WLPWR - Secrets to Making Award Winning Records, In the Studio with Eminem & Yelawolf - ECS Ep. 31

WLPWR is an award-winning music producer who's worked with the likes of Eminem, Yelawolf, Wiz Khalifa, Tech N9ne, The Game, and more... WLPWR's resume includes 3 platinum and 3 gold records, a huge accomplishment for anyone in or around the music studio. 

- What are some characteristics a music producer looks for in an up and coming artist?
- What are some tricks WLPWR has learned from working with some of the greatest in hip-hop history?
- How is training artists in the studio similar to training MMA fighters in the gym?

These questions and more are all answered in this episode of The Ed Clay Show as WLPWR sits down with Ed to talk about his journey in the music industry, what he's learned from his experience, and his plan on taking it to the next level in Nashville.

Hear from WLPWR why he moved to Nashville and what it was about the city and it's talent that brought him here, the similarities Ed see's in his days training MMA fighters with how WLPWR trains artists, and stories from the studio with Eminem and Yelawolf that give listeners valuable insight into the minds of the best in the game.  

This is an episode full of advice, tips, and tricks valuable not just to someone coming up in the music industry but for anyone who is looking to improve in their career and become the best version of themselves.

Enjoy Episode 31 of The Ed Clay Show with Music Producer WLPWR!

#musicproducer #recordproducer #eminem 

Links for WLPWR:
https://www.wlpwr.com/ 

Show Sponsors:
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Moving to Nashville, Getting into Music
00:08:50 - Passion, What Makes Someone Great?
00:16:00 - Becoming a Professional Music Producer
00:23:13 - Working with Yelawolf and Making Trunk Muzik
00:30:33 - Developing Artists, Hard Work Beats Talent
00:39:26 - Training Artists is Like Training Fighters
00:47:22 - Working with Eminem, Biggest Lessons
00:58:28 - Working with Wiz Khalifa, Value of Relationships
01:08:23 - Being Kind to Others, Making Things Right
01:13:03 - Producing War Story with Yelawolf

Transcript

you work with yellow wolf Eminem Whiz Khalifa most of what I have in my resume came from my relationships that I built while working with yellow wolf yell and I have been making music so long that like we're like Jordan and Pippen man what I learned when working with Eminem is he created moments anytime he was getting ready to rap he would do things in the production to create like intensity right before his verse comes on and I just think it's brilliant this is like a movie how do you go find hard work part of why I moved to Nashville is because I feel like the energy of that is here with these artists the worst people here are better than 90% of the people everywhere else when it comes to musicianship and just being dedicated to this I think this is my time I think this is when it's supposed to happen I've seen enough I've learned enough let's go like once you start doing music and getting good reactions from it and you know it just become something you love willpower welcome to the podcast thank you brother so we have a lot of friends and for the listeners listening in uh you're a music producer musician uh work with artists like yellow wolf Eminem uh a lot of amazing amazing artists moved from Atlanta you were there for I believe eight years move to Nashville and uh you're getting ready to take the City by storm I'm joining there we go joining yeah I love it here man I'm I'm really glad to be in Nashville and it's a big change it is a big change it is a big change what um you know you were here in 201 we were talking a little bit before the podcast yeah and you've seen the differences had you been coming back in between as well yeah a little bit but not enough to recognize how much it had changed you know just I kind of had a you know a a path to where I was going and I would come in town and go right back out but now that I'm here I'm I'm noticing that like a lot of things are different from just you know 2011 yeah kind of crazy like uh you know the roads are getting wider the buildings are going up it's kind of crazy so poth holes are getting worse though yeah potholes right you said itude we have with all due respect uh to my friend who's in charge of the potholes for the state Byron Schneider maybe G to take out his name there uh but I I call him all the time about the potholes every time I hit a big one like bar you need to fix these damn potholes but yeah we got the worst potholes in the country yeah I wonder why though like is it like the weather or like I don't know you know what I've been told is that you know when they go and fix the potholes it's more of like a patchwork and to really get them all fixed they have to redo the entire roads and put a new mix in or something I got you so it's like an old technology or something that they're using yeah I could see that it maybe just like bad mix of dirt bad mix of dirt yeah I mean it's been I mean I saw one car a couple months ago like literally lose their their wheel in front of me bam getting off the thing Shelby exit over here yeah and it's like it's highways as well it's not just like you know Street and stuff like it seems like there's hole in holes in the highway that that's well so and I was given the mayor a hard time and I like you know all someone has to do is say they're going to fix the potholes and they're going to win you know make it that's their main thing is I'm fixing the PO in Nashville got my so but the interstates of the state yeah and then the roads the side roads are the city and the city side roads I have to say they're not that bad it's really the interstate so it's more of a state issue Tennessee Department of Transportation that uh if you're listening uh well you know with all these people moving here man that's going to change I think they're going to have to do something about it they got it seems like a lot people coming it do well they talk about like you know the roads here as far as um the traffic gets bad of course you're uh in Atlanta Atlanta traffic is is a whole a whole different whole other level um but you know I'm in Tijana a lot that's where our Hospital group is and they're building an interstate system above the road like 20 feet above the road crazy and I'm like man that could solve a lot of the that's crazy issues because why don't we just build straight up and you know uh you can widen everything it'd be less impact probably on the yeah on the um you know current traffic CU you're not actually changing the current roads yeah and um imagine double so like you have the top one and the bottom one that's what I'm saying that's crazy that's what I'm saying so uh you know a lot of these you know people running for office and stuff it's it's kind of interesting because when I look at some of the ideas and they're like oh buses and trains I'm like they had buses and trains like 60 or 70 years ago like yeah we're going to have like flying cars here soon let plan for the flying cars maybe right but um so yeah you moved to Nashville but you're from you were born in Columbia South or you're born in California yeah yeah I was born in uh Carmel California but I don't know much I have family there but I don't know much about it U my dad was military so I spent most of my years in the Southeast okay so um and Columbia South Carolina is what I call home um I moved there in O I moved to Atlanta in' 05 so Atlanta's also home now but uh I just claimed South Carolina cuz I just loved it there and you know most of what I got into I got into it from South Carolina so what was it like growing up in the in the military with your dad in the military uh it was awesome man I just got to meet a lot of people you know and uh moving around a lot just kind of helped me you know uh make new friends and learn how to adapt in situations like no matter what every three or four years we were moving and you know you just have to go make friends how you make them you know so that's right that's one of the good parts you I say good parts it's it's it's tough sometimes but my business partner Scotty yeah his dad mom and dad were like CIA and so he lived in Iran Middle East he's like you know then went to like a I don't know I think he's at 17 different schools he's like man I just I learned how to make uh make friends really good he's probably a great communicator he's probably getting to it yeah that's really that's what I got out of it like I just learned how to adapt and you know good and bad you just figure out like how to survive in all situations you know by just moving around Yeah man so you you um how did you get into music were were you already into it in in in school and yeah it was just sort of a passion and in high school you know I was uh I was in a singing group at one point and that that really wasn't what I wanted to do with my life but it was what we were into um but as I was in you know singing I was introduced to a producer and I had no idea what that was at at some point and and so when I met him I was like yo I love what you do I love this whole side of the music industry yeah and I got into it man I just started uh you know really investing into computers and beat machines and all that kind of stuff and yeah so what year did you graduate high school uh 94 94 okay so hip-hop was just kind of he was kind of hitting his stride Tupac was going on and uh like what was your entry so I mean you got the mixers and the all the different equipment but like did you start DJing clubs like how did that work man no it's crazy I I was a huge music fan of course I mean I was into like the ice cubes and you know this West Coast hip-hop was big to me um weirdly cuz I was in Georgia but I love that music and in fact I why now because I did used to go to California every summer to visit my grandmother okay and that's when they would introduce us to music that nobody had back in Georgia so I used that kind of as a cool thing to you know get conversations going and introducing music to friends but um yeah man once I realized that I had some Talent you know and my friends were into it it just kind of grew and it became you know something I got passionate about and sort of addicted to I guess you know like one you start doing music and getting good reactions from it and you know it just becomes something you love and it it oddly it oddly replaced like my football cuz I played ball and I was really good in football but I loved music man so kind of kept going yeah it's it's it's interesting because once you're passionate about something it doesn't feel like work yeah and yeah I can't imagine a musician who wasn't passionate about music yeah because they would be up against someone who was passionate and just wanted to do it all the time no matter what oh yeah no it's definitely a line of work or just a line of love that you really are in it with people who really do this you know and you can't fake it you can't it's not an act you know like I find out that you know moving to Nashville I've been doing music 20s something years man but like I'm a bit nervous out here because it's like these guys are like for real for real guitar players for real based players you know just some of the greatest musicians in the world are here but the one thing we all have in common is like we're very serious about our craft and that's what I love about it so yeah you you do have to be passionate about it or or you'll get lapped yeah for sure well I mean since you're so serious you're around serious people serious recognizes serious you know you know when someone's like on their stuff I could always tell back in the day with fighting people say oh I'm fighter you know get in the gym like okay or you're like okay yeah you you know you know what's up and professionals can can recognize that yeah I would I was just listening to something the other day and they were talking about Champions and uh boxers and how greatness is like fractions of a second like the greatest could be the greatest in fractions of a second that's that's crazy to me cuz it's like you know somebody could train and train and train but if one guy stayed in the gym a few days more than you and practiced something you didn't that's it no I mean that that is what it is I remember in wrestling I wrestled in high school yeah and uh you know I probably was up for the state champion actually three years a sophomore junior senior never won the state championship and um even now I have nightmares every now and then about my semi-final match in the state tournament where I lost and you know I go back and I think about even to this day I'm 40 I'll be 43 next month like I wish I would have worked a little bit harder or lifted I wish I would have lifted more actually that's like the main thing I just focused on wrestling but I should have been lifting I was it was it was a strength thing and um you know the real greats they put 110% in Crazy to everything they're doing yeah and I can't say that I I mean I've worked really hard but I could have worked harder yeah I definitely feel like in anything that you're doing that is the difference you know I I'm in music and there are some goals that I want to reach that I haven't yet and sometimes I beat myself up about it I'm like why why why is this not happening and then I then I really think about it and I'm like well you know what you didn't you didn't stick around long enough you didn't work on that long enough or you know right now I'm very adamant about really learning guitar cuz I can play it enough to write a song but I can't play it well enough to do a set I guess but I'm very serious about it and it's like you know this is something that I really want to do and I know it's going to take hours and hours and hours to do it yep so we'll see we'll see how this works out for me but that those are the things that I think make the difference yeah they absolutely do I think like this the self-reflection of being honest yeah you I try not to be hard on myself even though I mean I'm I'm I still am but it's more of for me like a recognition like okay if I can say I didn't give a cuz we all know when we didn't give 110% internally other people can look and be like well you're working yeah I'm working hard I am but if I want to be at the top top you know it's it's on me it's not on anybody else to make it happen it's on me it is and uh you know but you you're at the top in uh producing hip-hop yeah I mean you can say well there's you know a small small group of people that might have done a little better yeah but you know from the out from 10,000 ft yeah it looks pretty much cool right yeah that's true I have to remind myself of that sometimes because I do sometimes I that you want so much more yes but you have to be grateful for what you've accomplished you know I think about it all the time I get DMS and emails from people and I'm just you know blown away sometimes at how they see me and I'm like oh I didn't realize you saw that but you know and that it helped but yeah you know you you said something about wrestling man which just reminded me of a story I when I was in high school I wrestled at 189 I suck but I think the funniest thing that ever happened to me have you ever wrestled somebody who like just really wore a really stinking uniform oh yeah like that was like the tactic to beat you I don't know if was the T to beat me but I wrestle with some people who who stank bad man I was I was really strong and not really a good wrestler but I was just a really strong kid so I would win sometimes just off of the fact that like I was just more athletic sure but I never forget I went against this guy that went to uh Spring Valley High School and man he just he whooped me bad but it was really because that outfit was just so bad yes I just I that's a sidebar but it just it triggered the whole thought of mine man hey it's strategery you know they gotta they gotta win however they can oh my God yeah that and in Brazilian jiu-jitsu you have the Brazilian jiu-jitsu ghee you martial arts un and sometimes people's GES they don't wash yeah it just smells I really believe that's like part of the strategy man cuz it's like you know it's it becomes mental after you've after you maximize the things you need to know how to to to wrestle or or fight it's like you know what you know that's right now it's just mental it's like how can I outsmart this person how can I get in his head and like I guess that's one way man that's what it is no that's wrestling is a game of it is a game of the mind you know you slip for one second same thing like you're saying with boxing like you know uh a fraction of a of a second can make you know a big difference big difference and you think about um who was it Tyson Fury when he got knocked down uh by big big dude um can't think of his name uh but he he knocks Fury down and it looks like Fury's out cold like he rises like theaker and justs up and then goes on to to win but um yeah I mean it's those Sports where it's individualized and the stakes are so high I mean it's inches man that make the difference crazy yeah so you got into music in high school you were in like you know and got passionate about it this is your this is what you want to do when did you actually start making a living doing it um it was shortly after high school I was one of those kids who knew um that where I lived I couldn't really make it there um so I did what most people do and I I went to New York um at the time New York was like the um Mecca of music you know all things music really and so I took off to New York um and I I I got with a lady named uh syvia Robinson who was the owner of Sugar Hill records okay which I don't know if you're familiar with it but there was the like the early rap group uh Sugar Hill Gang um they had the big song uh oh man I Can't Remember song anyway big a big rap rap group um and they're like considered the founders of like commercial hip-hop so like they were a really big deal but I ended up getting a job with her and that kind of like fed my desire to stick with it because I was able to see at that point that this was a real business what were you doing with her um I was a producer she signed me as a producer and she had a production company which I had no idea existed coming from South Carolina I was just a kid with some talent and I just felt like somebody needed to discover me and so I went there to be discovered how old were you um I might I was in my early 20s I can't remember exactly but okay so early 20s you moved to New York South Carolina yeah meet uh and she put you in as a producer so then you're like so what's your mindset you're you're probably there young like just taking it all in trying to figure