Best Of Forbes 2023: Music, Movies & Entertainment

Forbes

0:00 Bad Bunny The Entrepreneur 5:07 Insights into 'Schitt's Creek’ Success: The Significance of Second City for Catherine O'Hara 13:22 How Jordan Cooper Created A Career As Both A Broadway Playwright And A Hollywood Showrunner 18:07 Davido Shares His Career Journey And Thoughts On The Global Business Of Afrobeats 43:21 This Entrepreneur Is Reinventing The Telenovela With A Global Podcast Network 48:43 Jamie Lee Curtis: I'm Having My Most Creative Life At 64 52:51 Latto Treated Her Music As A Career From Childhood And It's Paying Off 57:33 Rainn Wilson's ‘Quest To Be Happier” And The Power Of Comedy 1:06:06 Fat Joe And Doug E. Fresh Dish On The Origins Of Hip Hop 1:28:29 Khumo Studios Owner Denim Richards Is Successfully Navigating Two Entertainment Markets

Transcript

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00:05:06 You work in an industry where there's no shortage of people who are looking to criticize you,

00:05:13 have an opinion, judgment.

00:05:17 What advice would you give to others around how to navigate that noise, when to listen, and when to tune it out?

00:05:25 Tune it out at all times.

00:05:28 It's just, if you're lucky, you'll surround yourself with good people whose opinions you trust,

00:05:35 and you'll trust your own instinct. Put your device down for a moment, forget the comments, and trust your own instinct.

00:05:44 That fear of being judged kills creativity, it kills free thinking, you're afraid to take chances.

00:05:50 It's out there, it's big time out there, but just block it out, tune it out as much as you can.

00:05:57 I'm lucky I didn't think that way, and I also had a chance to develop any skills that I might have in a time before the internet,

00:06:05 where I'd just be in front of one live audience, with no comments.

00:06:11 Other than to their friends or family.

00:06:14 And I was able to fail, and succeed, from night to night.

00:06:19 Just tune it out as much as you can, because really, there's only a few opinions you should trust.

00:06:28 You know who to trust, and the rest are just, I don't know, they're trying to be constructive, some of them,

00:06:34 but a lot of it's very negative, because of their own unhappiness.

00:06:39 I'd like to see their faces.

00:06:41 I think that's the only way you should comment.

00:06:44 I love that idea.

00:06:46 You see those filters where people make their baby's eyes big?

00:06:49 What is that about?

00:06:52 Also, if you have to filter your baby, that is the best stage of life.

00:06:57 It's so creepy.

00:06:59 No one's judging them, they're really cute, people don't like the picture anyway.

00:07:04 Raising your child in an Instagram world, where you're putting them out performing, from home,

00:07:10 it's not like they're getting any real training, I mean there are child actors who get real training,

00:07:16 but to do this from home, and to put that in their head, that there are people out there,

00:07:20 "Look how many likes we got, honey, my dear little four-year-old, look how much people like you."

00:07:25 That is so sad and sick, and how are they going to break from that way of thinking?

00:07:31 That constant reinforcement, positive and negative.

00:07:34 From strangers.

00:07:36 My kids were never talented enough to actually go out online, and to do anything people would watch,

00:07:43 so maybe we're lucky from that perspective.

00:07:46 We were some of the last parents in our school, to let our kids have phones.

00:07:52 It is a gateway.

00:07:55 They are grateful, I know myself, because they're 28, 25, they are grateful that they had life before the internet.

00:08:01 They remember.

00:08:03 It is such a defining dynamic in lives today.

00:08:08 And two, also, in careers and how you judge sense of self,

00:08:13 when you're working, we talked about this earlier, but you're working in an industry

00:08:19 where you are constantly being compared in a very, very public way to other people.

00:08:24 Am I?

00:08:25 I'm glad I don't know this.

00:08:27 You are. Do you want me to read you the comments?

00:08:29 I don't want to know.

00:08:31 But at least in terms of the industry, in such a public way, I think people compare and judge

00:08:36 in a way that might be different than other industries.

00:08:39 How do you think about that, at least maybe not for you,

00:08:43 but how do you think about that as it relates to navigating the entertainment industry,

00:08:49 but also how people in their own fields can better navigate those moments?

00:08:54 Comparing yourself to anyone, forget people compare you, forget others comparing you,

00:08:59 but if you get sucked into that or you do it yourself, comparing yourself to anyone is just killer.

00:09:04 And I dealt with, you know, I didn't really, I dealt with jealousy on my part for the first time

00:09:12 and really only time, thank goodness.

00:09:14 I've had my moments, of course, I'm only human.

00:09:17 But when I was in Second City Theatre, I worked, when I was first cast,

00:09:22 there was another woman who was very good and strong, but just kind of finding her way.

00:09:27 And then she left and Andrea Martin came in.

00:09:31 Andrea Martin I worked with a lot throughout the years at SCTV and beyond, and she's just great.

00:09:36 And when she came in, she had done a lot of theatre, a lot of theatre.

00:09:39 This was my first theatre job.

00:09:41 So I was feeling good.

00:09:43 And then Andrea came in and Andrea was so strong.

00:09:46 The way you would build a show is do improvs every night.

00:09:48 And then you'd start honing, you know, rewriting them, working on them,

00:09:52 finessing them until you had the next show.

00:09:54 And Andrea had like 40 scenes to my two, because she was just so strong and really,

00:10:00 and it really put me through a rough time.

00:10:03 I was torturing myself about like, why am I comparing myself to Andrea?

00:10:07 Why am I jealous of what she has?

00:10:09 And I don't know if this is correct, but it worked for me.

00:10:13 It finally came down to she knows who she is and she knows what she wants.

00:10:18 And she's found great ways to get what she wants.

00:10:21 I mean, none of it's bad. It was all healthy.

00:10:24 She was working towards great performances, right?

00:10:26 But she knew herself and I didn't know myself.

00:10:28 So comparing myself to her made no sense.

00:10:30 It was just, the only difference is Andrea knows who she is and I don't.

00:10:35 And so my job was to find out who I am and what I have to offer and not compare myself.

00:10:41 - I think sort of so much of what we do is compare ourselves.

00:10:45 Who we think we should be, what others think we should be,

00:10:48 what, you know, all these different noises as it relates to our sense of self.

00:10:52 There's a great quote I love from Dolly Parton who says,

00:10:55 "Find out who you are and do it on purpose."

00:10:58 Which is truly the hardest thing in life.

00:11:00 - It's like fake it till you make, or fake it till it becomes real.

00:11:04 Yes, be the person, fake being the person you want to be until it becomes natural.

00:11:09 - Until it becomes who you are or until you find who you are that's always been there.

00:11:14 How did you find your sense of self?

00:11:17 And do you have any advice for others around what it takes to really get a better sense of your strengths

00:11:25 and direction you want to follow?

00:11:27 - I'm going to jump on finding out who you are, yourself.

00:11:32 Growing up and still, I don't know who I am.

00:11:38 And maybe it's because I'm a character actor, but I don't care to know who I am.

00:11:41 There's so much, it struck me in the last few years how much talk there is about me and who I am

00:11:46 and I want others to treat me in the way and refer to me in the way that I believe I am.

00:11:52 And God bless you, I hope you can be yourself, find out who you are,

00:11:55 at least the parts of you that are most important for your life to gain happiness

00:12:00 and to fulfill your potential.

00:12:03 But you don't have to know who you are.

00:12:07 You're ever evolving, what's the point of being here if we're not ever evolving?

00:12:11 So I don't care to know who I am.

00:12:13 From day to day it seems to change.

00:12:15 I feel like I'm a different person right now, of course we're talking about this with you

00:12:19 than I am with my kids this morning.

00:12:21 I think that's too much to put on yourself.

00:12:25 - I love that point around that it's an evolution.

00:12:28 It is an evolution, there's so many different dimensions to your life.

00:12:33 - And you'll grow, why not allow yourself to grow?

00:12:36 - That's my dream for aging, well first of all to age, to be able to be alive

00:12:39 but then to be open and to keep learning.

00:12:42 - What's one piece of advice that you would give to a smart, driven person

00:12:48 coming out of college who's looking to enter your field?

00:12:51 - Seek out like-minded, not the same thinking people, but like-minded people

00:12:57 who you can work with but also grow with.

00:13:05 And I've said this before but be aware, be conscious of the foot you go in on

00:13:09 at the beginning of any new relationship, whether it's personal or work

00:13:13 because the foot you go in on is pretty much the foot you're going to stay on

00:13:17 and it's really hard to change that dynamic once you present yourself as one thing.

00:13:21 - Jordan, it is wonderful to be here with you today.

00:13:31 - So great to be here with you, I'm so excited.

00:13:34 - So let's start, you made history as the youngest black playwright in Broadway history

00:13:39 which is incredible, how did that make you feel?

00:13:41 - Ah, insane, you know, insane.

00:13:44 Like it's something you don't even really think about

00:13:46 you know, because you're too busy just doing the work

00:13:49 but to think about the fact that the person before me was Lorraine Hensbury

00:13:53 who wrote A Raisin in the Sun in 1958, you know,

00:13:55 so to think that I'm like following in that footsteps, in that lineage just excites me.

00:14:01 And also, you know, to me it's the beginning of the future,

00:14:04 it's the beginning of a new kind of storytelling, a new kind of theatre, a new kind of Broadway, you know.

00:14:09 - I want to hear about your background, how did you get into theatre, Broadway and entertainment?

00:14:16 - I started when I was really young, like about six years old.

00:14:19 I would always put on these plays in my living room

00:14:22 and I would cut up my mom's weave and my dad's work uniform and make costumes.

00:14:28 And I just like love telling stories and love becoming other characters.

00:14:31 And so that started with like me doing plays in the living room to going to the backyard,

00:14:35 to growing from the backyard to doing them in the church.

00:14:37 And so that just grew and then when I moved to New York,

00:14:40 I would like hand out flyers in Times Square and like on the subway

00:14:44 trying to like pass out and let people know that my shows were happening.

00:14:47 And that just grew and grew and then I did Ain't No Mo' at the Public Theatre

00:14:51 and then it went from the Public Theatre to Broadway.

00:14:57 - How did you convince producers to take a chance on you

00:15:00 and take a chance on Ain't No Mo' and get it to Broadway?

00:15:02 - Yeah, you know what's crazy is I really had to do a lot of the work myself first.

00:15:06 - Really? - Yeah, because it was one of those pieces where

00:15:10 it just wasn't like anything else, you know,

00:15:13 when people want you to compare something to something,

00:15:15 it's like I don't really know what it's comparative to.

00:15:17 But really I had to believe in myself and believe in my work

00:15:21 before I trusted other people to believe in it for me, right?

00:15:26 So I started with putting on readings like with the community,

00:15:28 like finding different organizations that would let me just set up

00:15:32 music stands and call friends and read a play, right?

00:15:35 And I think once I started doing that, that's when Jack Phillips-Moore

00:15:39 from the Public Theatre ended up seeing a reading of it

00:15:42 that was done at New York Theatre Workshop with Stevie Walker Webb

00:15:45 and it just kind of grew from there.

00:15:47 - And how were you able to like break into the Hollywood scene,

00:15:52 convince BET to take a chance on you?

00:15:55 What was that process like for you?

00:15:56 - Oh, that was a journey.

00:15:58 So the Miss Pat Show, I was 23 when I wrote it

00:16:01 and I actually wrote it in my apartment.

00:16:04 I used to live in this horrible New York apartment.

00:16:08 I didn't have a closet. I slept on a futon.

00:16:10 I always said I had five roommates and two rats.

00:16:13 - Ooh, okay. - Because it was just the best.

00:16:15 I wrote that pilot. Lee Daniels brought me to Fox

00:16:18 and Miss Pat brought me to Fox and they were like,

00:16:20 "Absolutely not. We're not giving a kid in college a television show.

00:16:24 We don't know how good his plays are."

00:16:25 They were like, "We're not doing that."

00:16:27 So Lee's like, "Well, we're going to keep trying."

00:16:30 And Miss Pat calls me and she said,

00:16:33 "I want you to do something for me. I want you to write the first episode."

00:16:36 I was like, "What?"

00:16:38 She was like, "Write the first episode and take your name off of it."

00:16:40 I was like, "What do you mean take my name off of it?"

00:16:42 So I took my name off of it. I wrote the episode, "Trusting,"

00:16:46 and she sent it in to Fox, her and Lee Daniels,

00:16:50 and Fox said, "Who wrote this?"

00:16:53 "It was the kid you didn't want to hire."

00:16:54 [laughs]

00:16:56 What a good strategy.

00:16:58 Yeah, and that's how I ended up being able to have my own show.

00:17:01 Wow, that's really cool.

00:17:03 And finally, Jordan, I'm sure you've got a lot of rejection in your career,

00:17:06 being in theater, being in Hollywood.

00:17:08 Tell me about that experience for you

00:17:10 and any advice you have for others who may be pitching

00:17:13 or going through similar rejections in their fields.

00:17:16 Yeah, don't let nobody talk you out of what you know to be true.

00:17:21 Because if they can't give you the space, you can find the space.

00:17:25 If you've got to do it in the living room, if you've got to do it in the backyard,

00:17:28 if you've got to do it at the rec center, do it.

00:17:30 There's always some form of, "You're not good enough."

