the one. No, the last one was cool, but this was the one.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

It's supposed to be on the building. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:51

Yeah, so it is what it is, man. You know, you like you said, people's like, oh, that's my favorite marketed artist. That's cool. That's all well and cool because now uh TikTok and Instagram is the way of music to talk to people, so people absorb it like that. So maybe you only really need that one to blow up.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:10

Now, what you do after that blow up is up to you. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

And that's where it gets me to the point where I'm uh I'm thinking about the music. And so this music is for this particular purpose. I'll keep it over here in that box, and when I want to feel inspired, I'm gonna listen to this music over here.

SPEAKER_05 21:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

And so I think that's what that's where we're at. Now it leads directly into this con this next question about authenticity. So if you could just tell us a little bit about your journey and finding a unique sound, right? Because hip-hop, one of the biggest bases on it was not biting somebody, having originality, doing something that's new and fresh so that people can be inspired from it, right? And with that being said, have you ever found a creative block when producing?

SPEAKER_05 21:53

Yeah, all the time.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

I mean, life.

SPEAKER_05 21:56

Life. It's life, you know. That's just what it is. You'll you'll run into those creative blocks, man. What do I do when I run into them? Step away. You know, I sometimes at the end of the year, right when you get to about December, it depends on how I am. I usually just I won't even pull out my NPC or my laptop.

SPEAKER_03 22:13

Just leave it alone.

SPEAKER_05 22:14

I just leave it alone. I just go like take a break, watch random movies, play a game, yeah, wrestling matches. Just do whatever. Uh, you know, if I'm in the creative block, sometimes, sometimes the creative block can be get gotten past because I'll just make like a bunch of trash beats, not save them.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Smart. And then that's a good practice. Then skip and tell you that back there. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:34

And once you get past that, then all of a sudden that way, that you know, that flow comes to you, like, all right, now I got it. Yeah. And then, you know, if you don't, there's been some nights where I've tried, I don't know, six, seven different chops, and it's just like my brain is not clicking on it. Like, it's not clicking. So it's just like it's just like, yeah, you just put it down, you go like, all right, it's just one of them nights. It's just like you go get some sleep, you wake up the next day. It's trying to find my sound. I mean, we're in the South, so what's the South known for? Heavy 808s, trap sound. So, you know, I never forget I was at uh uh SC Lo Five and shout out to Mo of SC Lo Five down in Greenville, uh, one of our producing meetups. Uh I never forget I was just playing a bunch of beats, but I had no eight oh eight on them. Just heavy kicks and stuff, just really old school sound of night in my boom bap, boom bap. That's what I love. So yeah, you know, and the guy just every time he plays something, he's like, Yeah, man, you hit an 808. And I'll be like, Yeah, that's dope, man. That's dope. Dope. That's a dope sample. I rock with that. And I'm like, really good. And pop up like the third or fourth beat, he goes, Man, you don't love eight oh eights or something?

SPEAKER_04 23:38

What is a lot of drums in there? I never forget one of the guys that's like, he don't have a like 808 reading. I made this whole discussion. I'm just like, you don't have to like them.

SPEAKER_05 23:48

I don't have to like them. Do I use them from time to time? Yeah. But that's not my whole aspect. My homeboy uh ML Scorpion, he's an 808 guy. Heavy 808s. Distorted 808s, trying different 808 patterns. If I really need an 808 pattern for something, I'll go back, hey yo, put an 808 to this and make it fit. And you can do it. But that's not my whole lane. You know, I love a good heavy kick as well. And of course, now people say, is the kick outdated? Is it obsolete?

SPEAKER_01 24:17

How can a kick be outdated?

SPEAKER_05 24:20

I've seen Instagram videos where people talk about this. I want to say there was a video where I want to, and forgive me if I get it wrong, I want to say it was Jack Harlow. Jack Harlow was just like, yo, I just don't want no kicks. I want 808s. If that's what you want, cool.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

That's how that's what you're producing for you. That's what you're producing for you.

SPEAKER_05 24:34

But at the same time, guess what? It's the story of Ninth Wonder. Yeah. When he got brought in to work with Destiny Child, he's wondering, how in the world do I do everything that they used to? And then he thinks it was Beyonce was like, no, we brought you here to do you. You for us. There you go. So that's why when a lot of people say, I want to work with you, but then they try to like give me parameters to sound like somebody else. I go, like, well, just call out that call that. Or go copy that.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

Or go YouTube future type beep. Yeah, you read.

SPEAKER_05 25:05

And then use that. And it's like, don't come to me trying to make me sound like Zay Tova and Metro. Yeah. I do what I what I do. And you know, finding that sound, uh, listening number one, and when we go through the top, you know, the fives and stuff, number one is always Dylan. Number two is knife wonder. True. That's just me. Now, three, four, and five depends on the day. It could be whoever.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Man, top five is so hard.

SPEAKER_05 25:28

It's top five. But when you, if you if you're starting off, number one is Diller. Number two is ninth. Yeah. So the inspiration of them without trying to sound like them. Yeah, the inspiration's there. Maybe somebody, oh, that sounds like some Diller stuff. I'm not really trying to sound like Diller. Yeah. Because I'm not trying to do his sound, I'm not trying to do ninth. I'm trying to just, and that's why I tell my people.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

He feeds inspiration, but not copy.

SPEAKER_05 25:51

And that's why a lot of I'll sit there and I'll just obsess. Like my brother sat there and watched make beats, and he just go like, it sounds good. And I go like, mmm. Like I've had people go like, man, that's the dopest beat ever. And I go like, yeah, but I hate that snare. And they're like, all right, change it. And I go, mm-hmm, I'm just gonna delete the whole beat. What? You gonna delete the whole beat? Nah, yeah, yeah. Trying to pull a prince.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

It's just that's an artist. Prince done deleted the whole redo of bad. Right in front of everybody after they finished the stuff.

SPEAKER_05 26:18

The Cosmic Road trip was something else. And I was literally about to Dr. Drake detox it and be like, you know what? Out the door. And then people was like, heard what I had so far, and it was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Save it. Save it. Don't do, don't do that. Let me listen to it. Some people had heard bits and pieces, and I was just like, yeah, man, but I'm I think I'm just gonna scrap this whole deal and just like it's just never see the light of day. And people was just like, no, that's just me because I'm pushing to find that sound that sticks out. Gotcha. You know, in a world full of copycats, in a world full of people doing speed run beats on Fru Loops on TikTok, which is nothing wrong with that. Right. I don't have Fruits is still like Chinese to me. You know, it's I just can't, it's just not me. You're NPC guy. I'm an NPC guy into logic. Yep. Yes, I'll use logic. People go like, ooh, logic, you use protein.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Ain't nothing wrong with logic.

SPEAKER_05 27:08

You're working logic.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

At the end of the day, it's it's all doing.

SPEAKER_05 27:14

So why not just use logic? Yeah. And then I switched over to Logic. My cousin, my younger cousin, I was just up at the house over there, and he was talking about, yeah, I made beats. I saw, you know, I made beats too. And he's like, well, come here. Like, and he's like, show him these beats, and I'm like showing him like how to get to certain points so it's not clipping and it's nothing too overbearing. And he's just like, How did you learn all this? I was like, YouTube and learning and watching and practice and all this other stuff. And it's like, and it comes with time because he just kind of started with Mackie Beats. But you know, he was in Garage Man. I said, I saw him in garage band. He goes, Really? And I said, Yeah, switch to Logic. Then I got the NPC, now I go through Logic and I get everything out of the NPC. That's it. So for tracking. Yeah, yeah. And it's just like, but you know, everybody's trying to sound like somebody else. It's like um another thing I like to do is watch Geniuses Deconstruct it. Oh, yeah, that's dope. Talking about certain things, and the guy that made uh March Madness and how he says he quit school because he just wanted to make music and he wanted to work with Future. And he was saying Future, all these traps sounding 808 Southside beats. And Futures was like, make something as if you're not sending it to me. And that's why he came up with March Madness. He was making it as if he wasn't sending it to the future. So, you know, my whole thing is that I try to make stuff that hey, I'm not trying to sound like Dylan, I'm not trying to sound like that. Yeah, I'm not trying to sound like Primo. I'm not trying to sound like Alchemist, I'm not trying to sound like old Kanye or Trey or anybody else.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

Like how you said old Kanye.

unknown 28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:38

Soul Kanye, you know. Yeah, there's a thing. Soul Kanye. Yeah, that's several levels. Soul, there's Away Heartbrace, and then there's newer Kanye, which is a lot of house music. Which is, if you notice a lot of his newer stuff is house music and flu. Thank you. That's what it is. But once again, Chicago is a house music city. Thank you for understanding the music. Boy, thank you, bro. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. But yeah, it's just trying to find that balance. Yeah, there's an inspiration. Yeah, I hear somebody go, like, I was like, man, I want to make something like that. Yeah. And I'll obsess about it, but then I go, like, I can't make it like that. I just gotta make it my way. Right. You try to copy the energy of it. Yeah, you want the energy. That's some that's another big thing. That's a good point. I want the energy of it. Like, you know, you make certain things, it's like, man, I really want that feeling that I get from listening to this. And uh, I never forget, I was trying to find the energy of uh what's the song with Boz and J. Cole they did, uh uh The Jack.