out oh this is how this work a lot you just don't know I had no idea yeah and so she so she had this building um it was a two-story building it had around somewhere like maybe 10 studios in it and she had all kinds of different producers in each room so um each producer was signed to her company and they were every every week we would write songs and turn them into her um and I didn't realize till later that that was her forming like a publishing company and like so um so I signed to her it turned out that it was a pretty bad deal though you know I I had no idea what I was signing but I ended up signing away like all my publishing oh [ __ ] yeah for for like some chump changes it was ridiculous but what I realized in that moment was that this was a business and that there was a business of selling songs and um you know and and getting placements and it was all a business and so I took all that in man and that's what kind of G gave me the fire it was like you know I knew that I had stumbled by signing the deal and just sort of not knowing what I was supposed to know didn't have an attorney all these things as a kid but but what I did get out of it was I met some incredible people during that time uh this was like 2000 2001 and so that's when I met yellow wolf okay and so uh and I mean we're still friends today 2001 so you're probably well you're a little older than wolf wolf would be he's he's 42 yeah he was yeah he was definitely young he 20 20 exactly so um yeah so we were just kind of we kicked it then and we just we've been friends ever since you know you know and we we came up together you know most of our obstacles we went through them together like it it was just we got turned down a lot you know and so we just stuck with it but but what I got from it was you know if I had never taken that leap to go to New York to figure it out yep then I may I may not be sitting here now you know so yeah I mean you got to get get outside that comfort zone man man yeah it's crazy and I I would tell any kid that wants to do something like go to where that thing lives you know like if you're a skater go to go to LA or go to San Francisco I don't know I I don't know much about it but wherever it exists you should go there and become a part of that and you know something will come of it you know how did you so did you have a job before you went to New York or did you find it so did you have money saved how did you no man I just did the I did the the most ridiculous you know I was just like I'm going I I think I had a girlfriend at the time who was down to kind of hold me down a little bit and um yeah that was it I mean I had been I had been doing music in my community long enough to where people were supportive yeah they understood that I needed to go beyond where I was so I had a lot of friends who were like rooting me on and like you know I remember having um conversations with my good friend uh Tasha who just sort of supported me in that Journey um and she just would call all the time just the talk about staying focused and like keep you know keep keep your eye on the prize don't worry about it I know the deal sucks but you got this you got this and so that that kind of helped but I W I didn't stay very long I think I might have been there a year yeah maybe a year and a half you got that you gotta got to see that it was a business you putting it all together as when you're passionate about something and you have an opportunity to learn just like take it all in yeah so here's here's the really crazy part so once I realized that I couldn't um do anything under this publishing deal I of course went back home so I got back to South Carolina but what I learned in New York I implemented that stuff in my hometown and so I was able to really start my own business there and Thrive you know um I got back home I rented out a storage unit um U-Haul used to have these uh office spaces that you could rent interesting and at the time they were like $30 $40 a month it was crazy and they yeah so they had these uh uh they had these timers on the wall where like for two hours you could turn the lights on in the air condition okay and but in two hours it would cut off everything would cut off you just have to reset it again sure well of course we rigged it and just like made it where it stayed on all day like I know for a fact that I'm responsible for they probably charged 400 bucks for those rooms now I know the reason for that we ran that light bill up something crazy but but yeah I took that and I turned it into a recording studio a small little like home studio set up okay and I I did my thing out of there for like a couple of years and that's when I really became um I think that's when I became a producer I really studied the craft and like got better at it I had clients it was just a really good situation so and I got all that information from New York it was like I watched this lady do it but I just did it on a smaller scale in a smaller place but it helped me sustain my life and that's how I started making money and figuring out the business of it now when did you you met wolf in 2001 is yeah uh where did where did you meet we met at this studio at in South Carolina no at uh at uh Sugar Hill Studios yeah I got in New York he was up there doing the same thing I was doing like he had uh he was of course he's from abama and I don't know what his journey what his journey was to get him to New York but it was all to make it in music for sure and um yeah when I met him he had like a he was with some business entity that he was working with and they were trying to break him as an artist or put him in the room with different creatives and I was in the lobby uh just down there taking a break one day and he came in and we caught conversation and like our conversation turned into just the Rec Rec recognizing that we were both from the south and no one else here was from the south right so we just hit it off man and man hours later we had music that we were making together yeah and shortly after that um I left and he left as well but he you know his uh son was born and son might have been a week or two old they came straight to my house in South Carolina how nice they took a Greyhound bus from New York and stopped in South Carolina and we worked on music and then it just continued from there man that's awesome so um yeah what was that like cuz uh you know it was still a number of years before you know wolf hit it big yeah um he didn't really get signed until around 2008 is maybe 2007 was his first deal um he was signed to Columbia Records M and you know he and I had stayed in touch we worked all the time but I wasn't really a part of the uh his first record deal um he had got with some guys and they were really successful with what they were doing so um yeah it it happened for him he got signed to Colombia but then uh he left Colombia with his um with his anr whoever signed him he left with those guys so um he was without a deal between like 2008 and 2009 I think okay and during that time he had been um experimenting and doing crazy music just some of the dopest stuff you could hear but no one no one really got it because he was always into like this rock and you know country and Hip-Hop he was always mixing it up yeah and in Atlanta if you can imagine it's a really urban city so like it's it's one type of thing out there it's like it's just straight rap you know people not trying to hear too much else but uh eventually he just kind of uh gave into to that idea and was like you know what let's just do a rap record and see what happens man and that's when uh we did trunk music yeah that was uh 2010 correct was uh we released it in 2010 yep and so did he have a deal at the time he did not so that was when he was out with without his deal yeah y'all said let's do trunk music where where did you record it uh man we went to his house in uh Alabama okay yeah so I used to I lived in when I lived in um Atlanta I had this apartment apartment where the um the back door kind of had this uh um I don't know it's like a patio and wolf would never come to my front door and knock on to come in he would just jump this gate and be at my my back door so he bust in one day and was just like look man I I want to go down to Alabama and you know work on a rap record he had the concept of trunk music and you know we agreed on it and so that's what happened man we went down there he had a couple of weeks where um he had his kids he his wife was gone to do something and it was just him and his kids and I came down and we we did it then that's awesome yeah well and you know I was reading that you take a a different a different approach with each artist depending on you know who it is and their style yeah what's it like or you know in 2010 what was the approach to working on this uh rap album with with yellow wolf um man that's a good question I honestly man we just Vibe yell and I have been making music so long that like we're like I don't know man it's like Jordan and Pippen man it's like we just know what we want to do um many times he just comes to me with like an an album title or an album concept and we just really bang until we feel good about it yeah and that's exactly what happened we just locked ourselves into his house he's a very visual person man so like he took a a you know a spray can of paint and like wrote out all of these affirmations on the wall like this wasn't his house either he was he was renting his house by the way so he he basically just like you know wrote all these affirmations on the wall and we agreed to those affirmations and then we just worked on the project and didn't take us that long it might have been a week maybe two but once we got it man we went back to Atlanta and turned it into his to his label and it was up yeah yeah and that was that was his first big album right yeah it was it was his breakout you know breakout album um he and I both agree though there was a few mixtapes before trunk music that we really loved he did a mixtape called stereo that I was just a huge fan of I had nothing to do with it and it was like one of my favorite projects of his but yeah trunk music was just a great breakout project it came at like the perfect time you know there was um I I don't know if you're familiar with the era when blogging music blogging was a big deal I remember was I remember blogging yes yeah the blog era was huge in music um it was right in between the era of CDs going over into streaming so mixtapes were a big deal like downloading music was a big deal um it was right at the cusp of Music becoming like really free out here and and um we put out trunk music and it it just caught on really fast it was like we dropped it and it next thing you know he was just booked everywhere and it it really caught on is that the one that don't make me the TR yeah that song like it really took off and um he he had done a really amazing visual with an up upand cominging um film team at the time I think it was motion family it was just a great timing of everything you know um every every um news Outlet at the time that was a music outlet they picked it up and everybody wrote about it and it was just it was really dope and then shortly after that it it was right around um South by Southwest M and he went to South by Southwest and just ripped CR it yeah he killed it did you go with him I didn't make it to that but he but after his shows they flew him directly from South by Southwest out to sign his deal in la oh nice it was one of those moments where it was just like surreal and everything just happened really fast yeah and so was was that the first artist that you'd work with that like basically you were involved in Breaking yeah yeah you know and honestly I still talk about it to this day like it's still something that I'm still chasing still want that again with somebody like a lot of producers are you know the type of guys who seek work so like for instance like if I wanted to make like a Lee Bryce album I would seek that and try to work my way into a room to be a part of that project or if I want to get on Jelly Rose album i' you know take whatever steps it takes to get into a room to work with him but for me I'm an artist development guy so like I've always been into hey I want to start with the person that has nothing and like try to make it with that person you know but unfortunately you know it's not a lot of people who are cut like yellow wolf man like he I could I couldn't put it in words how hard he worked to get what he got you know and a lot of people don't know that but I was a part of that and I saw the the sleepless nights and the you know just the show after show and just you know fighting the system to get what he wanted so the grind yeah that grind man it's tough to find people who have that in them yes you know but it exists so I'm trying to find another one of those out here you know what I mean yeah man well it is all about hard work you know uh my fight Coach Guy Lloyd Irving he would always say hard work always beats Talent when Talent refuses to work hard come on man that's all effects and that's just what it is man like you get the and we I would see it with Fighters that I would train yeah I had and actually he won't mind me saying it he's he's a friend and he he acknowledges it but guy named Dave Herman yeah he was 65 66 245 pounds about 5% body fat jeez super flexible put his legs behind his head Beast he walked on the Indiana wrestling team without ever wrestling before and went 28 and seven his first year division one as a heavyweight gez um you know Miss the most athletic guy I've I've ever seen and you know he he started out 13-0 as a professional mix martial arts fighter uh and then he took a loss and after that he came to train with me yeah and I just couldn't get him and I all of his his friends and uh other Fighters that train with him like you know Ed you got him to work harder than anybody but you know it wasn't at that you know he could have been a world champion held it for five years you know that type of level of of talent yeah but um you know he just wasn't his thing he didn't really kind of want to do it didn't have a passion that we're talking about know that's what I find out i' I've I've been a part of several artists Journeys since yellow wolf of course mhm um that are independent unsigned artists who are you know who say they want to make it and they want to do it but you just find out over time that you know it they're not going to take those risk they're not going to to do without you know they're not going to go that extra mile and being that I've been in this as long as I have and I've had success with it it's certain things that I won't let happen just because I'm like we don't have to do that we can but you find out that you know that's kind of the crutch it's like if you want something more than the person you're trying to help then it's already headed down the wrong road it's hard as a as a coach or a producer yeah cuz you're you know trying to build them up yeah and I I dealt with the same thing where I wanted it more than the fighter absolutely and it's like it's eventually you learn that it's it's never going to work and you know what sucks as a as a coacher and a producer it's like you it takes two or three times though so like i' it's for me it's just like I'm I'm I'm not quite burned out because I still believe that that person is there for me somewhere but I definitely have learned so many lessons in it because it's like no matter how much you give to it if that person isn't ready for it and doesn't want it as bad as you do then it's just not going to happen you know and so that you know to go back to yella it's like I've really been trying to find that personality yes you know of course you know I don't want another yellow wolf that's you know that's a thing but I definitely like that personality it's like where's that fighter who's that person who's the who's the grinder who's going to get to it you know how do you find that I mean because it's it's not it's as you were talking about it I'm thinking in my head how do you go find some like the hard workers that's well I'll be honest with you you know part of why I moved to Nashville is because I feel like the energy that is here with these artists like you could go downtown and you you know people playing on the corner are better than the worst people here are better than 90% of the people everywhere else yeah when it comes to musicianship and just being really dedicated to this and then the city supports it it's like this is really a Music City it's not like music is popping in the city yeah this is a Music City so like you know you go to go get a coffee somebody's in there playing songs man getting an opportunity and getting after it so I think that you know it's really about the environment and like who's helping drive it you know the support system is here so I'm like I think it's here I think whatever is I'm looking for is here you know and I think it's a huge misconception I think I've come to terms with the fact that people like when I left Atlanta a lot of people were like man you going to go do country music I'm like well yeah if I want to but that's not really what it is anymore it's like it's a lot of music it's not just country music man right and so some really Dope music of all genres all around the city I mean that yeah people don't realize that because I mean in East Nashville you know you got uh just uh Robert Plant come on Jack White it's crazy like I'll tell you what I am excited about I didn't realize the indie rock scene was so hard here is crazy good impressive it's impressive and as a producer that's one of my goals is to like really Venture into that space you know and bring the edginess of my hip-hop background to it you know and just try to see if I could create some kind of genre blend that makes sense for somebody yeah um and I you know I owe a lot of my introduction to that stuff to Wolf because wolf definitely crosses those lines you know what I mean but um I'm interested man I just want to see what I can find in that but I think it's here and I really think it's because of the community and and what what people you know support out here yeah know it's interesting you're talking about the hard work um and you know you know wolf was largely in Ashville yeah uh jelly I've known jelly for I don't know grind bro super definition of grind struggle grind grind you know I like you're saying I'm like dang wolf struggle uh yeah yeah they they they put the they put the work in I love it man that's what I'm talking about and I think that you know I just I really think cuz I know where I'm from there's a lot of grind there can't I can't sleep on what it is but the support for it isn't there like it used