00:17:33 There's always some form of, "We don't get it. We don't understand it."

00:17:37 "That's too much. That's too..."

00:17:39 What I'm grateful for is because I've received so many "no's,"

00:17:42 at some point, spirit just knocks something into my head.

00:17:46 It's like, "Do you know who you are?"

00:17:49 Do you know what you've done when people told you you couldn't do it?

00:17:51 When people said it was impossible?

00:17:53 And I think that that's what's really pushed me forward,

00:17:58 is to never, ever, ever take no for an answer

00:18:02 when there's a yes in the bottom of your gut.

00:18:05 Hold on. We were here with the president and nobody had their cameras out then.

00:18:12 What's going on here?

00:18:14 What's up? What's up, my people? How you doing today, man?

00:18:18 What's good?

00:18:19 David, I want to start with a comment here, which is,

00:18:23 I don't know what the definition you define as a superstar,

00:18:27 but you know what I define it?

00:18:29 A guy who shows up 30 minutes late and nobody leaves.

00:18:32 Welcome. Welcome to Botswana.

00:18:36 Thank you. Thank you.

00:18:38 I had a concert last night in Nigeria.

00:18:40 Literally, from the stage, I went straight to the plane.

00:18:43 We appreciate the effort.

00:18:45 Pardon me. Pardon me.

00:18:47 And then when I landed, I was like,

00:18:48 "Yo, I have to come in smelling fresh, so I got to take a shower."

00:18:51 You look good, smell good.

00:18:55 And I, you know, did we get you a police escort?

00:18:58 No, you did it yourself?

00:19:00 Botswana is safe.

00:19:02 I was talking about speed. I was talking about traffic.

00:19:04 Botswana is super safe.

00:19:06 Well, welcome. And we're glad.

00:19:08 Now, we're here.

00:19:10 It was your first concert in Nigeria with the new album?

00:19:13 Yes. Yes. First one.

00:19:16 Yeah, crazy. Crazy.

00:19:17 So, the new album, "Timeless."

00:19:19 "Timeless."

00:19:21 Last I checked, it was the number two album in the world on the global Billboard charts.

00:19:24 Is that true?

00:19:26 Crazy.

00:19:28 Who's number one? Did you see?

00:19:30 Yo, some guy. He's a country singer.

00:19:32 I don't even know where he's from.

00:19:34 But, like, he's like, he's so big.

00:19:37 I was trying to reach out to him, like,

00:19:39 "Yo, can I be number one for one day?"

00:19:41 Just one week. That's all we want.

00:19:43 Can I get a screenshot? Instagram?

00:19:45 You know?

00:19:46 We thank God, all in all.

00:19:48 We thank God.

00:19:50 Tell us how the comeback has been.

00:19:53 Man, the comeback.

00:19:55 Like, I call this album, like, the miracle album.

00:19:58 Four months, I was on my couch.

00:20:02 You know what I'm saying?

00:20:04 I've been on the high for about 12 years, non-stop.

00:20:09 Touring, dropping music, being active.

00:20:13 And then to just have that break, you know what I'm saying?

00:20:15 It was like God put a full stop to everything I was doing.

00:20:19 Like, "Yo, go sit down."

00:20:21 You know what I'm saying?

00:20:23 For six months, just watching everybody live their lives,

00:20:25 and just living in a different momentum, it's just crazy.

00:20:30 I never thought I'd be able to sit here.

00:20:32 I never thought I'd be able to get on stage and do what I used to do.

00:20:36 I thought, like, it's never going to be the same.

00:20:40 So for it to just be successful just like this, it's a miracle to me.

00:20:44 Just for context, for those who don't know,

00:20:46 David lost his son, tragically, and was off for six months.

00:20:51 So first, as a father, my condolences.

00:20:55 I can't imagine how hard that is.

00:20:58 Obviously, that had to change you as a person.

00:21:00 Have you come back now as a performer differently?

00:21:03 Somebody asked me that earlier, too.

00:21:07 I'd say maybe performance-wise,

00:21:10 I wouldn't say it's really changed me.

00:21:13 But I'd say, like, two years ago, if you came to my backstage,

00:21:18 it's like a party.

00:21:20 You know what I'm saying? It's like a club.

00:21:23 But if you saw my backstage yesterday,

00:21:25 stuff is more organized.

00:21:27 I had a lot of time to think and reflect.

00:21:29 You know what I'm saying? So I made a lot of changes.

00:21:31 Performance-wise, when I get on stage, I'm still the same David.

00:21:36 But if you look at the way our procedure,

00:21:40 our process now, the production,

00:21:42 I'd say it's been more matured.

00:21:44 Because we've had time to think,

00:21:46 and I've had time to realize that,

00:21:48 "Yo, God gave me this gift."

00:21:50 We don't want to waste the opportunity

00:21:52 that God has given us.

00:21:54 And Afrobeats now is at a world-class stage.

00:21:59 It's not the same as two years.

00:22:03 Before, when we do concerts,

00:22:06 we just put the CD in the thing,

00:22:09 put on the speakers, get the mic,

00:22:11 and people are going crazy.

00:22:13 But now, from the creative director,

00:22:16 from the production, from the sound,

00:22:18 it's crazy.

00:22:20 We're spending so much money,

00:22:22 not only to make it look good,

00:22:24 but to put it up there with R&B, pop, stuff like that.

00:22:30 They spend a lot on production.

00:22:32 So, yesterday, going on tour,

00:22:34 this tour that I'm about to embark on,

00:22:37 I'm thinking more of how I'm going to make

00:22:40 the culture look very good,

00:22:42 rather than how much I'm going to get in my pocket.

00:22:44 You know what I'm saying?

00:22:46 I was struck.

00:22:48 The stat that struck me was

00:22:50 the Timeless has been streamed,

00:22:52 last I checked, almost 160 million times.

00:22:54 But almost 60 million of those came from the US.

00:22:58 So when you talk about Afrobeats being,

00:23:01 even a couple of years ago,

00:23:02 Afrobeats was the music popular in Africa.

00:23:07 And you're right, it's become a genre

00:23:09 where 40% of your traffic is in the US,

00:23:12 and the majority of the traffic is outside Africa.

00:23:15 So that's a statement.

00:23:17 And definitely, even for me,

00:23:20 I went to college in America,

00:23:22 and coming directly from Africa,

00:23:26 I came from Nigeria at 16,

00:23:29 directly to Alabama in America.

00:23:33 So imagine just flying in direct.

00:23:36 I remember landing,

00:23:38 and when I was picking my classes in school,

00:23:40 registering in the dorm,

00:23:42 they came to me like, "Yo, where are you from?"

00:23:44 I was like, "Nigeria."

00:23:46 They were like, "How did you get here?"

00:23:48 I'm like, "You want to know how I got here?"

00:23:51 So people, the knowledge,

00:23:55 I've lived in the Western world,

00:23:58 I've lived in Africa,

00:23:59 and let me tell you,

00:24:01 growing up in the Western world,

00:24:03 they don't really give the knowledge

00:24:05 that Africa is somewhat developed.

00:24:08 So for me to land,

00:24:10 and this is like 2011, 2010,

00:24:14 so for me to land somewhere,

00:24:16 and the person didn't even know

00:24:18 that we had an airport in Nigeria

00:24:20 to transport me from Nigeria.

00:24:22 That's then.

00:24:24 So they don't educate them about,

00:24:27 you know what I'm saying,

00:24:28 but now it's way different.

00:24:30 Now when you say, "Oh, where are you from?"

00:24:33 "I'm from Nigeria."

00:24:35 "Oh, I love Nigerian music."

00:24:37 "Oh, I love African food."

00:24:39 "Oh, I love African clothes."

00:24:41 So now it's different.

00:24:43 So everything is changing.

00:24:46 - The political term for that is soft power.

00:24:50 America obviously has been the dominant country

00:24:52 the last hundred years,

00:24:54 and yes, it's an economic powerhouse,

00:24:56 but it's Hollywood that made America ubiquitous,

00:24:59 where if you see every movie

00:25:01 and every TV show seem to be made in America,

00:25:03 it's spread American culture,

00:25:05 and that's kind of what you're doing here.

00:25:07 And also you're empowered by streaming,

00:25:11 where it used to be you would have

00:25:13 a record contract here,

00:25:15 and you would be like,

00:25:17 "Oh, I'll get something in the African,"

00:25:19 and you'd get a contract, a secondary contract,

00:25:21 but now streaming is universal.

00:25:23 Does that change how you make music,

00:25:25 or you don't have to only drop it

00:25:26 and drop a record or an album in this region,

00:25:29 but you're broadcasting to the world?

00:25:31 - I mean, the streaming era right now is just crazy.

00:25:35 You can make a song in your bedroom

00:25:38 in somewhere, let's just say,

00:25:40 in Nairobi, in Kenya,

00:25:42 somewhere in an apartment, nobody knows,

00:25:44 and you press send,

00:25:46 and you release the song.

00:25:48 Do you know, these days,

00:25:50 you can go to bed and wake up a superstar.

00:25:54 All you need is, even with TikTok,

00:25:56 all you need is one, it could be anything.

00:25:58 Somebody could walk and trip,

00:26:00 and it becomes funny,

00:26:04 and it becomes a thing.

00:26:06 So right now, before, when we were making music,

00:26:08 we were like, like even making this album,

00:26:11 we're like, "Oh," you know what I'm saying,

00:26:13 "We're making music for the ears,"

00:26:15 and stuff like that,

00:26:17 but now you're making music like,

00:26:19 "Yo, how can we be creative with this song?"

00:26:21 You know what I'm saying?

00:26:23 And stuff like that, so now music

00:26:24 is not only about music,

00:26:26 you know what I'm saying?

00:26:28 The creative process is now more dynamic

00:26:30 because there's so many elements.

00:26:32 Now you have to promote.

00:26:34 Before, all you had to promote was like on radio,

00:26:36 you have print press, you do interviews, TV.

00:26:39 Now there's like 20 apps

00:26:42 that you have to promote,

00:26:44 do you understand?

00:26:46 All the apps have engagements,

00:26:48 they have a following.

00:26:50 - David, you bring up a great point,

00:26:52 which is when you're saying you're being creative

00:26:53 and you can just drop something at night

00:26:55 and the next day it's a hit.

00:26:57 Even when you got started 10 years ago,

00:26:59 you had to get somebody, or 12 years ago,

00:27:01 you had to get somebody else

00:27:03 to give you a record contract.

00:27:05 When you say you could promote,

00:27:07 before you had to get some TV show

00:27:09 or something to let you on.

00:27:11 You had to get somebody to let you make the record.

00:27:13 Now you make the song,

00:27:15 and you publish it yourself,

00:27:17 you promote it yourself with your platforms.

00:27:19 So again, that must, maybe tell us

00:27:21 how you've seen your career exactly overlap

00:27:23 with the change in the music industry.

00:27:25 Tell us how you got your big break

00:27:27 and how it's changed to now.

00:27:29 - So my big break, like I was--

00:27:32 - Maybe you made your big break,

00:27:34 but how did you become David O?

00:27:36 - So I used to be a producer, mainly.

00:27:39 I always wanted to be in the background of things.

00:27:42 So I used to have an older cousin,

00:27:44 he was like the musician of the family.

00:27:46 He was the older cousin.

00:27:48 I was the last born, I'm the last born of my family.

00:27:50 I've always been the youngest.

00:27:51 But then I was very, very good

00:27:53 with like computer, tech, stuff like that.

00:27:55 So when he told me, oh, he does music,

00:27:57 I quickly went to go and learn how to record music

00:28:00 from YouTube, I learned from YouTube.

00:28:02 You know what I'm saying?

00:28:04 So I bought like a computer,

00:28:06 the program and everything,

00:28:08 and I started learning on YouTube.

00:28:10 And I started recording people.

00:28:12 I started recording artists, stuff like that.

00:28:14 So one of my cousins that was always with me

00:28:17 every time in the studio,

00:28:19 he noticed that like,

00:28:21 if you're an artist and you're in the studio

00:28:23 and I'm recording you,

00:28:25 if the artist made a mistake,

00:28:27 he always noticed that,

00:28:29 always give the artist like,

00:28:31 okay, don't sing it like that, sing it like this.

00:28:33 Sing it this way, it will catch their ears more this way.

00:28:35 So over time doing that,

00:28:37 I noticed that I was like,

00:28:39 yo, I'm better than everybody that I'm recording.

00:28:41 (audience laughing)

00:28:43 So over time then, I was just like,

00:28:45 you know what, maybe I should record a song.

00:28:48 And then the first song that I ever recorded,

00:28:49 blew up.

00:28:51 No, that was the second one.

00:28:53 The first one,

00:28:55 Damidiro blew up in like Africa and everywhere,

00:28:57 but like the first one I blew up locally,

00:28:59 like in Lagos, Nigeria.

00:29:01 - What was it?

00:29:03 - It's called Back When.

00:29:05 So that one was,

00:29:07 I was in school, I was in college

00:29:09 because I had moved back to Nigeria,

00:29:11 but my dad sent me to like the village,

00:29:13 a school in the village, far away.

00:29:15 So he'd only let me come back

00:29:17 every other week to Lagos to do music.

00:29:18 So the deal was, you know what I'm saying,

00:29:20 I could do music, but I got to finish school.

00:29:22 So I was doing that.

