Mixed and Mastered
Mixed and Mastered is the podcast where the untold stories of the music industry come to life. Hosted by Jeffrey Sledge, a veteran music executive and former VP of A&R at Atlantic Records and Jive Records, each episode dives deep into the journeys, challenges, and triumphs of the people shaping the sound of today. From label executives and producers to artists, songwriters, and managers, Jeffrey brings you behind the scenes to meet the minds driving the industry forward. There’s a gap in the marketplace for these voices, and Mixed and Mastered is here to fill it—one conversation at a time. Because the best stories are told by those who lived them.
Mixed and Mastered
Best Of...
In this special Best Of episode, Jeffrey Sledge celebrates the first 25 episodes of Mixed and Mastered by revisiting three unforgettable moments that capture the soul of the series. From Faith Newman’s raw, hilarious, and inspiring stories of being one of the first five employees at Def Jam, to Joseph Patel’s emotional journey from Sundance to Oscar night (yes, that Oscars), to Grace Harry’s behind-the-scenes insight into managing Usher during a pivotal career transformation—these are the stories that show just how much grit, vision, and vulnerability it takes to shape the music industry from the inside.
If you've been riding with us, thank you. If you're just tuning in, this episode is the perfect place to start. Welcome to Mixed and Mastered.
Mixed and Mastered is produced and distributed by Merrick Studio, and hosted by music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to the discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @MixedandMasteredPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://mixedandmasteredpod.buzzsprout.com/
It's Jeffrey Sledge, and I just want to start by saying thank you to each and every one of you who has been supporting these first 25 episodes of Mixed and Mastered. When we started this show, I wanted to sit down with people I respected and never got to hear their side of the story Execs, designers, producers, writers, people who have shaped the culture with some of the biggest artists in music and the love we've gotten back, man, it's been overwhelming. In the best way, you've let me know that these conversations matter and they resonate. Recording these episodes have been so much fun Laughs inside talk, old stories being dropped and hearing from my colleagues. Today we've done something a little different. It wasn't easy, but I've picked three of the many moments that have stuck with me, starting with Faith Newman. She takes us back to the wild early days of Def Jam, where she was one of the first five employees. Joseph Patel relives the chaos of the slap heard around the world, which was the night he won an Oscar. And finally, grace Harry drops the story of stepping into Usher's world and helping make him the superstar that he is today. This is Mixed and Mastered Best of.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Mixed and Mastered, a podcast where the stories of the music industry come to life. I'm Jeffrey Sledge, bringing you real conversations with the people who have shaped the sound of music. We're pulling back the curtain on what it takes to make it in the music business. These are the stories you won't hear anywhere else, told by the people who live them. This is Mixed in Master. So how did you get to Def Jam?
Speaker 1:You came up to be a student.
Speaker 2:Yes, I came up to be a student. Yes, I came up to be a student, but you know, my goal was to be in the music industry, you know, like not as an intern, but full, you know, and I started by. This is a weird story. Ok, so I I modeled when I first came to New York.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:And you know some print work, advertising stuff, whatever. And I did a show. I did a fashion show at Studio 54, which wasn't like it was in the old days, but they were still having events there and this guy my mom was there with me. And this guy comes up to me afterwards and he's like you know, my name is steve kipico, I'm a music attorney, because, oh, they had asked the girls who are, who are in the show, what they wanted to do with their life and I said I want to be in the music business. So he said, if you ever have any questions or whatever you know, come to me and I'll you know. And it wasn't like I didn't get a skeevy kind of vibe from him, which turned out to be correct, cause he never was, because we stayed friends for many years. He got me an internship at select records.
Speaker 1:Wow, fred Mineo.
Speaker 2:Fred Mineo. So that was you know. Whistle UTFO Real Roxanne.
Speaker 1:Was Kidding Play there at the time.
Speaker 2:Not yet.
Speaker 1:Okay, they weren't there yet Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, this was like. This was like the summer of 86.
Speaker 3:Okay, I want to say Okay.
Speaker 2:Um, so I did that, and then Steve, and then, and then there's such weird stories. I go to a party with Steve for Billy Ocean's Platinum Record Party. It was a Jive Records party. And so Barry would have been there. I don't know if Clive would have been there.