to be you know the era that I think we came up in when we did see a lot of action in Atlanta it was because the community was involved several artists were on the ride several artists were yeah breaking and becoming it wasn't just one or two you know and I just it just feels good out here man the energy is here you know and hopefully I'm here on time man and hopefully I can be accepted to get it done you know I love it I love it what's you know so if you were to say your your goals over the next five and 10 years you could wave a magic wand work your ass off and Achieve these goals what would that be um find an artist develop it get some top 40 records nice really big record you know um I've had a lot of success I've had a lot of placements like I'm a very busy record producer but I still have a journey to the top of the charts that I want you know and what's really awesome is a lot of my friends are seeing those successes right now so to see jelly roll with like four number ones that's like just that just makes my heart feels so good you know and it's like when you see that and this is someone you know is just like you you can get this done if you just buckle down and get it done y That's what I'm going for so you know I really just hope to be able to I'm going to do it let's just put it like that it's going to happen man it's already done that's right not not yet now that that's good I I can somewhat relate cuz when I train Fighters like my uh fight gym was one of the biggest in the country yeah but I never trained a world champion from the first day on and it always we had guys that were in the UFC you know a ton of guys in the UFC Strike Force all the big organizations back then and um but never had that world title and you know so from the outside people could look and say well you've accomplished all of this stuff yeah but you know I know I haven't reached that that goal of training a guy that ended up being a world world champion are you are you going for it are you going to get back I retired I I retired in 2012 uh from coaching just career change got you and so um that that was one of the things that I was grappling with because I like uh there wasn't a lot of money yeah in training Fighters I sold my clothing line yeah and uh which we were the largest supplier of Brazilian jiu-jitsu martial arts uniforms in the world so I sold that 2011 and still had my fight JY but I was like you know and we kind of had a turnover with Fighters there was uh you know sometimes it happens at gyms where you know Fighters leave and you got to kind of start back over start over yeah and I was like okay even if I did and I I would have eventually trained a world champion I know that but what there wasn't hardly any money in it and I'd lost my passion yeah and I'm like if I don't have the passion for it and I'm not making money and I'm just chasing that goal it's not worth it if I had the passion it would have been man you it's so crazy how parallel to the music business what you were doing is like being a coach having a gym is the same as me being a producer having a studio yep and my goal was to bring artists through try to train them up get them in position to be great yep it is so tough to do man it is man no that's why trying to find a champion that's it trying to find a champion who's what it's it's really like you know they got to have a talent and they got to be willing to work harder than everybody man that's it and so that's that yeah I I totally when you said I'm like oh I get that man come on man you're still passionate about it which is good yeah well I am and you know here here's the thing man I just I love what I do and I have so many ways of like surviving like I I do well in music so it's not like I'm you know trying to figure out how to live and all this that you know so I love it but I do still think man I like bro I just want that Championship moment man and you know I don't think there's anything wrong with that let's go nothing that's that's that's beautiful I mean you know I I changed my passion from that to healthcare I love it and um you know same thing it's like you know that's that's where and and now I have uh I have three Partners now but I had two partners going into it great partners and you all all of us are willing to work instantly yeah I'm talking about you know we lived in the hospital the first six months cuz we didn't know how to run a hospital we never run a hospital before yeah and uh we were out in Tiana Mexico what a crazy pivot man I know that's crazy it was wild that's still still wild in this day but you know but they're all as we're talking about hard work I'm thinking like that's what it is like we were willing to you know uh Scotty one of my partners mortgaged his house to pay the bill over Co I mean we've almost been bankrupt like I don't know how many times three four five times I've lost count basically yeah um but over Co I had to sell my truck just to make payroll yeah man you know and this is just like three or four years ago yeah man so um but you know you got to be willing to lose everything to and work as hard as harder than anybody that's that's the thing man nowadays I just think people have lost that that understanding yes it's like bro you got to give it all the way up it's never going to happen if you can't give it all the way up no because I just think the universe God is not going to give you something if you don't understand what it is to like lose it all right it's pointless yeah now absolutely you know and there are people who are lucky and things never go wrong but I just don't you know not a lot of those folks out here bro yeah and eventually something's something's going to go something Happ I you you don't want success Without Really you know earning it because then you don't appreciate it yeah well you know I was telling myself that the other day man so like 20 something years of Music Man and I'm like you know what I'm really glad I didn't get rich at 25 stupid crazy Rich at 25 cuz I just would probably be broke now you know I I think this is my time I think this is when it's supposed to happen and um you know I'm just prepared for all of that now it's like I've seen enough I've learned enough it's like let's go let's see what happens at this point you know so that that huge amount of success is what I'm yearning now it's like that's where I want to be with it well I'll say this um and my my partners and I talk about this a lot actually I feel like it there's never been an easier time to be successful in this country because you have so many people who aren't willing to work hard that's right and like you know I heard Dana White say he like just be a Savage like yeah I try to be a s I try to be honest always like our thing is we always try to do the right thing no matter what it doesn't necessar benefit us do the right thing but be a Savage dude with between technology and lazy people yes you got that you're up one you're up one big times so you just got to find the guy that's got the talent but is willing to work harder than everybody I mean think about wolf think about jelly I mean jelly roll literally you know gave up he was living out of a van yeah come on crazy broke as hell dealing with with his addiction and you know never never lost that Faith he had a great woman behind him too you know bunny back the whole way but um you know it's if if you're willing to risk it all and then work that hard yeah man in today's society you're going to get your your break eventually yeah man yeah that's all facts man people are just I don't know I think when people see I think also because of the internet people are have this big um illusion of what it should be and how easy it should be but people just won't give up they won't give up the things they need to in order to get you know to the Finish Line man you have to wonder if they're uh were addicted to the the Instagram Tik Tok all the algorithms if they've got people like brainwash I had a friend tell me the other day we were uh having a discussion about addictions you know and we all send we all tend to look at certain things and we look down at it we're like H we you're addicted to this or that you know but my friend I was in my friend said man look we're addicted to work bro mhm so it was like everyone has some type of addiction it's like at what point are you going to make a decision so that it can benefit that's right that's where I think we are you know we those are the choices you can make these days that could make all the difference in the world it's like let's get addicted to you know succeeding at this and going Beyond where we you know what we can see yeah you know so yeah so let's uh let's go back a little bit because you know after 2011 you got to work with a lot of great people in the last 15 years you've been doing the dam been awesome uh you worked with Eminem yeah worked with Eminem what was that like uh it's crazy I I get this question all the time man but it was just surreal it was it was a um just Pinnacle moment in my life you know like the great one of the greatest rappers of all time is like I'm in the studio with him and you know I'm not really a person who would normally try to get a photo but like I think that's probably the greatest thing I ever did in my career was actually be smart enough to get a photo with him andm CU it it it it it really just spoke to that moment man but I was just really glad glad to be there and you know I'm a I'm a sponge man so I watch people and I watch what they do and um you know people don't realize man how much of a beast that guy is you know bro he would in between our work sessions he would go back and do like workout he had like a whole gym in the back of the studio and disappear for a few hours and come back out and just you know get back to it um but just a just a real for me it was just one of the greatest moments of my career you know what I mean and to have feedback there was a couple of records that we did cuz I have more than one record with him but um you know he he would add input and add production to things that I worked on and you know at first I wasn't sure how to take it but you start to realize that like listen these people are geniuses at what they do and like you want that to rub off on you and you want that to be a part of what you're doing and to this day my you know my highest streaming songs or songs that I've got with him which isn't really surprising but at the same time it's like you know this is this is what we signed up for it you know so I just I'm grateful man were you like uh sitting in the room like just like pinching yourself this is real for sure so like you know he's got like these uh he's got equipment in there that are like classic pieces like he had a MPC with his name on it and um one thing I remember was like there weren't a lot of uh like um plaqu and stuff on the wall you know and um you know I I want to say that uh he told us that the um the reason is that he just likes to always be reminded of where he came from so his place isn't like all crazy mixed up it's just it's a really nice Studio no questioning um but I mean it's his place of work it's his it's his dojo man and it was just dope to be in his dojo that's how I felt about it you know that's awesome um I know one other cool thing about it is he had these old school like video games in there he's just man it's so crazy to know that like the greatest rapper in the world is just like chilling yeah absolutely just a regular person chilling I was going to say what do you think the uh main thing the biggest thing that you learn uh kind of being in the room working onject with them um so I I tell you what I did learn as a producer I learned that the I learned that creating um moments in your records could be all the difference in the world so as a rap producer you know we do certain things with our music that creates a pocket creates a Vibe you know sometimes we're into 808s it's different things that kind of make the music jam but what I learned when working with Eminem is he created moment so and one thing that I just thought was really funny but also clever is anytime he was getting ready to rap he would do things in the production to create like intensity oh yeah so like if you go listen to any one of the records that we did if you listen to best friend like before his verse comes on like the music does something or it breaks down and it builds up right before his verse comes on and I just think it's brilliant it's like those are the things you learn it's like oh so this is like a movie so in other words you know right before we get to the you know the height of the movie this is what we can get this feeling before it happened yeah and so learn that and and I I Implement that now in my production I also think about you know how it should sound when when I want it you know to have a punch or have something special happen and so I picked that up from him you know I thought that was really dope that's awesome yeah it's it's kind of surreal when you're in the room with what you consider greatness in in like sport or in art yeah you know or music yeah uh you know I thought about you know because I think about certain moments out of my career when I got to train with certain Fighters or yeah and you know it's hard to it's hard to explain there's like a it part of it's gratitude you're grateful yeah part of it's like you question if you well for me I question like I deserve to be here you know like am I am I here but I'm here yeah I went through that it definitely helped me it helped me solidify my position in music I think at that point I was like wait a minute I'm in the room with one of the greatest so like that means I'm supposed to be here and this is where my life is taking me and so I need to you know really walk in this and and use it to to catapult me from this point on and it has I mean that that one thing led to so many other things you know it sometimes just being able to have that in your bio just kind of helps you open doors you know because of the amount of respect that people have for his creative well you know he's not going to create with people that that can't match up you know so everybody pretty much says Eminem's like goat or let's say pretty much everybody's like top five oh it's definitely top five every conversation there's no conversation that it I don't want to have it if he's not in the top five so yeah and I think that that that says everything for me it's like you know I can I can lay down tomorrow man and and it's it's written that I had something to do with you know one of the greatest so you know have you ever worked with struggle on anything I have actually man so I did uh man I don't remember the name of the project because it was so long ago but before he got locked up some years ago I did a project with him he he and I worked on um it's the first album that was on his that's on his streaming Network okay um dude I don't remember the name of it but but we had the Masters of Wayan Jenning oh we had the original recorded records with like whan I want to say uh struggle's grandmother or mother was on I can't remember who uh the lady was the Jesse Jesse y yeah bro I and so we remade a lot of those records using the Masters on this particular project that's cool so um i' man I've been down with struggle a long time you know it's I I've known him I'm super proud and happy for him you know it's been years since I've actually been in the studio with him and got to create but I'm proud to say man I was a part of his early journey man and just helping him figure out what he was doing and you know we loved that project at the time but you know life kind of happened in his life and man you know it kind of went where it went butzy struggle yeah I mean he went away for five years come on man he was facing some real time real time and came out stayed away from drugs I mean so you know he he had a lot of people around him which is tough CU he was serious about that when I knew him yeah well I didn't know him uh really know him then yeah but like I I do know like a lot of people have died a fit and all around him he talked about that on the podcast and you know I mean after going away for five years it's it's not easy to get back into grind and live a straight life bro especially with everything that he that happened while he was gone yeah like that I saw his interview with you is insane it's insane man it's insane so God bless him man cuz like lowkey if anybody deserves it it's him right I like bro it's yours you got it yeah no he he he's put the work in I'm just proud man it's it's cool to see I love seeing friends do well especially when they've had to overcome you know so much adversity C man he used to come down to Atlanta uh when we were just getting going and um man he just always grinding man just always trying to figure out how do I fit in where do I get in yep always helpful always down to help somebody do something you know um so I'm not surprised at all man you know lowkey the whole crew I'm just looking at them all like bro it duh I knew it would be what it is because like you guys always had it you always had it you just needed to for whatever reason God needed to shake it up man put your time in put your time put the work in that's it you can overcome the adversity in the middle of all this stuff you're going to be successful and look at him now yeah man so it's it's cool to watch man I I love it I mean wolf has been successful for a long time but jelly was I mean really well jelly was doing good but you know when he got his uh deal with BMG yeah and went in in the country music he been I mean he's like a superstar now oh no not like he is bro it's official it's official it's so cool it's off I don't know anyone that I can put my well besides an &m that has like four number one records bro that's insane and he's done in two years dude and you know it's it's yeah he's got I mean he's basically in country music he gets a record it'll go number one now but you know what I think is really dope he he's got this homie David Ray is a songwriter producer one of his homies man is the way I know him and just the fact that like he's getting this done with one of his homies is like says everything I needed to say yeah you know what I mean because so many people get in the music business and make it and all of a sudden you just start seeing people who came up with them they don't exist anymore or they're not around or and for whatever reasons you know but sure when I see a guy go to the top and he still got his core guys with him yeah that's that's it man nothing else you can really ask for all you can do now is just root him on and just be like bro go get it yeah you know what I mean I'm just waiting for him to be an