00:29:24 So one day my boy called me, he was like,

00:29:26 ah, 'cause I dropped the song and I went to school,

00:29:28 so I didn't even know what was going on.

00:29:30 There was no social media like now

00:29:32 where somebody can just send you a snap,

00:29:34 like oh, I was in the club,

00:29:36 they went crazy to your song.

00:29:38 So my guy went for the weekend

00:29:40 and came back on a Monday,

00:29:42 so I'm walking to class like,

00:29:44 he's like, guy,

00:29:46 I was in the club last night,

00:29:47 everybody's singing your song.

00:29:49 I said, eh?

00:29:51 Boy, I dropped my school bag so quick.

00:29:53 (laughing)

00:29:55 So that was like the time then

00:29:57 when I started realizing that, okay,

00:29:59 I think I want to fully do music.

00:30:01 So I left school for a bit

00:30:03 and then went to focus on that.

00:30:05 And then everything was--

00:30:07 - What did your dad say about that?

00:30:09 - Oh, he was mad, man.

00:30:11 But funny enough, my family,

00:30:13 they've always loved music.

00:30:15 We danced a lot, we threw a lot of parties.

00:30:16 But my dad is just very, very adamant on education.

00:30:20 No matter, I don't win 100 Grammys,

00:30:23 my daddy wants you to get education.

00:30:25 - Your dad is a very successful business person.

00:30:29 What did you learn from him

00:30:31 and his business career, if anything,

00:30:33 that you've applied to your music and creative career?

00:30:36 Which is also a business career, but different.

00:30:38 - I mean, it's still business.

00:30:40 Sometimes we get in a lot of arguments

00:30:43 because showbiz is different from a normal person's life

00:30:47 that's just doing business.

00:30:49 Like, for example, I might be in Italy

00:30:52 and he just sees a caption,

00:30:54 "Oh, Davido buys this $300,000 watch.

00:30:57 "God, why are you wasting my money?"

00:30:59 I say, "Daddy, you don't understand.

00:31:01 "You don't understand why I'm inspiring people.

00:31:03 "Do you understand?

00:31:05 "Do you understand why I'm inspiring people?"

00:31:08 So, like, different aspects,

00:31:11 but all in all, it's still business.

00:31:12 He still calls me to make sure, like,

00:31:14 "You save here, invest here, blah, blah, blah."

00:31:16 If I want to, like, for example,

00:31:18 I wanted to rent a penthouse and stuff like that,

00:31:21 and he advised me, like,

00:31:23 "You're wasting money, you're just spending,

00:31:25 "you know what I'm saying, blah, blah, blah,

00:31:27 "on just, you know, buy it and then use it

00:31:29 "when you're not around Airbnb."

00:31:31 So, little advice here and there.

00:31:33 But yeah, it took a while for him

00:31:36 to really accept the music,

00:31:38 but now he accepted it fully.

00:31:40 - Forbes estimated you made

00:31:41 20 million bucks last year,

00:31:43 so I guess that probably makes Dad proud, right?

00:31:45 (laughter)

00:31:47 It's like Jay-Z said, right?

00:31:49 You know, "I'm not a businessman,

00:31:51 "I'm a business." - Man!

00:31:53 (laughter)

00:31:55 - You're a business.

00:31:57 Part of the success in your business is social media.

00:32:01 I couldn't help but notice

00:32:03 you have more social media followers

00:32:05 than any other Afrobeat artist.

00:32:07 I mean, you got Wizkid, Burn the Boy, All Beat.

00:32:09 I'm sure they're trying to catch up.

00:32:10 How did you get such a big number,

00:32:16 and what do you do with it that leverages it?

00:32:19 - I wouldn't be able to tell you,

00:32:21 but I'm a likable figure, I'm a likable person.

00:32:25 But apart from that--

00:32:27 - Burn the Boy is listening.

00:32:29 - But apart from that,

00:32:31 I've always been the guy to be like,

00:32:34 "Yo, bring your phone, let me make you

00:32:36 "an Instagram page."

00:32:38 Even my wife, I'm the one that tells her,

00:32:39 "You have to post today, you haven't posted."

00:32:41 So I've always been that guy.

00:32:43 I told you, when I was young,

00:32:45 I was very good in tech and stuff like that.

00:32:48 And I use my Instagram, I make it very personal,

00:32:51 you know what I'm saying, over the years.

00:32:53 If I wasn't doing music, I would have done stand-up.

00:32:57 Definitely.

00:32:59 You know when I know I'm funny,

00:33:01 I'd be laughing at-- - Funny.

00:33:03 - I laugh at myself, I know I'm laughing at myself.

00:33:07 But apart from that, I've always been just very active.

00:33:11 I think Wiz and Bono are not as active,

00:33:13 like social, I'm a very social person.

00:33:16 - How many followers now, do you know of that?

00:33:19 - Me? - Yeah, you.

00:33:21 - I think now on Instagram it's like 27 million.

00:33:24 On Twitter it's like 14 million.

00:33:27 Facebook is like, I don't know.

00:33:30 - A lot million.

00:33:32 - YouTube, I don't know.

00:33:36 - What's cool is though, you're then leveraging that,

00:33:38 you built your own channels,

00:33:40 you built your own media channel.

00:33:42 And now you're leveraging it with business deals,

00:33:45 with partnerships like with Puma, and with Renaud Ricard.

00:33:48 So how did that process go, again,

00:33:51 as you're a businessman,

00:33:53 you started doing these brand partnerships.

00:33:56 What was your point of view on that?

00:33:58 - Just being able to market myself well,

00:34:02 I know what I want, do you understand?

00:34:05 Like, for example, you want a brand ambassador,

00:34:08 oh, we want David O to shoot an advert for us,

00:34:11 you know what I'm saying?

00:34:13 We sign, we do this, blah, blah.

00:34:15 And then you find out like six months down the line

00:34:18 of the relationship with this brand,

00:34:21 I'm calling them like, yo, let's do it this way.

00:34:24 And it works out, and then you find out

00:34:26 that the relationship is becoming bigger

00:34:29 than a brand ambassadorship.

00:34:33 Like for Puma, I was never meant to have a collection,

00:34:36 like my own collection.

00:34:38 I was just meant to just shoot a couple commercials for them,

00:34:42 post on socials, and then over time,

00:34:46 the relationship more then into me

00:34:48 getting my own collection worldwide

00:34:50 in every Puma store, you know what I'm saying?

00:34:53 So there's a way you market--

00:34:55 - I noticed the hat.

00:34:57 - Oh yeah, yeah, come on, I gotta market anyhow I can.

00:35:02 But you know what I'm saying,

00:35:03 I feel like there's always more to it.

00:35:05 Even being a musician, I gain so much more for the brands.

00:35:08 If I'm doing an event, for example,

00:35:10 and I call, I'm like, yo, I'm having a sports event,

00:35:14 yo, Puma, can you please supply,

00:35:16 can you please supply us clothes, shoes?

00:35:20 And because I'm doing extra work for them

00:35:23 that's not even on paper, you know what I'm saying,

00:35:26 they also want to scratch my back as well.

00:35:29 Goes with Martel as well.

00:35:31 Any events I do, birthdays, whatever,

00:35:34 they come to, they set up,

00:35:36 and the list goes on, in Phoenix,

00:35:39 any time one of my staff phones break,

00:35:41 they will replace it, shop, shop.

00:35:43 So it's become more of like a family.

00:35:46 - Does that mean you're bringing Martel cognac

00:35:48 to the Bush party tomorrow?

00:35:50 - There should be, there should be some.

00:35:52 I'll bring some, I'll bring some.

00:35:54 - All right, we're bringing, it's done,

00:35:56 we're holding you to that.

00:35:58 Your godfather, Eliko Ndangote, who I've met,

00:36:00 one of the richest men in Africa.

00:36:01 - He drove me, Uncle Eliko drove me home

00:36:04 from the hospital.

00:36:06 Yeah, man, he's a foot up there.

00:36:08 - Oh, I saw a mind blow right there.

00:36:10 What did he teach you about business, if anything?

00:36:15 - Uncle Eliko is a very different kind of billionaire.

00:36:20 Uncle Eliko buys like two cars every eight years.

00:36:24 He's a very, very disciplined

00:36:26 and very, very different kind of billionaire.

00:36:29 Every time I see him, he just says one thing,

00:36:30 and one thing only, save your money.

00:36:34 (audience laughing)

00:36:36 There's nothing more he tells me every time,

00:36:38 just save your money.

00:36:40 Him and my dad, they've been very, very close friends

00:36:42 since, you know what I'm saying, they were young.

00:36:44 And he's done well for us back home,

00:36:47 made us love industries.

00:36:49 He does it all, he just opened the biggest,

00:36:53 what's that, cement plant?

00:36:55 Cement factory in Africa, yeah.

00:36:58 So, that's providing jobs, you know what I'm saying.

00:37:00 Us too, what we do, we have an electricity company.

00:37:05 So, the top men in Nigeria,

00:37:08 I feel like they do what they can to provide.

00:37:11 - I can't help but think,

00:37:13 with so many good business role models you had,

00:37:15 that they gave you the confidence

00:37:17 to take some of the chances you took.

00:37:19 Because like you said, you drop out of college,

00:37:21 that's hard to do, but again, you had that confidence

00:37:24 and you had those role models.

00:37:27 So, you're expanding your business now

00:37:28 with your new media company, right?

00:37:30 - Yes, yes.

00:37:32 - Give us a scoop on that.

00:37:34 - Every artist always, when we're in the studio,

00:37:37 we meet a lot of young people,

00:37:39 we're like, "Oh, I want to get to be on my team,

00:37:41 "I want to help you out."

00:37:43 So, over the years, making music and having artists

00:37:46 has always been more of like family to me.

00:37:49 They've always been signed to me,

00:37:51 but I'm not really checking the books.

00:37:55 I'm like, "Oh, you did this show,

00:37:56 "where's my part of the money?"

00:37:58 Obviously, because I'm making so much for myself.

00:38:01 But I just wanted them to kind of,

00:38:04 because it's very hard, especially now,

00:38:06 because music is so expensive.

00:38:08 So, I really wanted them to have their own money

00:38:11 for the first couple of years and then later on.

00:38:14 But this new record label,

00:38:16 I'm taking every dollar, every, do you understand?

00:38:20 Because music is so expensive now

00:38:23 because if an artist comes

00:38:24 and you want to drop a record,

00:38:26 you know what I'm saying?

00:38:28 And you make, let's just say,

00:38:30 for example, you make, let's just say, $20.

00:38:33 And instead of me, like, back in the day,

00:38:37 I'd probably be like, "Yeah, you can keep the $20."

00:38:39 But I'm like, "Yo, you got to pay $10

00:38:41 "because we have to pay $5 to TikTok,

00:38:44 "we have to pay $2."

00:38:46 So, music is much, much bigger now.

00:38:49 So, apart from even like music,

00:38:52 I'm trying to start,

00:38:53 I want to start investing in like short films.

00:38:55 I want to start investing in arts,

00:38:57 you know what I'm saying, art exhibitions.

00:39:00 Just everything in like creative,

00:39:02 in the creative industry,

00:39:04 I want to indulge myself in.

00:39:06 I plan to one day, I want to open like a TV station,

00:39:09 a radio station.

00:39:11 I want to be able to,

00:39:13 for us to have our own apps,

00:39:15 you know, Afrobeats apps that you can go to,

00:39:17 listen to music.

00:39:20 Just a lot of ideas are coming.

00:39:21 - And is the idea to use the, you know,

00:39:23 David O. Brand and stay with that,

00:39:26 or is it a different brand?

00:39:28 - Definitely, David O. Brand is going to be the backbone,

00:39:31 but I think I also want to do other things,

00:39:34 which obviously David O. will always be connected to.

00:39:36 But I actually want to branch out and, you know,

00:39:38 do some things that are not really

00:39:40 directly too much,

00:39:42 like in their face, like, you know what I'm saying.

00:39:45 - We got about, we got about three minutes left.

00:39:49 You just turned 30 years old.

00:39:50 We still let you in under 30.

00:39:52 We gave you a break. - I just made it.

00:39:54 - We gave you an exemption here.

00:39:56 What do you want to,

00:39:58 when we have you at our Under 40 Conference,

00:40:01 for the next 10 years, where do you see yourself?

00:40:03 What do we see over the next 10 years from David O.?

00:40:06 - Like I just told you some, like,

00:40:09 short, long-term plans.

00:40:11 I definitely, definitely want to be able to

00:40:15 look back and see a big organization that I have.

00:40:18 You know, obviously David O.

00:40:19 will always be like the parent, you know,

00:40:21 banner of everything.

00:40:23 But I want to be able to, by then,

00:40:25 look back and, you know what I'm saying,

00:40:28 see a couple avenues in different industries,

00:40:31 making money, creating jobs,

00:40:33 creating opportunities for Africans.

00:40:36 And also, this is like one of the most important things to me,

00:40:39 just really cleaning up the culture

00:40:42 and really just showing the world how beautiful it is.

00:40:45 Because it's really, really important

00:40:47 and how beautiful it is.

00:40:48 Because it's really, really beautiful.

00:40:50 You know what I'm saying?

00:40:52 Just being in Africa, like,

00:40:54 look at Ghana.

00:40:56 Every December, everybody runs to Ghana,

00:40:58 having that experience.