Speaker 1:Probably.
Speaker 2:And that's where I met gary harris. And gary harris was, like you know, we just started talking about music and he was like I don't even know, like where do you come from? Like you know, I don't understand, who are you? You know? And um, he said you know, you should, I I'm looking in. My internship at Select is ending, I'm looking to get another internship, and he suggested that I reach out to his friend at Columbia Records who was doing promotion. At the time. I turned 21 and I had this big party and Houdini was there and Run DMC was there and the Beastie Boys were there. It was pretty awesome, yeah. And so I started an internship at Columbia Records, which was very enlightening.
Speaker 1:And now, who did you work under?
Speaker 2:I worked under a woman named Gail Bruzwitz who did a dance club promotion.
Speaker 1:Okay, and just give me a little brief overview how you liked it.
Speaker 2:You know, I stuffed envelopes and I kept my ears and my eyes open. Yeah, no, I mean the company was run by, you know, white men strictly, and women were relegated to assistance or PR, and Gail was the only woman in the promotion department, and so I can't even imagine what she had to deal with.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, it was. It was a different when I, when I um, I left Wild Pitch and I went to Chrysalis Records, which was Billy Idol and Pat Benatar, and it was a pretty much a rock label yeah but it was the same thing. It was like white dudes. It was the same thing rock and roll like white dudes and the women were assistants. And there was a woman in PR and I still remember her name, frances Pennington, because Frances actually was the guy from Tia Sophia's girlfriend but it was the same energy that that was the record business.
Speaker 2:back then it was like that was totally the record business back then and I had to deal with getting hit on by the you know the 40 something guys in the, you know, in the promo department and he cause you remember you got to think that those guys started out in the seventies, right, cause 86 is so like 10 years apart from 76 and you could just you know, like they, whatever was going on back, that they carried it through okay they're through exactly, and uh and walter yetnikoff had actually just left when I got there, so I'm sure that would have been interesting yeah, so tell me how you get from that to now.
Speaker 1:Let Let me tell the people, because I don't know if you want to say this, but you were one of the first five employees of Def Jam Records.
Speaker 2:That's correct.
Speaker 1:That's insane.
Speaker 2:That's, yes, that's literally insane.
Speaker 1:They're like no, you were there, you were like Crush, groove or whatever. Like you were literally there at the beginning, like when all that you know what they show in the movie, like in the, from the dorm room to the, to the thing and all that.
Speaker 2:You were like literally there for all of that, so tell us about that um, so I, so you know, just to backtrack real quick, I, you know, I, I my internship was was ending with with columbia, and my last day my internship, gail took me in her office and said you know, do yourself a favor and get out of this business. It's no place for women.
Speaker 2:She was crying, I mean it's just like she's like, they'll like eat you alive, and you know? Try to find something else to do with your life. Wow, I'm like. You know, I'm 20 years old.
Speaker 1:I'll be, I'll be alright.
Speaker 2:I'll be alright, don't worry about me, I got this, I got this yeah you know so. So then, like Steve came through again and he said look, I have got you an interview with Charles Huggins at Hush Productions. Wow, interview with Charles Huggins at Hush Productions wow, charles and Bo Huggins. Charles and Bo Huggins. So I think it was to be an assistant to Hank Talbert.
Speaker 1:I didn't know Hank Talbert and so I went.
Speaker 2:I did the interview. They wanted to hire me. The day before I was supposed to go back to meet Charles. Um, I came home from class you know, I was still at NYU. I came home from class. There's a note on the refrigerator said Rick Rubin called wow. I was like. I said to my roommate I was like, is this a joke? And he said no, I don't think so. He said it sounded for real. So I called the number slowly and rick, you know how he has that way of speaking.
Speaker 2:He's like uh, hello. And I'm like this is you know, faith Newman? And you know I called. He said yep, we need some more people at Def Jam and we want to hire you. I was like OK, you bet. Ok, yeah, you know. And he said do you want to know how much you're going to make? I don't care, like OK you. And he said do you want? To know how much you're going to make.
Speaker 1:I don't care, I'm like, I'll pay you Exactly I was broke, but I was like I'll pay you what was out.