SPEAKER_03 29:33

I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:35

I wanted that and I wanted the energy because I like that, and I was just trying to find it. Did I get close to it? For me, yeah, I would say yeah, but it at the time just finding the energy, just finding that, you know, the pocket that's as well, too. So um just every day I'm listening to different samples and figuring out how I would do it. You know, I I'll go back and go to old samples that people have used, famous samples, and I'll go like, okay, well, how would I use it? That's funny. And then I'll practice. That was fun. We didn't do that. That was one of the beats I played for Kill Ripkin. It was oh yeah, gang angry. It was the Bob Lobo Boat uh uh sample or uh Tyler Creator's What A Day, and I was just like, Well, how could I chop it up different? So you still know it, but it gives a different vibe. And I think I did it, you know. But it's just one of those things of practicing, working on it, like Kanye used to do it. The most famous story I love was somebody doing this Dilla uh with uh Little Brother by Black Star. Yeah. Where he takes Roy Ayers Ain't Got Time. Yeah. And the story is that Quest Love was above the basement watching TV, and he just hears a bass line on repeat after Dilla's normal hours. And finally he hears the classic hillo. Woo! So he goes downstairs and he's playing it, and he's like, Yo, this is so ill. Well, Pete Rock had taken that same sample for him and C.O. Smooth and made a song off of it. But he just went through a different way and chopped it up. And I did the same thing almost.

SPEAKER_06 31:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:03

And he just micro chopped everywhere that Roy Aries wasn't talking or singing, he chopped it and then replayed it. Oh, wow. So he was just like, yo, Pete Rock is gonna flip when he hears this. And Dylan was like, No, he's not, because he's not gonna hear it. And he was like, Why? He was I was just doing it just to practice because he didn't want him to be like, hey, the student has to pass the team.

SPEAKER_06 31:23

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 31:24

Well, fast forward, it wound up on a random tape that most deaf and Tyler Collie had, and it just he played it, and they got to the end of that tape, and it flipped to the auto-reverse, and he's playing, and they get to that beat, and he's just like, yo, but they'll already erase the beat. So what they do, pause tape.

SPEAKER_06 31:44

Pause tape.

SPEAKER_05 31:47

They lengthen it. So lengthen it out. That whole beat is just a repeat of what was on that tape.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

And we would have never heard it.

SPEAKER_05 31:54

We would have never heard it. Yo, that's some good. But you know, that that just him practicing how to get better was one of those things that led to like a dope beat of this song. But you know, that's kind of the thing now. Practicing, like listening, figuring out how do they get to this sample, how do they figure that sound out, how do they tweak it to get there. And like when I'm when I'm, you know, feeling kind of tapped out on my own, I'll just do that. I'll go like, hmm, well, let's go visit the classic sample. You know, uh 99 to infinity. I went back and I just redid that and I just repurposed drums. Uh for you, same thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Writers do this, they'll start writing a story that somebody else did and then a paragraph and change it and rewrite. You know, it's a it's a it's a technique. Yeah, it's a it's a great story.

SPEAKER_05 32:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, starting off with his and this gets his.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

I love that movie. Nah, that's one of my favorite movies ever, man.

SPEAKER_05 32:51

If you haven't seen that movie, go watch that movie.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Yeah, if you have, yo, go check out Fine For the Connery, man.

SPEAKER_05 32:55

Oh RP to him.

SPEAKER_03 32:57

Come on. Um, before I get into this next question, because I think they're gonna work one into the same. I want to talk a little bit about why this belt is here on the table.

SPEAKER_05 33:10

Yeah, man. That is uh that is the SOAR Texas heavyweight title.

SPEAKER_03 33:17

That I won out in Dallas. Can you tell can you tell the audience what SOAR is?

SPEAKER_05 33:22

Uh SOR is a promotion out of currently out of Dallas, Texas, uh, overseen by Sir Mo, uh, formula of men of remission of WWF. Uh so if you know Big Mabel, Vincer, his tag team partner when you first came to the WWF, WWE, uh, I've known Mo for almost all my whole career. Because he stayed out here in the Carolinas and he stayed out there. And uh I knew he was running out there, I knew he had international partners, and and just one day I know he'd been sick, and so I just reached out to him just to check on him. And he was like, hey, when you come to work for me. And I was just like, let's figure out a date. And it just so happened it snowballed. So hey man, I need to keep coming out here, coming out here, keep coming out here. And then we eventually got to this. Uh this is 16 years in the making. I've been wrestling for 16 years. Wow, how do you wait?

SPEAKER_03 34:09

Yeah. So you gotta explain. How do you start waiting? Okay, because wrestling fans, right? Big family coming wrestling from the Northeast, grew up off WWE because that's what was there in the territory. That's territory. You know about territory, oh yeah, good. So can you explain to them how how were you like how did you get into the business? Okay, and what was your first promotion that you were part of?

SPEAKER_05 34:33

So I think like everybody else, you just turn the TV and you you see some guys hitting on each other, and you just go like, ha, hey, what's this? I wanna do that. And get into it. There's like old pictures of like uh my mom has is one we came across of me with the old WWF ring. Yeah. And it's the it's the old plastic one, not the one that has the bouncy metal. I'm talking about the R. With the old WWF logo on it with the ropes and stuff. That's that one. Uh so I'm what three, four, I've always been into it. So uh I always said I want to do it. And my cousin always says, even when he was in college, he says, Man, yeah, Dre talks about wrestling, but he talks about it not like that annoying dude, like he's gonna do it one day. That's how he talks about it. And so when I started doing it, he was like, Yep, I called it. So uh how I got into it, there was a promotion back home in Spartanburg called APW, American Pro Wrestling. Uh I remember searching the webs, and I just came across I I had heard of other wrestling schools, but I didn't think nothing was close.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:41

And I came across this, and this is you're very independent wrestling from that time. You know, very southern independent wrestling as well, too. Just a bunch of a bunch of like, you know, rip-hoffs of different things and other people as well, too. I never forget they had a school. And my mom would give me every excuse. Well no, I don't know what you get hurt, you need this, that, and the third. And so I snuck up there one day to the training school. Unbeknownst to her, took my $25 and paid and got in the ring. It hurt to the point I had to go sit in the bathtub tonight. So what was funny was that the next day I had to work an after-school program with a bunch of kids jumping on me. So imagine how that worked. Um, so I trained for some time, and then at the time I was also going to college. So uh there was a promotion down in Orangeburg because I'm in South Carolina State.

SPEAKER_06 36:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:35

And one of the guys was like, Oh, I got a ring in my backyard, you can come work out down there. So when I wasn't home, I would go to his place Tuesdays and Thursdays. At work. And and work out in this ring, and it was like a two and a half hour drive to get there from where I was in Orangeburg to where he was out near Augusta. Because I was just taken back.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Oh, so you would drive all the way.

SPEAKER_05 36:53

I would drive all the way down there. My last class was like a get out around two. I would get something to eat off campus, change, drive down there. My mom didn't know.

unknown 37:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 37:02

And she probably won't know until this comes out. I was driving by two and a half hours. At work out in his ring, I would come home in the train, and then uh June 14, 2008, in Sparmberg, I had my first match. Uh the first match technically was what they called Barefoot Battle Royal, which everybody was gonna take their shoes off and wrestle barefoot and under this dude named Barefoot Willie that had just passed. Didn't know the guy, it was just that first night. But all the guys were like, I'm not walking out here in my barefoot. I'm gonna wear my socks. And you know, so everybody wore their socks on the barefoot battle royal. And then I had my first match in the semi-main event, which really wasn't the semi-main event. It was just, hey, I was in the semi-main event.

unknown 37:46

What?

SPEAKER_05 37:48

Yeah, I'm in here. But it's but the guy that used to own it, he ran the show kind of like how Puerto Rico used to run. Puerto Rico would put the main event in the middle of the car and the semi-main before it. So that way, by the time the show ends, the crowd has calmed down if it was supposed to be something really impactful. So that way they don't get too violent at the end of the night and nobody can get out.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

Smart.