00:41:00 So I want just to have that image

00:41:02 to just keep painting it everywhere we go.

00:41:04 - What do we think?

00:41:06 You know, we all want to live in a David O. Africa?

00:41:08 - Yes.

00:41:10 - All right, well, I think we could do it.

00:41:12 One thing you didn't just mention is

00:41:16 you see yourself performing.

00:41:17 Like, how, you know, do you want to perform forever?

00:41:20 Or do you want to transition to businessman?

00:41:22 - Probably, I see myself, like,

00:41:25 probably transitioning into, like, a businessman.

00:41:29 Because I'm very good at this music.

00:41:32 Once in a while, maybe through, like, a show.

00:41:35 You know what I'm saying?

00:41:37 (laughs)

00:41:39 It would be nice.

00:41:41 Like, imagine me being in the office

00:41:43 and, like, after the office, like, ooh,

00:41:45 I have to go and change.

00:41:46 I have to go and perform.

00:41:48 But I don't see myself ever not wanting to, like, do music.

00:41:51 Even if it's just, like, for fun.

00:41:53 But I always, I perform for my staff in my office.

00:41:57 You know what I'm saying?

00:41:59 So I don't think it's something that will ever leave me.

00:42:01 - That's the kind of staff meeting I'm talking about.

00:42:03 (laughs)

00:42:05 - Yeah, for sure.

00:42:07 - Well, we know you rushed to be here.

00:42:09 And we know, again, your tour,

00:42:14 again, you were just in New York.

00:42:15 And I was in New York that week,

00:42:17 and everybody, you know, people knew you were there.

00:42:19 So I want to, on behalf of all of us,

00:42:22 I want to congratulate you on your success.

00:42:24 - Thank you.

00:42:26 - And also appreciate you,

00:42:28 because when we talked to David O. about coming down,

00:42:30 he said, "I absolutely want to perform for everybody."

00:42:32 So we're going to do something tomorrow,

00:42:34 very, very Botswanan.

00:42:36 (audience cheers)

00:42:38 Have you been to Botswana before?

00:42:40 - Yes, I've been to Botswana twice.

00:42:43 - All right, well, third time's the charm.

00:42:44 - Kabaron!

00:42:46 - We were talking about having him headline

00:42:48 the concert yesterday,

00:42:50 but he had his big show in Lagos.

00:42:52 But I think that's a good thing for everybody here,

00:42:54 because you get a private show in the bush.

00:42:56 (audience cheers)

00:42:58 Now, all right, you've performed in Botswana twice before.

00:43:00 Have you ever performed in the bush before?

00:43:02 - I've performed in the bush before,

00:43:04 but not in Botswana.

00:43:06 - Have you ever performed in the bush in Botswana before?

00:43:08 - No, tomorrow I'll be in Botswana.

00:43:10 - All right, there's your first right there.

00:43:12 We can't wait to see, you know,

00:43:13 David O., the brand, and David O., the man.

00:43:16 And tomorrow we see David O., the act.

00:43:18 Many, many facets of this very interesting person,

00:43:21 but thank you for making the effort.

00:43:23 We know, you know, you had to rush to get down here.

00:43:25 You smell great, by the way.

00:43:27 - Thank you.

00:43:29 - And we can't wait to see you tomorrow.

00:43:31 But again, any last words for these good people?

00:43:33 - Yes, man, you know, first of all,

00:43:35 sorry for the delay,

00:43:37 but I hope you guys enjoyed the talk.

00:43:39 The album "Timeless" is out.

00:43:41 The album "Timeless" is out now.

00:43:42 Make sure you go stream it,

00:43:44 and God bless each and every one of you.

00:43:46 Love you guys.

00:43:48 - Drop mic.

00:43:50 - Camila, thank you so much for sitting with me.

00:43:58 - Thank you so much for having me.

00:44:00 I'm so excited to be here.

00:44:02 - Of course.

00:44:04 So I want to first talk about what exactly your company does.

00:44:06 Can you explain Sonoro for me?

00:44:08 - Yeah, so Sonoro is a global entertainment company,

00:44:10 and we have audio-first IP,

00:44:11 so concepts that start as podcasts,

00:44:13 primarily with Latino creators around the world,

00:44:15 so in English, Spanish, or bilingual.

00:44:17 And then we take that IP and develop it

00:44:19 into TV, film, books, event series,

00:44:21 merchandise, e-commerce,

00:44:23 basically everything under the sun.

00:44:25 - Tell me about your founding story.

00:44:27 What were you doing before,

00:44:29 and then how did this company come about?

00:44:31 - I've always been in love with storytelling.

00:44:33 That's what brings me the most passion and the most joy.

00:44:35 And so I always knew I wanted to do something

00:44:37 in the entertainment or storytelling space.

00:44:39 And so right after college,

00:44:40 my first job was actually in nonfiction storytelling.

00:44:42 So I was at the LA Times for about four years.

00:44:44 In that sort of journey,

00:44:46 I came across audio and podcasting

00:44:48 as this really great way to develop IP

00:44:51 and make it grow and sort of enhance

00:44:53 the audience that we already had.

00:44:55 And so in 2017, I was part of the team

00:44:57 that launched Dirty John,

00:44:59 which was the first podcast the LA Times ever produced.

00:45:01 It was this insane true crime story,

00:45:04 and it was sort of a runaway success.

00:45:06 Today it has over 80 million downloads,

00:45:08 and that was the first time

00:45:09 that I saw audio as an IP property

00:45:11 being used to develop all different types of media.

00:45:14 And to me, that was like a very big sort of aha moment

00:45:17 that as someone that always loved stories and content,

00:45:20 this was sort of like the next frontier

00:45:22 or the next medium where that experimentation

00:45:24 and excitement was going to come from.

00:45:26 So I spent the next sort of three years

00:45:28 launching about a dozen podcasts with the LA Times.

00:45:30 And then at that point,

00:45:32 it sort of felt ready to go

00:45:34 and build something more from the ground up.

00:45:37 I was a startup within a larger organization at the time,

00:45:38 and gave me, I think, the entrepreneurial itch

00:45:41 to really get with my co-founders and start Tonaro.

00:45:43 Very cool.

00:45:45 Now there's so many podcast companies out there today,

00:45:47 obviously a lot of entertainment companies as well.

00:45:49 How do you stand out from like the wonderies of the world

00:45:52 or other companies doing similar things,

00:45:54 but maybe through a different lens?

00:45:56 Yeah, I think for us, first and foremost,

00:45:58 we really believe ourselves to be an entertainment company.

00:46:00 So for us, audio is really just that first step.

00:46:02 We want everything to exist beyond that.

00:46:04 And like I said, it can be TV, it can be film,

00:46:06 which is more what you've traditionally seen podcasts become.

00:46:07 But this month we launched our first graphic novel,

00:46:09 which is based on a podcast that we've produced.

00:46:11 We have live events and tours with some of our podcasters

00:46:13 that we're producing as well going into next year.

00:46:15 And then separately, of course, for us,

00:46:17 the focus really is the Latino community around the world.

00:46:19 And there's 500 million global Spanish speakers,

00:46:21 60 million U.S. Latinos.

00:46:23 So for us, that is our big differentiator.

00:46:25 So now I want to talk about your fundraising journey.

00:46:30 Can you tell me about how much you've raised

00:46:32 and what the process has been like?

00:46:35 - Yeah, so today we've raised about $13 million.

00:46:36 So our primary investors are Lair Hippo

00:46:38 and Founder Collective and Greycroft.

00:46:40 We have some really excellent media investors.

00:46:42 And again, I've been very lucky

00:46:44 to have some great co-founders to go on that journey with.

00:46:46 And I think that in a way,

00:46:48 we were familiar and unfamiliar as a concept, right?

00:46:50 Like people understood at the time

00:46:52 we launched March 2020.

00:46:54 At that point, there had been audio, I know, right?

00:46:56 - That's a fun time to launch a company.

00:46:58 - Yes, interesting timing.

00:47:00 But people understood, considered,

00:47:02 and were like, "Oh, we're going to do this."

00:47:04 And so we understood conceptually

00:47:05 to a certain extent,

00:47:07 the audio to TV and film pipeline.

00:47:09 And I think where we had to

00:47:11 sort of do more education in our pitches, frankly,

00:47:13 was we're going beyond that.

00:47:15 We really are thinking about this

00:47:17 as a global entertainment company

00:47:19 that's developing not just TV and film,

00:47:21 but all of these other mediums

00:47:23 and focusing on this global community.

00:47:25 - Talk to me a little bit about your audience.

00:47:27 How many is it?

00:47:29 How many in the US?

00:47:31 How many globally?

00:47:33 - We have a couple downloads.

00:47:34 So that is across Mexico and Latin America,

00:47:36 primarily Mexico, and then US/Latinos.

00:47:38 So we're split about 80/20 to LATAM and the US.

00:47:41 And our audience is young.

00:47:43 I mean, they're typically 18 to 35.

00:47:45 They're in the bigger cities.

00:47:47 In the US, they are where you would expect them to be

00:47:49 for primarily sort of Latino-dominated cities

00:47:51 in California, Arizona, New York, Florida, et cetera.

00:47:53 But they're young,

00:47:55 and they're sort of excited, and they're diverse.

00:47:57 - Last question for you.

00:47:59 What do you want your legacy to be?

00:48:02 - I was just a little nerd when I was young.

00:48:03 (laughs)

00:48:05 I was incredibly nerdy.

00:48:07 Like I said, I loved fan fiction and sci-fi

00:48:09 and fantasy and all that stuff.

00:48:11 And part of the reason why I focused on storytelling

00:48:14 as sort of the through line of my career

00:48:16 and sort of personal choices and interests

00:48:18 is because I just love the way

00:48:20 a great story makes me feel.

00:48:22 And I think a lot of the community

00:48:24 that is built online around those things

00:48:26 is really special for a lot of people,

00:48:28 especially that are outcasts when they're growing up.

00:48:31 So I think, I hope that my legacy with Sonoro

00:48:32 and beyond really is either facilitating

00:48:35 or being a part of making these great shows

00:48:37 that make people feel the same way I feel

00:48:39 when I read a really great book.

00:48:41 (upbeat music)

00:48:45 (upbeat music)

00:48:47 - If we don't have examples of women who look like me,

00:48:51 by the way, my mother died when she was 76.

00:48:53 My father died at 85.

00:48:55 I'm 65 this year.

00:48:58 It's gonna end sooner than later.

00:49:00 And I say sooner than later,

00:49:02 not in a macabre like, oh my God.

00:49:04 It's just the truth.

00:49:06 And so for me, I think the best thing is

00:49:08 for women, particularly women,

00:49:10 to see people like me,

00:49:12 'cause they go, oh, okay, it's okay.

00:49:14 You know what?

00:49:16 I am 14 years old.

00:49:18 This girl is this girl at 4.20 in the morning.

00:49:22 I was this girl.

00:49:24 I am this person all the time.

00:49:27 You can be 14 and silly

00:49:29 and look like she looks

00:49:32 and realize that tick-tock, tick-tock,

00:49:35 we have stuff to do.

00:49:37 And that's why charitable work is important

00:49:39 and that's why family, Ruby, Annie, Chris,

00:49:43 that, my extended family, my sober family,

00:49:47 it's very important to me.

00:49:49 (upbeat music)

00:49:52 I've had the most creative life in the last 20 years.

00:49:56 In the last year that I've had in my entire life.

00:49:58 At 64.

00:50:00 I have another children's book

00:50:02 that I'm publishing next year.

00:50:04 I'm in Haunted Mansion.

00:50:06 I'm also trying to produce things now.

00:50:08 I'm gonna try to produce a TV show

00:50:10 based on the Scarpetta books

00:50:12 with Nicole Kidman next year for Amazon.

00:50:14 This is my time to do my work

00:50:17 because I'm now having this opportunity to do it.

00:50:19 I also, by the way, raised two kids.

00:50:21 And I'm very happy that I did

00:50:25 yogurt commercials that make you poop

00:50:27 for many years to help me stay home and raise my kids

00:50:30 and be able to be available to my children,

00:50:32 particularly my daughter, Ruby.

00:50:34 (upbeat music)

00:50:37 If you go back, you will see

00:50:39 that I was gonna retire at 40.

00:50:41 There have been many, many, many points

00:50:44 where I said, "Well, I don't think

00:50:46 I'll ever make a movie again."

00:50:48 I've said it for a long time

00:50:50 because I watched my parents

00:50:53 who both were monster stars,

00:50:55 big, big, big, big, big, big, big stars.

00:50:58 I watched them no longer get to do the work

00:51:03 that made them stars.

00:51:05 And I watched them just be famous people

00:51:08 who used to work.

00:51:10 And it killed them.

00:51:12 And it's heartbreaking.

00:51:14 And so I always felt like I better get out

00:51:16 before they no longer ask me to come.

00:51:19 I wanted to take, by being their child,

00:51:22 the great benefit to being the daughter

00:51:24 of famous people is that I saw

00:51:26 what fame does to you.

00:51:28 And I'm not saying the bad things.

00:51:30 I've seen the great parts of fame,

00:51:32 the access to the arts,

00:51:34 the worldwide joy and genuine love

00:51:38 from people all over the world,

00:51:40 wherever you go.

00:51:42 Yes, but the downside is very, very tricky

00:51:45 because you stop getting to do that job.

