The Memphis rap star runs one of the biggest labels, owns a piece of an MLS team and is looking to build generational wealth like his mentor Jay-Z. But first, he’s going to business school.
0:00 Introduction
0:07 Yo Gotti's 2024 Outlook: Take It In
1:31 Yo Gotti On Being Respected In Business And His Jay-Z Connection
2:14 Yo Gotti Reminisces On 20 Year Old Sentiment/Goal
4:10 Here's Yo Gotti's Observant Approach To Business/Brand Opportunities
7:03 Boss Moves: Yo Gotti On Running His Own Studio And Music Label
8:47 Growing Up: How Yo Gotti Fell In Love With Hip Hop
12:28 How Yo Gotti's Mother Was Influential To Getting His College Degree
14:41 Yo Gotti On His Lyrical Style And Imagination
16:07 Yo Gotti On Memphis Rap Legends: 8Ball And MJG
17:29 Yo Gotti On Hustler Music And Peers In The Rap Game
19:49 Yo Gotti's Favorite Cars In His Collection
20:54 CMG Label And How Yo Gotti Plans To Take Memphis Hip Hop Artists To The Next Level
23:25 Yo Gotti On Hip Hop Legends Master P, Jay-Z, and 50 Cent
24:22 Yo Gotti Shares 50 Cent's Advice To Him
27:38 Yo Gotti On Issues At Historic Hip Hop Labels: Cash Money, Rock-A-Fella, G Unit, Etc. What Has He Learned?
30:59 Yo Gotti On Jay-Z's Business Mentorship
32:24 Focus On Your Impact
33:57 Yo Gotti: The Difference Between Good Information And Great Information
Read the full story on Forbes:
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0:00 Introduction
0:07 Yo Gotti's 2024 Outlook: Take It In
1:31 Yo Gotti On Being Respected In Business And His Jay-Z Connection
2:14 Yo Gotti Reminisces On 20 Year Old Sentiment/Goal
4:10 Here's Yo Gotti's Observant Approach To Business/Brand Opportunities
7:03 Boss Moves: Yo Gotti On Running His Own Studio And Music Label
8:47 Growing Up: How Yo Gotti Fell In Love With Hip Hop
12:28 How Yo Gotti's Mother Was Influential To Getting His College Degree
14:41 Yo Gotti On His Lyrical Style And Imagination
16:07 Yo Gotti On Memphis Rap Legends: 8Ball And MJG
17:29 Yo Gotti On Hustler Music And Peers In The Rap Game
19:49 Yo Gotti's Favorite Cars In His Collection
20:54 CMG Label And How Yo Gotti Plans To Take Memphis Hip Hop Artists To The Next Level
23:25 Yo Gotti On Hip Hop Legends Master P, Jay-Z, and 50 Cent
24:22 Yo Gotti Shares 50 Cent's Advice To Him
27:38 Yo Gotti On Issues At Historic Hip Hop Labels: Cash Money, Rock-A-Fella, G Unit, Etc. What Has He Learned?
30:59 Yo Gotti On Jay-Z's Business Mentorship
32:24 Focus On Your Impact
33:57 Yo Gotti: The Difference Between Good Information And Great Information
Read the full story on Forbes:
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
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FunTranscript
00:00 (hip hop music)
00:02 - Here with Mario Mims, aka Yo Gotti,
00:10 the CEO of CMG Records.
00:13 Happy holidays, man, I appreciate the time.
00:15 Thank you, man, for allowing us
00:18 into one of your many homes around the world.
00:20 I wanna get a location, right?
00:22 One of your many homes around the world, man.
00:23 So, all the success, man.
00:26 You know, you're the CEO of a record label.
00:28 Do you feel it?
00:29 I guess 2023 as we move into 2024, how you feeling?
00:32 - Man, I feel good, I feel good about it.
00:35 You know, I'm trying more and more to like, you know,
00:39 take it in, in the moment.
00:41 You know, that been one of my hardest challenges,
00:46 I think, being a hustler.
00:48 'Cause you're always trying to get to the next level.
00:50 You're always trying to overdo what you've done before.
00:54 You're always trying to keep what you have built on track.
00:57 Or, you know, scale it to a bigger magnitude.
01:01 So, sometimes you don't get to feel it,
01:05 you know what I mean?
01:06 And enjoy it and live with it in the moment.
01:09 So, that been one of my challenges that, you know,
01:13 I look back at pictures and I look back at videos
01:16 years later and realize they're like,
01:18 oh, that was a dope accomplishment.
01:20 That was a dope moment.
01:22 But in the time, it was just another thing.
01:24 - Yeah, you was just doing it in the middle of it.
