Rising Above the Rhymes: Phaze Wun's Journey through Failure and Success - I Will Not Lose - #0028

Transcript

[00:00:00.000] let's get into it what's up what's up good morning good evening good night good afternoon
[00:00:09.300] whatever time you're listening in wherever you're listening from shout out to the spotify
[00:00:13.440] listenership apple and google podcast stitcher youtube if you're watching in we got a very
[00:00:19.360] special guest today man coming live from our voice to your phone headphones tv or car stereo
[00:00:25.080] you could have been anywhere in the world but you're here right now let's take a moment and
[00:00:29.880] be present and recognize that it is now, right now. Whether you're right now is working, running,
[00:00:35.320] exercising, cleaning, laying down, flying, driving, recording a podcast. Let's be grateful we're alive,
[00:00:41.800] baby. Failure can be frightening. However, as Winston Churchill reminds us, success is all
[00:00:47.200] about going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. This is I Will Not Lose Podcast. I'm
[00:00:53.120] your host, Tony Ortiz. We're going to jump right in, man. We got the legendary phase one in the
[00:00:58.540] building yo you gotta drop some air horns yeah let's go he's got the hat off you guys watching
[00:01:06.780] it on youtube he's got the uh what is that like the comic bang yeah yeah this is um what's is that
[00:01:12.960] no this is uh l money's uh make a statement um brand i see the emojis that he throws in there
[00:01:20.160] but i didn't know about the brand oh that's dope he like changed it a little bit so that he could
[00:01:24.320] get a trademark that's that's dope uh shout out to l money yeah yeah so shout out to l that's dope
[00:01:32.530] man so what you got going on tonight i'm i'm here with you i'm back back in the basements
[00:01:38.890] and um yeah i'm just here here we uh talk whatever we got to talk about everything
[00:01:45.690] everything that's been going on well we got no time limit i cleared the cards so
[00:01:50.970] everything's ready to go do you read your script on on the beginning or you memorize that i pretty
[00:01:57.370] much i pretty much got it memorized but i read it because i try to keep it under a minute okay
[00:02:03.090] it's all uh uh format you know what i mean everything's important because there's people
[00:02:07.710] who listen on the spotify and they didn't know that there's youtube so by me saying watch in
[00:02:13.670] you know you can see the difference and then sometimes i'll record a little audio thing for
[00:02:17.710] sure uh to let people know but no it's i always like to break the professionalism
[00:02:24.470] yeah everybody gets in their little the little um formats yeah so i like to break it up a little
[00:02:33.600] bit so i was wondering if you were reading it or if you actually memorized it no i'm reading it and
[00:02:39.320] with that said it's time for our first sponsor no no it's all a game and figuring the figuring
[00:02:47.020] it out so nothing's like a time limit or anything like that there's not rules per se but i do believe
[00:02:54.740] in consistency absolutely so post in the same time that's one big thing i'm like ah damn i gotta i
[00:03:02.080] gotta stick to that but other than that man i'm really uh curious to hear about your process so
[00:03:08.140] you shot me over a project let's talk about a couple of the different things that you do go for
[00:03:12.860] I just found out you're a photographer. What do you spend the most of your time doing right now?
[00:03:19.920] Right now, just being a husband. I've transitioned my lifestyle from being a bachelor guy in my
[00:03:28.160] 20s. And now I'm well into my 30s now. So I just got married last year. So now I'm just trying to
[00:03:34.220] be... Oh, shout out. Congratulations, man.
[00:03:35.820] So now I'm just trying to be the best husband I could be and still work on my projects and
[00:03:42.920] and, you know, stay consistent in releasing music and producing for the projects that I
[00:03:50.840] enjoy doing until who knows when, I don't know. I don't know. Everybody, nobody has the end in
[00:03:58.480] mind, man. It's about the, it's about the journey. Right. I don't know how much I have left in the
[00:04:03.000] tank. So I'm trying to, that's what everybody says. That's what Jay-Z said. Especially now.
[00:04:08.540] right yeah and he was probably how old i am now when he was thinking about that
[00:04:13.760] i think you're at your peak i think you're ready i hope so i mean i don't know you got uh you
[00:04:20.840] it takes something to light that fire up you have to have it yeah you got a group of dudes
[00:04:26.680] you work with right for sure yes for sure a town slim um and devin haley and um i'm producing the
[00:04:36.180] next um tug mcgraw album if you're an og around the area then you know big shout out to tug
[00:04:42.920] i just discovered his project with uh i don't have my phone not my yeah nai will throw their
[00:04:50.920] their social and throw that up but i want to hear about that you're producing a tug album
[00:04:54.720] oh that was that was my guy um and he's been for this whole period once you went to full sale i
[00:05:03.340] went to Full Sail no no no I I was gonna okay we'll get into that yeah no go ahead but um I
[00:05:11.540] went to Full Sail after high school um I started at Allen and I transferred to Northampton after
[00:05:18.150] we moved when I was kids and um after that I decided to get more more invested into the music
[00:05:25.740] side. So I went to Full Sail in 2005, graduated 06, came back to Allentown after I got offered
[00:05:36.970] to be an in-house producer at one of the studios down there in Orlando. And I ended up turning it
[00:05:44.360] down because I was young and I didn't know about like contract negotiations. So they gave me and
[00:05:52.540] my boy Structure, a contract who we both did production on Brooklyn Zoo's album around that
[00:06:01.940] time. So they really liked what we were doing. So they offered us both contracts to be in-house
[00:06:08.210] producers for their studio. So I had sent the contract back to up here to one of my father's
[00:06:14.970] lawyer. I was like, take a look at this, see what they say. And they told me what it means and
[00:06:19.810] everything and i was like it doesn't sound like i want to work with them so i just said no straight
[00:06:25.850] up oh man he listed out the things you didn't want i was like i was like if they're about that
[00:06:35.440] i kind of don't want to work with them at all how bad was it i can't really remember all the
[00:06:41.080] details this is 2006 so it's like damn near 20 years 20 years ago so it was something about
[00:06:48.780] if i remember correctly it was something about um owning or publishing like um into the future
[00:06:57.210] after we're not working with them anymore so instead of like going back with like a counter
[00:07:04.150] offer i was just like no but looking back now as an older man i should have been like can we work
[00:07:10.910] through this something you know give them a counter especially if you had access to a lawyer
[00:07:15.730] than looked over you said that you said you had a lawyer friend look over yeah yeah so i probably
[00:07:21.630] should have done that one of my one of my other friends actually stuck with it and and he did
[00:07:27.210] work with them um he was about the same age as as i was then it didn't really transpire anything
[00:07:35.300] in the end so i don't feel that bad about it well you can never feel bad about right you you learn