00:51:48 And so I've been saying all along

00:51:51 I'm not going to do it anymore.

00:51:52 Oh, no, I'll get out.

00:51:54 Because I wanted to get out before

00:51:56 that moment where you're just sitting there

00:51:58 and you no longer get to do the work.

00:52:00 And yet you're famous and people go,

00:52:02 oh, my God, I love you.

00:52:04 Hi, oh, my God.

00:52:06 And it was very important to me that I do that.

00:52:08 And then what's been a miracle

00:52:10 is that every time I think I'm going to do that,

00:52:13 then I get a job that then transforms

00:52:15 the next five years.

00:52:17 And that's what's happened.

00:52:20 And so the fact that these two pieces of work,

00:52:24 the bear and everything, everywhere, all at once,

00:52:26 are all happening right now is just,

00:52:31 I mean, it's crazy.

00:52:33 It's crazy.

00:52:35 It's absolutely beautiful.

00:52:38 And I feel so privileged

00:52:42 that I've been able to do them,

00:52:44 that they asked me to be a part

00:52:47 of these pieces of work.

00:52:49 You know, it's beautiful.

00:52:52 (upbeat music)

00:52:57 - Lotto, thank you so much

00:52:59 for being here with me today.

00:53:01 - Of course.

00:53:03 - So I want to start with you

00:53:05 at the very beginning.

00:53:07 Tell me how you got your start in music.

00:53:09 - Okay, this is kind of funny, so follow me.

00:53:11 My dad is like street dude,

00:53:14 into cars, just knows a lot of people.

00:53:18 So I found this fast lifestyle.

00:53:19 And then in school,

00:53:21 language arts was always my favorite subject.

00:53:24 - Mine too.

00:53:26 - Really?

00:53:28 Smart girl.

00:53:30 I just loved wordplay, like metaphors, similes,

00:53:32 writing essays and poems,

00:53:34 that was just so second nature for me.

00:53:36 So I had this passion,

00:53:38 and then this lifestyle,

00:53:40 I'm already growing up around it.

00:53:42 They kind of just combine my two worlds.

00:53:44 - So then how did you start

00:53:47 getting into the scene?

00:53:48 Walk me through the steps you took.

00:53:50 - So in my household,

00:53:52 if you say you want to do something,

00:53:54 we doing it full-fledged.

00:53:56 It's not a hobby.

00:53:58 We prepping for real life,

00:54:00 we taking it serious, like a career.

00:54:02 So when I told my dad that I wanted to rap,

00:54:04 from that point on,

00:54:06 I'm doing talent shows, open mics, ciphers,

00:54:08 posting my flyers around the city on stop signs.

00:54:12 We printed up my mixtapes,

00:54:14 and we're passing them out

00:54:16 at festivals in Atlanta,

00:54:17 selling them in the Walmart parking lot.

00:54:20 I'm getting picked up from school,

00:54:22 doing my homework in the studio lobby,

00:54:25 and then going to the booth.

00:54:27 Full-fledged, this is your career now.

00:54:29 (upbeat music)

00:54:31 - What would you say are some of the difficulties

00:54:33 of managing yourself as a brand?

00:54:36 - Everything is difficult.

00:54:38 Waking up early, difficult.

00:54:40 (laughs)

00:54:42 Scheduling things, making sure

00:54:45 that you're allotting self-care, self-time,

00:54:47 'cause you can easily crash out

00:54:49 with this industry and just the amount of time it takes.

00:54:53 A lot of people have work a nine to five,

00:54:56 but this is like a 12 to 12.

00:54:58 So I think everything about it is difficult,

00:55:01 and I really love what I do.

00:55:03 This is so strenuous that I would've been quick

00:55:07 if I did not genuinely enjoy it.

00:55:10 It's so strenuous and so demanding

00:55:12 of your time and energy.

00:55:14 It's like I can't even choose the hardest thing.

00:55:16 - I'm sure.

00:55:18 How do you manage that?

00:55:20 Just flipping into that business side of the brain,

00:55:23 'cause you're a creative.

00:55:25 - I really wear so many hats

00:55:27 that it's just another one of the hats.

00:55:29 At this point, it's just another one of the hats.

00:55:32 I try to stick to my expertise, which is creative,

00:55:36 but I'm gonna always have my nose in the business,

00:55:40 'cause at the end of the day, that is the goal.

00:55:43 Music don't last forever.

00:55:44 I'm not gonna be this young and fine forever.

00:55:47 - Going along with that,

00:55:51 how do you handle the stress of constantly

00:55:53 marketing yourself?

00:55:55 You're kind of your own product.

00:55:57 - My mind is constantly running.

00:55:59 I have a notes app in my phone,

00:56:01 and it'll say PR ideas, next video ideas,

00:56:03 next photo shoot concept ideas.

00:56:05 I watch documentaries.

00:56:07 I scroll on Pinterest.

00:56:09 Even small things like watching a movie

00:56:12 can spark interest or spark inspiration.

00:56:14 It definitely doesn't stop.

00:56:16 - Who is your dream collaborator,

00:56:19 both in the business world and in the music world?

00:56:22 - Business? Riri. Riri. Riri.

00:56:26 I just feel like she touched our generation

00:56:29 in a whole different way.

00:56:31 I feel like women like me,

00:56:33 who might have a little motion going on,

00:56:35 she showed us that it's possible for us

00:56:38 to take it to a whole different level.

00:56:41 So definitely Riri.

00:56:42 - Really? Music and business?

00:56:44 What's up, Riri? Call me, girl.

00:56:46 - Speaking of that, what's next for you?

00:56:49 What are you most excited for in 2024?

00:56:51 - I'm excited to see how me managing myself,

00:56:56 and I also have a team, too,

00:56:58 but for the most part, I'm managing myself.

00:57:00 Where that takes me,

00:57:02 me having two hands on the steering wheel

00:57:04 because I started so young,

00:57:06 it's like I'm not used to having to say so.

00:57:10 And just being such a decision maker in my career,

00:57:15 it's been fun to see my visions come to life.

00:57:19 As a kid, I feel like there's always been

00:57:22 a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

00:57:24 I'm the cook in the kitchen.

00:57:26 So 2024 should be very inspiring

00:57:28 and motivating for me, for Alyssa.

00:57:31 (upbeat music)

00:57:34 - I'm Diane Brady.

00:57:36 I'm backstage at the Under 30 Summit in Cleveland

00:57:39 with Rainn Wilson.

00:57:40 - I'm not under 30.

00:57:42 - Dwight, no, you're not.

00:57:44 You're not under 30, but you are the,

00:57:46 I'm not gonna say elder statesman.

00:57:48 You are the guy who's here to convey

00:57:50 excellence and intelligence.

00:57:52 - I like elder statesman.

00:57:54 I would go with elder statesman.

00:57:56 Can we say the under 60 conference?

00:57:58 Then I'll fit right in.

00:58:00 - This is the under 60 portion of the under 30 event.

00:58:03 - I love it.

00:58:05 - And in addition to being an elder statesman,

00:58:08 I'm also a philanthropist.

00:58:09 - Anything else you wanna add?

00:58:11 You don't like that.

00:58:13 - I'm a philanthropist and activist.

00:58:15 - A philanthropist and activist.

00:58:17 And we already, it's funny, you want me to do this.

00:58:20 - I'm a 4.0 USTA tennis player.

00:58:22 - Is that good?

00:58:24 - Yeah.

00:58:26 - Formerly.

00:58:28 - No, no, right now.

00:58:30 - Okay, good for you.

00:58:32 - Yeah, I play in leagues.

00:58:34 I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:37 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:38 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:40 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:42 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:44 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:46 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:48 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:50 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:52 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:54 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:56 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:58:58 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:59:00 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:59:02 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:59:04 - I play tennis in leagues.

00:59:06 - I was deep into therapy while playing Dwight

00:59:08 and doing some other comic roles like The Rocker

00:59:12 and Cooties and the show Mom, et cetera.

00:59:16 So hopefully people still find me funny.

00:59:19 But yeah, it's interesting, you know,

00:59:22 Arthur Brooks in his new book talks about it a lot.

00:59:26 And there's an interesting--

00:59:28 - Mr. Happiness, that's how I think of Arthur Brooks.

00:59:30 - Mr. Happiness.

00:59:32 - The Harvard guy.

00:59:35 - There's a counteractive property to humor and trauma.

00:59:39 So if you're in pain, depression, and trauma,

00:59:42 if you turn to comedy, it kind of obliterates

00:59:47 the difficult, depressive feelings that you might be having.

00:59:52 So as a kid growing up, I had undergone

00:59:55 some depression and anxiety.

00:59:57 I didn't have a great home life.

00:59:59 It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great.

01:00:01 - Like your mother abandoned you when you were a toddler.

01:00:04 - Yeah, I was in the jungles of Nicaragua.

01:00:05 What else do you want to add?

01:00:07 I mean, that sounds pretty good to me.

01:00:09 - How about Ennui in the suburbs of Seattle?

01:00:11 - Ennui, loveless marriage of your dad.

01:00:13 - Wow, you did your research, stalker.

01:00:15 - But other than that, yeah, Mrs. Whatever.

01:00:19 No, go ahead.

01:00:21 As you were saying.

01:00:23 - Yeah, but this somewhat traumatized,

01:00:25 Ennui-ridden, you know, kind of lost, anxious kid

01:00:29 with a lot of self-hatred in the suburbs,

01:00:32 I went into memorizing John Cleese skits

01:00:35 and Monty Python.

01:00:37 - Pre-therapy John Cleese.

01:00:39 - Pre-therapy John Cleese and Saturday Night Live sketches.

01:00:41 And I found out that I could be pretty funny

01:00:44 and a clown and make people laugh.

01:00:46 And I just went in that direction

01:00:48 'cause it was a hell of a lot better direction

01:00:50 to go in than the other.

01:00:52 - If you could go back to that 16-year-old kid,

01:00:54 what would you say to him, 16-year-old you,

01:00:56 the one who's like full of the pain

01:00:58 but very funny, class clown?

01:01:01 Keep going, do what you're doing?

01:01:02 - Yeah, I think that everyone,

01:01:05 unless you're kind of a weird narcissist, everyone--

01:01:08 - Which you're not.

01:01:10 - A little bit I am, but unless you are,

01:01:12 people have a limited idea of their capacity,

01:01:17 a far more limited self-definition.

01:01:22 And I would say, like, the idea to me at 16

01:01:29 that I would have written three books

01:01:31 and started a media company

01:01:33 and be talking at lectures like this

01:01:36 as well as starring in things like,

01:01:38 would have been just beyond my wildest dreams.

01:01:41 I just wanted to, like, maybe play some goofy roles

01:01:44 on a community theater, you know,

01:01:46 and be in, I don't know, Oklahoma or something

01:01:49 and get a little paycheck of $273.

01:01:52 That's kind of how I viewed myself.

01:01:55 So I think that, you know,

01:01:58 and I would say that to any young person, like,

01:01:59 be careful of limiting yourself

01:02:01 with your own constraints

01:02:03 that you've built up inside your head.

01:02:05 - Would you say you're happy now?

01:02:07 How do you define it?

01:02:09 - So happiness is not something that you achieve.

01:02:14 I am happier, and I'm on the quest to be happier.

01:02:19 So in aggregate, there is a great deal of joy.

01:02:23 There's also suffering, difficulty, and setbacks.

01:02:27 Some anxiety and some depression along the way,

01:02:29 and that's natural.

01:02:31 So I think this is a common misconception

01:02:33 is one, like, achieves happiness,

01:02:35 and it's just like you're in this kind of, like,

01:02:37 blissed-out state all the time.

01:02:40 But I've learned some things that make my life better.

01:02:45 Like, for instance, this morning,

01:02:47 I wanted to sit around and watch the war in Israel

01:02:49 on the CNN, but instead I went down to the gym,

01:02:52 and it was a very light workout,

01:02:54 but I need to be in my body,

01:02:56 and that reduces my anxiety and gives me focus.

01:03:00 And so I am happier by 1% by having done that.

01:03:05 So if you live your life by just making little choices

01:03:08 that make you happier,

01:03:10 then the aggregate is greater well-being.

01:03:14 - You know, we don't talk about faith a lot

01:03:17 because it's almost a verboten subject,

01:03:19 but you talk a lot about being part of the Baha'i faith,

01:03:22 which is also, that's what you grew up in, right?

01:03:25 That was almost a disconnect there.

01:03:26 I feel like I am stalking you.

01:03:28 It's called Google.

01:03:30 But what's the role of that in your life now?

01:03:34 - The Baha'i faith is the most important thing in my life.

01:03:37 - And it wasn't when you, so how did,

01:03:39 I know we can't synthesize a whole book

01:03:41 in the space of 30 seconds,

01:03:43 but when you think about the journey

01:03:45 of what it means to you,

01:03:47 just talk a bit about that,

01:03:49 because I feel like we don't get the opportunity

01:03:51 to really talk about the role faith plays in our lives.

01:03:54 - That's a great question,

01:03:55 and thank you very much for asking it,

01:03:57 because you're 100% right.

01:03:59 Especially in the more secular, materialist,

01:04:01 kind of blue state, coastal America,

01:04:04 faith is almost a dirty word.