American Idol judge I was reading some rumors not that I'm a big he's been on there like twice right yeah so he'd be a great Coach man come on yeah for sure that'd be wild but no it's been fun to to watch all of them you know do well tell you man some I'm in the Water Nashville you're next I'm going I'm going for it let's go let's go yeah that's good you work Whiz Khalifa too right yeah Whiz Khalifa man so I you know um yellow's career started so the the dope thing about my career and I could say this this is also why I'm so interested in trying to find another artist and and build more business with an artist is because most of what I have in my resume came from my relationships that I built while working with yellow wool so like I tell people all the time it's like listen man don't worry about trying to be a 100 places stick to that one Place dig in and it will open up doors everywhere else so the reason I say that is because the whole Whiz Khalifa play came from yel actually was out opening for Whiz Khalifa when he first got signed oh cool yeah so he was pretty much out on the road for three 500 bucks a night but it was really Wizard's tour but yell was going in front of crowds they were throwing stuff at him but he just like fought through it man like just like crazy white boy just whing and you know we're like in some of the hooded spots you could think of with nothing but weed smokers and people that don't do what wolf does you know what I mean so we got through that man but in that you know we became homies with everybody and like our friends are people who we like crashed on the buses with and like had to mob out of shows real quick and protect each other and you know so that's how that happened you know I just ended up um having a chance to play some records for him and he took a record and like we you know we cut the song and that turned into other things and it's just it's just dope how it works yeah um it is wild I mean those those relationships and connections that you build along the way yeah uh they open up open up opportunities the whole business is relationships yeah and I I you know sometimes I cringe when I see people just not take that part serious right you know like I mean and there's times where you there are times where you should stand up for yourself and and you know take a stand on things that are right and wrong for you but like should always consider you know the pros and cons of like ruining a relationship or walking away from something in a bad way dude it's so right on people don't realize that so I look at the first part there two parts to my career first part was MMA second part is what what I'm doing now and you know MMA because I grew up doing it you know so like my dad and and uh Uncle both box so I always wanted to be a boxer a fighter and you know I opened my gym when I was 20 and so all from 20 to 30 all I knew was fighting and I thought that was normal yeah like how fighting works is not normal I know this now it's like all about fighting yeah you know and so I I I can look at now I burned some bridges then that I wish I wouldn't have and I you know I go back I'm friends with everybody now yeah but uh I was in my 20s you know hotheaded testosterone like wanted to show everybody that we were the best right and so but you know the last 15 years or 12 13 years you know I'm not burning any Bridgets yeah I'm like how how do we like what how do you create a win-win in every situation like what's a win for you and me at the same time if I'm not doing a win-win I'm not doing the business deal yeah you know and uh yeah people do they burn the bridges and they hurt you know ultimately it limits opportunities in the future because you didn't you don't have that bridge that that's be crossed yeah I think I definitely think you got to think those things through you know I mean and unfortunately it comes down to money A lot of times with people but it's like is money really worth it some it's really not man it's like at the end of the day it's like you know if you could keep it cool try to figure that out now I mean it's still times where you just can't do business with some people or you just can't do some people it is what it is but I think those times are very those are much different than rdge burning moment you know I've seen people just blow it just cuz like d you just got too much ego and don't know how to deal with this like that's ridiculous ego ruins a lot of [ __ ] it does it man and misunderstandings and things like that it's like no man you got to come to terms with it and when you realize cuz each industry is very specific and each industry is very small M like no matter what MMA is everywhere but trust me it's not as big as people think oh that Community is like it's not that big and so if you want to get in and play for real it's even smaller right and that's how the music business is it's like wait a minute so like yeah it's a lot of people doing music but it's really only a few people really doing music exactly and so you got to be careful with that you know cuz you could you know you piss off the wrong person next thing you know you can't go here you can't do that you can't get along with people it's going to travel in that that small little uh group fast like I don't work with him he's he's going to cause problems got to Ego and no I'm not doing it no it's all act yeah yeah I look at a lot of our success Now with uh CPI and you know Scotty and I Scotty's my other partner yeah and we used to sponsor he he he had a competing company with me yeah and we were still best friends and you know we shared a lot and but um you know we sponsored so many people that you know now and I can't say who who was who was down last week but it was a very very one of the most famous people uh you know out there and the guy's trainer uh was with them and and Scotty was his first sponsor wow and so it built trust but it's like a you know but you know it was like dang and Scotty didn't realize he was the guy's first sponsor he knew they were friends from you know 20 years ago in Brazil yeah man but he's like no you were actually my first sponsor and he told you know the other other patient and um you know it builds trust man and you know I say it all the time when you're up shake hands man yes don't be don't be an ass cuz you know to this day man I've Got Friends that were interns and just I had a guy when I was working on uh one of yellow Wolf's early album albums who was I don't even know what he was he was maybe an intern somewhere but he wasn't popping he wasn't in the business yet he just wanted to come through and sit in a session you know I did my homework on him real quick to make sure he wasn't like some crazy guy coming to just get in but I let him come and he like sat in the session watched us work took notes few years later he was the head engineer for like khed one of like the biggest pop artists in the world MH and still to this day takes my calls doesn't you know and it was because of that moment right where it was like hey man when I wasn't anybody by terms of the music industry you were cool enough to let me come kick it that's right and those are the kinds of things that you you should you should live that way I feel I feel like dude just just shake hands just smile but and really like why wouldn't you why wouldn't you that's like why would you want to be mean to people unless you're just an [ __ ] man not yeah you know I mean that's like it doesn't make any sense and so I think sometimes you know ego gets in the way of people yeah and I'm too good or yeah whatever that conversation is but that's really a short-lived conversation yeah man because you know success like that comes and goes it does man and you know people remember when you were an [ __ ] exactly bro like once you're down it's hard to come back up unless you got somebody to pull you up right and that you just got to always remember that yeah and you know and unless you got somebody to pull you up you're good to a lot of people guess what yeah I mean people look at CPI like they're like well you're doing great now and and we work as hard as anybody we we've done all the all the things but we have so many relationship people that we' taken care of for 25 years these people they know Scotty like they actually I slept on their couch or they slept on my couch or our our gym was the like I had one fighter uh Eric Anders in the UFC I didn't even realize this he stayed in our Gym Nashville MMA when when Dedrick was running and he's like oh yeah you know he told dri I stayed in the gym and it's like I I didn't know that yeah Dedrick didn't even remember it but you know those little things and now he's in the UFC now we actually fixed his neck save his career but it's like you know he's one of our our our biggest supporters but yeah man that's what it's about and I think you know a lot of people looking at what you know wanting to be in the music industry working with with someone like you yeah um you know if people realize work really really hard and treat people good Golden Rule you live by the Golden Rule you're going to go a long way that's it it's really that's really it so many people there are people who are not talented that are at the top but it's because they're good folk yes that's right you know what I mean and so people want to help you people want to be a part of that you know what I mean I honestly think that has a lot to do with jelly roll man I think he's just like such a good dude it's just like man who doesn't want to help absolutely you almost look like an [ __ ] if you got anything bad to say that's it I was about to say if someone has something bad to say about jelly like they're kind of like a and I mean and he was in the street so I'm pretty sure he really had some issues with a few people but for the most part it's like bro a good dude like what do you say to that well you think about that so I think sometimes Society uh suggest that you've got to be a jerk you know in a way when it's really just the opposite yeah I think it is man I think it's been sold that you got to scrap you know everybody should scrap at some point you know when you're first getting in and you trying to figure out what you're doing with yourself and trying to find yourself or trying to make a name for yourself then yeah you know grap but you still don't need to be bad to people exactly you know what I mean it's like I resp respect a scrapper who has integrity and in the end it's like you know what you really really got in the dirt but you know what you were still very cool about it you're honorable honorable man there people it really the music especially in the music business you know how it is man it's like bro it's some real it's some real shady it's like fighting man man crazy [ __ ] but I've been blessed in that way man I I've avoided that I've avoided those people I've avoided um ever having to do any of that it's just like man n and and I and like I said when I came in you know I was introduced to it like my first deal was trash it was like how could anybody do this to anyone yeah but you know I'm glad I saw it when I did because it taught me what not to do ever like it's like no I don't ever play with that because right that person I'm sure that person just didn't think that I had to go home to my two baby girls and be like uh I I don't have that I don't you know this isn't what I thought it was yeah that person didn't think of that you know and that in that moment that person was just like this kid is good I'm going to make a lot of money and whatever and so you know but it's all good cuz like it turned around you know what I mean absolutely and so I just wish people were more like you know just wanting to do it the right way yeah and you know I think podcast like we're talking about like podcast like this as we're talking uh hopefully gets certain people maybe listening that that can realize that like being a good person is where it's at it's not out it's not and it's never too late to be a good person like okay so you know some people have done some things and like you you know you still can wake up today and be like hey man I ain't doing that [ __ ] no more bro it's like it's go time let's yeah let's let's let's make things right with a few people and you know that's what should be going on yeah the whole making things right I did this leadership program uh years ago and it was one of the most impactful things I've ever done and it was super intense first part is called Discovery like discovering all the walls and barriers that you create in your life like four days long the next part is called breakthrough another four days where you're breaking down those walls but part of it is like going through a list you know just because because it has you bring up a lot of memories and going through a list of maybe relationships that uh you didn't become friends lost a friendship or maybe a family member whatever it is lot we all have certain things and yeah I just went through and called you know everybody and just cleaned up all of my old anybody I ever had a problem with and it was the biggest weight off my back I didn't even know I was carrying this weight yeah and so you're right you can you know turn things around you can turn it around and I I guarantee some of the people you caught probably didn't even realize that there was anything they probably what are you talking what are you talking about like everything is good yeah but yeah man I think that's important I think everyone should have those moments where you you know you just do inventory on yourself and just be like you know this could have been better you know yeah um I mean it's just life man it just does it to you man and if you're not careful you know you can you could really you can hurt people's feelings and not even realize it yeah that's you know that's true but but it takes it takes Zoom out to realize that you know this is this is human yes and you can also fix it it doesn't have to be so bad you know so but I the people who just annoy me are the ones who like know it and just refuse to refuse to do anything about it refuse to do better man yeah yeah I mean there's that only lasts like I like I said earlier it only lasts so long because eventually you know you might be on top now but there's going to be a time where you're probably not going to be on top uh you better have those better have those good people around you that can pick you up um so you just came out with a war story yeah with yellow wolf what was it like making that project man it was awesome awesome as usual man uh I always love working with with yellow man we've done six or seven albums together um I'm fortunate he's always just been a real just super dope dude with me man like he kept me in the loop through his whole career um and and this album man is just a reflection of that we went back to just having fun and not trying to um get too locked into anything specific uh the trunk music brand is sort of a thing for him well it's not sort of a thing it is a brand and so we just wanted to bring that last piece together I don't know if it's the last one we'll ever do Under the trunk music brand but it was definitely the one that is like a it's like a Reunion yeah um so I did half of the album the album is called War Story I did half of it which is the trunk music side and Malay which is another good friend of ours did the other side um and it's called Michael Wayne so and it's really incredible body of work man it's crazy like my side is more like boppy and jamming and um and malle's side is more like introspective and like uh emotional feels really good so um I think his fans are enjoy it the rap fans will enjoy it cuz he has several fans like he has Rock Fans he's got country F he's got all kinds of people who check him out but the ones who are like core rap fans this is the album for them I think you know so it was dope that's awesome yeah yeah I was listening to it the the other day and it's uh it's something I want to I want to listen to and listen to and listen to and get familiar with yeah well it's enough songs to listen to it for a couple months exactly yeah it's like 24 25 songs on that joker man it's crazy yeah it takes takes a while you gota you gotta go through and go through and go through because there's it's uh it's so big and I like to kind of listen to well I like to listen to the lyrics but kind of understand yeah where the artist is coming from one of my favorite things with music especially with my friends yeah you know no that's what it is man honestly it's one of those albums where you you'll you'll discover Easter eggs all through it man cuz he's just really um lyrical and and emotional but but yet he's still just like a very dope rapper man like I put him up there with the best of him man you know um unfortunately you know everybody doesn't always agree on favorite rappers but I would put my money on wolf with just about anybody bro because he's just really that good at it and he's so talented now so talented like he's such a like artistically he's one of those I I would say artistic genius yeah no I think I think he's one of those guys who like once it's said and done like he's like Johnny Cash to me honestly you know Johnny Cash was um before his time I think he's way more valuable to people now yeah than he ever was when he was around and but his cool was just so cool and I think that that's what what we see in yella I think that you know he'll be the guy that Nashville is talking about 40 years from now going you know that's that's yellow wolf Boulevard you know whatever you know I feel that way I really do so I'm excited to be still a part of that yeah that's that's awesome um did you open a studio here uh no so uh I my studio was in Atlanta and we were going to open a studio here uh Y and I had talked about it and so we were going to partner on a spot um but our business dealings with the uh where we were going to put it fell through so we've partnered over at um we're at East Iris okay so we have a a residency there that's near 100 Oaks right um uh like the Barry Hill yeah yeah um and so he already had a he already had a residency there but they added me to The Residency now and so we both are in the same building and he has one side of the building I have the other side and we're just in there going crazy man and I'm grateful because he's also uh just kind of opening up his resources to me I mean he's very well known out here and especially in music people just love him man and highly respected yeah highly respected man and like you know if he's attack to it doors just seem to open really fast for me abut and I just appreciate it because it you know it doesn't have to be that way and you know but it is good people yeah good people