SPEAKER_05 38:13

So he just ran it like that. And then we used to laugh about it. It was like, all right, here's the main event, and then here's the nun man event at the end of the night. So I was in a semi-nun main event uh against a guy named Nick Fury and got my butt whipped. I think I only had two moves in the match. But I was excited. I was like, that's it. I'm here. I made it like WWE Here I come tomorrow. Um, but yeah, just starting off there and then uh bouncing out and getting my name out there. I think like one of the next places I went was a place called APW Chester that still runs, and then from there, I never forget my first book in Osley State in North Carolina, up here in Charlotte. Yep. At uh Allendale Rec Center. Yeah, I never forget that. Getting that call say, hey man, we want to bring you in. $50. I was like, mama, they made it. We made it. We done made it. We done you done bought it, but everybody. I showed them in my uh my little bootleg Usher Yeah shirt with the button up with a fake chain and some glasses, thinking like, yeah, I gotta go ahead and style on these dudes, man. You know, dudes walking in and with dip you know packs in their back pocket and stuff. I'm like, yeah, man, I'm gonna y'all don't y'all not dressing like me. I'm going to WWE tomorrow watching, bro. So I never get that. And then just bouncing around the state in my 1989 Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport Edition. Yeah. You heard that woo. Yeah. That was my first car, and that's what I drove around instead of North Carolina, Saturday. I brought Fayetteville down to Augusta. You brought it up. I'll put the miles on that thing. It was good on gas, too. Really?

SPEAKER_01 39:48

It was an 89 was good on gas.

SPEAKER_05 39:49

Oh, bruh. That was that was bruh. I can believe it. I can believe it. I was killing towns, bruh.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

What color was a celebrity? Huh? What color was it?

SPEAKER_05 39:58

It was white. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 40:00

And I throw the things along. I wound up giving it to my cousin, and she drove it until she got her other car. And when I gave, I got rid of it and took my mom's view it, and she was still driving it until it just finally just gave out. Yo, that car did well. It did, it did. But celebrity. I ain't end up putting raptors on my car, Hall of Fame, right there, my boy. That my 99, what was it? 91, 97 GMC Jimmy? Bro, ooh, I missed that car. Them GMC. Oh, I remember them GMC Jimmies, yo. They were hit, yo. Bro, I could put a full full-time matches in the back of that thing. Yo. That's how big that thing was. Yeah, those are the same things. But yeah, we we I drove around and then, you know, just course life, you have to bounce around and roll with what you got because you're not 100% fully able to make the money off of what I really want to do. But bounce around here and there, and then eventually, I want to say 2012 or so. I started going to Tennessee. Okay. I fairly often working for a guy up there named Bo James, and he's a very old school guy. You know, he's kind of modernized himself now. He he'll say it. But back then it was like very old Memphis style territory. Even the ring was an old Memphis ring that they bought. They just had, and then he just used for every show. So it was crazy, and he met a lot of legends like that. I figured that. So, you know, he would come in and he would be like, it's one of my younger guys that's helping me out. So I learned a lot from there, which helped me later on down the line as well, too. And then um it's it's kind of crazy. Around that 2012 time, I wound up having my first bout with pancreatitis. And that sucked.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Painful.

SPEAKER_05 41:33

Very god, it was so painful. And then after that, I was like, okay, I came back, I did some stuff in Sparmberg, but by that time I was like, I've got to get up out of here and really like push myself. Just push. And so I I killed, I didn't say I killed a high story line. I was just kind of had we had to put it to bed because I didn't want to be there like they wanted me to, because I wanted to do more.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:53

You know, some people they get into this, you know, relative place where it's like, hey, I can go here, go here, go here, and that's consistent.

SPEAKER_06 42:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:00

Me, I'm like, okay, I want to go here, over to here, down to here. That's why I used to do a Thanksgiving run where I would do Black Friday in Alabama, then Saturday I was somewhere in Florida, and then Sunday I was in Atlanta, and then I would go back home. You used to traveling. Traveling. It's just like, but that's the way you used to do it. Like you get out there, you would drive 12 hours for nothing. And for a couple of bucks, and maybe you might sneak a hot dog off the concession at the end of the night. As well, too. And then uh I was living in Charlotte up here. Kind of getting to do some stuff here, here and there. But when I moved back home because of my mom, around like 2016, 2017, that's when I really just kicked in the hot gear. And that's where the rumor of no one knew where I stayed because I was everywhere every weekend. I was just going here, going there. I wound up working for Savio Vega down in Florida, who, you know, in WWF at the time and working for him in Florida, in the DMV, New York, everywhere. I I just said I can't just be complacent like a lot of people are. And I've got to get my name out there. And it was running well. It was running fine up until the pandemic hit.

unknown 43:16

Dang.

SPEAKER_05 43:17

And then stuff that I had that was coming up, like it was to the point where me and Savio talking about, hey, you come down once or twice a month to Puerto Rico for a week. You work for me, you work for this, work for this. And I'm thinking, like, this is it, bro. Because if I come back to Puerto Rico, I'm probably not coming back.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

You're not coming back, yeah. I'm not coming back. And if I do, y'all won't see me. You know, it's like I'm just coming home just because I gotta come home and go right back.

SPEAKER_05 43:41

You know, and I lost a lot of opportunities, and then having to stay home because at time, like I said, you know, watching out for my mom, she has two breathing conditions, and then going to my stepdad's house who was battling lung cancer. Oh, man. I had people going, hey man, if you can get here, they're gonna wind up paying you this outrageous amount of money. Or here's an opportunity that I wanted, and I would have to be like, nope, can't take it, can't take it, can't take it, can't take it. So I missed out on a lot of opportunities. But the cool thing about it is there are a lot of people now who are signing like the AEW, WWE, or doing a lot of independent stuff or going internationally that I knew and saw them in their younger regret. I'm going, like, I remember when you were trying to get on the show and they wouldn't let you get on the show.

unknown 44:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 44:18

Now that same company's trying to get you to come back and your prices double, triple. So that's cool to see, you know. And even so now just watching even like Javon Evans. Yeah, yeah. That's basically my nephew. I've known him since he was 13. Him and his other 10 team partner, Jackson Trey. We got this movie we want to try. All right, well, let's try it. And then we did it. I was like, all right, now do it a hundred more times until you get it right. Right. So that, you know, so I'll never forget when I heard he got signed, I was so I was in Florida for a show, actually. And news came through, and they was like, yeah, man, we're so happy for him. I just met him like two years ago. I said, yeah, I know that boy since he was before the growth spur. Exactly. As well, too. So it's cool to watch him, cool to watch uh there's other tacticing partner, Jason Dre, who's killing on the independents who should be signed, and I'll go on record saying that. It should be signed as well too. And shout out to their trainer, LeBron Coz on up in Greensboro with Firestar, who's put out some amazing talent. And I go up there with those kids and there's some athletes now. Yeah, unk. They unk and coach me now. I'll never forget they first hit me with the unk.

SPEAKER_04 45:20

I was just like, wait a minute, I'm not old, I'm not that old now. I got these two great hair sticking out here. And I'm going like, maybe I am getting unknown level now.

SPEAKER_05 45:29

Now I kind of accept it. You know, they'll be coached, they'd be like, uh, so I go up there and I just tell them all the time I was like, Yeah, I'm 36, I've been doing this for 16 years. I still be wanting to do it because y'all make me want to do it. Because when I get around y'all, y'all be so like energized, yeah. You just can't help but do it, and you just want to help them. Get to where they want to be, whether just hey, I just want to do this, or hey, I want to be a top independent guy, or hey, I want to get to WWE TNA or app. You want to give them all the tools that of the knowledge that you have to them.

SPEAKER_06 45:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:58

As well, too. And like I said, after the pandemic, you know, everybody was going, going, going, and I kind of had to slide back in because I've been out the limelight. And it matters. Yeah. And then, you know, that exposure matters. Yeah, I can post on social media, but that only goes so far. I gotta be in front of a crowd, I gotta be working. So when the opportunity came to go to Texas, I took it because in 16 years, never wrestled in Texas.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

Really? Never. It's the first time I'm being in Texas first.

SPEAKER_05 46:23

First time I'm feeling in Texas, first time I'm getting flown out. And I was feeling like a bad bitch. Flewed out? I got flu. I'm getting flued out. They was like, you getting fluid out about who? And somebody was like, a W NBA player? I was just like, I wish. I wish that would be better. I wish Abigail was flying me out. Shut out, Abu. If you like big boys, you can see this.

SPEAKER_02 46:43

We talked this week. We talked to that brother. We interviewed the brother last season.

SPEAKER_03 46:47

You better stop playing. She might actually hear that. No, actually, don't play. Shoot shot.

SPEAKER_05 46:50

Don't play. Shoot shot. I can cook. I can clean. I got plenty of tools. I can fix stuff around the house. I can change brakes in you or come on now. Handyman. Stuther boy. Yeah. About here. Got how you call up on bricks, changing the changing the rotors. Listen, don't play with me. That's the safest way to do it. Yeah, it's active, though. But yeah, so you know, just flying out there and, you know, new area, new people to work with and getting that opportunity. It's kind of been like a resurgence to my career as well, too. Awesome. So, you know, I said it's the last run. I told one guy that I said, it's the last run. He goes, last run of what? I was like, me and the ring, man. I'm getting close to the end. He goes, says who? I was like, says me. He goes, why? I go, 16 years in, I'm almost 40. He goes, okay.

SPEAKER_04 47:30

And I'm like, you telling me I can't retire, but it's my choice. My buddy.

SPEAKER_03 47:35

You will not. I was saying, somebody did the Undertaker. You will not retire.