01:04:06 And rediscovering my faith,

01:04:11 reading the great holy texts of the world,

01:04:14 being on a spiritual journey and on a spiritual path

01:04:17 helped me so much personally,

01:04:20 but also expanded my vision

01:04:23 and my capacity was raised,

01:04:24 and it helped give my life meaning and focus.

01:04:27 And so every morning I turn, I pray to God,

01:04:32 I meditate, I connect with my higher power,

01:04:36 and I think that this helps give me resilience

01:04:41 and like I said, focus and meaning.

01:04:43 So it's super, super important to me,

01:04:45 and I think that contemporary,

01:04:47 I say in my book Soul Boom,

01:04:49 I say we've thrown the spiritual baby out

01:04:52 with the religious bathwater.

01:04:53 We've rejected religion,

01:04:55 sometimes for a very good reason,

01:04:57 like oh, they're corrupt and they're hypocritical

01:04:59 and they're judgmental, and that's all good.

01:05:01 But what have we lost by jettisoning religion?

01:05:04 And there are some spiritual tools

01:05:07 and spiritual kind of community-based transcendence

01:05:11 that can be found through a religious

01:05:13 and spiritual practice.

01:05:15 I don't want to separate religion and spirituality,

01:05:17 but they're both important in their way.

01:05:19 - What about comedy as a tool?

01:05:21 Now, 'cause it was a tool for you, right?

01:05:23 - Yeah, comedy is a mental health tool.

01:05:26 That's why so many comedians are so screwed up.

01:05:30 They went to it as a survival mechanism.

01:05:32 It's a way of seeing the world.

01:05:34 If they weren't able to see the world

01:05:36 through some skewed lens,

01:05:39 they might be dead,

01:05:41 a lot of the comedians that are working today.

01:05:44 - What is it for you at this point?

01:05:46 It's just part of who you are, I guess.

01:05:48 - Yeah, I'm just a weird kid

01:05:50 with a big head from suburban Seattle.

01:05:52 And I have a weird way of seeing the world,

01:05:56 and I've been really lucky to play

01:05:58 some great comedic roles.

01:06:00 It's part of who I am.

01:06:02 It always will be.

01:06:04 - Long live weird. Thanks for joining us.

01:06:06 - Yeah, thanks for having me.

01:06:08 What a delight speaking with you.

01:06:10 - Thank you.

01:06:12 - Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc,

01:06:14 started throwing parties,

01:06:16 and they started mixing records.

01:06:19 - Yeah, I was a kid, too.

01:06:20 But as kids,

01:06:22 I was too young to go,

01:06:24 so my big brother,

01:06:26 he was actually a crate boy

01:06:28 for Grandmaster Flash.

01:06:30 So this is how much Fat Joe

01:06:32 is woven within the culture of hip-hop,

01:06:36 is my big brother used to carry the crates.

01:06:38 They used to play vinyl.

01:06:40 So my big brother had the privilege

01:06:42 of carrying Flash's crates,

01:06:44 but he would come back with these cassettes.

01:06:48 And we would listen to the cassette,

01:06:49 and they'd be like,

01:06:51 "Back up off the ropes,

01:06:53 "back up off the ropes,

01:06:55 "get behind the ropes."

01:06:57 And they'd be like,

01:06:59 "Mary, Mary, where are you going to?

01:07:01 "On, that funk is on."

01:07:03 (audience cheers)

01:07:05 - Yo!

01:07:07 - They had a record

01:07:09 that I don't know if anybody in this room heard,

01:07:11 but they had this,

01:07:13 "I don't know if you've been told

01:07:15 "that Santa Claus is a black man,

01:07:17 "a black man, a black man."

01:07:19 And I'd be in the house like,

01:07:21 "Yo, this is crazy right here."

01:07:25 And so to answer your question is,

01:07:28 so growing up in the Bronx,

01:07:30 I grew up in a project building.

01:07:32 So our projects have 14 buildings.

01:07:35 Our one project building

01:07:37 had 144 families,

01:07:41 and we had a lot of people

01:07:43 in every apartment, right?

01:07:46 So the first time I heard a record go viral

01:07:49 was the message

01:07:51 by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious.

01:07:53 And what I mean by that is

01:07:55 when I came down the building,

01:07:57 every floor I went to,

01:07:59 every single apartment was,

01:08:01 (scatting)

01:08:07 - Don't push me.

01:08:09 - What?

01:08:11 - 'Cause I'm to the edge.

01:08:13 - I'm trying.

01:08:15 - I'm trying to--

01:08:16 (laughing)

01:08:19 All right, I give it over to Dougie.

01:08:22 (laughing)

01:08:24 - That's your five-time Grammy nominee for Joe.

01:08:27 All right, Dougie, when you,

01:08:30 again, when you were growing up

01:08:32 and you were in Harlem,

01:08:34 and part of what made Rap Rap

01:08:36 was the beat and the beatbox,

01:08:38 and this is the, you know,

01:08:40 the human beatbox,

01:08:42 the first person to say,

01:08:44 "It doesn't have to be a machine,

01:08:45 "it could be a person,

01:08:47 "it could be part of the human-created music experience."

01:08:50 Where'd that idea come from?

01:08:52 How did you even think of that?

01:08:54 - Well, continuing on the story of hip-hop,

01:08:57 you know, I grew up in Harlem,

01:09:00 and there's certain people

01:09:02 that played a specific role.

01:09:04 There's a guy named DJ Hollywood.

01:09:06 He is the first guy

01:09:09 that I ever heard,

01:09:12 to date rap, you know?

01:09:14 And my sister came in the house one day,

01:09:16 and she said,

01:09:18 "There's this guy named Hollywood

01:09:20 "everybody's talking about."

01:09:22 I said, "What he does?"

01:09:24 She said, "He rap."

01:09:26 I said, "Tell me what he say."

01:09:28 He say, "Ring-a-ding-a-ding,

01:09:30 "da-dong-da-dong-dong,

01:09:32 "da-dang-da-dang-dang,

01:09:34 "da-ding-da-dong-dong to the hip-hop."

01:09:36 I said, "Say that again."

01:09:38 And I never forgot it.

01:09:41 And I was able to learn

01:09:42 from the people that Joe

01:09:44 are talking about.

01:09:46 So I was able to learn

01:09:48 directly from Hollywood.

01:09:50 And I am of the first generation.

01:09:53 I'm kind of like the first child

01:09:55 of the first generation of hip-hop.

01:09:58 You know?

01:10:00 So it's very interesting.

01:10:02 So to answer your question,

01:10:04 'cause Joe, I knew Joe

01:10:06 before he was rapping.

01:10:10 He was a big-cap-in.

01:10:11 No, but a different type

01:10:13 when it wasn't that.

01:10:15 But continuing on with the story.

01:10:18 So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:10:20 Just a little, keep y'all engaged here.

01:10:23 So real short.

01:10:25 - I don't think I have an issue there.

01:10:27 - Yeah, yeah. We in Davos, you know?

01:10:29 So what happened,

01:10:31 and growing up in Harlem,

01:10:33 you're around the dope fiends,

01:10:35 the drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes.

01:10:39 I mean, it's unbelievable

01:10:40 what we grew up in.

01:10:42 For us to be here now

01:10:44 is a blessing from God.

01:10:46 Because we grew up in an environment

01:10:48 that most people don't get out of.

01:10:50 And we have a lot of friends

01:10:52 that did not make it out.

01:10:54 So we represent hip-hop to the fullest.

01:10:58 And we represent those

01:11:00 that didn't make it out.

01:11:02 Because one of the things

01:11:04 that we have in common

01:11:06 is that we don't leave no man behind.

01:11:08 You see what I'm saying?

01:11:09 That's something culturally

01:11:11 that we just don't do.

01:11:13 So in hip-hop, there's five elements.

01:11:15 You have the DJ.

01:11:17 And the DJs were Grandmaster Flash

01:11:19 and the Furious Five,

01:11:21 well, Grandmaster Flash.

01:11:23 Graham was a Theodore.

01:11:25 These were the top guys that you knew.

01:11:27 And Harlem, it was Master Don.

01:11:29 DJ Hollywood, he was a DJ,

01:11:31 but we knew him more for emceeing.

01:11:33 Number two is the MC.

01:11:35 MC is the Master of Ceremony,

01:11:37 which is different than the rapper.

01:11:38 Number three is the graffiti artist.

01:11:41 Some of y'all seen graffiti,

01:11:43 you'd be upset,

01:11:45 but some of y'all don't understand

01:11:47 the creativity of the person that's doing it.

01:11:49 Number four is the break dancer,

01:11:51 Electric Boogie.

01:11:53 Some of y'all probably in here

01:11:55 used to break dance,

01:11:57 but if you try that now,

01:11:59 you're gonna break.

01:12:01 Right?

01:12:03 And number five is the beatbox.

01:12:06 I appreciate that.

01:12:07 Summarizing it up,

01:12:09 I created the Fifth Element

01:12:11 because in school,

01:12:13 I used to play,

01:12:15 in junior high,

01:12:17 I was learning how to play the trumpet.

01:12:20 And my music teacher,

01:12:22 well, I came to the school

01:12:24 to learn how to play the drums and the percussions.

01:12:26 The music teacher told me,

01:12:28 "No, no, no, you gotta play the trumpet first."

01:12:30 He said, "And then I'll let you play

01:12:32 the drums and the percussions."

01:12:35 I said, "No problem."

01:12:36 I wasn't happy about it,

01:12:38 but I was doing it.

01:12:40 So you take this trumpet home every day.

01:12:42 And I used to practice this all the time.

01:12:44 One day I came back to the school

01:12:46 and the music program was cut.

01:12:48 As in most of our schools,

01:12:50 when there's programs

01:12:52 that was really engaging,

01:12:54 they would cut 'em.

01:12:56 So I gave 'em back the trumpet,

01:12:58 but I used to remember the exercises.

01:13:00 And in the way we grew up,

01:13:02 there'd be speakers,

01:13:04 so I would hear all of the different songs.

01:13:05 So walking home,

01:13:07 I would kinda like say,

01:13:09 "Oh, let me do the bass line.

01:13:11 Okay, let me do the drum."

01:13:13 So if it's a bass line,

01:13:15 remember the song Super Rappin'?

01:13:17 (beatboxing)

01:13:19 ♪ Hot damn ♪

01:13:21 Right, so that's the bass line.

01:13:23 So now I'm walking

01:13:25 and I'm doing the bass line.

01:13:27 Then I'll say,

01:13:29 "Let me throw something else in there."

01:13:31 (beatboxing)

01:13:33 Then I'll say,

01:13:34 "I'm gonna throw something else in there."

01:13:36 And I just keep adding and adding

01:13:38 to like (beatboxing)

01:13:40 And now I'm doing all of these things.

01:13:43 So I started just doing it

01:13:45 more and more to the point

01:13:47 that I started to go over

01:13:49 to one of my guys' house to practice

01:13:51 'cause we were practicing with the DJ.

01:13:53 So while he was taking the records off,

01:13:55 I started doing the same thing.

01:13:57 And then he said,

01:13:59 "Yo, that was crazy."

01:14:02 And I said, "I like that beat.

01:14:03 "That was a nice record.

01:14:05 "You should play it."

01:14:07 He said, "I wanted the beat, Ma.

01:14:09 "That was him."

01:14:11 And she said, "Well, I don't know

01:14:13 "what that mean, but okay."

01:14:15 And then he told me to do it outside

01:14:17 at something we would call a jam.

01:14:19 It's a block party,

01:14:21 a big block party, but it's illegal.

01:14:23 We would plug the system

01:14:25 into the light pole.

01:14:27 Nobody was an electrician either.

01:14:29 I don't know why.

01:14:31 But it's like,

01:14:32 when you see the movies of Easter

01:14:34 and Jesus Christ is walking

01:14:36 and you see like Exodus,

01:14:38 so you would be playing softball,

01:14:40 basketball, whatever you're doing.

01:14:42 The minute you heard that speaker going

01:14:44 boom, boom, boom, boom,

01:14:46 you would just drop your baseball bat,

01:14:48 your glove,

01:14:50 and everybody would be walking

01:14:52 towards the music.

01:14:54 And that's where the breakdancing

01:14:56 and everything would go from.

01:14:58 I'm sorry.

01:15:00 That's right.

01:15:01 This is how we're doing it.

01:15:03 So what happened is that

01:15:05 I did it outside.

01:15:07 This was never done.

01:15:09 This is something nobody ever heard of.

01:15:11 So when I did it,

01:15:13 everybody was going crazy like,

01:15:15 "Oh my God, this is unbelievable."

01:15:17 So that was the birth of the beatbox,

01:15:19 which became the fifth element.

01:15:21 Now the question is this.

01:15:23 Would I have created it

01:15:25 if the music program wasn't cut?

01:15:27 You see?

01:15:29 Sometimes this is why

01:15:30 I describe hip-hop as this.

01:15:32 I always say,

01:15:34 "We the willing,

01:15:36 led by the unknowing,

01:15:38 are doing the impossible

01:15:40 for the ungrateful."

01:15:42 We have done so much.

01:15:44 We the willing,

01:15:46 for so long,

01:15:48 with so little,

01:15:50 that we are now qualified

01:15:52 to do anything with nothing.

01:15:54 And that is hip-hop.

01:15:58 So first of all,

01:15:59 two points in order.