man that's what it is no doubt um so you know we've been talking you worked with yellow wolf Eminem Whiz Khalifa yeah uh some of the top people in the industry you're looking for someone who's willing to work hard yeah if they're listening what would you what would you say to them um I would say you know I really don't know what I would say I would just say that like just be special and stick to it and when we find each other we're going to the top I love it you know what I mean cuz I think that person is here I my spirit brought me here you know I don't know what it is about this town that's got me here and I think it'll come it'll come soon what it is you know um I got engaged before I got here so my me and my fiance are very serious about making a life here in Nashville and we love music and um we just want to do something dope man I love it so that's where we are well brother it's great talking to you anything I can do to support you you just let know I just appreciate you man this is enough right here man this really dope bro all right thank you brother thank you you work with yellow wolf Eminem Whiz Khalifa most of what I have in my resume came from my relationships that I built while working with yellow wolf yell and I have been making music so long that like we're like Jordan and Pippen man what I learned when working with Eminem is he created moments anytime he was getting ready to rap he would do things in the production to create like intensity right before his verse comes on and I just think it's brilliant this is like a movie how do you go find hard work part of why I moved to Nashville is because I feel like the energy of that is here with these artists the worst people here are better than 90% of the people everywhere else when it comes to musicianship and just being dedicated to this I think this is my time I think this is when it's supposed to happen I've seen enough I've learned enough let's go like once you start doing music and getting good reactions from it and you know it just become something you love willpower welcome to the podcast thank you brother so we have a lot of friends and for the listeners listening in uh you're a music producer musician uh work with artists like yellow wolf Eminem uh a lot of amazing amazing artists moved from Atlanta you were there for I believe eight years move to Nashville and uh you're getting ready to take the City by storm I'm joining there we go joining yeah I love it here man I'm I'm really glad to be in Nashville and it's a big change it is a big change it is a big change what um you know you were here in 201 we were talking a little bit before the podcast yeah and you've seen the differences had you been coming back in between as well yeah a little bit but not enough to recognize how much it had changed you know just I kind of had a you know a a path to where I was going and I would come in town and go right back out but now that I'm here I'm I'm noticing that like a lot of things are different from just you know 2011 yeah kind of crazy like uh you know the roads are getting wider the buildings are going up it's kind of crazy so poth holes are getting worse though yeah potholes right you said itude we have with all due respect uh to my friend who's in charge of the potholes for the state Byron Schneider maybe G to take out his name there uh but I I call him all the time about the potholes every time I hit a big one like bar you need to fix these damn potholes but yeah we got the worst potholes in the country yeah I wonder why though like is it like the weather or like I don't know you know what I've been told is that you know when they go and fix the potholes it's more of like a patchwork and to really get them all fixed they have to redo the entire roads and put a new mix in or something I got you so it's like an old technology or something that they're using yeah I could see that it maybe just like bad mix of dirt bad mix of dirt yeah I mean it's been I mean I saw one car a couple months ago like literally lose their their wheel in front of me bam getting off the thing Shelby exit over here yeah and it's like it's highways as well it's not just like you know Street and stuff like it seems like there's hole in holes in the highway that that's well so and I was given the mayor a hard time and I like you know all someone has to do is say they're going to fix the potholes and they're going to win you know make it that's their main thing is I'm fixing the PO in Nashville got my so but the interstates of the state yeah and then the roads the side roads are the city and the city side roads I have to say they're not that bad it's really the interstate so it's more of a state issue Tennessee Department of Transportation that uh if you're listening uh well you know with all these people moving here man that's going to change I think they're going to have to do something about it they got it seems like a lot people coming it do well they talk about like you know the roads here as far as um the traffic gets bad of course you're uh in Atlanta Atlanta traffic is is a whole a whole different whole other level um but you know I'm in Tijana a lot that's where our Hospital group is and they're building an interstate system above the road like 20 feet above the road crazy and I'm like man that could solve a lot of the that's crazy issues because why don't we just build straight up and you know uh you can widen everything it'd be less impact probably on the yeah on the um you know current traffic CU you're not actually changing the current roads yeah and um imagine double so like you have the top one and the bottom one that's what I'm saying that's crazy that's what I'm saying so uh you know a lot of these you know people running for office and stuff it's it's kind of interesting because when I look at some of the ideas and they're like oh buses and trains I'm like they had buses and trains like 60 or 70 years ago like yeah we're going to have like flying cars here soon let plan for the flying cars maybe right but um so yeah you moved to Nashville but you're from you were born in Columbia South or you're born in California yeah yeah I was born in uh Carmel California but I don't know much I have family there but I don't know much about it U my dad was military so I spent most of my years in the Southeast okay so um and Columbia South Carolina is what I call home um I moved there in O I moved to Atlanta in' 05 so Atlanta's also home now but uh I just claimed South Carolina cuz I just loved it there and you know most of what I got into I got into it from South Carolina so what was it like growing up in the in the military with your dad in the military uh it was awesome man I just got to meet a lot of people you know and uh moving around a lot just kind of helped me you know uh make new friends and learn how to adapt in situations like no matter what every three or four years we were moving and you know you just have to go make friends how you make them you know so that's right that's one of the good parts you I say good parts it's it's it's tough sometimes but my business partner Scotty yeah his dad mom and dad were like CIA and so he lived in Iran Middle East he's like you know then went to like a I don't know I think he's at 17 different schools he's like man I just I learned how to make uh make friends really good he's probably a great communicator he's probably getting to it yeah that's really that's what I got out of it like I just learned how to adapt and you know good and bad you just figure out like how to survive in all situations you know by just moving around Yeah man so you you um how did you get into music were were you already into it in in in school and yeah it was just sort of a passion and in high school you know I was uh I was in a singing group at one point and that that really wasn't what I wanted to do with my life but it was what we were into um but as I was in you know singing I was introduced to a producer and I had no idea what that was at at some point and and so when I met him I was like yo I love what you do I love this whole side of the music industry yeah and I got into it man I just started uh you know really investing into computers and beat machines and all that kind of stuff and yeah so what year did you graduate high school uh 94 94 okay so hip-hop was just kind of he was kind of hitting his stride Tupac was going on and uh like what was your entry so I mean you got the mixers and the all the different equipment but like did you start DJing clubs like how did that work man no it's crazy I I was a huge music fan of course I mean I was into like the ice cubes and you know this West Coast hip-hop was big to me um weirdly cuz I was in Georgia but I love that music and in fact I why now because I did used to go to California every summer to visit my grandmother okay and that's when they would introduce us to music that nobody had back in Georgia so I used that kind of as a cool thing to you know get conversations going and introducing music to friends but um yeah man once I realized that I had some Talent you know and my friends were into it it just kind of grew and it became you know something I got passionate about and sort of addicted to I guess you know like one you start doing music and getting good reactions from it and you know it just becomes something you love and it it oddly it oddly replaced like my football cuz I played ball and I was really good in football but I loved music man so kind of kept going yeah it's it's it's interesting because once you're passionate about something it doesn't feel like work yeah and yeah I can't imagine a musician who wasn't passionate about music yeah because they would be up against someone who was passionate and just wanted to do it all the time no matter what oh yeah no it's definitely a line of work or just a line of love that you really are in it with people who really do this you know and you can't fake it you can't it's not an act you know like I find out that you know moving to Nashville I've been doing music 20s something years man but like I'm a bit nervous out here because it's like these guys are like for real for real guitar players for real based players you know just some of the greatest musicians in the world are here but the one thing we all have in common is like we're very serious about our craft and that's what I love about it so yeah you you do have to be passionate about it or or you'll get lapped yeah for sure well I mean since you're so serious you're around serious people serious recognizes serious you know you know when someone's like on their stuff I could always tell back in the day with fighting people say oh I'm fighter you know get in the gym like okay or you're like okay yeah you you know you know what's up and professionals can can recognize that yeah I would I was just listening to something the other day and they were talking about Champions and uh boxers and how greatness is like fractions of a second like the greatest could be the greatest in fractions of a second that's that's crazy to me cuz it's like you know somebody could train and train and train but if one guy stayed in the gym a few days more than you and practiced something you didn't that's it no I mean that that is what it is I remember in wrestling I wrestled in high school yeah and uh you know I probably was up for the state champion actually three years a sophomore junior senior never won the state championship and um even now I have nightmares every now and then about my semi-final match in the state tournament where I lost and you know I go back and I think about even to this day I'm 40 I'll be 43 next month like I wish I would have worked a little bit harder or lifted I wish I would have lifted more actually that's like the main thing I just focused on wrestling but I should have been lifting I was it was it was a strength thing and um you know the real greats they put 110% in Crazy to everything they're doing yeah and I can't say that I I mean I've worked really hard but I could have worked harder yeah I definitely feel like in anything that you're doing that is the difference you know I I'm in music and there are some goals that I want to reach that I haven't yet and sometimes I beat myself up about it I'm like why why why is this not happening and then I then I really think about it and I'm like well you know what you didn't you didn't stick around long enough you didn't work on that long enough or you know right now I'm very adamant about really learning guitar cuz I can play it enough to write a song but I can't play it well enough to do a set I guess but I'm very serious about it and it's like you know this is something that I really want to do and I know it's going to take hours and hours and hours to do it yep so we'll see we'll see how this works out for me but that those are the things that I think make the difference yeah they absolutely do I think like this the self-reflection of being honest yeah you I try not to be hard on myself even though I mean I'm I'm I still am but it's more of for me like a recognition like okay if I can say I didn't give a cuz we all know when we didn't give 110% internally other people can look and be like well you're working yeah I'm working hard I am but if I want to be at the top top you know it's it's on me it's not on anybody else to make it happen it's on me it is and uh you know but you you're at the top in uh producing hip-hop yeah I mean you can say well there's you know a small small group of people that might have done a little better yeah but you know from the out from 10,000 ft yeah it looks pretty much cool right yeah that's true I have to remind myself of that sometimes because I do sometimes I that you want so much more yes but you have to be grateful for what you've accomplished you know I think about it all the time I get DMS and emails from people and I'm just you know blown away sometimes at how they see me and I'm like oh I didn't realize you saw that but you know and that it helped but yeah you know you you said something about wrestling man which just reminded me of a story I when I was in high school I wrestled at 189 I suck but I think the funniest thing that ever happened to me have you ever wrestled somebody who like just really wore a really stinking uniform oh yeah like that was like the tactic to beat you I don't know if was the T to beat me but I wrestle with some people who who stank bad man I was I was really strong and not really a good wrestler but I was just a really strong kid so I would win sometimes just off of the fact that like I was just more athletic sure but I never forget I went against this guy that went to uh Spring Valley High School and man he just he whooped me bad but it was really because that outfit was just so bad yes I just I that's a sidebar but it just it triggered the whole thought of mine man hey it's strategery you know they gotta they gotta win however they can oh my God yeah that and in Brazilian jiu-jitsu you have the Brazilian jiu-jitsu ghee you martial arts un and sometimes people's GES they don't wash yeah it just smells I really believe that's like part of the strategy man cuz it's like you know it's it becomes mental after you've after you maximize the things you need to know how to to to wrestle or or fight it's like you know what you know that's right now it's just mental it's like how can I outsmart this person how can I get in his head and like I guess that's one way man that's what it is no that's wrestling is a game of it is a game of the mind you know you slip for one second same thing like you're saying with boxing like you know uh a fraction of a of a second can make you know a big difference big difference and you think about um who was it Tyson Fury when he got knocked down uh by big big dude um can't think of his name uh but he he knocks Fury down and it looks like Fury's out cold like he rises like theaker and justs up and then goes on to to win but um yeah I mean it's those Sports where it's individualized and the stakes are so high I mean it's inches man that make the difference crazy yeah so you got into music in high school you were in like you know and got passionate about it this is your this is what you want to do when did you actually start making a living doing it um it was shortly after high school I was one of those kids who knew um that where I lived I couldn't really make it there um so I did what most people do and I I went to New York um at the time New York was like the um Mecca of music you know all things music really and so I took off to New York um and I I I got with a lady named uh syvia Robinson who was the owner of Sugar Hill records okay which I don't know if you're familiar with it but there was the like the early rap group uh Sugar Hill Gang um they had the big song uh oh man I Can't Remember song anyway big a big rap rap group um and they're like considered the founders of like commercial hip-hop so like they were a really big deal but I ended up getting a job with her and that kind of like fed my desire to stick with it because I was able to see at that point that this was a real business what were you doing with her um I was a producer she signed me as a producer and she had a production company which I had no idea existed coming from South Carolina I was just a kid with some talent and I just felt like somebody needed to discover me and so I went there to be discovered how old were you um I might I was in my early 20s I can't remember exactly but okay so early 20s you moved to New York South Carolina yeah meet uh and she put you in as a producer so then you're like so what's your mindset you're you're probably there young like just taking it all in trying to figure out oh this is how this work a lot you just don't know I had no idea yeah and so she so she had this building um it was a two-story building it had around somewhere like maybe 10 studios in it and she had all kinds of different producers in each room so um each producer was signed to her company and they were every every week we would write songs and turn them into her um and I didn't realize till later that that was her forming like a publishing company and like so um so I signed to her it turned out that it was a pretty bad deal though you know I I had no idea what I was signing but I ended up signing away like all my publishing oh [ __ ] yeah for for like some chump changes it was ridiculous but what I realized in that moment was that this was a business and that there was a business of selling songs and um you know and and getting placements and it was all a business and so I took all that in man and that's what kind of G gave me the fire it was like you know I knew that I had stumbled by signing the deal and just sort of not knowing what I was supposed to know