[00:07:43.080] as you go through this industry but um yeah after that um we turned down the contracts and i ended
[00:07:50.600] up moving back out here and um the first artist that i had linked with was tug because back then
[00:08:00.350] 2006 my space was the prominent social media so i was always in touch with with the local what i
[00:08:07.770] was what was going on with the local rap scene out here and um so i was messaging back and forth
[00:08:14.410] with tug i was like oh i'm from allentown you're from bethlehem and all that stuff when i get back
[00:08:19.610] we link and do some stuff so once i came back i like with tug and we did some joints and um
[00:08:27.530] i started my own kind of studio you know real bare bones type type stuff and uh
[00:08:35.410] um and and we were always um doing music together and he introduced me to um i don't know if you
[00:08:44.320] know rick cheney and l chain when i when i first started around he introduced me to him and i was
[00:08:51.260] doing my own thing back then around 2006 and one of my first clienteles when i first started my own
[00:08:58.950] little independent studio was meet beats oh okay then shout out to me yeah my god me beats he was
[00:09:05.970] like my one of my best customers back then be pro right right yeah but this was before then he
[00:09:12.570] started way way way way before before then and mb pro's been around like a clean decade so right
[00:09:20.170] already wow wow wow so yeah you have to rewind the tape a whole lot so he used to come he used to
[00:09:26.890] come to me like every day every day just booking booking hours and hours and hours and then i
[00:09:34.500] eventually linked with rick and we teamed up and meat was still like one of our best
[00:09:39.640] studio customers and we like really liked his production so we're like dude what are you doing
[00:09:46.560] like you're i mean we like you paying us studio time but you're like dope dope yeah so we had our
[00:09:54.640] own artists he had his own artists we're like why don't we all come together so we all came together
[00:10:00.750] like 2007 2008 and we first put out like a compilation um you know whatever mixtape back
[00:10:09.190] then with all of our artists and all of his artists called worldwide in like 2008 and is that
[00:10:17.740] on spotify it used to be i don't i don't think it is anymore but it's somewhere it might be on
[00:10:24.880] something that's the thing about music from that time man it's like uh it's it's not as easy to
[00:10:29.580] find as it is now no because there was sites like um what what was back i think i think it was on
[00:10:35.900] dad piff for a while and that piff just went down it might be back up so that might be on that piff
[00:10:41.840] still um but we have put it on something what was what was the um cd baby cd baby yeah cd baby i
[00:10:50.740] think still prints albums yeah so it still might be on something but um crazy we have put something
[00:10:57.820] out on there and um eventually meat beats went and did his own thing and then he started mb pro
[00:11:06.320] off of um you know what we were doing he you know me we meat watched me for a long time and
[00:11:12.720] seeing what i was doing and he always had his own he wanted to do his own thing so we fully
[00:11:17.300] supported what he wanted to do that's what's up man sounds like you support a lot in the community
[00:11:22.580] man at least the local scene with music and stuff you gotta you gotta put people on man
[00:11:28.280] for sure i don't think people do it enough now like who's i don't know i try to stay in tune
[00:11:35.780] with with the younger please let me know because i'm not i'm not i know why lg is just drop
[00:11:41.420] something yeah um spirit lead me that sounds real good i didn't hear it uh i'll play it for you
[00:11:48.500] after the show for sure but um i stay i try to stay in tune but it's getting harder and harder
[00:11:53.760] as i get a little bit older so so i don't know i know lg is i know ant wave's doing his thing
[00:12:00.400] um i don't know i don't know who's next after that i have no idea i'm lost after that i don't
[00:12:07.240] know even were you when you had uh i saw you posted something about like uh you know there's
[00:12:15.110] no next generation right are you talking about locally you mean just everywhere in hip-hop
[00:12:19.310] general i know people are still rapping but the next generation mainstream wise yeah like who's
[00:12:26.990] actually rapping next not just like independent artists you got joiner lucas like yeah and he's
[00:12:34.010] old now too so like joiner lucas is like 30 plus oh you're talking young yeah i'm talking about
[00:12:39.430] like who's like the next the next guys that are early 20s shit with little uzi vert is the past
[00:12:47.770] generation he's like 20 what is he now 28 i don't know that's a little woozy little woozy bird is
[00:12:53.310] well maybe we're just old we are it's us there's there's you know my younger listeners are sitting
[00:12:59.290] here yelling at the comments right now like oh you don't know about this guy this guy but i'm sure
[00:13:05.350] there's someone well it's there's so music is so different now like it's so accessible so you
[00:13:12.910] could have a huge cult following and there are people like that but it's like like we had like
[00:13:19.950] we had the double xl next generation list and coming up in the like 2010s now who's that i
[00:13:26.970] wouldn't even know they just like announced the people and it's like every year it keeps getting
[00:13:31.990] it keeps getting what the fuck every year more what the fuck every year and it's like ice spice
[00:13:39.190] and um whoever else they put on there and you're like i have no idea is ice spice considered like
[00:13:45.810] a rapper rapper no and it's been like that for a couple years but like you could at least
[00:13:51.750] justify some of them every they had like anderson pack and i was like he's been making music forever
[00:13:57.890] like he's like a singer reaching that's that's the thing they're like well he's new to rap right
[00:14:02.730] like okay like he's within like the branch i guess like you could i guess you could justify
[00:14:08.730] but he's not like you don't put rihanna as rapper just because she spit bars right just because she
[00:14:14.950] did bitch better have my money because she did bitch better have my money it doesn't really
[00:14:20.890] she's the greatest female rapper yeah she's the the richest but no that's why i don't try to
[00:14:26.770] get too much into the numbers you can tell if the music is like manufactured or for sure and that's
[00:14:34.630] that's what they've been doing for years now is manufacturing the next people like cardi b they
[00:14:41.790] have a whole team of writers and producers just giving her these songs and she performs them well
[00:14:47.670] she had that energy to to be the star like for sure she was a star before she was a star you
[00:14:54.390] could look through my posts i called bodak yellow nine months before and i didn't like cardi b at
[00:15:02.140] all but the second i heard that song before it got on on i said no right there yeah that's it
[00:15:12.220] that was the one that's wild i don't know if she's putting anything out i mean i'm sure she's
[00:15:18.720] doing stuff she had the baby i'm not even up on pop culture which i wasn't there is none no more
[00:15:27.580] Even the podcast that I listened to that covered pop culture, they're talking about dumb shit now.