SPEAKER_04 47:40

He was basically back from the dead. Exactly. He's basically saying, no, you're not. I refuse it. I'm like, you refuse it?

SPEAKER_05 47:45

What are you like my daddy? Like, what? Hush. I refuse. So, you know, it's been cool. You know, you know, of course, still politics play a big part of it, but at the same time, I still love it, still got a passion for it. I still love seeing when like one of the good people get an opportunity to do something cool or and whatnot. Or I'll be like seeing certain things. Like, hey man, I saw this and that would look cool. And then I was like, You saw that? I was like, I watch everything. Like, dude, what do you think I was doing when I was sounds like it?

SPEAKER_00 48:12

You're talking about matches.

SPEAKER_05 48:15

It's like, what do you think I was doing when I was sitting in the house all that time in the pandemic? I was watching y'all online. I was like, y'all was out here getting to do the stuff. I couldn't do it. So I watched it. And at one point, I even lied and said, Yeah, I'm done. And I really was, I was just like, I'm not done. That was made me angry. I gotta get back to it. And just I get that. Kind of I always say it's kind of like uh the ill-fated Rocky movie where he just wanted to have one more fight. He still had that burning fire in him. This same thing. It's just I still had that burning fire, so I just needed one more time to you know get out there and really do the thing as well, too. So, and and then now even so, not actually being in a ring, but being a part of the a local promotion, all black promotion called I'll say wrestling here in Charlotte. Shout out to Derek Slottle, yeah, um, as well. And it's basically giving the platform to black wrestlers because although we are part of the community, we don't get to be the forefront sometimes. Sometimes it's like even though we could be putting them, you know, some of the best matches, yeah, you don't get the you know the necessary. Yeah, yeah. And or you get booked in a silly way. Yeah, we've seen it, especially with the Vince McMahon era. Speaking of eras, yeah. Yeah, and and so now this puts you know the black wrestler in a positive spotlight. Both black women and men of you know all creeds, you know, just Afro-Latinos, what have you, yeah, of even with the LGBT community. Shout out to Billy Dixon as well, too, who's one of the best LGBT wrestlers, period. One of the best entertaining people in the business. Yeah. But as an LGBT representative, he does his thing. He also does uh he's had a promotion called Paris and Bumpin', which is uh offshoot of Paris is burning. Uh but he did it in wrestling fashion. He's done other stuff as well, too. And that I could go on by Ashe, but Ashe is a really dope uh idea and shout out to Darius. He doesn't call himself the owner, he calls himself the curator, which I love. I like that. That's a difference, that's a change. Yes, and you know, of course, he uh first show he had a Luke come through and perform. Uh the last show. Oh, I gotta go to one of them shows. The last show he had Ruben Vincent.

SPEAKER_02 50:19

Yeah, I've seen the post star.

SPEAKER_05 50:20

I seen the post star. Oh yeah, yeah. So I saw that. It's it's just a really dope atmosphere. It's like a it's like a family union. One show, I remember one show afterwards, we were doing a lecture slot to not like us.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

And it's the show.

SPEAKER_03 50:34

Because that's what people don't get. Like, like when you go to like people don't get this, like they're talking about wrestling and like watch for a long time. People don't realize like the show at the everybody's together. Yes. Oh, they talking, they bothering the people, there's communication back and forth. It's not like you're at a basketball game where you don't you can't talk to the players. Right. And you aren't really talking to the people next to you. No, it's really happening. Oh, yeah. And it's live, man.

SPEAKER_05 50:56

And then it's it's just a it's a fun atmosphere as well. And then I also want to shout out Fight Club in DC. That's why I used to wrestle for a lot when I went to DC. It's another black-owned promotion as well, too, that has the recognized, it's a recognized around the world title, the Pan-African World World Championship. It's like the like when they talk about PWI, yeah, you know, NWA, WWE, TNA, R O H Pad Upsy, World Title. It's it's a recognized world title. Shout out, it's currently held by Shook D as well, too. So uh Wow It's one of those things now that you're seeing this new generation of wrestlers coming in, and yeah, you know, things are a lot different, people a lot more friendly to help. I mean, so like I said, still politics, but I like it a little bit more friendly to help. Yeah, a little bit more friendly, a little bit more, you know, cheerful.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Do you think that's because there's more organizations out? I mean, we're talking about lots, lots of more.

SPEAKER_05 51:53

More organizations can mean a lot more disarray and stuff like that. And, you know, with social media now, you also have, you know, word of mouth go through quickly about if something's kind of fishy off-putting. Okay. You know, or if people are running businesses a shisty way and you know, as well, too. So that now helps with people who want to do the right thing by people. They're like, hey man, it was like an incident where there was some guy who was supposed to be running this black girls wrestling uh tournament, but he wound up being real shisty. Right. And so the community, especially within the black wrestling community, was just like, yo, they saw it. Get this guy up out of here, you know. Get him up out of here. So I know a lot of people aren't afraid to call out people as well, too, especially when they wrong to them. Now, you know, there's people who will false claim. Yeah, but the community now is is is stronger that you know bundled. Communication. Yes, communication, and people want to see black wrestlers in that spotlight as well, too. Yeah, you know, that's why you have such the push on WWE, like, hey man, you got them, use them. Um as well, too. So, you know, now you see Jay Parker. That's what I'm about to say. Yeah, man. Lash and Lash Jackson. Yeah. Which, funny story, in 2015, I did do a WWE trial and Bianca was in my tryout.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Man, it's crazy. It's crazy. Wait, wait, wait. Where did you do your trial at? Where was that?

SPEAKER_05 53:17

At the performance center. Yeah. So it was what, two days, two days or so? It's it's brutal, man.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

It's very brutal. Can you I I'm gonna dive into this because I think we're gonna have a little bit more time. I want to dive into this. Um can you explain to the audience, because uh obviously with wrestling, it's a performance art. A lot of folks, because I mean, we grew up big wrestling in the family, everybody we love wrestling. Oh, yeah. Can you explain to them, and and I like this part of it now, the the emphasis on athleticism of it? Can you explain to people what it really is to do a workout and like how much athletic work you're really doing uh in the ring?

SPEAKER_05 53:55

Because they think it's just you just go like, yeah, man, I'm in great shape, and I'll run and I lift all this weight, and da-da-da-da-da. And I've seen like I've seen like Marines get in the ring and they go like I never forget, I never forget the first day at the performance center. Now, I will preface it by saying I had a full-blown asthma attack the first day. Oh. So the first day I didn't get to do too much of nothing.

SPEAKER_06 54:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:17

But there was these two brothers that were powerlifters.

SPEAKER_06 54:19

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 54:20

And they came in and they saw them, they said, hey, we're gonna bring them in. Two brothers that were powerlifters came in there. When we went to break for lunch, they said, okay, everybody here? Yeah. Put these two guys in. They said, if this, we're not coming back, they left. They just drove home. They lived in Florida, they drove up. They just said, yo, forget this. They drove home. They just like it, it's it's too much. Yeah. So a lot of people think, oh, I'm gonna wish I can get in and do it. It's just like, it's different. Like, yeah, cardio in the gym is different than cardio in the ring. Yeah, it's very different.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

That's what football players say that they try to come into and said, Oh, I thought I was good because I did two a days. No, not when you get into that ring.

SPEAKER_05 54:56

Yeah, not when you get in the ring and you it's a different type of having to like learn how to breathe in there. Yeah. As well, too. You know, football plays, it's that quick exertion of energy. You stop. You may get about 30, 45 seconds before the next play. Yeah. Yes, you're still tired, but you get like a little rest of it. You can breathe deeply, yeah. You're still going. You continuously. There's no timeout. You know, there's no max 25 minutes. That's straight 25 minutes. Yes, 25 minutes, it's still going, and it's a lot. And I have asthma too, so you know. What? Learning how to break-what? Yes, and learning how to breathe in the ring is different for me. You know, other guys they can just do a lot harder and they're good. Like, I gotta learn how to not exert as much energy to where I can't last in the ring as well, too. Got it. Um, and trust me, it sucks. You have those buildings, it's just super hot and muggy and human, it makes it hard to breathe. Yeah, that matters. Yeah, the the actual building is. So, so people go, oh man, I could do that easy. And I go, like, okay, yeah, come in here real quick. We'll see. I promise you. Like, I won't even have to touch you. I could just make you be like, you know what? No, I'm not doing this. Just by making them work. Yes, and as well, too. So uh, and then the athletic aspect of it is a lot of people get in here and it's just like they're clunky, you know. Yeah, you know, it's like robot movies. You gotta be fluid. And I always say that the dancer. Yeah, I just dancer and me, that's why a lot of guys are like, oh, this is a big guy, he can't, and then a nigga, like, wow, he moves so quickly and light on his feet. Yeah, that's from that, you know. And then of course, both my mom and my dad were athletics, so I got the genetics of that too. Yeah. So it's uh it's just different, man. It's just I'm beat up 16 years in, I got aches and pains, different things.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Well, just like any professional acting.