01:16:01 I have the easiest job

01:16:03 in the history of moderation.

01:16:05 And the second is,

01:16:07 you all are at the best panel

01:16:09 in the whole week of Davos already.

01:16:11 And we got another hour of good stuff

01:16:14 and two more panels to come,

01:16:16 but we'll keep going.

01:16:18 By the way, guys, stay a while.

01:16:20 Why don't we make some room

01:16:22 and pull up?

01:16:24 There's a lot of space over on that side.

01:16:27 This is the home of the billionaires.

01:16:28 And I actually thought of putting

01:16:30 my wire information behind this panel

01:16:32 while we were talking.

01:16:34 I see some money out there,

01:16:36 I will tell you that.

01:16:38 Maybe we'll do cash app, I do wire.

01:16:40 Hold on, let's talk about money.

01:16:42 Doug, you talked about

01:16:44 the fact that

01:16:46 your music program got cut

01:16:48 and you had to do it.

01:16:50 I will say,

01:16:52 Forbes is in more rap songs

01:16:54 than almost any other brand.

01:16:56 75 different rap songs.

01:16:57 And people ask me,

01:16:59 why is that?

01:17:01 And I've been thinking about it for a long time

01:17:03 and I think I have the reason,

01:17:05 which is because Forbes is a brand

01:17:07 about entrepreneurship and doing it yourself.

01:17:09 And when you say,

01:17:11 hey, I'm on the cover of Forbes,

01:17:13 I'm in Forbes,

01:17:15 it means no one is giving anything to you.

01:17:17 You had to take it.

01:17:19 And people intuitively get that

01:17:21 and say, well, that's a brand

01:17:23 that celebrates people who take it for themselves

01:17:25 and they're waiting for that

01:17:26 and not getting it and now having to take it.

01:17:28 So with that in mind,

01:17:30 how do we go from the beats to the bucks?

01:17:32 You guys have had financial lows

01:17:34 and you've had financial highs

01:17:36 and now you're both riding on highs here.

01:17:38 How have you seen hip hop evolve

01:17:40 over these 50 years

01:17:42 as a creator's business?

01:17:44 Well,

01:17:46 Doug is from

01:17:48 the golden age.

01:17:50 I like to think that's the greatest era of hip hop.

01:17:52 Me personally,

01:17:54 I'm talking about the LL Cool J's,

01:17:55 the Fat Boys,

01:17:57 the Salt N Peppers,

01:17:59 the MC Lyte's,

01:18:01 Queen Latifah's,

01:18:03 the Slick Rick's,

01:18:05 the Dougie's,

01:18:07 that time, right?

01:18:09 Big Daddy Kane's,

01:18:11 the Biz Markie recipes.

01:18:13 But when we came,

01:18:15 which is the Jay Z's,

01:18:17 the Nas,

01:18:19 the Fat Joe's,

01:18:21 the Diddy's,

01:18:23 and the talent.

01:18:24 But we came

01:18:26 with a sense of

01:18:28 ownership and equity.

01:18:31 And so we started our own subsidiaries

01:18:33 and our own brands

01:18:35 and we started our own clothing lines

01:18:37 and our own liquor brands

01:18:39 and our own,

01:18:41 and so we came in with a sense of,

01:18:44 "All right, we ain't gonna work for nobody.

01:18:46 We gonna work for ourselves."

01:18:48 And we've been doing it ever since,

01:18:50 right?

01:18:52 And like me, I'm independent.

01:18:53 I own everything.

01:18:55 Anything I do, I own it.

01:18:57 If you see Fat Joe doing this,

01:18:59 he's a part of it somewhere.

01:19:01 Whether it's 1% or 100%,

01:19:03 he owns it, right?

01:19:05 And so that's what I think

01:19:07 my era came from

01:19:09 with ownership.

01:19:11 And now we're thinking about

01:19:13 the tech space,

01:19:15 the AI space.

01:19:17 We're thinking about the cannabis space.

01:19:19 New York City is

01:19:21 finally legalizing cannabis.

01:19:23 So you better believe Fat Joe's gonna have

01:19:25 a warehouse of cannabis.

01:19:27 And I don't even smoke,

01:19:29 but I'm an entrepreneur, Mr. Forbes.

01:19:32 - And let me jump on that too.

01:19:35 I come from,

01:19:37 what he's talking about,

01:19:39 Ella on a lot of these guys,

01:19:41 that's actually the second wave of hip hop.

01:19:43 And let me tell you why,

01:19:45 'cause the first wave--

01:19:47 - I said the golden age.

01:19:50 - Right, right, no, no, that's--

01:19:51 Well, the golden,

01:19:53 but when I'm saying the first,

01:19:56 I'm talking about the guys

01:19:58 that never got there just due,

01:20:00 which is the Cold Crush Brothers.

01:20:02 I don't feel Grandmaster Flash

01:20:04 and the Furious Five got what they deserve.

01:20:06 I don't feel that

01:20:08 the Fantastic Five, DJ Hollywood,

01:20:11 a lot of the guys got what they deserve.

01:20:13 Right, and we can go on and on.

01:20:15 So one of the things that I'm looking to see

01:20:18 is something set up where

01:20:20 the people that helped build this

01:20:22 are able to be taken care of.

01:20:24 It's like your mother or your father.

01:20:26 They help you get an education,

01:20:28 they help you grow,

01:20:30 they put you through things,

01:20:32 and when you see that you have made yourself successful,

01:20:34 you want to give back to your mother,

01:20:36 your father, your grandmother.

01:20:38 So part of my journey of being here

01:20:42 is to get people to have a better understanding

01:20:45 and appreciation of hip hop.

01:20:47 So that we can do something

01:20:48 and set something up

01:20:50 so that a lot of the great artists

01:20:52 that have established this

01:20:54 can be taken care of.

01:20:56 Not in a way like you're just giving them something,

01:20:58 but they gave you something.

01:21:00 They gave the world hip hop.

01:21:02 This thing called hip hop

01:21:04 has transformed the world.

01:21:06 It's colorless.

01:21:08 Everybody's hip hop.

01:21:10 Everybody's engaging.

01:21:12 Let me say one thing.

01:21:14 9/11,

01:21:16 right,

01:21:17 was a day where music stopped.

01:21:20 I was in New York City when it happened.

01:21:23 And music stopped.

01:21:25 I mean, planes were moving, music stopped.

01:21:27 It was just eerie.

01:21:29 Right?

01:21:31 Not only because of what happened on 9/11,

01:21:34 but with the music stopping,

01:21:36 it let me know that if this world didn't have music,

01:21:39 this would be a horrible place.

01:21:42 And so music is the general

01:21:45 universal language.

01:21:47 You know, we go perform in Japan,

01:21:50 some of these people don't even speak English.

01:21:52 They know every word of a hip hop song.

01:21:54 You know, we've seen some army guys.

01:21:56 I'm sorry to cut you off.

01:21:58 I've seen some army guys in Ukraine

01:22:00 going to war and they were playing Lean Back.

01:22:02 They didn't even know English.

01:22:04 And they was in the "eh, eh, eh."

01:22:06 And they was saying,

01:22:08 "This motherfucker's saying some shit on here.

01:22:10 We need to pump this."

01:22:12 I don't even know what he's saying,

01:22:14 but I know he's saying something.

01:22:15 Right?

01:22:17 And so music is one of the biggest gifts

01:22:19 God ever gave Earth in hip hop music.

01:22:22 If you ever want to know

01:22:24 what's going on in the world,

01:22:26 you'll learn it through hip hop.

01:22:28 If you want to know what's going on in Ukraine,

01:22:30 find the Ukrainian rappers.

01:22:32 You want to know what's going on in Mexico,

01:22:34 you want to know what's going on in Iraq,

01:22:36 find the Iraq rappers.

01:22:38 Oh, they telling you what's going on.

01:22:40 Chuck East is saying that.

01:22:43 Oh yeah?

01:22:44 Wow.

01:22:46 Chuck D used to say hip hop is the CNN of the streets.

01:22:49 You know, Chuck D from Public Enemy.

01:22:52 And to add on to what Joe is saying too,

01:22:54 look at COVID.

01:22:56 When COVID hit,

01:22:58 a lot of people were just alone.

01:23:00 And now that has been under control

01:23:03 to a large degree.

01:23:05 Here we are gathering again.

01:23:07 So we celebrate life,

01:23:09 we celebrate each other.

01:23:12 We have a greater appreciation for each other

01:23:14 and a greater appreciation for life.

01:23:16 So that's what hip hop is here for, to heal.

01:23:18 So I use it for the purpose of healing.

01:23:23 And to, you know,

01:23:25 because I come from that generation

01:23:27 that it has always been pure.

01:23:29 Like I do hip hop in a form

01:23:31 that's not practiced that much anymore.

01:23:34 It's pure.

01:23:36 It's uncut.

01:23:38 So the other part that I think hip hop is good for

01:23:41 and what I think we're here to really let you understand

01:23:44 is that I have a foundation

01:23:46 that I did with a doctor called Dr. Williams

01:23:48 out of Columbia Hospital in New York City

01:23:52 and it's called Hip Hop Public Health.

01:23:54 So we use hip hop to educate children.

01:23:57 And did I jump ahead or something?

01:24:00 No, no, no. I'm just mindful of time.

01:24:02 Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah.

01:24:04 Yeah, it's quick.

01:24:06 But to teach people about childhood obesity,

01:24:08 do you see how the kids now

01:24:10 don't go out and play?

01:24:11 They sit there and they're on their computers.

01:24:13 They're not engaging anymore.

01:24:15 We used to go out and play.

01:24:17 We would be out there chasing girls,

01:24:19 having a good time, you know, having fun.

01:24:21 But now--

01:24:23 Man, we're football listening to Doug E. Fresh.

01:24:25 Hey, you see what I'm saying?

01:24:27 So now you're talking about high blood pressure,

01:24:29 diabetes, anxiety, depression.

01:24:31 So we wanted to create something

01:24:33 that we could use hip hop in a positive way

01:24:35 to have impact in everybody's life.

01:24:39 So that's where we got to go with hip hop.

01:24:40 I couldn't agree more.

01:24:42 So we've talked about the impact.

01:24:44 We've talked about the origins.

01:24:46 Getting back to the last--

01:24:48 because we've got a lot of the rest of the program

01:24:50 we're going to focus on generational wealth.

01:24:52 How you take the culture and create wealth.

01:24:54 And I want to--

01:24:56 Doug, you have one of the most sampled songs of all time.

01:24:59 I think it's a top five all-time sampled song.

01:25:02 Do you make any from--

01:25:04 Do you make money from when people

01:25:07 are using this asset that you created?

01:25:10 Yeah, I make money, but you have to have--

01:25:12 It's "La-Dee-Dah-Dee" for those who don't know.

01:25:15 You know that song?

01:25:17 You'll know it, trust me.

01:25:19 La-Dee-Dah-Dee, we like to party.

01:25:21 We don't cause trouble.

01:25:23 Well, I'll do that later.

01:25:25 Just a minute, so no mic.

01:25:27 Hold on, man, we're not getting into that later now.

01:25:29 Come on.

01:25:31 So we just did that.

01:25:33 Do you make any money from that?

01:25:36 I make money from it, and actually,

01:25:38 I was one of the first artists to ever own his masters.

01:25:42 Actually, I think I was the first.

01:25:44 (applause)

01:25:46 Cause in '85, nobody wanted to sign me or Slick Rick

01:25:50 cause they thought he sound crazy,

01:25:52 and they didn't think the beatbox was what it was.

01:25:55 So I put up the money myself.

01:25:57 And when I put up the money myself,

01:25:59 I went around looking for labels.

01:26:01 I took it to Profile.

01:26:04 He said, "This is the worst record I ever heard."

01:26:06 He said, "The show on La-Dee-Dah-Dee

01:26:08 was the worst record he ever heard."

01:26:10 I said, "No problem."

01:26:12 I took it to a little label, and then I did a deal with them.

01:26:14 And when I did the deal, they would distribute it.

01:26:16 And I owned the masters, and I owned the publishing

01:26:19 of all of my songs.

01:26:21 So I look at it the same way.

01:26:24 So to answer your question,

01:26:26 I think that more artists need to own their masters

01:26:29 and own their songs.

01:26:31 I mean, it's intellectual property.

01:26:33 I'm also into real estate.

01:26:34 And I say there's only two positions you can play in life.

01:26:38 You can either be the tenant or the landlord.

01:26:41 And the landlord is the lord of the land.

01:26:44 You understand?

01:26:46 So I'd rather be the landlord.

01:26:48 So it's the same with the intellectual property.

01:26:50 So I think that that's one of the things.

01:26:53 When you own this intellectual real estate,

01:26:57 I never thought that this record that we made

01:27:02 would still be relevant today in the way that it is.

01:27:04 I make more money off the song now

01:27:07 than I did when it first came out.

01:27:10 That's amazing.

01:27:12 And that's how you build generational wealth.

01:27:15 I think with that, we'll transition to the next panel.

01:27:17 But I will say, if people want to hear more from these guys,

01:27:20 we've got two hours tonight where we're going to hear the music,

01:27:24 we're going to feel the music,

01:27:26 and now we've all kind of seen where it came from,

01:27:30 not just in terms of the history,

01:27:31 but also in terms of where it's going.