Speaker 2:at that time, my dad sent me $50 a week.
Speaker 1:That was like my Was LL out at that time Was the LL out. At that time Was that album out, the first album.
Speaker 2:The first album. The first album, yeah, but the Beasties no the Beasties had just put out License to Film just okay, wow, wow, that's crazy and Public Enemy the first album, the first album.
Speaker 2:So it's funny. So he's like well, come see me at the office and we can talk about what you're going to be doing and stuff. And so I go see him and you know he's like I was talking, you know, because I was I was also, you know, club kid. So I was at Black Quarter and I was at Union Square, I was at Rooftop and I was at all those places and I used to go to Music Factory to get my records. And he was just like where's I going with this? Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So I said I was talking about like new hip hop stuff that was coming out and he was like, yeah, I'm not really, I'm in a different place right now. I'm more into like rock stuff right now. So that's what. Like he, like we had already, like he was such a visionary I gotta say I mean this was, you know, this was early 87 and he was already like moving on to like Danzig and Slayer and all the stuff that he was doing at that time. Wow, yeah, Wow. So this was April of 87 and my first day at Def Jam was June 1st 1987.
Speaker 1:And who were the other four employees? Do you remember?
Speaker 2:Sure yeah, dave Funkin Klein Dave. That was my guy. That was my guy, man I loved him. George Solmers.
Speaker 1:I didn't know him.
Speaker 2:Bill Steffning, lindsay Williams.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And Don Greco Okay.
Speaker 1:I didn't know her. I know three out of the five. Okay, so how was it like starting a small label like that? That became obviously a powerhouse.
Speaker 2:It was amazing. I mean, we worked in a shitty little office like on the second floor, 298 Elizabeth Street, which had no heat and no air conditioning, and I would complain to Russell I'm like it's so cold in here I don't know what to do. He's like go home. That was still Russell, yeah, but it was like the time of my life. I got to say it was funny, because people would come from around the world to def jam um, and they would walk into our little office and be like, oh, this is it yeah, right thinking it's gonna be some big old like conglomerate, you know rush rush.
Speaker 2:Management on the ground floor was much more impressive than we did. Wow you. It was like we shared desks and phones. There weren't enough for everybody. Oh, did I mention George Solmers?
Speaker 1:You did. I didn't know him. What did he do?
Speaker 2:Mention George.
Speaker 1:What did? What did George do?
Speaker 2:George did like he did stuff with getting sponsorships from late. You know from troop did stuff with getting sponsorships from you know from Troop, from some skateboard company that I can't remember the name of. He did like that kind of stuff. And Dave Klein did promotion and marketing stuff.
Speaker 1:So I'm thinking about my first experience at my first record company job.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you even know kind of what you were doing, or you were just kind of doing shit?
Speaker 2:I just kind of did whatever needed to be done. Exactly, and I remember none of the artists had signed up for the PRO, so I took everybody on a field trip to ASCAP and got them all signed up. So even though they had money out there because they were in sign up, yeah, yeah, yeah, they were leaving money on the table, so that was one thing that I did.
Speaker 1:Did that start your interest in publishing? I'm sorry, did that?
Speaker 2:start your interest in publishing. Actually, it did, it, did, it did. It was funny, I mean. And the way you had to do things back then in terms of copyrights was like getting a cassette and getting a lyric sheet and mailing it to the Library of Congress. I mean, you know, wow. So I, I I remember like being with flav and I was doing don't believe the hype. And I was typing out the lyrics and he said, no, g, I can do it. And he's like, starts typing with like one finger. So great, yeah oh wow.
Speaker 1:No, let me ask a question. What was your? What were some of your favorite records during that period, from from Def Jam and just in general? Do you remember?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, well, Slick Rick Great Adventures. I mean, come on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I used to have that record the other day. Yeah, it still holds up.
Speaker 1:It holds up Crazy.
Speaker 2:And PE, nation of Millions, just genius. And then later on, you know, third base, like the cactus album.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:LL when he did that. Like I, you know I wasn't a huge fan of Panther, but I thought that mama said, knock you out. It was like a yeah, yeah, I wasn't.