01:26 - Yeah. - It was just another thing
01:28 that I knew we had to knock down to keep going.
01:31 - Yeah.
01:32 You know, you come well regarded, man.
01:34 I mean, Shawn Jay-Z Carter speaks very highly of you.
01:37 - Yeah. - Right?
01:38 I mean, Steve Stout speaks very highly of you.
01:40 - Yeah.
01:41 - You know, I can't find a person that says anything bad
01:45 about your Yoghati and they always say how smart you are,
01:48 how focused you are.
01:49 And a lot to get into about your business personality
01:51 and all that.
01:52 But I always wanna start here, right?
01:55 'Cause in 2004, you said something interesting.
01:58 I'm gonna read it.
01:58 You said, "Rap is 90% business, 10% talent.
02:02 "We got talent and the business is about staying around
02:05 "for a long time, working hard.
02:06 "That's what I came to do."
02:08 That was back in 2004.
02:09 Here we are going into 2024.
02:11 That's 20 years ago. - 20 years ago.
02:13 - 20 years ago. - As you sit here
02:15 20 years ago and you hear those words
02:17 that you said in 2004, I mean,
02:20 now you can feel it, right?
02:22 You can say, God, look, we're in your crib, man.
02:25 Look at this.
02:25 This is amazing.
02:27 - Yeah, no, it's amazing.
02:29 - Does it feel like 20 years?
02:31 - Nah.
02:31 It don't feel like 20 years.
02:34 Again, when you actively in it and you're not taking breaks
02:38 and you, you know, I don't really take vacations.
02:41 I don't like, everything is,
02:42 even when you see me out the country,
02:45 I'm still working on something.
02:46 I'm still doing something.
02:47 I'm making the trip multipurpose.
02:49 You know what I'm saying?
02:50 So I'm never, and when I say vacation,
02:52 meaning like mentally, meaning where I put the phones away,
02:56 I'm not taking calls.
02:57 I'm not looking at emails.
02:58 It never happened since I started hustling.
03:01 - That's why you gotta take a cruise, right?
03:03 I love cruises.
03:04 - I took a cruise once, but--
03:05 - No wifi though.
03:06 - Oh, you can buy a package.
03:07 - I know you can, but that's the purpose.
03:08 - You can buy a wifi package.
03:10 Nah, I was on the laptop, checking in on the business.
03:15 You know what I'm saying?
03:16 - You gotta sit back and relax.
03:17 - Yeah, I only been on one cruise.
03:18 It was dope.
03:19 I went on the Disney cruise with my kids.
03:21 - Nice.
03:22 - I did not do that Disney cruise.
03:23 I did the Royal Caribbean, but it was to the Bahamas.
03:25 It was nice.
03:26 No wifi.
03:28 - I had wifi at night.
03:29 - I know you did.
03:30 I know you did.
03:31 Yeah, I know you did.
03:32 When you think about all the things,
03:36 again, 20 years ago, you said those words.
03:38 It's fair to say you've reached your business objectives.
03:40 Right, again, beautiful crib, right?
03:43 I see a studio, right?
03:44 You got a table right here, right?
03:45 So again, you so hardworking,
03:47 but again, the thing that you hear about you the most
03:50 is how smart you are.
03:51 How do you process information?
03:53 'Cause even when you called me that Saturday
03:55 and I'm gonna tell you about that dude,
03:56 it was, I was like, man, this dude does his due diligence.
04:00 I was impressed.
04:01 Even at that call, right?
04:03 I'm at a restaurant in New York and I'm talking to you.
04:04 I'm like, man, you asking all the questions,
04:06 but I noticed you was silent every time I was talking.
04:09 How do you process information?
04:10 - I think information is the most valuable thing
04:13 we can consume.
04:14 You know what I'm saying?
04:16 I feel like there's never enough information.
04:19 It could be wrong information,
04:21 but it's never enough information.
04:22 I mean, you can take it in from any place, any form,
04:25 any walk of life, any race, male, female, anything.
04:29 I take in information from anybody.
04:31 There's nobody too small or too big
04:34 that I can't get information from.
04:37 And then it's up to me to cipher through that information
04:40 to see what's good for me, what's good for me to hold on to,
04:43 what's good for me to use and apply to something
04:45 that I'm doing.
04:46 So I think everything is information.
04:48 My whole life, since I was a kid,
04:51 I remember sitting in the barbershop
04:53 and just listening to people talk.
04:56 And I still like to be in the barbershop longer
05:00 'cause that's where a lot of talking was happening then.
05:02 - Oh, geez.
05:03 - You know what I'm saying?
05:04 - They teach you.