SPEAKER_05 56:36

Yeah, like I just certainly ways I gotta sleep so that I don't wake up sore and whatnot. And I'll have those moments where certain injury flares up. Like the most recent one that's been flaring up is my right shoulder. Yeah. From an AC joint sprain. And so it's been flaring up a little bit, and then it goes away. And then the next thing comes. So a good day for me is waking up going like, hmm, nothing hurts. Let's roll, let's do it. Let's do it. Good day. Yeah. As well, too. So, you know, it's a lot on the body as well, and then like just athletic-wise. You know, that's why now you see when these people get signed to the development for WWE, you they pretty much got some type of athletic background. Well, yeah, man. Football, volleyball, like the college recruiting thing is heavy now to have athletes who can get in there and do it, or that independent guy that's been doing it for some time that they like can come in and contribute as well, too. Um, you know, like I said, it's kind of hard for just some guy to come off the street and just be like, all right, I got it. Doing like that. Right. And they're gonna win like that. It doesn't work like that. Trust me, there's some people that try and they don't last long. Exactly. So it that's just just how it goes, man. Question.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

What is your favorite era of the WWE?

SPEAKER_05 57:48

My favorite era.

SPEAKER_03 57:50

Because we we were having this discussion the other night. We always had this because this is funny because we were talking about wrestling, but um, we always talk about like the different eras because people don't realize there's different eras because McMahon is different. Yeah, he changed the game.

SPEAKER_05 58:02

Yeah, you got the the golden era, which is up until about I want to say 92-ish or or so, or right up until WrestleMania 9, then you got the new generation. Yep. New generation. That's what we grew up with. Yeah, the new generation spans over into the roof is uh not roof, the uh attitude area. Attitude area spans over into the aggression area. Aggression area goes into the PG-13 area. That's what I did. And then PG-13 area kind of span, it's kind of like a black, like a black and white gray area. Yeah. Which is now spanning to modern. The modern, they call it the Paul Levek area, but yeah, as well, too. Um for me, of course, everybody's gonna say attitude area because that was like the peak. That was the peak. That was the peak. We were acting up, yeah. We were acting, they were acting up. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I will say that that area of uh the ruthless aggression going to the PG-13 area was was pretty cool. Yeah, some good athletes. Because if you go back, um especially that brand split, uh-huh, and you look at the smackdown side of it. Yeah, yeah, like Paul Heyman, shout out to him. Yeah, he was in charge of that because you know, he had the quote unquote smackdown six, which was Eddie and Chavo, Ray Edge, um Kurt Angle, and then the ill-fated Chris Benoit. So you had all those guys carrying like the workload. Yeah. Then you had the top guys, like Undertaker Brock, you know, carrying like Brock Lesnar. The top area. Yeah. And then you still had the cruiserweights doing their thing under, and then the tag team side of SmackDown was just dope. It's amazing. The SmackDown side of that, I I love and go back and watch that. There's a match, uh, that Saviris series in New York at the Garden where it's like Chavo Eddie, Ben Rock, Kurt, and then Kirk. Ray Mysterio and like a uh a little three-way tag match thing. And it's such an action pack of the SmackDown series. The entire time. Yes. Um, yeah, it's it's some dope stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:09

People flying around the like I said, those are athletes. Yeah. And I tell people like Attitude Air, we love Attitude Air because it's just smack talking. There was like kind of stuff we shouldn't be seeing on TV, especially not that time of day. Yeah. No, no, no, they just had no Valvinus.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:24

That Vat that uh Vince McMahon documentary, they were like, you know, at that point, we were like, yeah. Now you were like, you kind of pushed it a little bit. Yeah, you can't do none of that stuff. At that time, that little area between Rufus Aggression and PG, you know, especially with the SmackDown side and stuff, it was a reset and those guys were really going. And a lot of those guys had put the time in on the road before they got to WWE. Gotcha. So you you had a guy like Edge who had basically did like Canadian independence and U.S. independence and came in, and you had a guy like Ray who had traveled the world, the whole world. Traveled with Eric Eddie, same thing. Same thing. Kurt, who just was a freak of nature, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

Broken neck, still wrestling, craziness stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:08

And one thing about it is that for you know everything he's gone through, anytime I ever met Kurt, one of the sweetest guys. One of the crazy guys. That's what people say. It's crazy, right? I mean, you just it's just the fact of you know his struggles, uh-huh, but you every time he met people, he was just a nice, very sincere guy. I never had an off-putting interaction with Kurt.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:28

So Wow Dang, that's that's wild. Um question Have you ever met any of the wrestlers from the golden generation?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:39

Oh you know, being on different shows, conventions, you meet a lot of different people as well, too. I never forget meeting Booker T for the first time until I gotta meet Booker T. Telling him because he actually he's a part of one of my favorite matches that made me want to wrestle. Uh once again, it's kind of always ill to say this guy's name, but Benoit versus Booker T, Great American Bash, 98. That's probably one of my favorite matches. Uh meeting him and telling him that he just goes, Man, I love that match too. And then meeting his brother Stevie Ray, who was cool again.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:05

Oh, those two together were so awesome, man. The style, man. Because again, it was seeing us. Yeah, and then also another match is 92.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:12

Uh God, what is it? It's a WCW pay-per-view. Slambereed? No, that's lamboree. It'll come to me. But it was uh Juicen Dunner Liger versus Brian Pillman. I got to meet Juicen Duneliger before. This was before he officially retired. And then I wanted to meet in Brian Pillman's kid, who's now Leicester King in the WWE and W development. I met him and I said, Hey man, I just want to shake your hand and say your dad was one of the reasons I want to be a wrestler. And you can just see the smile on his face. Although he's trying to separate himself, he's he's also got to carry that legacy. And it's cool to see you know him getting in and taking in and going to a different level as well, too. So uh I got to meet Scott Hall before he passed, Cameron X pop. I met uh Randy Savage's brother um as well, too, which was cool. Uh also another thing a lot of people know is that I'm public, I got an author, I'm I'm an author, I got a book out of poetry.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

Talk about it.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:08

Uh and so meeting him, I told him about it, and he was like, you know, come here, let me tell you about this. And he just off the top of his head, he speaks this poem for like two minutes straight, and I just go like, You do that too? How did you do that off the top of your head? Like, I have to look and read something and whatnot, you know. But the genius was known for having those poems. Uh Met Vader got before he passed. I got to meet Hanson, who's one of my favorite, you know, foreign guys that wrestled in Japan. Yeah. As well, too. Um Rikishi met him. The list goes on the people I can say that I met.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:40

You really got to meet these people.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:42

Yeah. I can only I only got to meet one. It's like you get to see him like, you know, uh one uh D Lo Brown. I never forget meet him at TNA. And I I laughed because I took his lid drop. And I never forget seeing, I saw him at the show when we were talking, I said, yeah, man, I took your leg drop. He goes, Yeah, I saw that online. He goes, it's fine, you can have it. I was just like, Yes. Yeah. I was like, this is great. So it was like, you know, and uh D Lo, you know, from the time I was backstage at TNA helping out with them, you know, he would be on me about certain things, but not in a bad way of like, you need to be on your stuff. This is why as a yes, you know, as well too. So he was always a constant source of words of advice and encouragement as well, too. Um, but yeah, the list goes on and on to people that I could I could it'd take hours to name everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:31

I just want people to hear so that they know you have actually experienced it. Because I know my brother was telling me about you the first time they heard about you, and was telling me, he was like, yo, really, this guy like me, but he really he wrestled. I said, You playing around. He was like, no, no, no, seriously. He's like, I know you like wrestling. He's like, bruh, you know, yeah. And I was like, all right, I'll see when I believe it.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:50

Yeah, yeah. And that's a lot of people that like, yeah, man, we're okay, cool. Then you get that message, hey man, you really out here. Like, you really out here. Yeah. So it's kind of funny, like if a you know, homecoming, you know, Cyclone State, as uh as we record this is today.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:05

Yeah, and I know when I go, one of the first things that everybody sees, oh the hell, that's the right, you know how we be like, yeah, no, no, no, no. He really be like, Hey, come on, let me come on, man. Let's wrestle. They be bumping into you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

We overtaking. Relax.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:29

So then it's always funny, just getting that reaction now. It's with a lot of people, you know. Some people I see almost all the time, every time they say, Come on, man, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

It's like I'm relaxing right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:38

Little kids, like little kids in the family find out, and they be like, come on, let's wrestle, nobody. So you know that I don't have to bother them. That's why you just do the like the little head thing and you gotta be holding a little bit. Like, come on, fight back. And you like big over a little bit, you almost got it.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:52

No, man. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:55

All right, so one last question on this topic. What is your favorite? Um, what is your favorite character or stage name that you've had?