didn't have an attorney all these things as a kid but but what I did get out of it was I met some incredible people during that time uh this was like 2000 2001 and so that's when I met yellow wolf okay and so uh and I mean we're still friends today 2001 so you're probably well you're a little older than wolf wolf would be he's he's 42 yeah he was yeah he was definitely young he 20 20 exactly so um yeah so we were just kind of we kicked it then and we just we've been friends ever since you know you know and we we came up together you know most of our obstacles we went through them together like it it was just we got turned down a lot you know and so we just stuck with it but but what I got from it was you know if I had never taken that leap to go to New York to figure it out yep then I may I may not be sitting here now you know so yeah I mean you got to get get outside that comfort zone man man yeah it's crazy and I I would tell any kid that wants to do something like go to where that thing lives you know like if you're a skater go to go to LA or go to San Francisco I don't know I I don't know much about it but wherever it exists you should go there and become a part of that and you know something will come of it you know how did you so did you have a job before you went to New York or did you find it so did you have money saved how did you no man I just did the I did the the most ridiculous you know I was just like I'm going I I think I had a girlfriend at the time who was down to kind of hold me down a little bit and um yeah that was it I mean I had been I had been doing music in my community long enough to where people were supportive yeah they understood that I needed to go beyond where I was so I had a lot of friends who were like rooting me on and like you know I remember having um conversations with my good friend uh Tasha who just sort of supported me in that Journey um and she just would call all the time just the talk about staying focused and like keep you know keep keep your eye on the prize don't worry about it I know the deal sucks but you got this you got this and so that that kind of helped but I W I didn't stay very long I think I might have been there a year yeah maybe a year and a half you got that you gotta got to see that it was a business you putting it all together as when you're passionate about something and you have an opportunity to learn just like take it all in yeah so here's here's the really crazy part so once I realized that I couldn't um do anything under this publishing deal I of course went back home so I got back to South Carolina but what I learned in New York I implemented that stuff in my hometown and so I was able to really start my own business there and Thrive you know um I got back home I rented out a storage unit um U-Haul used to have these uh office spaces that you could rent interesting and at the time they were like $30 $40 a month it was crazy and they yeah so they had these uh uh they had these timers on the wall where like for two hours you could turn the lights on in the air condition okay and but in two hours it would cut off everything would cut off you just have to reset it again sure well of course we rigged it and just like made it where it stayed on all day like I know for a fact that I'm responsible for they probably charged 400 bucks for those rooms now I know the reason for that we ran that light bill up something crazy but but yeah I took that and I turned it into a recording studio a small little like home studio set up okay and I I did my thing out of there for like a couple of years and that's when I really became um I think that's when I became a producer I really studied the craft and like got better at it I had clients it was just a really good situation so and I got all that information from New York it was like I watched this lady do it but I just did it on a smaller scale in a smaller place but it helped me sustain my life and that's how I started making money and figuring out the business of it now when did you you met wolf in 2001 is yeah uh where did where did you meet we met at this studio at in South Carolina no at uh at uh Sugar Hill Studios yeah I got in New York he was up there doing the same thing I was doing like he had uh he was of course he's from abama and I don't know what his journey what his journey was to get him to New York but it was all to make it in music for sure and um yeah when I met him he had like a he was with some business entity that he was working with and they were trying to break him as an artist or put him in the room with different creatives and I was in the lobby uh just down there taking a break one day and he came in and we caught conversation and like our conversation turned into just the Rec Rec recognizing that we were both from the south and no one else here was from the south right so we just hit it off man and man hours later we had music that we were making together yeah and shortly after that um I left and he left as well but he you know his uh son was born and son might have been a week or two old they came straight to my house in South Carolina how nice they took a Greyhound bus from New York and stopped in South Carolina and we worked on music and then it just continued from there man that's awesome so um yeah what was that like cuz uh you know it was still a number of years before you know wolf hit it big yeah um he didn't really get signed until around 2008 is maybe 2007 was his first deal um he was signed to Columbia Records M and you know he and I had stayed in touch we worked all the time but I wasn't really a part of the uh his first record deal um he had got with some guys and they were really successful with what they were doing so um yeah it it happened for him he got signed to Colombia but then uh he left Colombia with his um with his anr whoever signed him he left with those guys so um he was without a deal between like 2008 and 2009 I think okay and during that time he had been um experimenting and doing crazy music just some of the dopest stuff you could hear but no one no one really got it because he was always into like this rock and you know country and Hip-Hop he was always mixing it up yeah and in Atlanta if you can imagine it's a really urban city so like it's it's one type of thing out there it's like it's just straight rap you know people not trying to hear too much else but uh eventually he just kind of uh gave into to that idea and was like you know what let's just do a rap record and see what happens man and that's when uh we did trunk music yeah that was uh 2010 correct was uh we released it in 2010 yep and so did he have a deal at the time he did not so that was when he was out with without his deal yeah y'all said let's do trunk music where where did you record it uh man we went to his house in uh Alabama okay yeah so I used to I lived in when I lived in um Atlanta I had this apartment apartment where the um the back door kind of had this uh um I don't know it's like a patio and wolf would never come to my front door and knock on to come in he would just jump this gate and be at my my back door so he bust in one day and was just like look man I I want to go down to Alabama and you know work on a rap record he had the concept of trunk music and you know we agreed on it and so that's what happened man we went down there he had a couple of weeks where um he had his kids he his wife was gone to do something and it was just him and his kids and I came down and we we did it then that's awesome yeah well and you know I was reading that you take a a different a different approach with each artist depending on you know who it is and their style yeah what's it like or you know in 2010 what was the approach to working on this uh rap album with with yellow wolf um man that's a good question I honestly man we just Vibe yell and I have been making music so long that like we're like I don't know man it's like Jordan and Pippen man it's like we just know what we want to do um many times he just comes to me with like an an album title or an album concept and we just really bang until we feel good about it yeah and that's exactly what happened we just locked ourselves into his house he's a very visual person man so like he took a a you know a spray can of paint and like wrote out all of these affirmations on the wall like this wasn't his house either he was he was renting his house by the way so he he basically just like you know wrote all these affirmations on the wall and we agreed to those affirmations and then we just worked on the project and didn't take us that long it might have been a week maybe two but once we got it man we went back to Atlanta and turned it into his to his label and it was up yeah yeah and that was that was his first big album right yeah it was it was his breakout you know breakout album um he and I both agree though there was a few mixtapes before trunk music that we really loved he did a mixtape called stereo that I was just a huge fan of I had nothing to do with it and it was like one of my favorite projects of his but yeah trunk music was just a great breakout project it came at like the perfect time you know there was um I I don't know if you're familiar with the era when blogging music blogging was a big deal I remember was I remember blogging yes yeah the blog era was huge in music um it was right in between the era of CDs going over into streaming so mixtapes were a big deal like downloading music was a big deal um it was right at the cusp of Music becoming like really free out here and and um we put out trunk music and it it just caught on really fast it was like we dropped it and it next thing you know he was just booked everywhere and it it really caught on is that the one that don't make me the TR yeah that song like it really took off and um he he had done a really amazing visual with an up upand cominging um film team at the time I think it was motion family it was just a great timing of everything you know um every every um news Outlet at the time that was a music outlet they picked it up and everybody wrote about it and it was just it was really dope and then shortly after that it it was right around um South by Southwest M and he went to South by Southwest and just ripped CR it yeah he killed it did you go with him I didn't make it to that but he but after his shows they flew him directly from South by Southwest out to sign his deal in la oh nice it was one of those moments where it was just like surreal and everything just happened really fast yeah and so was was that the first artist that you'd work with that like basically you were involved in Breaking yeah yeah you know and honestly I still talk about it to this day like it's still something that I'm still chasing still want that again with somebody like a lot of producers are you know the type of guys who seek work so like for instance like if I wanted to make like a Lee Bryce album I would seek that and try to work my way into a room to be a part of that project or if I want to get on Jelly Rose album i' you know take whatever steps it takes to get into a room to work with him but for me I'm an artist development guy so like I've always been into hey I want to start with the person that has nothing and like try to make it with that person you know but unfortunately you know it's not a lot of people who are cut like yellow wolf man like he I could I couldn't put it in words how hard he worked to get what he got you know and a lot of people don't know that but I was a part of that and I saw the the sleepless nights and the you know just the show after show and just you know fighting the system to get what he wanted so the grind yeah that grind man it's tough to find people who have that in them yes you know but it exists so I'm trying to find another one of those out here you know what I mean yeah man well it is all about hard work you know uh my fight Coach Guy Lloyd Irving he would always say hard work always beats Talent when Talent refuses to work hard come on man that's all effects and that's just what it is man like you get the and we I would see it with Fighters that I would train yeah I had and actually he won't mind me saying it he's he's a friend and he he acknowledges it but guy named Dave Herman yeah he was 65 66 245 pounds about 5% body fat jeez super flexible put his legs behind his head Beast he walked on the Indiana wrestling team without ever wrestling before and went 28 and seven his first year division one as a heavyweight gez um you know Miss the most athletic guy I've I've ever seen and you know he he started out 13-0 as a professional mix martial arts fighter uh and then he took a loss and after that he came to train with me yeah and I just couldn't get him and I all of his his friends and uh other Fighters that train with him like you know Ed you got him to work harder than anybody but you know it wasn't at that you know he could have been a world champion held it for five years you know that type of level of of talent yeah but um you know he just wasn't his thing he didn't really kind of want to do it didn't have a passion that we're talking about know that's what I find out i' I've I've been a part of several artists Journeys since yellow wolf of course mhm um that are independent unsigned artists who are you know who say they want to make it and they want to do it but you just find out over time that you know it they're not going to take those risk they're not going to to do without you know they're not going to go that extra mile and being that I've been in this as long as I have and I've had success with it it's certain things that I won't let happen just because I'm like we don't have to do that we can but you find out that you know that's kind of the crutch it's like if you want something more than the person you're trying to help then it's already headed down the wrong road it's hard as a as a coach or a producer yeah cuz you're you know trying to build them up yeah and I I dealt with the same thing where I wanted it more than the fighter absolutely and it's like it's eventually you learn that it's it's never going to work and you know what sucks as a as a coacher and a producer it's like you it takes two or three times though so like i' it's for me it's just like I'm I'm I'm not quite burned out because I still believe that that person is there for me somewhere but I definitely have learned so many lessons in it because it's like no matter how much you give to it if that person isn't ready for it and doesn't want it as bad as you do then it's just not going to happen you know and so that you know to go back to yella it's like I've really been trying to find that personality yes you know of course you know I don't want another yellow wolf that's you know that's a thing but I definitely like that personality it's like where's that fighter who's that person who's the who's the grinder who's going to get to it you know how do you find that I mean because it's it's not it's as you were talking about it I'm thinking in my head how do you go find some like the hard workers that's well I'll be honest with you you know part of why I moved to Nashville is because I feel like the energy that is here with these artists like you could go downtown and you you know people playing on the corner are better than the worst people here are better than 90% of the people everywhere else yeah when it comes to musicianship and just being really dedicated to this and then the city supports it it's like this is really a Music City it's not like music is popping in the city yeah this is a Music City so like you know you go to go get a coffee somebody's in there playing songs man getting an opportunity and getting after it so I think that you know it's really about the environment and like who's helping drive it you know the support system is here so I'm like I think it's here I think whatever is I'm looking for is here you know and I think it's a huge misconception I think I've come to terms with the fact that people like when I left Atlanta a lot of people were like man you going to go do country music I'm like well yeah if I want to but that's not really what it is anymore it's like it's a lot of music it's not just country music man right and so some really Dope music of all genres all around the city I mean that yeah people don't realize that because I mean in East Nashville you know you got uh just uh Robert Plant come on Jack White it's crazy like I'll tell you what I am excited about I didn't realize the indie rock scene was so hard here is crazy good impressive it's impressive and as a producer that's one of my goals is to like really Venture into that space you know and bring the edginess of my hip-hop background to it you know and just try to see if I could create some kind of genre blend that makes sense for somebody yeah um and I you know I owe a lot of my introduction to that stuff to Wolf because wolf definitely crosses those lines you know what I mean but um I'm interested man I just want to see what I can find in that but I think it's here and I really think it's because of the community and and what what people you know support out here yeah know it's interesting you're talking about the hard work um and you know you know wolf was largely in Ashville yeah uh jelly I've known jelly for I don't know grind bro super definition of grind struggle grind grind you know I like you're saying I'm like dang wolf struggle uh yeah yeah they they they put the they put the work in I love it man that's what I'm talking about and I think that you know I just I really think cuz I know where I'm from there's a lot of grind there can't I can't sleep on what it is but the support for it isn't there like it used to be you know the era that I think we came up in when we did see a lot of action in Atlanta it was because the community was involved several artists were on the ride several artists were yeah breaking and becoming it wasn't just one or two you know and I just it just feels good out here man the energy is here you know and hopefully I'm here on time man and hopefully I can be accepted to get it done you know I love it I love it what's you know so if you were to say your your goals over the next five and 10 years you could wave a magic wand work your ass off and Achieve these goals what would that be um find an artist develop it get some top 40 records nice really big record you know um I've had a lot of success I've had a lot of placements like I'm a very busy record producer but I still have a journey to the top of the charts that I want you know and what's really awesome is a lot of my friends are seeing those successes right now so to see jelly roll with like four number ones that's like just that just makes my heart feels so good you know and it's like when you