01:27:33 What you guys have done,

01:27:35 you guys have built the foundation

01:27:37 that entire business and entire culture is now built upon.

01:27:40 So thank you for all you did as pioneers.

01:27:43 Here at Davos, we appreciate it.

01:27:45 Thank you. Thank you for having me.

01:27:47 And definitely one last thing I'd like to say,

01:27:49 I'd like to thank Kool and Dre for having us here.

01:27:52 Thank you, Kool and Dre.

01:27:54 And I want to thank my brother Fat Joe,

01:27:58 because we go back so far,

01:28:00 and to see what he has accomplished in his career

01:28:03 is unbelievable.

01:28:05 He has transformed so much in hip hop,

01:28:08 just even on the level of Latino hip hop artists.

01:28:12 Because there was a guy named Ruby D

01:28:15 from Fantastic, Romantic 5,

01:28:18 and then it went to Tito from the Fearless 4,

01:28:21 and Fat Joe has taken this thing to a level

01:28:24 that's unexplainable.

01:28:27 So I want to say that in front of my brother.

01:28:29 All right, Denim, thank you so much

01:28:35 for being here today with me.

01:28:37 Thank you for having me.

01:28:39 I guess to start, because you have such an insane career

01:28:42 that's taken a bunch of different levels and ways.

01:28:45 Tell me about why you wanted to get into

01:28:47 the entertainment industry in the first place.

01:28:49 When I was younger, I was like five,

01:28:51 it was mainly because it gave me an opportunity

01:28:53 to get out of class.

01:28:56 And then they would pick you to do these shows,

01:28:57 and then you had to go rehearse.

01:28:59 And when I say I had a class,

01:29:01 it was probably like 20 minutes,

01:29:03 but when you're five, you might as well have been all day.

01:29:05 So I loved that, and then I did a show

01:29:07 where I sang for like 500, 600 people,

01:29:09 and I just loved the response.

01:29:11 I loved the energy and the excitement

01:29:13 and all these other things.

01:29:15 And so from then, I just never wanted to not do it.

01:29:17 So I went from doing theater to musical theater

01:29:19 and then doing that.

01:29:21 So my love for it is the same as it was when I was five.

01:29:23 Amazing.

01:29:25 And I'm curious, because you're not doing

01:29:26 so much of that right now.

01:29:28 No, no.

01:29:30 What happened?

01:29:32 Do you plan to do it again?

01:29:34 Okay, so when I was like 15, 16,

01:29:36 I was heavily into musical theater,

01:29:38 trained as an opera singer as well.

01:29:40 Wow.

01:29:42 But one of the things about these disciplines

01:29:44 that I always try to stress to people

01:29:46 is you can't just decide you want to just do it,

01:29:48 walk away from it, and then come back

01:29:50 and think that you're just going to be

01:29:52 as great as you were before.

01:29:54 So I loved theater.

01:29:55 I loved opera.

01:29:57 I loved the vocal challenge of all of it.

01:29:59 But then there was the opportunity also

01:30:01 where I really wanted to do the television and film side.

01:30:03 And also financially, for where I was in my life,

01:30:05 it made a little bit more sense.

01:30:07 Because doing theater, you don't get the paid

01:30:09 and the way that you would want to

01:30:11 to be able to make that big living, if you will,

01:30:13 or sustainable living sometimes.

01:30:15 And so it made sense to me.

01:30:17 But one day, hopefully, I'll be able to do it.

01:30:19 Like occasionally, I still have soundtracks in my car

01:30:21 that occasionally on long drives,

01:30:23 I'll test the vocals.

01:30:24 They're definitely not what they were 10 years ago.

01:30:26 But it's okay. We're working on it.

01:30:28 - And the thing I love about you, too,

01:30:30 is that you're not just an actor or an entertainer.

01:30:32 You're also a businessman.

01:30:34 Tell me about the founding of your studio.

01:30:36 - Yeah, so Kumo Studios was founded

01:30:38 two and a half years ago

01:30:40 when I came to Botswana for the first time.

01:30:42 So I have two partners, Ona and Kay,

01:30:44 who are co-founders, and they're also local,

01:30:46 Botswana.

01:30:48 We want to do television and film.

01:30:50 And the country of Botswana,

01:30:52 we're a big business in entertainment and culture.

01:30:53 But there wasn't necessarily a huge market yet.

01:30:55 And they're still trying to figure out

01:30:57 how do we scale this to an international market

01:30:59 with standards and what that looks like.

01:31:01 And so I felt like, well, this is literally

01:31:03 what I do for a living. I have a passion for that.

01:31:05 I love the teaching. I love the building.

01:31:07 And I love the birthing options

01:31:09 when you're going through the pain

01:31:11 of building a business.

01:31:13 So it was just a natural fit.

01:31:15 So yeah, that's how Kumo and Kumo Studios was born.

01:31:17 - Very cool. And obviously, you're the most well-known,

01:31:19 I think, in the U.S. for Yellowstone.

01:31:21 Did any of those lessons that you learned

01:31:22 about the business of Hollywood

01:31:24 and your time on set there help you build your studio?

01:31:27 - 100%. It's the only way that I'm able to do it.

01:31:29 So the great thing, so Yellowstone's

01:31:31 on the Paramount network.

01:31:33 And when Paramount started,

01:31:35 it didn't really have a full identity yet.

01:31:37 It was trying to figure out what do we do.

01:31:39 They were doing a lot of reality shows, reruns,

01:31:41 like "Bar Rescue" and things of that nature.

01:31:43 And they were trying to figure out what they do.

01:31:45 And then this is how Taylor Sheridan,

01:31:47 who's the biggest showrunner in the world now,

01:31:50 came with the script with Kevin Costner in it.

01:31:51 And they kind of showed Paramount

01:31:53 how you could build this model.

01:31:55 Get a good show, get one good star,

01:31:57 get a great storyline, and take a big swing.

01:31:59 It's a Western, right?

01:32:01 And Westerns were kind of phased out in the U.S.

01:32:03 And I think now, because of it,

01:32:05 it's kind of revitalized that.

01:32:07 And so coming over here, I was like,

01:32:09 "Okay, these are some of the business models.

01:32:11 Get a good show, find a flagship,

01:32:13 find something that you're getting

01:32:15 on the pulse of the country, and go from there."

01:32:17 - What's been the biggest challenge you faced

01:32:19 in the process of building this?

01:32:20 - So I think, for me, I don't know everything,

01:32:22 so I'm still learning as well.

01:32:24 So it's like you're building and you're learning

01:32:26 and you're building and you're learning.

01:32:28 But then also, just understanding

01:32:30 that not every single thing that you do in the U.S.

01:32:32 as far as how you build something

01:32:34 is necessarily the best way to do it here in Africa.

01:32:36 And every country in Africa has a different way

01:32:38 that they do business, that they hear business,

01:32:40 that they receive business advice

01:32:42 and things of that nature.

01:32:44 Which I think it's actually made,

01:32:46 it makes for better leadership

01:32:48 and it's like a one-size-fits-all.

01:32:49 So you go to these different places, you do that.

01:32:51 So I think, for me, more than anything,

01:32:53 it's been about the, kind of,

01:32:55 just more of the educational side of it.

01:32:57 How does the business of entertainment make money?

01:32:59 How do you scale it up?

01:33:01 And so I've been learning it myself,

01:33:03 and now through my learning and through my education,

01:33:05 it's helped me be able to communicate more effectively.

01:33:07 - Interesting.

01:33:09 So do you see your studio just being Botswana,

01:33:11 or do you have plans to expand throughout the continent

01:33:13 and maybe global?

01:33:15 - Yeah, so our goal is definitely,

01:33:17 we're all over the continent.

01:33:18 We do Kumo Masters where we do capacity building,

01:33:20 where we teach about the business of entertainment.

01:33:22 So we teach about all the things

01:33:24 I was just talking about, right?

01:33:26 'Cause you can't just say,

01:33:28 "Oh, we want to do television and film,"

01:33:30 but you're not also cultivating the next generation

01:33:32 to be able to come into that.

01:33:34 So we're in Zambia, we're doing some things in South Africa,

01:33:36 we'll be in Tanzania, we'll be in Kenya,

01:33:38 we'll be in Namibia.

01:33:40 And so we'll, kind of, see what this model,

01:33:42 and then we'll, eventually, we'll see where it takes us.

01:33:44 - Has it been hard to find funding

01:33:46 or things to propel this forward

01:33:47 in any type of VC funding,

01:33:49 or what's your experience of it?

01:33:51 - So, yeah, it is a little bit challenging,

01:33:53 only because it's a model where people

01:33:55 don't really think, like,

01:33:57 Africa entertainment studios,

01:33:59 what does that look like?

01:34:01 And unless it's, kind of, like a Netflix

01:34:03 or an Amazon or a Hulu,

01:34:05 for a lot of people it's like,

01:34:07 it doesn't really make any sense, right?

01:34:09 Like, denim is not Disney, right?

01:34:11 So it's not like an automatic, let's go and do it.

01:34:13 So a lot of the stuff that we've been doing,

01:34:15 as you start to do that,

01:34:16 it becomes easier when you're actually going

01:34:18 to get the venture capitalist funding

01:34:20 and things of that nature,

01:34:22 because they've seen, oh, you guys, like,

01:34:24 really believe in it.

01:34:26 It's not like you just had an idea,

01:34:28 brought it to us, want us to take all the risk.

01:34:30 It's like, oh, you've been doing this for a while,

01:34:32 you're taking some massive swings here.

01:34:34 If that's the case, and you're here.

01:34:36 And I think that's something that's important for me,

01:34:38 was I didn't want to do it until I knew

01:34:40 I could be here for most of the time,

01:34:42 because I don't like going and saying,

01:34:44 oh, I'm a big fan of this country,

01:34:45 and now I'm having somebody that's not

01:34:47 as engaged running it.

01:34:49 So now we're at a place where I could be here

01:34:51 most of the year outside of doing Yellowstone,

01:34:53 and so now we have a better opportunity

01:34:55 to take some bigger swings.

01:34:57 - That makes sense. - Yeah.

01:34:59 - So a little bit of a fun question for you,

01:35:01 because maybe you think, or so,

01:35:03 what do you wish that you had known

01:35:05 about the entertainment industry

01:35:07 when you were first starting out that you know now?

01:35:09 - So I say this thing in our Kumo Masters

01:35:11 that your passion's going to make you poor.

01:35:13 I wish I knew more about the business side of it

01:35:15 more than just be passionate about it,

01:35:17 just be excited to get up and go do the job,

01:35:19 or go do the art.

01:35:21 And I think sometimes in the entertainment industry,

01:35:23 we get so caught up in just wanting to be the artist,

01:35:27 but the artist also needs to have lawyers

01:35:29 and accountants and understand investments

01:35:31 and things of that nature,

01:35:33 and scalability as well.

01:35:35 You're these small businesses.

01:35:37 And I think so more than anything,

01:35:39 I wish I would have known that the passion is great,

01:35:42 and that you have a circumstance

01:35:43 that you need to have to even want to get into this.

01:35:45 - Right. - But you really gotta know

01:35:47 the business and how to do that,

01:35:49 and then the passion will kind of drive everything else.

01:35:51 - So with that being said,

01:35:53 what advice, what business advice

01:35:55 would you give to young entrepreneurs

01:35:57 who are in the same spot you are in?

01:35:59 - So I would say more than anything,

01:36:01 you make sure that you don't have an ego,

01:36:03 and don't be in the business of entitlement.

01:36:05 Like no one is going to just give you something

01:36:07 just because you've decided that you have a good idea.

01:36:09 There's a lot of great ideas,

01:36:11 not every good or great idea

01:36:12 means it's gonna get funded.

01:36:14 So you have to have that real belief in yourself

01:36:16 that this is something that you really feel like

01:36:18 you're gonna do everything that you need to do

01:36:20 to make sure this gets done.

01:36:22 I say this like by all moral means necessary, just win.

01:36:24 So make sure that you're not in the business of entitlement.

01:36:27 Make sure you don't have an ego,

01:36:29 and be open to partnerships.

01:36:31 Would you rather have 50% of something

01:36:33 or 100% of nothing? - Right.

01:36:35 - And then from there, as your life goes on,

01:36:37 then you can kind of dictate what that percentage looks like.

01:36:40 - And one last question for you.

01:36:41 What are your biggest goals for this upcoming year?

01:36:44 Are there any announcements or anything exciting

01:36:46 in the pipeline you could tell us about?

01:36:48 - So we're gonna be doing a couple new shows here

01:36:50 here in Botswana where I'm really excited

01:36:52 about scaling up our Kumo Masters,

01:36:54 which is like I said, it's our capacity building program

01:36:56 that we'll be doing all over the continent

01:36:58 to be able to help governments

01:37:00 as well as other entrepreneurs in entertainment

01:37:02 be able to kind of get more people

01:37:04 that understand the technicalities of the business.

01:37:06 So I'm really excited about that.

01:37:09 Obviously we'll be going back soon

01:37:10 to do the back half of season five for Yellowstone.

01:37:13 So there's a couple other ones.

01:37:15 I have to wait until contracts are signed

01:37:17 before I can announce, but I'm really looking forward

01:37:19 to this year just being bigger than the last one.

01:37:21 - Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here.

01:37:23 - Thanks for having me. Thank you.

01:37:25 (upbeat music)

01:37:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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