[00:15:34.300] I don't know if nothing's going on.
[00:15:37.860] Is there some bigger, massive shit going on?
[00:15:41.200] Because it should not be this quiet.
[00:15:43.220] There's wars and stuff going on.
[00:15:44.960] It kind of is bigger, massive stuff, but it's also not at the same time.
[00:15:49.360] It's more so broken up.
[00:15:53.200] You mean like the news is broken up?
[00:15:55.060] everything's broken up into sections of what you're specifically into i got you it's not like
[00:16:04.330] one there's there's probably not going to be a such thing as pop culture anymore shit i didn't
[00:16:11.210] even think about it like that you're right it's all going to be segregated into a specificity of
[00:16:17.390] what you like or what you're looking into that's why and it's going to be like a little um sub
[00:16:25.270] genre everywhere i don't know if that's that kind of is what it is now that's uh my um my spotify
[00:16:34.200] dj is ai and i just did you see this yet no bro you push dj and it goes what's up tony let's go
[00:16:43.880] back and listen to what you were listening to in 2017 and here's some new artists like that here's
[00:16:49.040] some things you might have missed that year or whatever and it plays music and then after a few
[00:16:53.360] songs it'll switch it up and be like all right we're gonna play some tupac or and it literally
[00:16:58.200] just i've listened for two hours and it just continues to switch the vibe but it knows what
[00:17:03.860] i like and what i listen to so it's playing underground hip-hop like a like a dj spinning
[00:17:09.200] it and i'm like that's super weird not even just the fact that it knows my music that's the easy
[00:17:14.480] part they had we had that algorithm for years yeah the fact that it's talking to me and pronouncing
[00:17:20.000] artists and saying we could do this i'm like yo this is wild so how much of like i mean eventually
[00:17:27.320] are kids of the future just going to be like all right read your profile here's some music you'll
[00:17:33.100] like here's an album cover just creating a whole a whole experience i mean i don't know i don't know
[00:17:42.820] yeah it's gonna it's gonna get i don't think the kids are gonna ask for that
[00:17:50.020] but i think it's it's it might probably get to where it's spoon feeding people
[00:17:57.500] to that extent like okay you like this certain thing once it's fed enough information
[00:18:04.280] it's gonna give you it could probably create what you like like out of nowhere like a new
[00:18:12.180] like a new artist a new genre like oh you like these things here you go here's exactly what you
[00:18:17.960] like yeah and it could use references and it's just somebody something you never heard it's
[00:18:24.100] something that doesn't even exist i put into something like chat gpt yo i want to hear j cole
[00:18:29.720] spit a shakespeare-like verses and start referencing like people throughout history and
[00:18:34.280] having to just put that language together i mean i don't know we we we got technology to the point
[00:18:41.790] where we just got it doing nothing oh yeah cheers yeah the the problem with um that i found with
[00:18:51.460] like the ai as far as the music aspect goes is it's it's good with patterns and pattern recognition
[00:19:00.760] and mimicking a lot of things but it's not good because i'm a producer it's not good with
[00:19:08.020] sound selection and sound creation of like trash and music quality like it it could you know read
[00:19:14.940] redo beethoven and stuff like that but it can't select quality sounds right right right now i
[00:19:25.320] believe it you ever tried to have chad gpt write a rap yeah it's gonna be bad oh man it's terrible
[00:19:31.660] but what i think is interesting is you can tell it write a rap in the style of kendrick lamar right
[00:19:37.640] it'll give you something it'll it'll it'll give you a starting point yeah i mean it'll just it'll
[00:19:41.660] take things that he says i'm like just the fact that it knows what kendrick lamar is so it's been
[00:19:46.680] what four months right since chat gpt's out yeah and people are like oh i haven't there's no way
[00:19:54.760] it could be like this dude i played around with an ai that puts a video together and makes captions
[00:20:01.240] and all that shit right like yeah a human editor is still better but for sure it's the new google
[00:20:07.940] because google yeah oh yeah yeah yeah google is almost useless now you search stuff and you just
[00:20:17.120] get ads and people who paid for you know the first the first page and you're like this is not even
[00:20:25.220] what i'm looking for it does take a while to get to what you need to find in google unless you're
[00:20:29.840] searching for something on amazon that you want to buy it's good with that but other if you're
[00:20:35.120] looking for like information like actual information to research something it's going
[00:20:39.780] to give you the first page every single search slot is going to give you the exact same information
[00:20:46.740] i don't know but you know what some somebody creative is going to come along and like just
[00:20:54.020] make sense of that because i mean they'll they'll google has its own chat gpt right called bard
[00:21:04.320] they're gonna try to train that with everybody and they'll get it to the point where you just
[00:21:09.480] ask a question i mean it had to come to an end at some point we're old enough to remember before
[00:21:15.340] google and ask jeeves yahoo fucking alta vista like all the things so we've seen it all before
[00:21:23.660] so chat gbt will be the next thing or something like it there'll be the next one we we we see
[00:21:30.040] we've seen all these iterations already so chat gbt is just the next version of that i think it's
[00:21:38.440] far off for music and stuff like that but yeah it's gonna improve a lot of things and it discourages