SPEAKER_05 1:06:03

Oh man, I think currently the thing right now is that's the one that's got the most notoriety behind it. There's the real big hurdle pro wrestling, DeAndre Jackson.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:12

Dang, that's dope. I like what people, because I like because for instance, people don't realize that as you come up, like you're telling them, you'll have different jobs that you got, different roles you gotta play. And you'll change those roles up. But I always tell people, like, for instance, you were telling us about Shook D, and I'm just being nosegul and looking at all his different alter egos. Oh, yeah. It was like, wow, like all the different nicknames and stuff. He has Barack O Jama, Hot Chocolate, Master of the Sizable Package, Monster Avery. Like, you gotta look at all this stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:37

This is just nicknames because I've known I've known Sug I've known Sug since I started. You know, Suge D uh out of Georgia. Uh I never forget he had like a little time in Puerto Rico. He got a chance to go to Japan. I never forget I was too much. Japanese wrestling's crazy. I used to, he went over there to work for the Jerry's promotion he had at the time. And I never forget, I had that match on video and I was like, that's the coolest thing in the world. Like he got to go. That's like in the world of wrestling, when somebody goes, I went to Japan. That's a big deal. That's like the big thing. That's like that's like, hey man, it's like, hey man, I got a placement, I got a placement with like a major artist. Yep. I got a placement, I got a placement with such this word. Yeah, I wanted to Japan. Because we don't know, they don't understand. It's like it's like it's like a different level. Back in the day, that was like the thing. If you moved to Japan, you the main guy as well too. Uh so he had this time in Japan, and just off of a whim, he just moved to England. Like, he just went over to England and stayed and trained and lived like had a had an apartment in England. Like, just I don't know. He's not the first guy I known that's done it. Another dude named Jonathan Gresham that wrestles for uh Impact, his wife is uh Jordan Grace.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:52

He did the same thing. You know, he had a chance to go stay in the dojo in Japan. He went and did it. Oh he went to England and he was over to England for the longest. So Shook D did the same thing. He went over to England, got the experience, got the notoriety as well, too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:08

And he got to build a name.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:09

He built the name over there, and then he came back. And when he came back, he was kind of in this gray area of like, okay, I'm used to being over there and I had all this. And I'm back over here trying to rebuild this. And he rebuilt his name back over here as well, too. He's like the only guy that I know of currently in the independence that has literally came out to an RB song and had the crowd wanting to kill him. You done did your job. What was the song? Raven, uh God, Raven, her song was Sticky. Uh-huh. I can't remember the name of it, but it's a Raven something, but it's spelled like R-A-V-Y-N. And he came out today. And I wonder the song is cool. Raven Lanay. There we go. Raven Lanay Sticky. He came out today. That's his entry. Now, that's an RB song. Yeah, it is. Yeah, that's straight R and V. But people want to kill him because how he's coming out. And then also now he uses, I want to say it's a McGuil song currently now. Don't tell my wife. Yeah. And it's just like. Oh boy, she can't know this. But yeah, he's just, but you know, Suge's just, and this is me giving flowers to Sugar as well, too. So if he gets to see this, this is hey, it is what it is. Like, I know Suge for the longest, and Suge is just one of those guys. And, you know, he's the second, only the second, you know, world asper champion. The first was Trisha Dora. And she helped that 2019 until probably within the last year, year and a half. Uh-huh. And defended it through the the the uh pandemic. You ain't lying. And he's the current champ. Yep. So, you know, that's a big shoes to feel when you're a recognized world champ, and you know, you've got to make that title mean something. Wow. So, you know, shout out to Should D. You know, and then and then the controlling body of that wouldn't give him that opportunity, they ain't believing. So, you know. Man.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:56

Shout out to Should D. Shout out, man. Wow, that's impressive as heck, man. Um one last thing before we leave, I know wrapping up. One asked you about, because you've already been talking about building a brand. I'm happy that you went into that because um the importance of increasing value and establishing your name.

unknown 1:10:14

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:14

I know from you being a producer, even with your journey with wrestling, and you telling us and explaining to us how those other folks were doing that and why it's so important. I think this is something that our community and the folks that are listening to, they need to hear. And I always like to bring up this um there's a interview with uh David Banner explaining why increasing your value is important with whatever you're doing so that people will take you seriously and at the same time, what especially if you're doing positive things, right? Right, that people would understand that you know what, I can do it the right way. I don't have to sell myself short, and I can be able to live and survive. Can you explain why it's so important in your mind for you to increase your value in your business despite hardships and et cetera?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:59

I like the one part of that you said, you know, being taken serious. Yeah, and it makes me think of the Tyler's creator statement where he goes, like, you know, I was out somewhere and this dude walked up to me and said, Hey man, you did a dude for that skit. And he was just like, I just composed a streamline, like you didn't listen to this? And that's when he was like, you know what? Done being funny. Y'all gonna hear my music. So getting taken serious, putting you all into that brand, you know, as well. Too. That's a lot. This thing that we carry around with us all day. I was telling some girl about it. I said, This right here is your editing equipment. This right here is your marketing. I was just like, how many dudes be in the club with the picture of them doing the standard poser, looking down? Yeah, and it's some caption from some trap zone, just you know, whatever. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. You know, or you make a TikTok. It's the same thing. You learn how to edit. It's like MySpace. We knew how to code from MySpace, and we missed out, we missed out on the six-figure, six-figure job. Stop playing it. You know, we knew how to do it then. We just lost the way of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:15

That phone is your most valuable thing when it comes to branding yourself. Within wrestling, I'll just take random footage, I'll find a song that I like, current big song, whatever, and I'll just edit a little minute video to the song.

unknown 1:12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:31

Putting in the time. I'm putting in the time, but that's to build the brand, that's for people to see what I do. Gotcha. Right there. It's I was telling a girl that I was like, it kind of irks me that you go on some of these guys' page and you just got a picture of them throwing a punch, flyer. Or, hey, I'm I'm going here. All right, where's the highlight clip? Oh, I get you. Where's where's that? Where's your move?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:55

You don't have to pay a studio now. Where's your where's your move?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:58

Where's your big move at? What's the big move that you do that people need to see? I go to people, go to places now, they go, you the dude that pop-up German. Yeah, I saw no. Yeah, I seen it. I seen it. I seen it. It's like, yeah, because I put it out there for you to constantly see, so you it's ingrained in your head that you know that's the move. So when you see the setup for it, you know it's coming. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, it's there as well, too. Like my homeboy said, Man, you should call it a mass appeal out like off a gangstar. And I was just like, Yeah, it's cool or something else, but it doesn't work because just leaving it the pop-up German, the brand name for the announcer to do it, they're waiting for the hit. So how they pronounce it is according to how it hits it. So they go, it's the pop-up German when it hits. Yep. You can't you can't go, it's the man.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

So it doesn't it doesn't hit the science. I see.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:52

Leaving it that. So there's it's a business. It's that building that brand, constantly having some different footage. Even if you gotta re use recycled footage, right? Put it in a different order. Yeah, or just I sometimes I'll just put like a random clip of just me hitting the move. Oh. Bam. It doesn't gotta be my popular German, but it's just something for people to constantly see uh I the action, uh huh, what I do. Or I'll put up a clip of me just going back and forth with somebody. It's the entertainment factor. Like, oh it's the same thing with music. You go to these artists' pages now, and this is what irks me. People can jump on my DMs, one of the words, go to their page, it's 10 posts, no music. It's a picture of them, picture of the studio, yeah, flyer first, show them. Where's your music? Where's the clip? Where's you in the studio? Just you just record the song, he's playing it, he's mixing it, and you just wrap it to the music so I can kind of see and know. I don't why you only got five pictures on your page? Why are you deleting everything to restart? You're building a brand. You go to my page, it's a beat. Yep. Or I got a little anime video with one of my beats. To give you something to do. You can go in there and you can hear the different stuff that I got. Man. It's it's kind you gotta put, you don't have to give everything, but you gotta give something for these people to know.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:17

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:17

You're not gonna just say, hey man, I got this cool product. Where is it? You gotta come over here and see it. Right. I'm not gonna come over there and see it. Right. You market stuff. How do they get us to come to these events? They market them. Yep. You know, how do they get you to watch the TV show?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:34

They market it. Yep. Yeah. See, you know, the other thing, you're talking about marketing and working on your brand and anything like that. And you're talking about like the emotional connection behind that. You're not talking about logos, you're not talking about terminology, like it's it's the personality behind your brand that you're talking about. And that's I gotta compliment you on that because that's the that's that real nugget behind brand and marketing.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:02

Uh I don't know what company I work for. He said, Oh, they don't buy from this person, they buy from the company. No, they buy from the person. Yeah, yeah. The person makes them come in to buy from the company. And if the person isn't there, do you think that people want to come buy from them? That's who they like to go. If someone likes to buy turkey sandwiches for me on Thursdays, yeah. If I'm not working on the Thursday, they may or may not come in. Because they like how I make their turkey sandwich. That's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:30

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:30

You know, it was it's uh the uh I got my guy at the Waffle House that makes the eggs perfect.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:36