see that and this is someone you know is just like you you can get this done if you just buckle down and get it done y That's what I'm going for so you know I really just hope to be able to I'm going to do it let's just put it like that it's going to happen man it's already done that's right not not yet now that that's good I I can somewhat relate cuz when I train Fighters like my uh fight gym was one of the biggest in the country yeah but I never trained a world champion from the first day on and it always we had guys that were in the UFC you know a ton of guys in the UFC Strike Force all the big organizations back then and um but never had that world title and you know so from the outside people could look and say well you've accomplished all of this stuff yeah but you know I know I haven't reached that that goal of training a guy that ended up being a world world champion are you are you going for it are you going to get back I retired I I retired in 2012 uh from coaching just career change got you and so um that that was one of the things that I was grappling with because I like uh there wasn't a lot of money yeah in training Fighters I sold my clothing line yeah and uh which we were the largest supplier of Brazilian jiu-jitsu martial arts uniforms in the world so I sold that 2011 and still had my fight JY but I was like you know and we kind of had a turnover with Fighters there was uh you know sometimes it happens at gyms where you know Fighters leave and you got to kind of start back over start over yeah and I was like okay even if I did and I I would have eventually trained a world champion I know that but what there wasn't hardly any money in it and I'd lost my passion yeah and I'm like if I don't have the passion for it and I'm not making money and I'm just chasing that goal it's not worth it if I had the passion it would have been man you it's so crazy how parallel to the music business what you were doing is like being a coach having a gym is the same as me being a producer having a studio yep and my goal was to bring artists through try to train them up get them in position to be great yep it is so tough to do man it is man no that's why trying to find a champion that's it trying to find a champion who's what it's it's really like you know they got to have a talent and they got to be willing to work harder than everybody man that's it and so that's that yeah I I totally when you said I'm like oh I get that man come on man you're still passionate about it which is good yeah well I am and you know here here's the thing man I just I love what I do and I have so many ways of like surviving like I I do well in music so it's not like I'm you know trying to figure out how to live and all this that you know so I love it but I do still think man I like bro I just want that Championship moment man and you know I don't think there's anything wrong with that let's go nothing that's that's that's beautiful I mean you know I I changed my passion from that to healthcare I love it and um you know same thing it's like you know that's that's where and and now I have uh I have three Partners now but I had two partners going into it great partners and you all all of us are willing to work instantly yeah I'm talking about you know we lived in the hospital the first six months cuz we didn't know how to run a hospital we never run a hospital before yeah and uh we were out in Tiana Mexico what a crazy pivot man I know that's crazy it was wild that's still still wild in this day but you know but they're all as we're talking about hard work I'm thinking like that's what it is like we were willing to you know uh Scotty one of my partners mortgaged his house to pay the bill over Co I mean we've almost been bankrupt like I don't know how many times three four five times I've lost count basically yeah um but over Co I had to sell my truck just to make payroll yeah man you know and this is just like three or four years ago yeah man so um but you know you got to be willing to lose everything to and work as hard as harder than anybody that's that's the thing man nowadays I just think people have lost that that understanding yes it's like bro you got to give it all the way up it's never going to happen if you can't give it all the way up no because I just think the universe God is not going to give you something if you don't understand what it is to like lose it all right it's pointless yeah now absolutely you know and there are people who are lucky and things never go wrong but I just don't you know not a lot of those folks out here bro yeah and eventually something's something's going to go something Happ I you you don't want success Without Really you know earning it because then you don't appreciate it yeah well you know I was telling myself that the other day man so like 20 something years of Music Man and I'm like you know what I'm really glad I didn't get rich at 25 stupid crazy Rich at 25 cuz I just would probably be broke now you know I I think this is my time I think this is when it's supposed to happen and um you know I'm just prepared for all of that now it's like I've seen enough I've learned enough it's like let's go let's see what happens at this point you know so that that huge amount of success is what I'm yearning now it's like that's where I want to be with it well I'll say this um and my my partners and I talk about this a lot actually I feel like it there's never been an easier time to be successful in this country because you have so many people who aren't willing to work hard that's right and like you know I heard Dana White say he like just be a Savage like yeah I try to be a s I try to be honest always like our thing is we always try to do the right thing no matter what it doesn't necessar benefit us do the right thing but be a Savage dude with between technology and lazy people yes you got that you're up one you're up one big times so you just got to find the guy that's got the talent but is willing to work harder than everybody I mean think about wolf think about jelly I mean jelly roll literally you know gave up he was living out of a van yeah come on crazy broke as hell dealing with with his addiction and you know never never lost that Faith he had a great woman behind him too you know bunny back the whole way but um you know it's if if you're willing to risk it all and then work that hard yeah man in today's society you're going to get your your break eventually yeah man yeah that's all facts man people are just I don't know I think when people see I think also because of the internet people are have this big um illusion of what it should be and how easy it should be but people just won't give up they won't give up the things they need to in order to get you know to the Finish Line man you have to wonder if they're uh were addicted to the the Instagram Tik Tok all the algorithms if they've got people like brainwash I had a friend tell me the other day we were uh having a discussion about addictions you know and we all send we all tend to look at certain things and we look down at it we're like H we you're addicted to this or that you know but my friend I was in my friend said man look we're addicted to work bro mhm so it was like everyone has some type of addiction it's like at what point are you going to make a decision so that it can benefit that's right that's where I think we are you know we those are the choices you can make these days that could make all the difference in the world it's like let's get addicted to you know succeeding at this and going Beyond where we you know what we can see yeah you know so yeah so let's uh let's go back a little bit because you know after 2011 you got to work with a lot of great people in the last 15 years you've been doing the dam been awesome uh you worked with Eminem yeah worked with Eminem what was that like uh it's crazy I I get this question all the time man but it was just surreal it was it was a um just Pinnacle moment in my life you know like the great one of the greatest rappers of all time is like I'm in the studio with him and you know I'm not really a person who would normally try to get a photo but like I think that's probably the greatest thing I ever did in my career was actually be smart enough to get a photo with him andm CU it it it it it really just spoke to that moment man but I was just really glad glad to be there and you know I'm a I'm a sponge man so I watch people and I watch what they do and um you know people don't realize man how much of a beast that guy is you know bro he would in between our work sessions he would go back and do like workout he had like a whole gym in the back of the studio and disappear for a few hours and come back out and just you know get back to it um but just a just a real for me it was just one of the greatest moments of my career you know what I mean and to have feedback there was a couple of records that we did cuz I have more than one record with him but um you know he he would add input and add production to things that I worked on and you know at first I wasn't sure how to take it but you start to realize that like listen these people are geniuses at what they do and like you want that to rub off on you and you want that to be a part of what you're doing and to this day my you know my highest streaming songs or songs that I've got with him which isn't really surprising but at the same time it's like you know this is this is what we signed up for it you know so I just I'm grateful man were you like uh sitting in the room like just like pinching yourself this is real for sure so like you know he's got like these uh he's got equipment in there that are like classic pieces like he had a MPC with his name on it and um one thing I remember was like there weren't a lot of uh like um plaqu and stuff on the wall you know and um you know I I want to say that uh he told us that the um the reason is that he just likes to always be reminded of where he came from so his place isn't like all crazy mixed up it's just it's a really nice Studio no questioning um but I mean it's his place of work it's his it's his dojo man and it was just dope to be in his dojo that's how I felt about it you know that's awesome um I know one other cool thing about it is he had these old school like video games in there he's just man it's so crazy to know that like the greatest rapper in the world is just like chilling yeah absolutely just a regular person chilling I was going to say what do you think the uh main thing the biggest thing that you learn uh kind of being in the room working onject with them um so I I tell you what I did learn as a producer I learned that the I learned that creating um moments in your records could be all the difference in the world so as a rap producer you know we do certain things with our music that creates a pocket creates a Vibe you know sometimes we're into 808s it's different things that kind of make the music jam but what I learned when working with Eminem is he created moment so and one thing that I just thought was really funny but also clever is anytime he was getting ready to rap he would do things in the production to create like intensity oh yeah so like if you go listen to any one of the records that we did if you listen to best friend like before his verse comes on like the music does something or it breaks down and it builds up right before his verse comes on and I just think it's brilliant it's like those are the things you learn it's like oh so this is like a movie so in other words you know right before we get to the you know the height of the movie this is what we can get this feeling before it happened yeah and so learn that and and I I Implement that now in my production I also think about you know how it should sound when when I want it you know to have a punch or have something special happen and so I picked that up from him you know I thought that was really dope that's awesome yeah it's it's kind of surreal when you're in the room with what you consider greatness in in like sport or in art yeah you know or music yeah uh you know I thought about you know because I think about certain moments out of my career when I got to train with certain Fighters or yeah and you know it's hard to it's hard to explain there's like a it part of it's gratitude you're grateful yeah part of it's like you question if you well for me I question like I deserve to be here you know like am I am I here but I'm here yeah I went through that it definitely helped me it helped me solidify my position in music I think at that point I was like wait a minute I'm in the room with one of the greatest so like that means I'm supposed to be here and this is where my life is taking me and so I need to you know really walk in this and and use it to to catapult me from this point on and it has I mean that that one thing led to so many other things you know it sometimes just being able to have that in your bio just kind of helps you open doors you know because of the amount of respect that people have for his creative well you know he's not going to create with people that that can't match up you know so everybody pretty much says Eminem's like goat or let's say pretty much everybody's like top five oh it's definitely top five every conversation there's no conversation that it I don't want to have it if he's not in the top five so yeah and I think that that that says everything for me it's like you know I can I can lay down tomorrow man and and it's it's written that I had something to do with you know one of the greatest so you know have you ever worked with struggle on anything I have actually man so I did uh man I don't remember the name of the project because it was so long ago but before he got locked up some years ago I did a project with him he he and I worked on um it's the first album that was on his that's on his streaming Network okay um dude I don't remember the name of it but but we had the Masters of Wayan Jenning oh we had the original recorded records with like whan I want to say uh struggle's grandmother or mother was on I can't remember who uh the lady was the Jesse Jesse y yeah bro I and so we remade a lot of those records using the Masters on this particular project that's cool so um i' man I've been down with struggle a long time you know it's I I've known him I'm super proud and happy for him you know it's been years since I've actually been in the studio with him and got to create but I'm proud to say man I was a part of his early journey man and just helping him figure out what he was doing and you know we loved that project at the time but you know life kind of happened in his life and man you know it kind of went where it went butzy struggle yeah I mean he went away for five years come on man he was facing some real time real time and came out stayed away from drugs I mean so you know he he had a lot of people around him which is tough CU he was serious about that when I knew him yeah well I didn't know him uh really know him then yeah but like I I do know like a lot of people have died a fit and all around him he talked about that on the podcast and you know I mean after going away for five years it's it's not easy to get back into grind and live a straight life bro especially with everything that he that happened while he was gone yeah like that I saw his interview with you is insane it's insane man it's insane so God bless him man cuz like lowkey if anybody deserves it it's him right I like bro it's yours you got it yeah no he he he's put the work in I'm just proud man it's it's cool to see I love seeing friends do well especially when they've had to overcome you know so much adversity C man he used to come down to Atlanta uh when we were just getting going and um man he just always grinding man just always trying to figure out how do I fit in where do I get in yep always helpful always down to help somebody do something you know um so I'm not surprised at all man you know lowkey the whole crew I'm just looking at them all like bro it duh I knew it would be what it is because like you guys always had it you always had it you just needed to for whatever reason God needed to shake it up man put your time in put your time put the work in that's it you can overcome the adversity in the middle of all this stuff you're going to be successful and look at him now yeah man so it's it's cool to watch man I I love it I mean wolf has been successful for a long time but jelly was I mean really well jelly was doing good but you know when he got his uh deal with BMG yeah and went in in the country music he been I mean he's like a superstar now oh no not like he is bro it's official it's official it's so cool it's off I don't know anyone that I can put my well besides an &m that has like four number one records bro that's insane and he's done in two years dude and you know it's it's yeah he's got I mean he's basically in country music he gets a record it'll go number one now but you know what I think is really dope he he's got this homie David Ray is a songwriter producer one of his homies man is the way I know him and just the fact that like he's getting this done with one of his homies is like says everything I needed to say yeah you know what I mean because so many people get in the music business and make it and all of a sudden you just start seeing people who came up with them they don't exist anymore or they're not around or and for whatever reasons you know but sure when I see a guy go to the top and he still got his core guys with him yeah that's that's it man nothing else you can really ask for all you can do now is just root him on and just be like bro go get it yeah you know what I mean I'm just waiting for him to be an American Idol judge I was reading some rumors not that I'm a big he's been on there like twice right yeah so he'd be a great Coach man come on yeah for sure that'd be wild but no it's been fun to to watch all of them you know do well tell you man some I'm in the Water Nashville you're next I'm going I'm going for it let's go let's go yeah that's good you work Whiz Khalifa too right yeah Whiz Khalifa man so I you know um yellow's career started so the the dope thing about my career and I could say this this is also why I'm so interested in trying to find another artist and and build more business with an artist is because most of what I have in my resume came from my relationships that I built while working with yellow wool so like I tell people all the time it's like listen man don't worry about trying to be a 100 places stick to that one Place dig in and it will open up doors everywhere else so the reason I say that is because the whole Whiz Khalifa play came from yel actually was out opening for Whiz Khalifa when he first got signed oh cool yeah so he was pretty