[00:21:46.100] me in a lot of ways musically um because i feel like we've become the ai especially in like rap
[00:21:54.440] music and stuff because it's heavily programmed and very digital so the way people have been
[00:22:01.360] producing music for the past i don't at least five years is very robotic yeah like uh like
[00:22:10.870] very copy paste modular right so you hear all these songs that they've been coming up with
[00:22:17.590] the past fucking five years and you're like what is this it sounds the same as the last song
[00:22:25.610] it sounds like a bunch of noise i don't know what this is but something's gonna something's gotta
[00:22:32.690] stick i wonder if it'll be the people like i wonder if someone because there is something
[00:22:38.980] very true to the fact that like younger people will hear music like old people don't like young
[00:22:44.020] people's music right unless you're creative and you like you said you're actively trying to hear
[00:22:50.280] and understand something new or things like that you know there's things that i pick out but you
[00:22:55.400] also got to realize like there's there was always people making music in tandem with whatever stuck
[00:23:02.980] out and that was good like there was always a lot of noise for sure like they weren't just making
[00:23:08.600] great rock music in the 80s and you know i mean 60s and 70s like there was there was a bunch of
[00:23:14.800] people in their garage putting out absolute dog shit they just didn't have right they didn't get
[00:23:19.400] to put it on the internet yeah yeah right they just stayed in the garage nobody ever heard it
[00:23:26.980] but every decade at least since like the year 1900 has been no decade has really sounded like
[00:23:38.960] the next decade zero zero to 20 or 1910s and then the 1920s like swing music and then 30s what was
[00:23:48.040] the what was popular in the 30s i don't remember like uh getting more into jazz jazz it was a
[00:23:52.780] little bit between that swing and jazz there's a name for it like big band yeah there was big
[00:23:56.520] big band um 40s was getting 40s was kind of more jazzy now you lose yeah you had like um
[00:24:08.680] Bing Crosby you had like that lower like that which led into 20 years later Frank Sinatra and
[00:24:16.160] then it was getting more into that into the 50s where Frank was starting to come in and um more
[00:24:22.720] slow but not big band but they had like they had they had the orchestras yeah and then a singer I
[00:24:29.840] don't know what the technical term is was for that and then into the 60s where it started getting
[00:24:35.600] more produced and then also the the 60s rock started coming in and then 70s of course we get
[00:24:44.060] you know you think it's gonna happen faster than 10 years and i only ask that no i think it's
[00:24:49.540] getting slower because people aren't thinking of anything they're just not progressing
[00:24:55.160] they're running out of ideas when it works but you know what though if you think about it like
[00:25:03.010] everything is spawned off wayne like they're rehashing the past now because there's no future
[00:25:15.060] culture that's taking over pop culture like you said now all they're doing is going back to the
[00:25:23.020] nostalgia of our generation of like millennial generation so now they they ran the gambit of
[00:25:30.600] the 80s nostalgia like with stranger things yeah they ran that gambit because now the um the zoom
[00:25:38.020] the gen z the zoomers they're like we we don't really identify with the 80s we weren't even born
[00:25:44.060] yeah so now we're the old heads to the zoomers so they have to go back to the 90s nostalgia where we
[00:25:50.780] are the consumers now yeah yeah because gen z doesn't have any money yeah i just bought a rug
[00:25:58.900] we have the money and we have a whole generation of man children who love nostalgia yeah oh yeah
[00:26:09.400] so i was telling my my wife that about uh gamestop she tells me um you know your kids shop there what
[00:26:18.380] are you doing shopping at games i was like dude everybody at gamestop is not buying stuff for
[00:26:22.320] their kids like their target market is 30 it's for them yeah yeah and that's gonna go out of
[00:26:27.380] business too but we are the last generation with money now for as of right now the zoomers don't
[00:26:35.020] got no money they're fucked they got uh my my daughter said to me uh she was like i'm worried
[00:26:44.150] that my generation is just going to be unmotivated like everybody's just going to want to be a
[00:26:48.830] tiktoker and i'm not sure what we're going to do to change anything i'm like that's coming from
[00:26:55.430] the generation do any of them want to be a plumber one of y'all gotta want to be a plumber
[00:27:01.110] because we're gonna need plumbers when we're old all right when we in 20 years we're gonna need a
[00:27:07.390] plumber we don't want want to clean the shit up that's backed up in our toilets but we're gonna
[00:27:13.650] need somebody to do it so one of y'all gotta do it please you are you on anything besides facebook
[00:27:18.570] instagram um twitter that's it i forgot to have you shout your social out but i'll make sure i
[00:27:25.990] put it up in the lower third so that people have it if you want to shout it out now i'm gonna yeah
[00:27:30.090] i'm gonna be starting my own little thing like like we got going um i just started started the
[00:27:35.970] youtube channel um i'm i'm calling it um it's just a phase it's just a phase p-h-a-z yeah so
[00:27:44.380] So that'll be a thing.
[00:27:46.340] And I'll be talking about music topics and creative things, mostly starting with like
[00:27:55.440] the local scene and interviewing people about the history and their stories and stuff like
[00:28:01.680] that.
[00:28:02.440] That's super dope.
[00:28:04.220] That's super dope.
[00:28:05.840] I wanted to see, going back to, so I'm interested, so you got a project with Tug McGraw coming
[00:28:12.840] out.