This is TV, it's a TV show, Hey Arnold, where Mr. Wynn is trying to be the head chef of the taco restaurant. And it was like, he's not good to be a chef, he doesn't even know how to make a taco. He puts this in there and this first. It's just like everybody knows his stuff isn't good. Everybody knows that his stuff is better. So that's what they want to roll with, you know? Yeah. If people are gonna want to go work with somebody over here that they can see and know he's putting in the work and know that he's gonna give that all, you know, people will jump at the opportunity to work with some people because they go like, oh man. Like, people are gonna jump to work with Metro before they work with somebody else because they can see his brand and know what they're getting. And I gonna work with Joe Smoe, who working at his house, they never see nothing from him. They don't know what he's got. You know, that's why I constantly have something, constantly having stuff for people to listen. This is why, you know, even with Kil, hey Kill, that's what I just did, man. I always got something on my phone that I can play. Ready? Got him angry. Make him angry, too. You never know, yeah. You never know when the opportunity you got the elevator pitch. What's your elevator pitch be? This right here. You staying ready and always having that available. So when you go into a room, people go like, hey man, this the dude I was telling you about. You built your brand. Bam. Right here. I can't tell you how many opportunities I've got in so many different avenues of life just because it's, hey man, this dude right here, I know him. And he's good at having some proof of concept. Having a proof of concept. Or proof of concept. Like, hey man, this dude right here, good. Was he good? Yes. Here's here's I can tell you. Boom. Is what too. So it's that's one big thing is like artists nowadays, have real content on your page. Thank you. Because people, you want people to come check you out. Not everybody wants to go to your YouTube or to your SoundCloud or to your Apple or Spotify. Instagram, TikTok is the way to feature. Yeah. That minute videos all that minute video, and you gotta catch them quickly. It's gotta be catching as well, too. You know, the beats gotta be kicking right there. It's gotta be at that point that you want people to stay. Because the attention span is short nowadays. Very short, that's why right now. That's why TikTok videos and Instagram videos connect with people. You know, we send each other 20 memes a day. I got people that all we do is send each other memes. Yeah, we're in a meme relationship.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:59

What do you do? I just send videos to the person. That's all I do. I just send them stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:02

Because those videos click. We we won't watch the video 10 times and somebody sent it. Yeah, I just saw that. You know, that's the way of the future. That's how music gets out there now. You know, that's how people are getting deals. How do you think that some of these songs blow up? You think about sexy red? How many girls are singing that song, any song of hers before they go out? Yep. Get ready so they can get that torque.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:24

They're getting their torque knees ready. Glow Rilla, hopefully. Glow Rilla, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:28

They're singing all her songs now. Yeah. 95 degrees all the time. F and F. That was that was the big thing girls would be doing. Girls would I saw one girl, she had a video talking about she was singing a song, but she had subcaptions about how that although the person is okay now, they she remembers when they still did you wrong, so F them. But she was using the song to get that point across. Oh wow. You know, it's done now. So I just want to say I just saw an Instagram video where they said like radio is replaced by TikTok and Instagram. Yeah. Because we used to go to radio to listen for that new hot song. Very true. Yeah. Now we go to Instagram and TikTok listening for the hot new song.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:06

Then you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta Shazam and you gotta find what it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:10

You shazam and then the Shazam leads to another link. How many times you how many times you went on a video on Instagram and you hear a song? You're like, that sounds cool. Then you go to the comments, well, who made the song? You gotta go searching through who made the song. Yeah. How we discover music is through social media nowadays. It used to be the radio, now it's social media. Yep. So you don't have your music up there. What are you doing? If you've got music and you're not putting up Instagram and TikTok so I get a wave forming, wasting your time.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:35

Now you don't have to wait for somebody to notice you. You can start throwing it out. Make your own way.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:39

Make your own wave.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:40

Marketing is the way of the future. You take them butterfly wings and start flapping them.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:46

You're your marketing now. Like it used to be you want to get signed because you want to have that deal to get marketing. You want to have a machine. You're the machine. Yeah. You're the machine. I I heard it was DJ Tuck T. It was DJ Tuck T said, you know, all this music is just sitting on so all the streaming sites that a lot of people don't listen to. It's like nobody's listening to the music. You mean you don't even believe in your own music to go back and listen to it?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:10

Play play.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:11

You know what I mean? That was one of the things I like to say. Just take yourself, just play it. Just play it. Like play, good, good video.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:17

Use it, use the marketing, come up with something funny. Like and use the music. Like there's a thing now that people will have the voiceover from something else and they're doing it, but they have their song way low in the background. Playing. Playing. So the viral clip is going on, but their music is in the background. So somebody uses their that specific audio.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:42

That's deviously. That music is getting playing and getting shot over thing. And it will display the audio and let people search and find it. Yes, yeah. That's that's working the algorithm, then.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:52

Like in this age of 2024, almost 2025, there's no reason why you should not be using social media to market yourself to build your brand. I should be able to go to your page and know who you are, what your music stands for, how you how you get down. Immediately. Immediately. You know, it's it's phone, they're making phones now with cinematic features on it. Full editing features. You can make a little mini film off of your phone now.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:19

Yep. And people be buying these phones. Cap Cut. Oh my God. Apple, you have iMovie. Drop drop them.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:28

And they're cheap.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:29

And then they're cheap. iMovie's what, 10, 20 bucks?

SPEAKER_05 1:22:33

iMovie comes with your phone. For free. If you if you want the extra, then you pay for that shit. But iMovie, you only do what you could do. Cap Cut. They don't probably not gonna say this. But if you use the pro editing features on it, you can use them. You just can't save it unless you pay it. But if you screen record. Well, you're dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:52

You're dangerous. Wait, you better get us in trouble. Wait, you're dangerous. No, wait. There is nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:56

There is no there is nothing illegal about doing things the way they supposed to.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:01

But ladies and gentlemen, you have the ability to build your brand in a different way. You don't need the machine. All the machine. That's why I said that phone that you carry in your pocket that you call 20 different people on it. You post all these pictures with the captions and delete all the popping bubbles. Doing some bull. Come on, you can use it. Just it get with it. You know, people say, well, I'm not deliberating. Yes, you are. Yeah. If you can make a TikTok and Instagram, you can make you can make footage. Yeah. It's not that hard. You YouTube University, good guy. Like in this. I give you that. If you learn how to fix stuff around your house, you can learn how to edit footage on your phone. You can learn about different things in music. I can't tell you how many times I've been confused about something, and I went in YouTube university to get the information. It's out there. We live in a different age of media, a different way to get news now. Like, how many times have you found about something via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter? That is the news feed, man. It's the news feed. It is the news feed. And that causes you to go research. You find out something. What was the big thing now that just popped on social media? Everybody's trying to figure out if it's true or not. Is GlowRilla really pregnant? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:15

If everybody's been trying to figure out, like, how did she go from this?

SPEAKER_05 1:24:19

Yeah, and everybody's losing their mind. Yeah, they are. But you see how fast the news spreads, man. You know, how fast the news spread about DJ Clark Kent? We just lost him. It spread like wildfire. Yeah, they didn't even get a chance. Like the original the poster said like weeks ago they said, oh, we lost him. And somebody said, no, he's still here. Yeah, they went early. And then just today, it was just like, hey, now it was out. Yeah. Now it's out. It spreads fast. The way the news spreads fast. So use this new thing called social media for some of y'all in a positive way. You know? Right. You know, you want to be taken seriously, musician. Why are you getting a spasm about all this crazy stuff? Yep. There's so much wealth of knowledge on the social media tip. There's so much opportunity on the social media tip. You can get discovered on the social media tip. What was that uh the one guy, J. Cole just went on YouTube and typed in J. Cole Type Beat. And this is true. He typed in J. Cole Type Beat. And the first one he popped up, he grabbed it, recorded to it, sent it to the guy and said, Hey, you can do whatever you want with that. Tyler, even Tyler Crater goes, like, hey, I be watching. Y'all don't think I'm watching, but I'll be watching. Do you know the group, Paris, Texas? Yeah. Do you know them?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:36

I didn't know him. I didn't know him until Tyler Career announced that he was going on tour with him.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:41

That's the only reason why I knew about him was because of him.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:43

Exactly. But I didn't know before then. Yeah. But guess what? Follow him on social media. That group of people that knew about them, going like, now y'all get to see. Now y'all get to see. But once again, that's Tyler keeping his ears close to the Tyler. Teezo touchdown. I didn't know about him before. Until that, until that tour. Then I was like, oh, okay. Is it my cup of tea? No. But at the same time, now exactly. Now I will give him credit.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:11

His verse on Run It Up was dope. Yeah. He's very invented. I'm telling you like he's talking about making artwork in the music. That's what he does.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:17

Are we getting ready for like a new golden era of music since some of this business is being sent back to the artists themselves? Like, is this about to explode?

