Litigation:
I found it kind of funny to wake up and see on TMZ that an artist is suing me and Puff Daddy. I was trying to capitalize on the publicity, but I didn’t want to come off as that guy because I was working with Puff Daddy on other situations. I had written the song that Day26 took about a year before. The demo art- ist [I’d worked with] was shopping it around. I guess he wanted to use it as a publicity stunt to say that was his song before Day26. But he had no intention of actually filing any paperwork. They actually called us and said we’re just trying to get some publicity. It looked bad. It looked bad on us; it looked bad for them. It actually worked not in his favor.
Know Thyself:
Know your song structure, know your market. A lot of people aren’t looking for real songs right now, which is disappointing because I’m a real songwriter. When I say real songwriter, I mean more than three vowels in a 15-bar chorus. Know who you are as a writer and market yourself and work in that genre. If you write, “We’re in the club and we’re drunk, yeah yeah yeah,” don’t try to sit down with a folk artist and write them a record. Know your genre, know your lane, know your song. Because you can’t do anything for anyone else until you know yourself.
Fate:
It has taken my entire life and every left and right turn that has happened to make who I am. And if any one of those turns wouldn’t have happened, I probably wouldn’t be here. If I never would have moved back to my father’s house at 14, I would’ve been playing baseball at Florida State. I would have taken my full scholarship there and then I would’ve ended up selling car insurance in Jacksonville, Florida with the rest of my friends. I’m backing off Slydoggie and letting other people bring some ideas and seeing which way it can go. So I’m letting go of the wheel and enjoying the ride.
Marketing-wise, we’re doing whatever we have to do. As it changes, we’re going to change with it. You’ve kind of got to roll with the punches. And we’ll continue to roll with the punches.
Do It:
Your phone has a camera that you can sing into and put on YouTube. Every producer that I’ve dealt with lately has their entire record on their laptop. They’ve produced it there, they’ve mixed it there. The playing field is leveled. So my advice is get it done. Get a $100 track if you can’t afford professional people. No one’s going to do it for you. There are two things you’ve got to remember in life —no one believes in you like you believe in yourself and it takes money to make money.
Selling Colors and Feelings:
People aren’t listening to artists anymore; they’re listening to genres. They’re listening to things based on their feelings. They used to walk in and want you to impose your feeling on them and that’s what they loved. Now, they walk in and want you to perform to what they want to feel. They want a sound, they want color. And we’re trying to produce that color, whether it be rock, folk, pop or rap. The clientele still wants to either get hyped up or be partying or loving someone or losing love with someone. We’re facilitating feelings and colors now. The industry is just finding ways to market and distribute that.
Stepping Aside:
There are too many producers trying to be artists. You have to let the artist shine. A producer needs to step out of the way and accompany an artist and put that artist on a pedestal. What you’ll find with my company is that we focus 100 percent on the artist.