[00:28:13.180] yeah yeah you got something with devin haley yeah yeah devin um i've been producing for him
[00:28:20.180] since 2017 and um we linked up after i split from l chain and i started doing my own thing
[00:28:31.410] and um i linked with devin because he's been around the local scene for a while
[00:28:35.770] and he's the son of um casey haley from jodeci um so casey and jojo yeah yeah casey and jojo for
[00:28:46.010] the next the next next generation of people who don't know who jodeci are um but he's his son so
[00:28:53.520] i hit him up and was like oh we should do something sometime um so i sent him some joints
[00:29:01.260] and then eventually he had said he's like oh if you can come to la um you know we'll work on some
[00:29:10.820] stuff so i was like i don't got nothing to do right now you told him you're gonna check your
[00:29:18.960] calendar though i said check my i'm free um but yeah i didn't have anything going on with that i
[00:29:25.160] was working with slim and we were deciding what we were about to do next and um i was like i'm
[00:29:31.330] go out and um and fuck with devon for for a week so i flew out to la and his uncle jojo had a studio
[00:29:38.750] out there so um we just linked up and we did his um i don't know if it's his first album but it
[00:29:45.860] might be his first like official album moment we did that whole shit in a week out there and um
[00:29:51.820] in la um i'm super excited to hear that yeah you didn't listen to that one yet
[00:29:59.900] the no did you send it to me i don't think so no then how did i hear it it's not out no it is out
[00:30:06.680] oh i thought you said you're working on a project another one coming oh that's the one i'm excited
[00:30:11.460] to hear yeah no um you maybe you did send me that because i did listen to devin haley's project
[00:30:19.150] yeah because you you um were listening to um top five volume two yeah so we did two projects
[00:30:27.150] Three projects before that one in a short amount of time.
[00:30:33.170] So 20, did we put it out 2017?
[00:30:35.450] It was either 2017, 2018 that we put out Moment.
[00:30:40.970] That was like his first full length, quote unquote, album that we did together.
[00:30:47.650] So we did Moment out there.
[00:30:49.290] And then after that, we did Top 5 and Love Factory in the same year.
[00:30:58.020] so the love factory was his r&b album where he's more so singing than rapping and um
[00:31:09.420] now we're on to top five volume three and the one that i just finished mixing was um
[00:31:21.630] it's called no fun intended and that's the next project and then after this one
[00:31:26.830] it's going to be top five volume three which is 90 percent done already and um yeah so we got
[00:31:35.490] three other projects besides that one coming from the guy that said i don't know how much gas in the
[00:31:40.370] tank i got left no i got three projects i have production gas in the tank as far as wrapping gas
[00:31:46.930] not so much uh it'll come back it comes in spurts yep it might be a while but
[00:31:56.110] yeah it takes it takes longer for me to get motivated to rap for sure anymore because you
[00:32:03.280] know i don't know you do music so it's like um i've been started writing when i was like
[00:32:12.620] 12 or 13 you know so it's been 20 years it's been like 10 years since i dropped the track
[00:32:21.560] i'll have to look it up i think the last track i put out was anvil with uh with gallo shout out
[00:32:26.640] to gallo that was a long time ago but i'm gonna put something out just for fun i have to i've
[00:32:33.140] talked about it on the podcast just put stuff out that's all you gotta do when i first went
[00:32:37.660] so i recorded uh two verses recently and my buddy shout out to johnny melendez he comes over
[00:32:43.780] and um he sets up brings out a little interface and a laptop brings out the sm7b and i'm like
[00:32:52.060] okay so do you need me to print your verse and he's like don't you got a phone he's like nobody
[00:32:56.980] prints their verse anymore i'm doing mad stuff differently just uh i'm used to the analog a lot
[00:33:03.260] more stuff is uh digital but it's it's easy to hop into it i try to get my son into it my son is 13
[00:33:10.880] and he even told me the other day he's like you know what i don't really want to learn to produce
[00:33:14.660] but i think it'd be fun to be an artist so i'm like all right maybe i'll just have him at least
[00:33:19.460] do a song for him to hear himself i recorded him singing frank sinatra um so just it's a wild
[00:33:28.610] creative outlet for sure no matter where you end up with music or anything like that
[00:33:34.350] That's why I think it's so important to promote. People don't know what one share or one like
[00:33:39.530] does. They scroll by and they like to see that you're doing it. And it's like, okay.
[00:33:46.410] Yeah. I had that problem with people a while ago too, because people know what I do,
[00:33:51.590] who know me or who's around. There was one of your lyrics where you had said,
[00:33:58.350] essentially, well, a lot of your lyrics said just like, nobody from Allentown made it or
[00:34:03.750] nobody from eight town quote unquote made it and stuff and it's like there's such a rich
[00:34:08.770] musical scene here there's such like a story of stuff and there's people who like uh i would
[00:34:16.150] compare to like uh tupac or something that explained this area and the right the nuances
[00:34:22.050] of it very well but i don't know if it's too close to philly too close to new york i don't know
[00:34:31.000] maybe we just need to start working together more you know what i mean it's really difficult
[00:34:36.740] and and we've been trying to do that for for a long time like me and rick um and slim because
[00:34:44.480] i always felt there was something special about people who are actually from allentown and people
[00:34:50.500] from bethlehem and people from easton like actually from here not not transients from
[00:34:56.460] new york or new jersey and nothing not to disrespect any of them um but i felt there
[00:35:02.880] was always a unique personality about people who are actually born and raised here and that's what
[00:35:11.620] we found with myself i was born on 17th street hospital and raised two blocks away from here
[00:35:17.720] for 12 years of my life until we moved not even out of town yeah to the quote-unquote suburbs
[00:35:26.680] that's 10 minutes away but i'm still here and so is rick is from here born and raised here
[00:35:34.400] a town slim born and raised here um devin's from new york but you know we accept him a little bit
[00:35:40.720] we accept him a little bit um uh there's just just a lot of artists that i've encountered that
[00:35:48.700] are actually from the area that I felt have something different style-wise who are unique
[00:35:59.120] to New York, unique from Philly.
[00:36:03.420] They just have something different about them than those areas.
[00:36:07.660] And we're kind of an amalgamation of all of these places because New York is a gritty
[00:36:18.080] place.