Speaker 1:I wasn't a fan of the Panther album but there were a couple of records on there. I just thought like I still remember that record fast peg. Yeah, there was a couple of records on there. That was amazing, like as the album was kind of, but then. But then you look backwards and it was kind of visionary. You know, the album wasn't great because he was working with West coast people, right, so he was kind of you know, know, pushing the line and doing it.
Speaker 1:You know doing things that people do now, like take for granted, he was doing that back then, you know right and and marley turned everything around, so yeah which is great, because I did a deal with him here, so it's all full circle full circle.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you got a lot of full circles I got a lot of full circle moments give me. Give me one before we move to Columbia and Nas and everything. Give me one crazy Def Jam story. I know you got a billion of them, but give me one that doesn't incriminate anybody, or something like that, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I might have to come back to you on that.
Speaker 1:Okay, we can do it after, we can do it later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll come back to you. I'm trying to think do it after, we can do it later. Yeah, I'll come back to you. I'm trying to think there's so many okay, yeah, fine.
Speaker 1:So as def jam started to grow like what was that like watching you know this company that you started, you said five people and you guys have no air and no heat and it's cold and it's probably mice in there and all kind of shit yeah to grow into, like becoming what you know become, come in a legit powerhouse record label. What was that? What was that like?
Speaker 2:Um, for me it. You know, I'm a purist and I felt like what? What happened was is that Rick left, as you know, he just moved, he just said to me he was going to LA one day and he never came back, and so Russell was much more interested in starting a modeling agency and talking about a clothing line at that point, and there was this power vacuum there at Def Jam. And that's when Lior stepped in, and that was difficult for me because we had the Rush Associated Labels situation where everybody was getting a label you want a label, you want a label, you want a label and slapping the Def Jam logo on it. And I thought that it was, you know, diluting the label, because if you went to Music Factory or you went to Town Records or you went wherever you know, if you saw a Def Jam label, you bought it.
Speaker 1:Immediately.
Speaker 2:Immediately, and that wasn't the case anymore and I felt like we were becoming too, too big and too unwieldy and that was kind of like you know, and when I made the decision, yeah, I remember that era because that's kind of when I started.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was like so everybody got a label and it was like bitches with problems and it was like all these kind of small kind of, or the um the afros and all this kind of stuff and it was and it was cool, but it wasn't like. It was like where's the heat? You know the?
Speaker 2:heat. Right, it wasn't it wasn't.
Speaker 1:It wasn't death jam anymore, right. So after you leave death jam, where do you go next?
Speaker 2:Columbia Records. Right back to Columbia.
Speaker 1:Full circle.
Speaker 2:Full circle, not as an intern this time, but as an A&R person.
Speaker 4:And we'll be right back, Ready to launch your podcast. Merrick Studios offers comprehensive services, from concept development and seamless production to strategic marketing and monetization. Let your story take the mic Visit MerrickCreativecom slash studios and let's get to work. Let your story take the mic Visit meritcreativecom slash studios and let's get to work. And now back to our show.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask maybe a silly question, but I've never met anybody else that won an Oscar but you. How does it feel to win an Oscar, bro?
Speaker 6:Yeah, man, you know, never in my wildest dreams did I think that was going to happen. We never aimed for it, we never thought it was possible, we never talked about it. And then, you know, we just want to make a movie that we loved and that we thought our friends would love and our parents would love. And we did, and then, and then we bring it to sundance. I get I remember getting the call it's going to sundance. I'm like, oh my god, it's the greatest day of my life. A movie I I made is going to Sundance Film Festival. Then it's virtual that year. Then we screen it, people love it. Then we win Sundance, not only the audience award but the grand jury prize. I'm like this is the best it'll ever get.
Speaker 6:And then, three days later, there's a bidding war between Barack Obama's production company and Netflix on one side, and Hulu and and searchlight on the other.
Speaker 1:What the hell is going on.
Speaker 6:And then we, we, we, we partner with, uh, with Hulu and Disney and Onyx collective and searchlight. They're like we're going to put it out in theaters, it's going to be on Hulu. I'm like this is the greatest thing in the world, this is the greatest feeling in the world. Movie comes out, people love it. I'm waiting for the bad reviews. There's no bad reviews.