much out on the road for three 500 bucks a night but it was really Wizard's tour but yell was going in front of crowds they were throwing stuff at him but he just like fought through it man like just like crazy white boy just whing and you know we're like in some of the hooded spots you could think of with nothing but weed smokers and people that don't do what wolf does you know what I mean so we got through that man but in that you know we became homies with everybody and like our friends are people who we like crashed on the buses with and like had to mob out of shows real quick and protect each other and you know so that's how that happened you know I just ended up um having a chance to play some records for him and he took a record and like we you know we cut the song and that turned into other things and it's just it's just dope how it works yeah um it is wild I mean those those relationships and connections that you build along the way yeah uh they open up open up opportunities the whole business is relationships yeah and I I you know sometimes I cringe when I see people just not take that part serious right you know like I mean and there's times where you there are times where you should stand up for yourself and and you know take a stand on things that are right and wrong for you but like should always consider you know the pros and cons of like ruining a relationship or walking away from something in a bad way dude it's so right on people don't realize that so I look at the first part there two parts to my career first part was MMA second part is what what I'm doing now and you know MMA because I grew up doing it you know so like my dad and and uh Uncle both box so I always wanted to be a boxer a fighter and you know I opened my gym when I was 20 and so all from 20 to 30 all I knew was fighting and I thought that was normal yeah like how fighting works is not normal I know this now it's like all about fighting yeah you know and so I I I can look at now I burned some bridges then that I wish I wouldn't have and I you know I go back I'm friends with everybody now yeah but uh I was in my 20s you know hotheaded testosterone like wanted to show everybody that we were the best right and so but you know the last 15 years or 12 13 years you know I'm not burning any Bridgets yeah I'm like how how do we like what how do you create a win-win in every situation like what's a win for you and me at the same time if I'm not doing a win-win I'm not doing the business deal yeah you know and uh yeah people do they burn the bridges and they hurt you know ultimately it limits opportunities in the future because you didn't you don't have that bridge that that's be crossed yeah I think I definitely think you got to think those things through you know I mean and unfortunately it comes down to money A lot of times with people but it's like is money really worth it some it's really not man it's like at the end of the day it's like you know if you could keep it cool try to figure that out now I mean it's still times where you just can't do business with some people or you just can't do some people it is what it is but I think those times are very those are much different than rdge burning moment you know I've seen people just blow it just cuz like d you just got too much ego and don't know how to deal with this like that's ridiculous ego ruins a lot of [ __ ] it does it man and misunderstandings and things like that it's like no man you got to come to terms with it and when you realize cuz each industry is very specific and each industry is very small M like no matter what MMA is everywhere but trust me it's not as big as people think oh that Community is like it's not that big and so if you want to get in and play for real it's even smaller right and that's how the music business is it's like wait a minute so like yeah it's a lot of people doing music but it's really only a few people really doing music exactly and so you got to be careful with that you know cuz you could you know you piss off the wrong person next thing you know you can't go here you can't do that you can't get along with people it's going to travel in that that small little uh group fast like I don't work with him he's he's going to cause problems got to Ego and no I'm not doing it no it's all act yeah yeah I look at a lot of our success Now with uh CPI and you know Scotty and I Scotty's my other partner yeah and we used to sponsor he he he had a competing company with me yeah and we were still best friends and you know we shared a lot and but um you know we sponsored so many people that you know now and I can't say who who was who was down last week but it was a very very one of the most famous people uh you know out there and the guy's trainer uh was with them and and Scotty was his first sponsor wow and so it built trust but it's like a you know but you know it was like dang and Scotty didn't realize he was the guy's first sponsor he knew they were friends from you know 20 years ago in Brazil yeah man but he's like no you were actually my first sponsor and he told you know the other other patient and um you know it builds trust man and you know I say it all the time when you're up shake hands man yes don't be don't be an ass cuz you know to this day man I've Got Friends that were interns and just I had a guy when I was working on uh one of yellow Wolf's early album albums who was I don't even know what he was he was maybe an intern somewhere but he wasn't popping he wasn't in the business yet he just wanted to come through and sit in a session you know I did my homework on him real quick to make sure he wasn't like some crazy guy coming to just get in but I let him come and he like sat in the session watched us work took notes few years later he was the head engineer for like khed one of like the biggest pop artists in the world MH and still to this day takes my calls doesn't you know and it was because of that moment right where it was like hey man when I wasn't anybody by terms of the music industry you were cool enough to let me come kick it that's right and those are the kinds of things that you you should you should live that way I feel I feel like dude just just shake hands just smile but and really like why wouldn't you why wouldn't you that's like why would you want to be mean to people unless you're just an [ __ ] man not yeah you know I mean that's like it doesn't make any sense and so I think sometimes you know ego gets in the way of people yeah and I'm too good or yeah whatever that conversation is but that's really a short-lived conversation yeah man because you know success like that comes and goes it does man and you know people remember when you were an [ __ ] exactly bro like once you're down it's hard to come back up unless you got somebody to pull you up right and that you just got to always remember that yeah and you know and unless you got somebody to pull you up you're good to a lot of people guess what yeah I mean people look at CPI like they're like well you're doing great now and and we work as hard as anybody we we've done all the all the things but we have so many relationship people that we' taken care of for 25 years these people they know Scotty like they actually I slept on their couch or they slept on my couch or our our gym was the like I had one fighter uh Eric Anders in the UFC I didn't even realize this he stayed in our Gym Nashville MMA when when Dedrick was running and he's like oh yeah you know he told dri I stayed in the gym and it's like I I didn't know that yeah Dedrick didn't even remember it but you know those little things and now he's in the UFC now we actually fixed his neck save his career but it's like you know he's one of our our our biggest supporters but yeah man that's what it's about and I think you know a lot of people looking at what you know wanting to be in the music industry working with with someone like you yeah um you know if people realize work really really hard and treat people good Golden Rule you live by the Golden Rule you're going to go a long way that's it it's really that's really it so many people there are people who are not talented that are at the top but it's because they're good folk yes that's right you know what I mean and so people want to help you people want to be a part of that you know what I mean I honestly think that has a lot to do with jelly roll man I think he's just like such a good dude it's just like man who doesn't want to help absolutely you almost look like an [ __ ] if you got anything bad to say that's it I was about to say if someone has something bad to say about jelly like they're kind of like a and I mean and he was in the street so I'm pretty sure he really had some issues with a few people but for the most part it's like bro a good dude like what do you say to that well you think about that so I think sometimes Society uh suggest that you've got to be a jerk you know in a way when it's really just the opposite yeah I think it is man I think it's been sold that you got to scrap you know everybody should scrap at some point you know when you're first getting in and you trying to figure out what you're doing with yourself and trying to find yourself or trying to make a name for yourself then yeah you know grap but you still don't need to be bad to people exactly you know what I mean it's like I resp respect a scrapper who has integrity and in the end it's like you know what you really really got in the dirt but you know what you were still very cool about it you're honorable honorable man there people it really the music especially in the music business you know how it is man it's like bro it's some real it's some real shady it's like fighting man man crazy [ __ ] but I've been blessed in that way man I I've avoided that I've avoided those people I've avoided um ever having to do any of that it's just like man n and and I and like I said when I came in you know I was introduced to it like my first deal was trash it was like how could anybody do this to anyone yeah but you know I'm glad I saw it when I did because it taught me what not to do ever like it's like no I don't ever play with that because right that person I'm sure that person just didn't think that I had to go home to my two baby girls and be like uh I I don't have that I don't you know this isn't what I thought it was yeah that person didn't think of that you know and that in that moment that person was just like this kid is good I'm going to make a lot of money and whatever and so you know but it's all good cuz like it turned around you know what I mean absolutely and so I just wish people were more like you know just wanting to do it the right way yeah and you know I think podcast like we're talking about like podcast like this as we're talking uh hopefully gets certain people maybe listening that that can realize that like being a good person is where it's at it's not out it's not and it's never too late to be a good person like okay so you know some people have done some things and like you you know you still can wake up today and be like hey man I ain't doing that [ __ ] no more bro it's like it's go time let's yeah let's let's let's make things right with a few people and you know that's what should be going on yeah the whole making things right I did this leadership program uh years ago and it was one of the most impactful things I've ever done and it was super intense first part is called Discovery like discovering all the walls and barriers that you create in your life like four days long the next part is called breakthrough another four days where you're breaking down those walls but part of it is like going through a list you know just because because it has you bring up a lot of memories and going through a list of maybe relationships that uh you didn't become friends lost a friendship or maybe a family member whatever it is lot we all have certain things and yeah I just went through and called you know everybody and just cleaned up all of my old anybody I ever had a problem with and it was the biggest weight off my back I didn't even know I was carrying this weight yeah and so you're right you can you know turn things around you can turn it around and I I guarantee some of the people you caught probably didn't even realize that there was anything they probably what are you talking what are you talking about like everything is good yeah but yeah man I think that's important I think everyone should have those moments where you you know you just do inventory on yourself and just be like you know this could have been better you know yeah um I mean it's just life man it just does it to you man and if you're not careful you know you can you could really you can hurt people's feelings and not even realize it yeah that's you know that's true but but it takes it takes Zoom out to realize that you know this is this is human yes and you can also fix it it doesn't have to be so bad you know so but I the people who just annoy me are the ones who like know it and just refuse to refuse to do anything about it refuse to do better man yeah yeah I mean there's that only lasts like I like I said earlier it only lasts so long because eventually you know you might be on top now but there's going to be a time where you're probably not going to be on top uh you better have those better have those good people around you that can pick you up um so you just came out with a war story yeah with yellow wolf what was it like making that project man it was awesome awesome as usual man uh I always love working with with yellow man we've done six or seven albums together um I'm fortunate he's always just been a real just super dope dude with me man like he kept me in the loop through his whole career um and and this album man is just a reflection of that we went back to just having fun and not trying to um get too locked into anything specific uh the trunk music brand is sort of a thing for him well it's not sort of a thing it is a brand and so we just wanted to bring that last piece together I don't know if it's the last one we'll ever do Under the trunk music brand but it was definitely the one that is like a it's like a Reunion yeah um so I did half of the album the album is called War Story I did half of it which is the trunk music side and Malay which is another good friend of ours did the other side um and it's called Michael Wayne so and it's really incredible body of work man it's crazy like my side is more like boppy and jamming and um and malle's side is more like introspective and like uh emotional feels really good so um I think his fans are enjoy it the rap fans will enjoy it cuz he has several fans like he has Rock Fans he's got country F he's got all kinds of people who check him out but the ones who are like core rap fans this is the album for them I think you know so it was dope that's awesome yeah yeah I was listening to it the the other day and it's uh it's something I want to I want to listen to and listen to and listen to and get familiar with yeah well it's enough songs to listen to it for a couple months exactly yeah it's like 24 25 songs on that joker man it's crazy yeah it takes takes a while you gota you gotta go through and go through and go through because there's it's uh it's so big and I like to kind of listen to well I like to listen to the lyrics but kind of understand yeah where the artist is coming from one of my favorite things with music especially with my friends yeah you know no that's what it is man honestly it's one of those albums where you you'll you'll discover Easter eggs all through it man cuz he's just really um lyrical and and emotional but but yet he's still just like a very dope rapper man like I put him up there with the best of him man you know um unfortunately you know everybody doesn't always agree on favorite rappers but I would put my money on wolf with just about anybody bro because he's just really that good at it and he's so talented now so talented like he's such a like artistically he's one of those I I would say artistic genius yeah no I think I think he's one of those guys who like once it's said and done like he's like Johnny Cash to me honestly you know Johnny Cash was um before his time I think he's way more valuable to people now yeah than he ever was when he was around and but his cool was just so cool and I think that that's what what we see in yella I think that you know he'll be the guy that Nashville is talking about 40 years from now going you know that's that's yellow wolf Boulevard you know whatever you know I feel that way I really do so I'm excited to be still a part of that yeah that's that's awesome um did you open a studio here uh no so uh I my studio was in Atlanta and we were going to open a studio here uh Y and I had talked about it and so we were going to partner on a spot um but our business dealings with the uh where we were going to put it fell through so we've partnered over at um we're at East Iris okay so we have a a residency there that's near 100 Oaks right um uh like the Barry Hill yeah yeah um and so he already had a he already had a residency there but they added me to The Residency now and so we both are in the same building and he has one side of the building I have the other side and we're just in there going crazy man and I'm grateful because he's also uh just kind of opening up his resources to me I mean he's very well known out here and especially in music people just love him man and highly respected yeah highly respected man and like you know if he's attack to it doors just seem to open really fast for me abut and I just appreciate it because it you know it doesn't have to be that way and you know but it is good people yeah good people man that's what it is no doubt um so you know we've been talking you worked with yellow wolf Eminem Whiz Khalifa yeah uh some of the top people in the industry you're looking for someone who's willing to work hard yeah if they're listening what would you what would you say to them um I would say you know I really don't know what I would say I would just say that like just be special and stick to it and when we find each other we're going to the top I love it you know what I mean cuz I think that person is here I my spirit brought me here you know I don't know what it is about this town that's got me here and I think it'll come it'll come soon what it is you know um I got engaged before I got here so my me and my fiance are very serious about making a life here in Nashville and we love music and um we just want to do something dope man I love it so that's where we are well brother it's great talking to you anything I can do to support you you just let know I just appreciate you man this is enough right here man this really dope bro all right thank you brother thank you