[00:36:18.560] philly's a gritty place we but they're also a little bit more not as much not not to say high
[00:36:29.930] class but they have a bougie-ness about them coming from the bigger cities and we have a more
[00:36:36.470] blue collar experience than they do as well said that's that makes sense and so we talk the same
[00:36:45.530] shit but it's just a little bit different we don't have a neat we don't have the new york
[00:36:57.800] accent we don't have the philly accent for those just listening that aren't from the valley
[00:37:05.580] we are about an hour hour and a half north of philly and maybe two hours south of new york
[00:37:12.840] yeah well you could get you could get to philly and your map says philly but if you're going to
[00:37:18.340] visit someone in the city and you got to deal with traffic yeah yeah yeah so i'm just thinking
[00:37:23.440] until you get to the center but i have listeners outside of this area that might not know where
[00:37:28.120] our geography is and i always tell people because i deal in um i contract with people in audio visual
[00:37:34.760] all over the world you know what i mean i'm in digital marketing so when i'm explaining to them
[00:37:39.660] the valley i share a lot of the same pride that you're saying with like you know it's this it's
[00:37:44.340] this niche area you know um but it's like anywhere else where you don't always have people willing to
[00:37:51.380] work together or um you know just put people on just for sure and i'm all for working together
[00:38:01.000] too with with with people who are deserving of being worked together with you're gonna work
[00:38:09.120] together with them just share something and say okay this is coming from you know uh i mean it's
[00:38:16.810] also different with rap it's easy for me it's always like competitive yeah yeah rap is much
[00:38:22.910] more competitive than say graphic designers even other videographers because most of the at least
[00:38:28.430] the videographers that i deal with they're not chasing the 200 videos you know what i mean like
[00:38:37.540] They're not, they're not even in the same, they're not worried about people who are asking
[00:38:41.880] for, uh, getting things a handout or cheap.
[00:38:46.280] I mean, video is one of the greatest mediums to be able to get people's attention and deliver
[00:38:52.260] a message and stuff.
[00:38:53.340] So it's valuable.
[00:38:54.280] If you have something worth filming, then you already can monetize it and make whatever
[00:39:00.300] you're putting into it back.
[00:39:01.980] absolutely even more so now because we got into videos super early 2009 we started doing videos
[00:39:11.740] around the same time that josh ramirez was doing videos shout out to jack nine exactly shout out
[00:39:19.250] to jack nine we were doing shit at the same time and even then me and him always always
[00:39:25.430] rocked with each other and he was like yo you're better than me right now and all that stuff at
[00:39:30.050] that time and then he just took like a little turn and then took off yeah and I've always been
[00:39:39.460] the more I only want to do what I want to do yeah and if people didn't want to do it I don't care
[00:39:48.170] so he was like I'm I'm over here getting money people are paying me to do this I'm gonna do this
[00:39:54.030] so he took off and did his thing which I applaud I seen him a couple years ago I went out to Florida
[00:39:59.350] and visit his studio and all that and it's very impressive i gotta get out there and um yeah that's
[00:40:05.190] my guy um but we started basically the same time and he was older he was older than i am now
[00:40:14.380] starting out doing videos right right then so it was like 34 yeah so there's no time limit as to
[00:40:21.540] when you could start and be successful in doing things like like you were saying the podcast like
[00:40:27.280] about failure i've a ton of failures yeah because i start i start things i get into things and then
[00:40:35.280] i'm like is this for me or not and that's how that's how i've always been that's how i started
[00:40:41.040] out i taught myself how how to record i taught myself how to reproduce taught myself how to
[00:40:46.180] engineer i taught myself how to do videos taught myself how to edit videos taught myself how to do
[00:40:51.200] artwork and i figured out what i like doing and what i don't like doing so i always say
[00:40:59.760] just do things like you're doing right now with the podcast just yeah just go ahead dive in head
[00:41:06.200] first it doesn't matter if things suck but you'll figure it out eventually and if you if you figure
[00:41:15.630] out that you just don't like doing it you find some other aspect to do it or the third one i
[00:41:23.000] suck and I love doing it. So I'm just going to keep doing it. There's a lot of people who do
[00:41:27.040] that too. There's a lot of people who do that too. And, um, that's what I was going to say too,
[00:41:33.160] about, um, supporting people from the area. And, um, I'm speaking on, on that aspect solely as
[00:41:44.190] or in a rapper or, you know, artists in the hip hop community in the Valley is a lot of people
[00:41:52.110] are mad at me, I'm kind of infamous, quote unquote, because I don't send people beats.