SPEAKER_05 1:26:26

We're now at that point where I don't need a major people to put out music. Right. If you got a distro kid or United Masters, you can put your music out. Yeah, Universal still gets their cut. Yeah, but you're covered. But you get to put your music out. And now we're back. Now see his kicker. Now we're back at the point of record and vinyl tapes. Yeah. CDs.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:47

Yeah. And now it has a value.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:48

It has a value. And uh Sarah to Il, producer on Instagram, shout out to her. She just put the thing together where she had a beat tape that she put out on the vinyl record.

unknown 1:26:58

Shh.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:59

You know, and now you go to these independent rap shows, guys got tapes and CDs. Actual cassette tapes. Yeah. That's always an odd word meme, man. So the vinyl makes sense. So we get we're getting back to that age of actual physical media. Yeah. You can own the media. And guess and you own the media. You own it. You own it. Reclaim doesn't own it. So if I sell this for $10, guess what? I keep all I can keep all 10 if I want to, or I could take half of that and invest it back to buy more.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:27

Yep. Yeah.

unknown 1:27:28

You know.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:29

Flipping the game. Or even so, the packages now. Tyler Creator just announced on his new album, Carnacopia, he's got these box bundles. So it comes with like a hoodie or t-shirt. The vinyl media.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:39

It gives back an album art.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:40

It brings back the album art. It brings you back sitting there and Yep. Let me read the lyrics. Read the lyrics. Yeah. Yeah. We're getting so are we getting mad to go to age? I hope so. Does that make people go back and actually start coming up with concept albums and putting their time into it and actually making it? I mean, think about this. Possibly. When Tyler Creator dropped Call Me If You Get Lost, that was probably one of the best albums at that time. Because it was just such a different aspect. Yeah. It brought back to that old feel of mixtape to feel too with DJ Drama. Yeah. Yeah. So it made for people who grew up on them DJ Drama mixtapes, you made you go like, ooh. Yeah. You know, you feel the tingle. Yeah. He gave you that tingle as well too. And you know, the aspect of people putting in time and really uh thinking out the album, thinking out the marketing schemes as well, too. Like School Boy Q, his marketing for everything he did with Blue Lips. Wow. Everything that Tyler Craig was doing now with Chrono Copia. Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:40

He even held it to make sure he released it properly.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:43

Yeah. It's the people being allowed to be creatively free. There you go. That's that's the big thing. You know, we we, you know, I was watching that documentary on Michael Jackson where he's talking about how Arthur Wild was the first album as a single solo artist. He was allowed to be creatively free. Oh, that's a good point. Because you think about all the other ones. Daddy, team with Gordy. Yeah, everything. Even with the Jacksons and his sing his first, because people look at Author Wild as like his first debut album. It's not. You got like Ben, you got like five other stuff. Yeah, he was putting out, yeah. He was dropping stuff early. But Author Wall was like the first chance for him to be creatively free. Yeah. And it just only progressed. So that created that creative freedom to really put the time in with it. You know, like Lupe said, I forgot what album it was. He said that he was trying to do one thing one way. So he said, Yo, y'all just give me, he told the regular, give me all that stuff that y'all want me to do.

unknown 1:29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:42

And he took all the stuff, and he did his other stuff too. But he did all their stuff. All the stuff they wanted, but he did it his way. And they were just like, mm, we don't know. He says why did it, which I want. That's what you wanted. And so he did his stuff his way. And they was like, well, we like this better. They wouldn't release it. But I tried to told y'all. It's it's you you know you know you. You know what's best for you. I don't know what you're allergic to.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:06

There you go.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:07

So if I'm giving you strawberries and you're allergic to strawberries, you're like, that's gonna kill them. I'm like, nah, man, just want it. It's fine, it's fine. It's fine. Trust me.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:13

Everybody eats these. Everybody eats these.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:14

It's healthy.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:15

It's a natural fruit. Yeah. It's funny you say that because I actually work with somebody, they are allergic to strawberries. I always try to feed them strawberries, Batika. I always try to feed this girl strawberries.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:24

Yeah, you try to feed them strawberries and then it kills them. Like, you know what's best for you. I don't know what's best for you. You know creatively where you want to go. Yep. And you know what you know your fan base. And like I said, now in this age, we don't need the machine to get out there. If you're true, if you're genuine. Got a machine. If you're stuffed, if yeah, you need that machine. But if you're true and you're genuine and your stuff it reaches, it makes sense. How we talked about earlier, then guess what? You'll have a following. I got a dude in Germany. If I get on live at the right time, he's on live. He's like, oh man, I'm here. I'm here. Wow. But I guess that the music I do touches him in a certain way. Exactly. And that's for a lot of people, you know. Whoever thought that some young boy out of Spark, South Carolina, would make music that would reach Germany. I didn't. Oh, right. That's dope. So it's it's you know, we're in that age now to where, man, do you, be you. Love it. It it doesn't hurt to be genuine. It doesn't. And that's just not just within the creative world. It's in the world, period. Oh, yeah. In the world as crazy as it is now, especially with the election. Man, just be genuine, be nice. Yeah. Because that goes a long way. You that that you had to show, hey man, I really enjoyed that five minutes. You might have talked to somebody. Yeah. That might have gained you 25 new followers. Because they're gonna go tell somebody, it's gonna tell somebody, it's gonna tell somebody.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:42

Speaking of which, we're gonna wrap up. But before we do, you have to drop your social media and how people can go and check your stuff out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:52

So uh music-wise, Carolina Beats, uh, all digital streaming platforms. You can find my first project, Creative Masterpiece, uh, the follow-up Cosm Road Trip, uh, Carolina Beats Volume 1 and Volume 2, and the instrumentals, which is uh basically some beats that I had that I was working on for my next project that I like, but I didn't feel like fit what I wanted to go with, Sonic. So I just didn't delete them. Didn't delete them. I just dropped them. And there's a couple other singles tracks on there as well, too. Um you can tell stuff that's earlier in the career versus now because of how everything sounds. Yes. Progression. Yeah, yeah. Uh and then uh Carolina Beats 864 YouTube. That's the page on YouTube that I actually post to myself personally. Gotcha. Uh TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, uh, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Yes. All of them Carolina beats Carolina with a K, Beats with a Z. Yes. You gotta remember, I always tell people with a K, beats with a Z beats with a Z with a Z. Just have that difference. Uh Wrestling Wise, uh TBHD Jackson on Instagram and uh Twitter X, it is now. Twitter, X. Uh DeAndre Jackson Facebook page as well too. Uh if you search DeAndre Jackson Wrestler, you can find some stuff on YouTube as well too. That's people got stuff from all over the place.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:14

I was about to say, yeah, it's just stuff from different eras, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:18

It's just different stuff from different eras, you know, scaling back to when I first started up to now. So it's it's a lot up there as well too.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:26

Um making content.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:28

Making content. And then of course, you know, booking wise uh music stuff, uh Big Dre Carolina Beats at gmail.com. Shout out to my brother, my manager Wenton. And partner uh Wesley as well too. Uh we just staying at it and really work with anybody, man, and just having fun with this thing and just you know learning and growing as I go. Um you can find me in a short movie I did with a group of people called The Good, the Bad and the Lucky. Shout out to WordPlay Luck and his crew, Winter 97 back home in Spartan Burke. The Good, the Bad and the Lucky? The Good, the Bad and the Lucky. He that was based off of an album he did. It's very 70s type film. We did it as a black exploitation. It's roll dope. Um, shout out to his producer, Daysum 85, who's also a talented musician. He just dropped another project. He just did three projects in the span of like a year, as well as producing for other people as well, too. So he's just full-time in it. Dizzy. Oh man, uh you he'll have dropped, somebody helped somebody dropped the project and he's always working on the next thing. And I go like, dude, how? Like, yeah, he's a non-stop machine. So days on 85, Wordplay Luck, that whole winter 97 crew swank as well, too. Uh shout out to Snook. We recorded something else on waiting for them to officially announce that as well, too. So uh, but yeah, uh just staying busy, staying at it, staying at, just learning, growing, and thankful for the opportunities that I get as well too. And thankful to meet people and meet legends, you know. Like I said, you know, meeting Dame Grease and him actually, you know, knowing me and go like, hey man, what's going on? How you meet me? Like, you and people go like, who's Dame Grease? I should smack you right now. You know, that's DMS's original.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:15

I said, Make sure I wasn't crazy when you said that.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:17

You really ain't lying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:19

Good grace.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:20

And I got the opportunity to meet Lars Professor. Yeah. That was a funny. Did we have time to tell the story real quick? No, we can't. Hold it, save it. We'll save it. We'll save it. Save it for next next time.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:32

We'll save it for next time. Because we're we're gonna get you on again because we went long. We're gonna get you on again. Okay. Um, but yeah, yeah. Say that one for next time. Oh, yeah. Um, man, I'm telling you like this because I was looking at your clips, man. You are fast.

unknown 1:35:43

Right?

SPEAKER_03 1:35:44

This is a quick man. Lord Jesus. I don't want to get hit by you. Um wrapping up, my name is DJ and what? I'm Mike. Skip. And our esteemed guest. Carolina Beach, man. Please make sure you check out, follow, subscribe to the stuff they has going on. Go check out some of the wrestling content. And until the next time with Hilltop Glove Podcast, tell somebody next to them that you love them, that you appreciate them, that you care for them. Peace.