Speaker 1:Like people, you know it's still got like a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes or something. It's amazing. There's no flaws. Five micrometers, I would say no, I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 6:I realize and I say this with all humility, like we, because it came from a genuine place I think it's one of the best music documentaries ever made. Right, because I think it's a story, for it hits on so many different levels and it's a. It's a. It's a story about black history and how black history is American history. It's also a story about memory and the things that we remember and the things that we cherish and like who gets to determine what's remembered and what's not? Right. It's at different levels and none of it was accidental. It was very all of it was very intentional. It just it, just it just kept getting better.
Speaker 6:To get nominated for an oscar. I cried. My mom was up at like five in the morning, her time and like watching, and it just validated so many. You know my parents didn't want me to do what I was doing. I didn't understand it. Suddenly, you're very proud. Right, that came full circle. Really getting to experience the whole thing with the mirror was incredible because, like you know, working with your musical hero was like yeah, and then so the oscars themselves. And then what happened at the osars is insane. Right, we were there.
Speaker 1:The.
Speaker 6:Will Smith slap. That was our category. That was Chris Rock presenting us the Oscar.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 6:And then the next day I hear Chris Rock say something disparaging where he's like the winner is Summer of Soul, amir Questlove, thompson and four white guys right, which is just such a shitty thing to say when, like only a dozen people had ever won oscar, south asian people had ever won oscars. And he knew better, like you know. You know he knew better. Yeah, he said. He said the same joke on as on stage at the root show two nights earlier. I I, in hindsight I cut him a little slack now because he probably was traumatized in the moment, didn't know what to do but, also fuck him yeah
Speaker 6:um, but in. But you know, and the oscar professionally changes your life, but real talk, it's. It's great to be, it's great that it's happened. I feel like I don't have to explain myself now when I want a meeting or in the room somewhere. Yeah, um, the powers that be, like I can get any meeting that I need to. That's a really great um card to have. But, honestly, my, the thing that makes me proudest is that we made a great movie. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like, really, it's nice to have the oscar, it's nice to be in the history books. It's nice to never have to explain my, my ability to somebody ever again. It frees me up to do the other things that I want to do. Where's your trophy right now?
Speaker 6:it's downstairs on a shelf you know on where my record player is?
Speaker 1:like yeah, I should have told you to bring it on.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I mean it used to be in the zoom shot because I wanted to make sure no one ever got it twisted in a in a pitch meeting. But I moved recently so I'm still a little still unpacked.
Speaker 1:It's organized, yeah but tell me, tell me how you got from that accolade to doing the sly stone doc yeah, so sly also amazing, thank you.
Speaker 6:Sly got announced after sundance, so before the summer of soul even came out, I read in hollywood reporter that amir has signed up to direct a sly the family stone documentary. And I call him up, I'm like yo, congrats, do you want me to work on this with you? And he's like yeah, of course. And I'm like okay, cool, I need to be a part of the conversation next time. Yeah, I am not a hired hand Like I am. I'm part of the announcement now.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 6:And I didn't know what I was going to do after Summer of Soul. I didn't know how this business worked, so I didn't. I didn't know Summer of Soul was going to be that successful. So I was like, yeah, I'd love to do this. It took a while to get that project started because we had to sort of like I didn't work for like a year. Because what no one tells you is if your movie comes out and it starts through the award circuit, you weren't expected to promote it. You don't get paid to do that.
Speaker 6:That I'm doing sly promotion now and it's taking away from the thing I'm actually getting paid to do yeah so I spent a whole year before we even started Sly, after it got announced, but that was really because Amir wanted to do it and I didn't know a lot about Sly. I just knew the music really through hip hop and what I heard on the radio, but I didn't know the story. And so, you know, I spent the first few months really just trying to get some fluency about his story together. And then the way Amir and I work is I, I ask him, we have a conversation, what kind of story do you want to tell? And he kept talking about not only you know so everyone knows his ups and downs a slide story.