[00:42:01.180] I don't support them the way they feel they should. But I always have my eye out for people
[00:42:10.090] who are talented or I see something in because if they are talented and I see something in them,
[00:42:17.990] i want to work with them i'm a producer at heart if they're a dope artist i want to send them some
[00:42:23.510] stuff or i want to give them a critique on something they may be able to do better or
[00:42:30.030] improve upon a little bit um so i always have something to give somebody who's coming up
[00:42:37.530] but it's not a charity just handing out beats right for whoever yeah because there's a lot
[00:42:46.330] of people who i think don't deserve the the shares or the respect who feel they they do need it but
[00:42:57.010] i'm just like no like there's some people who just share whoever or support whoever just because
[00:43:06.100] they're from the town and i've i've never been like that because i feel like my my opinion and
[00:43:12.880] cosine matter a little bit. I don't want to say more, but yes, more. I want to keep my credentials
[00:43:21.500] in a certain range to where if I'm sharing somebody's stuff or I'm telling you that this
[00:43:30.200] is dope, please go listen to it. Yeah, no, that makes sense. You got to be the Paul Revere when
[00:43:39.570] you tell people it's time to go. They understand it's time to go. You can't just be doing that
[00:43:44.370] calling false alarms right for everybody yeah sharing everything no that makes a ton of sense
[00:43:49.450] i'll say like i'll at least give it a like i'll at least give it a listen right and i'll come back
[00:43:54.550] a lot of stuff like they'll go they'll they'll go um like there's a lot of times i hear something
[00:44:03.210] and it might not be great but if i see that person still doing it a while down the road i'll be like
[00:44:09.510] let me check back in and see what's up and just see if this changes or if this does ever but
[00:44:14.670] honestly facebook is not a place where i would like really see new music because i'm not usually
[00:44:22.490] like first i'm not i'm not a consumer i'm not on facebook really looking for anything i kind of
[00:44:29.250] catch myself scrolling i have timer apps when i'm working that tell me if i do anything yeah on my
[00:44:35.030] phone facebook is dead it's pretty much dead now well isn't isn't like all social media just media
[00:44:40.850] now all of it's dead is you'd think it'd be something visual on a visual platform but no
[00:44:47.340] all the all this this is only because people actually watch it like i i get i like listening
[00:44:55.280] to my podcast when i'm running doing something like that when i go and like sit and watch a
[00:45:01.980] podcast uh i would i did big shout out to dj focus podcast because that had me locked in last week
[00:45:09.780] for like two and a half hours on live was driving and i just had it playing through the car yeah and
[00:45:15.560] it's super entertaining and i'm like that lends itself to video i would listen to if it was just
[00:45:21.000] on the radio just audio but i'm not watching a podcast for four hours i'm not sitting there
[00:45:28.760] watching joe rogan and talk with his guests i might reference the time stamp if there's something
[00:45:33.320] i wanted to see but i don't have to watch people talk but i understand that some people do
[00:45:39.120] yeah some people do um people like us though we're in a little bit more of the minority
[00:45:50.800] because i've been the same way over the past i don't know 10 years of when podcasting started
[00:45:57.930] to really take off and i've been listening to listening to long form content for a long time
[00:46:05.150] and whenever i would be interested in something and i would send somebody something to listen to
[00:46:09.950] and it's a podcast that's an hour plus they'll be like don't send me no shit like that i'm like how
[00:46:15.110] am i gonna yeah and i'm like dude i don't listen to anything under 30 minutes well you send the
[00:46:22.900] you send the clips i feel the same way if there's shorts that's a great part or you know what it
[00:46:28.480] just comes up in conversation like i feel like a lot of the stuff from the podcast that i consume
[00:46:33.880] will come up in conversation or come up in my show or something but i never learned within the
[00:46:39.500] shorts and it grabs the people it needs to grab but i'm not that guy throughout all those podcasts
[00:46:47.180] there's there's always something in the weeds that you pick up that you would never pick up
[00:46:53.980] if you just only listen to the shorts it's always it's always a nugget in there that you would only
[00:47:01.560] get if you listen to the full two hours i'll send you we'll get in our little audio club i'll send
[00:47:07.380] you some people that that do listen to long form content that i have conversation like they'll
[00:47:11.840] actually have a conversation with you about this stuff now four hours that's just ridiculous the
[00:47:17.140] only time i'm sharing that i'm getting the only time i'm sharing four hours is like at work well
[00:47:23.400] like you know what i mean i'll uh i'll be at my day contract and i'll look over at uh one of my
[00:47:28.900] co-workers there and i'll be like you know you want to throw on a lex friedman or something it's
[00:47:32.460] noon we or it's the beginning of the day we could watch it till noon or something it's just in the
[00:47:38.040] background and you don't have to actually listen and if we find ourselves too into the conversation
[00:47:42.760] we'll be like all right we got to get work done let's turn this off right um if i haven't gone
[00:47:48.600] on a road trip with someone to be like let's just throw that last time i did that was like 2018
[00:47:53.660] where it's like you get a podcast i get a podcast we'll listen to something as we go but um everybody
[00:48:01.100] has their then they have people shout out to my listeners that tune in every week and check back
[00:48:07.060] you build a relationship with checking back and hearing the same voice the same content
[00:48:12.780] every week like there's little nuances of things where i'll see somebody in real life and i'll be
[00:48:18.100] like yeah i went to four days of my day contract so i'm free fridays they'd be like oh i know
[00:48:22.520] like how'd you know that it's like right put it out in a podcast and broadcast it to the world so
[00:48:27.700] start there but besides music besides um just being a career creative in general how does that
[00:48:37.340] like how do you keep up your mental health and everything with or do you like i've just started
[00:48:45.560] i've just started keeping up with my mental health um my bad um you know through your teens and 20s
[00:48:54.800] we didn't know shit about none of that um
[00:49:00.810] that's the clip especially especially through my 20s it was just um drinking that's how i kept up
[00:49:11.040] with my mental health um no uh up up until my i don't know i don't know if you want to call it a
[00:49:20.740] mid twenties crisis or something, but like around, around like when I turned like 26,
[00:49:25.960] I was like, is this what I want to keep doing? Is this how I want to live my life forever? Like
[00:49:31.900] the years are going to keep passing by and I'm going to be 30 soon. So what do I want to do
[00:49:38.340] really? So I, I, I really had to, to reflect on, on how I'm living my life and, um, it wasn't
[00:49:48.080] looking good. It wasn't looking like a good outcome from who I was around and the things I
[00:49:55.220] was doing. So I really had to make a change and it was really significant, um, with what I was
[00:50:04.680] doing. And I had to cut, cut ties with people and stop doing the things I was doing and, um,
[00:50:12.900] really turn a corner in my outlook on life in general. Um, I was always like a lifelong
[00:50:26.100] nihilist, atheist, um, rebellious, um, everything you wouldn't think of. And, um,
[00:50:37.900] I came to a crossroads where, you know, in the aspect of nihilism where nothing matters and
[00:50:48.180] you don't go anywhere after you die. And that could take you to some really dark
[00:50:52.980] places in your mind. And, and I went there and it was tough, but I really changed the outlook on my
[00:51:04.310] life and um came around that that things do matter and there is things to live for and um
[00:51:15.880] there is purpose even if it's the purpose that you give it yeah even if it's only that
[00:51:25.510] you can get out of the hole you're in and and that's what i came to and you know now now i'm
[00:51:34.950] married man so before that i was not there was no time where i was thinking of of marriage or
[00:51:45.730] um a family or anything like that it was just gonna be i don't know i might just get
[00:51:53.100] fucked up until i die i don't know damn damn yeah no i uh i'm definitely not gonna judge
[00:52:04.910] Yeah, I think I'm on a pretty good path. Definitely a way better person. I'm more present with my family and people in my life who've been there for a long time.