Speaker 6:But like he's like how do we approach it with some empathy? And and then it's really the bigger idea is that you know. And then it's really the bigger idea is that you know a lot of these are a lot of black artists in America have a unique burden. And he's like white audiences, white critics, the record label power structure. He's like he has no template, he has no one to follow, he's doing it for the first time how some of those same issues that he dealt with had reverberated in a decade since.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought that was an interesting angle that you guys took like the kind of black genius thing with him and D'Angelo and Andre 3000, and like people who get even Q-Tip. You know, people kind of get to that level and Prince, you know, maybe we can go on and on Michael, we could mention 40 of them and like you get to that height and like how do you do it? How do you do it? It gets crazy. And like you're, you're so removed from who you were because you're so high up the ladder. Now it's kind of like he wasn't.
Speaker 1:The guy from the radio DJ from San Francisco was like way in a in the fucking rear view mirror. So yeah, that was. It was a very and I was happy that you guys had tapes of him being a radio DJ, cause I still don't know how many people knew about that part of it and how how influential he was when he was doing that, you know.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and it's funny because, you know, if you think about it, he's on the radio playing black and white music together and in a way he's sort of like seeding his audience that he would play to us for his band a few years later when Sly and Family Stone comes out. There's a whole bunch of people who are primed to hear that kind of mix of styles because they listen to him on the radio. And you know, I think, Amir, you know we got D'Angelo and Q-Tip and Shaka and Andre as proxies for Sly. Yes, Because we couldn't talk to Sly. He's alive, but just not in a place where you should put him on camera.
Speaker 1:Not healthy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6:And we wanted him to have his dignity right. We didn't want to like hang him out there like that. Yeah, that's what the whole movie is about. It's like this man has given us so much. Let's just let him live in peace, right? But you know, d'angelo Amir was a witness to D'Angelo facing the pressure on the voodoo tour every night, having to be in perfect physical condition every night so he could take his shirt off and do how does it feel to a room full of screaming fans and how it got harder and harder for him to do that. Andre, everyone wants him to rap. He did. He saw what this did to other people. He says I don't want anything to do with this, I'm off, off the radar, don't think about me I'm gonna go play a flute in japan.
Speaker 6:You just walk around you know what I mean in tokyo. He has this line in the film where he's like when you're black and you're innovative, they may look at you like you're odd, like can you imagine, like you know how many people call q-tip gay back?
Speaker 3:in the day right or if you're just a little different.
Speaker 6:They're like, oh, he's gay and that was like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, when the homophobia was at an all-time high. Now it's just just like oh, this dude's weird, or you're alt-rap. That's the thing, I think, that Black artists have had to deal with in this country that other artists haven't had to. I think women have their own unique issues.
Speaker 1:Even with Nina Simone. Now you look back at a lot of the things that she was fighting for and talking about. It makes fucking perfect sense yeah, isn't that crazy.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You guys are trying to jerk her, and she wanted to be respected and paid for her work. She wasn't a nut at all.
Speaker 6:And who's? The other one for our generation is Lauren, right, right. Lauren didn't participate in the film, but when we were making the film she had that viral clip of her in la where she's like do you know how hard it is for me to get prepared mentally to come on stage every night and perform for you? And people took it out of context, but her whole rant is actually the theme of our film. It's like you think you know? Like yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting thing. And then also, post oscar zamir was like feeling guilty about being successful, that whole idea that success, like be careful what you wish for. I was a morse kind of thing, here he is.
Speaker 6:He gets an oscar right out the gate his first documentary and he's like is my band gonna treat me the same? I feel bad that tariq wasn't a part of this. This guy I've been with on my journey for 30 years. Like you know, are people gonna be like, oh, that's just a mirror being a mirror, you know what I mean. Like yeah, you know, that's he got.
Speaker 6:He ducked away after the oscars for a few months because I couldn't get a hold of him, because he was just trying to like reset and like deal with yeah yeah, so yeah, I think what makes the thing that that connects both films is that I think what amir and I are really good at is how do you tell a very specific story that actually resonates to a bigger idea?