[00:52:23.420] because before i was more cold and distant and focused on you know i was way more focused on
[00:52:32.060] the music and just trying to do things i wanted to do i'm in my 20s early 19 20s
[00:52:40.440] and um just living life being wild do you have kids you don't want me asking no i don't
[00:52:48.000] don't ah okay that uh that was a big change for me i think i was 23 when i had jayden see i'm 36
[00:52:56.280] now yeah he's 13 so yeah we're the same age it's wild yeah i have nieces and nephews oh no no it's
[00:53:05.040] my own yeah it's all good if you don't have kids i just feel like now i'm doing stuff i would have
[00:53:12.640] did in my 20s like i have that fire it's like don't get me wrong i did stuff in my 20s you had
[00:53:17.560] the period that it was like your blackout period yeah like now you're like no now i can do these
[00:53:23.200] things honestly i stopped rapping because i had a son and my son pulls up most of my music is like
[00:53:31.140] i i didn't i had it uploaded somewhere and like you said like i like that piff this stuff
[00:53:37.460] disappears i don't have any record of maybe three albums and then uh i had four or five tracks done
[00:53:45.140] working on a project with gallo right and um all his hard work that he put into the beats i was
[00:53:52.280] just like i'm not gonna finish it you know what i mean like i'm not and everybody's like oh it's a
[00:53:56.540] phase it is what it is you guys were right after 11 years i'm back dropping the hottest mixtape
[00:54:04.800] for the year. And I feel like, like I was kind of the opposite of that. And, um, a lot of my
[00:54:11.100] friends that I grew up with, you know, we're all like the same age. So as they were doing the same
[00:54:16.300] thing you were doing is having families and living your life, working your jobs. I wasn't doing that.
[00:54:24.400] I was working on the music and trying to do what I was doing, which, you know, I'm not famous or
[00:54:30.500] anything, but that was my purpose at that time. So I skipped out on having kids in a family
[00:54:37.500] while you guys were doing that. And now a lot of the people like yourself and a lot of my friends
[00:54:43.600] now, their kids are teenagers and stuff like that. And they have a little bit more time to
[00:54:49.540] pay attention to what's going on. And they're like, Oh, Hey, what are you doing now? And I'm
[00:54:53.980] like dude i needed your support fucking 10 years ago yeah right not now now i'm old everybody who's
[00:55:02.680] who's trying to search for my shit now they're fucking 17 or not even 17 i don't know i don't
[00:55:10.240] even know how old they are they're gonna look but i'm not appealing to the people who are
[00:55:15.000] gonna be searching for music now i needed that support 10 years ago but do you know what it is
[00:55:21.940] though, like music didn't have a chance to mature until like Jay and M and Wayne are still putting
[00:55:32.300] music out. For sure. Louis Bardalis, LBJ told me he had mentioned that. And I was like, that
[00:55:40.700] reframed my mind. I was like, that makes so much sense. So it's not there. There still is people
[00:55:46.500] searching for the type of music you make. Absolutely. And I've said that before, too,
[00:55:51.940] like within our lifetime there's gonna be an artist who gets popular who isn't alive anymore
[00:55:59.460] like people are gonna discover him and he's already dead yeah oh man it's wild that's gonna
[00:56:08.040] happen eventually it's not unwrapped like though no i was honestly thinking of that the other day
[00:56:14.360] i was like what if i just record these tracks and they're not out while i'm alive yeah not that i'm
[00:56:20.820] thinking and then people discover it and they're like no this guy's fire you gotta go check him
[00:56:24.360] out and then and then they go like look up your wikipedia and they're like oh he died in like 2007
[00:56:29.580] we're gonna get into some music man should play some music yeah do you got uh you got your phone
[00:56:36.180] right can you pull up uh well is there anything you want to play as long as you can send me the
[00:56:42.560] links i'll be able to throw it in and post i have nothing in mind i'm not sure if there's anything
[00:56:49.240] do you have um everything i want okay all right all right everything i want off of the uh misery
[00:56:58.290] loves company album talk about waking up a good morning but i would talk about i'm a parent daddy
[00:57:43.210] y'all i never pop nobody maybe it's the king of me i'm feeling myself speak up you're feeling
[00:57:59.950] differently because y'all ain't fucking with me time i drop my team shit on y'all team religion
[00:58:04.540] y'all talk about a couple crucifix uh and i want the thing that i want i'm gonna get
[00:58:16.700] pay attention for granted become a presence as a present now you gotta pay admission i
[00:58:52.390] fucking the same old bitches used to be money over bitches what a coincidence now they just
[00:58:59.980] change over bitches raj no fake of a side menage to a paradigm as quick as a paradigm
[00:59:10.450] they say it cost to be the boss but it free to be a sucker motherfucker still sucker free
[00:59:22.710] super dope all right that was uh everything i want off the misery loves company album is it
[00:59:33.910] available on youtube just on youtube that's it just on youtube we'll make sure i don't know
[00:59:38.470] we're gonna throw the link in the in the description yeah i hope i hope to get my
[00:59:45.090] my other catalog and and this one too on on other streaming services i want to i want to remix them
[00:59:52.270] and make them sound a little bit better as i always want to like it sounds good don't be a
[00:59:57.960] perfectionist i know that's that's what i've i've tried to learn to balance over the years too
[01:00:02.720] otherwise i would never put anything out is i i have to get it to the point to where i just put
[01:00:09.940] it out but all right we're gonna land the plane i want to i want you to chill for a second after
[01:00:15.520] the show i want to play some music for you go for it show you some some projects we're working on
[01:00:19.940] so uh we close this we have a special way of closing this out this is i will not lose podcast
[01:00:26.820] we set out to prove everything is learned from failure we must persevere and recognize it as
[01:00:31.320] one step closer to success to support the show visit the website shows.acast.com slash i will
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[01:00:43.400] leave a comment whatever man your contribution is appreciated thank you for listening