Speaker 1:yeah, and, and I think both these films are that tell us, let's wrap it up and tell me about the next project you're working on. I know, bob, but you, you break it down.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so we I'm not working with Amir on earth, wind and fire, I didn't work with him on SNL, but we're doing a J Dilla documentary. We've been trying to put it together for three years. I am directing that one. Amir is executive producing that one. Okay, it's based on Dilla Time by Dan Charnas, our friend, yes, very thoroughly researched book, very. We just started about two weeks ago, hope to be done by this time next year, which will be the 20th anniversary of Dilla's death. Wow, it's been 20 years, wow. And really it's about how and it's a. It's a passion project, but it's like you know, it's about Dilla and what he did to music and also why we celebrate him more in death than in life, and also it's about time. It's about the way Dilla manipulated time, but also about the way artists or the way people live their life when they think they have all the time in the world, and then what they do when they realize they don't have any time at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the clock is, the sand is running out.
Speaker 6:I mean for me, covid was that right, I think. During COVID I realized, oh, there's not a lot of time left. Like you will not catch me doing anything, I don't want to do anymore because time is valuable. Being here with you is because I wanted to be here with you.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it. I wanted you on here. I mean, you know, look at us, we got gray hair. Now we're still rocking. You know, man yo, I really appreciate this. This is a great interview bro. Yeah, thank you, yo, I really appreciate this. This is a great interview bro.
Speaker 6:Yeah, thank you, man. I appreciate you asking.
Speaker 1:I feel like we could talk for five hours. Honestly, I know we could, I know we could.
Speaker 6:Listen, I will say this I never thought I'd be in a position where people would want to hear my story and I'm appreciative of it. I'm appreciative of people who learn lessons from it. I spend a lot of my time post Oscars, honestly mentoring younger kids not even younger like, even like people my age too. You know I'm part of Sophia Chang's mentorship program. I'm part of Joey Badass's mentorship program. You know I meet young South Asian filmmakers or creatives and they ask for time. I'll give them time because I just feel like, um I'm, I got blessed. It's a result of a lot of hard work, but if I can make that path a little easier for other people, just by because no one taught me about the industry, I had to find out on my own if I can make that path easier for somebody else. So there's more time creating and less time trying to figure the bullshit out. That's my purpose on here on the planet, while I'm still here.
Speaker 1:That's what sparked me doing this podcast. Yeah, I think people that I know and respect, that I've had, you know, success but maybe even had the pivot, you know, and kind of go here to figure out the next steps and everything, and hopefully people listening will hear these stories and be like, oh okay, and oh, that's the guy who did the slide, doc. You know, like that's the whole point of this.
Speaker 6:I can't wait until it flips around and someone gets to interview you, because I know you got stories. Yeah, I got some stories and actually one story you told me has never left me. I remember you told me the story of when you signed the pack and you were like I'm the guy that signed Tribe Called Quest, and they're like who?
Speaker 1:Who, who the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 6:And I will always remember that story because it taught me it was one of the things that taught me that something dreamhampton taught me a long time ago hip-hop is whatever little black and brown kids say, it is. Yes, they are not tied to your history, they are making their own making their own.
Speaker 1:You can't fight it. You can't be like yo, hot, like I remember. Um, we'll wrap it up. I remember a couple months ago people were on kai sanat because he didn't know who Big Pun was. Right, I'm like he's 22. Yeah, you can't be mad at that dude. He's been dead about that long, sadly, like he might not know, he's a kid, he's a child, and what hip-hop is for him is, you know, drake and Playboi, carti and whatever's popping now? It's not Biggie, it's not Biggie, it's not Biggie man. Yeah, no, and I can't be mad at him for it not being that for him and his generation. Yeah, and we'll be right back.
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Speaker 1:So what now? Was that your last industry job? Def Jam correct.
Speaker 5:So what had happened was this everyone was so obsessed with artists at that place that's the one thing we signed Janet Jackson and different people and Mariah and I ended up doing a lot of projects that weren't so fun and I was just starting to get tired. And my team. Now, because I was talking so much, she grew and I was now the EVP of creative marketing and digital and I really had no business doing marketing at all because I really didn't know it. I'm not good at that. You have to be a very detail-oriented person, but I could. Also, I hired Karen Veazey and some other people, but by that point, maybe I wasn't fucking the right people. So everything I did started to be bad. So now I'm in these marketing meetings where I'm getting slaughtered by LA Like it was brutal.
Speaker 1:I've heard about those meetings.
Speaker 5:But literally like slaughtered, and so I was getting sick and tired of it. I'd had some complicated things where people had crossed the boundaries with me in ways that were not okay. So I was already pissed. And then my love Shakir was like battling a lot of stuff. The way he was being handled was disgusting.
Speaker 5:So when he took his life, I had some very strongly worded conversations and I was out and at the same time there was this artist who, whatever, but he brought in this kid he'd signed and this kid was 14. His name was Justin Bieber. So, and he brought this manager, scooter Braun, and I wasn't going to just trick out money this is not the 90s, like. I didn't operate that way. The way I operate with all new artists, as you know, is I'm going to take a tiny budget, I'm going to do some small things and see where we go. So I wanted to do a video and a photo shoot for Justin Bieber to see what he needed. Does he need training, does he need whatever? And Usher was furious and was battling me about it and I think Scooter was more open to kind of this.
Speaker 1:Justin was signed to Usher at this time, correct?
Speaker 5:And signed now to Island Def Jam Mercury.
Speaker 1:To Def Jam. Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 5:I think to Island, actually, okay, to Island Mercury, but I ran the creator for all Island Def Jam and Mercury group Mm-hmm. When that whole thing happened, I started working very closely with Scudo and Usher and Usher's career was not going so well at the time. It was post-Tamika. He made a lot of stances. He was a little bit ahead of his time in that now it is so cool to be about a relationship. Then it wasn't. He was a heartthrob. It was weird. He did that weird tear-off thing and he kept asking me to help him and I was like I have a contract, I cannot be helping you.
Speaker 5:And frankly, I'm not a fan. You know I'm not. I know I like two songs. He took my iPod. At the moment I had two songs on there Love in the Club and you Got a Bad. That was it. But then when Shakir passed, I said to him and Ciara and I because at one point Rihanna was blowing up and she really needed dedication and there was a lot of people who had the Chris Lighty thing where I only talked to the head, which I'm not about that Talk to him is the best person. So I had Mariah and Jay and Janet and Kanye. It was a lot. At the same time I think it's strong.
Speaker 2:That's a lot.
Speaker 5:I introduced Rihanna and Ciara and there's a girl who was doing the Justin Bieber stuff, gabrielle Schwartz and I was like I think you two would be the best Rihanna team and put them together. So now me and Ciara are going to form a company to work with Usher possibly Kanye in some conversations and Usher. So I started this little company, we started a company called Pire and we started doing things with them. But I couldn't have imagined how much work that was going to be. So I was working with Lionel Rich maybe at the time, and I met Randy who was his manager, and he was bragging.
Speaker 5:He had another carve-out and I realized that what Janetta did with Usher at the time was try to bring his touring back to females and did it for a ladies-only tour and that was wonderful in concept. But you know how touring is. So once you're a stadium or arena, if you go to theater, the promoters think you're theater. So I had this challenge now. So I brought Randy in. I was going to just kind of help, you know, and now there was some funny business happening. So I'm kind of like a girlfriend-ish, so I was trying to just not be in the thick of it, and so Randy came in and that was fantastic, but it needed so much more. I just didn't know. I was so inexperienced I had no idea. I think not knowing really what management really needed was good for me at the time. And then I went into full management when Usher and Mandy just imploded and that was hard and I did a kick-ass job.
Speaker 5:I told you I called Barry. Barry had always been a champion of mine and I called him about this opportunity and he shit all over my dream. He's like no, you're not going to be a good manager, don't do this. And that fueled the shit out of me and I was like I'm going to make this happen. And that changed his film business, got him in movies.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:The voice you know rearranged helped him figure out how to start writing songs. Climax is the first song he really wrote, west and Salon Remy and you know his style out of that for multiple years.
Speaker 1:You really did a great job at really reinventing his, reinventing him. You can catch Mixed and Mastered on Apple Podcasts, spotify, iheart or wherever you get your podcasts. Hit that follow button, leave a review and tell a friend I'm your host, jeffrey Sledge. Mixed and Mastered is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios.