05:05 - And the barbershop was around my hood that I grew up in.
05:08 So I learned a lot of information
05:10 just sitting there waiting to get my hair cut
05:13 in the barbershop.
05:14 I learned a lot of information sitting around
05:15 my bigger, older brothers, my mamas,
05:18 the guys they was dating, just listening.
05:21 So I think I learned that early as a child.
05:24 And I was just listening when people thought I wasn't.
05:27 - That's what your mom says.
05:28 She said you would sit around, listen to the adults talk
05:31 and just kind of process the information.
05:33 - And I remember if I didn't know what the word mean,
05:37 I would remember it till I got to where I can jot
05:39 a word down.
05:40 And it was like my own dictionary, right?
05:42 I would have like a list of words
05:43 that I had to find the meaning for.
05:45 - Yeah.
05:46 - Something that I may hear somebody say
05:47 that I didn't know what it mean.
05:49 Or I had to hear that word used in a sentence again,
05:51 or I had to actually look it up to see
05:53 like what they meant by that.
05:55 I used to do this since I was a child.
05:58 - Why? Why'd you do that?
06:00 - I just wanted to know.
06:01 - Information.
06:02 - Yeah.
06:03 I wanted to know the information.
06:04 And I believe that like, you know,
06:07 some people say that, you know,
06:08 experience is the best learning lesson.
06:12 In some cases, you know what I'm saying?
06:13 But I don't think like, I do think you could learn
06:16 from other people's mistakes.
06:18 So I think that, I believe in prevention.
06:21 So if I learn from your mistakes,
06:24 I don't have to bump my head to learn it.
06:26 I can learn, you already bumped your head,
06:28 I don't gotta bump mine.
06:28 - Yeah.
06:29 - You know what I'm saying?
06:30 So that's a lot of information too.
06:33 - I done bumped my head a lot of times,
06:34 'cause I ain't got no hair left.
06:35 - Yeah, I'm not saying that I didn't.
06:37 I bumped mine too, you know what I'm saying?
06:39 But I'm saying if we can prevent ourselves from doing it,
06:43 we should, you know, that's part of,
06:45 that's part of I feel like what I do
06:46 with some of the artists I work with, you know,
06:49 they should never bump their head the way I did.
06:52 Because I'm giving you the information
06:54 that I done wrong already, so,
06:56 why would you go do it the exact same way
06:59 and bump yours after I already told you hurt?
07:02 You know what I'm saying?
07:03 - What's it like running a record label here in 2023?
07:05 'Cause the music industry has changed.
07:07 I mean, listen, I remember when I first discovered you,
07:10 no disrespect, guy, LimeWire, Napster
07:12 was still kind of flowing and I was getting it, right?
07:15 But I mean, what's it like today in 2023
07:18 when so much has changed?
07:19 Streaming, you always hear artists complaining
07:21 about what that's like, but you found a way,
07:24 you pivoted and here you are.
07:26 What's it like in 2023 running a music label?
07:29 - I think that the value of being a hustler is adapting,
07:34 adapting to change and being ahead of the curve.
07:39 I do think that the music business is approached
07:42 differently than when I was first sitting and coming up.
07:46 But you just gotta adapt, you gotta adapt,
07:48 you gotta understand.
07:50 For me, each artist I ever work with is his own thing.
07:55 You know what I'm saying?
07:58 Like no two people the same.
08:00 You gotta know what motivate that person.
08:02 What's that person's strengths and weaknesses or fears are?
08:06 What gets them up and keep them going?
08:08 What'll pull them down?
08:09 You know what I mean?
08:10 And as a mentor, I feel like,
08:12 'cause I feel like that's what I am to them more
08:13 than anything is like a big brother or a mentor.
08:16 And I got to help them accelerate those strengths
08:19 and stay away from those things that demotivate them
08:23 and make them feel like,
08:24 you know, they can't be the biggest artists in the world
08:27 'cause as an artist, I think confidence is your superpowers.
08:31 And I think if you ever lose your confidence, it's over.
08:36 So how do you push your artists
08:38 without killing their confidence?
08:39 That's the art, I think.
08:41 - How do you do it?
08:43 - I think that's my own little trick.
08:44 (both laughing)
08:47 - Well, I mean, listen, man,
08:48 take me back to that young Mario Mims, right?
08:51 Again, I was talking to your mom
08:53 and wonderful, wonderful woman, man.
08:55 She was smiling and reminiscing about the feline suits.
08:59 You know, how it used to come fresh.
09:01 But she had a story about how she was always working, right?
09:05 And then when she left her life
09:07 and then she went to work at a store
09:09 and she would come home and she would be expecting y'all
09:12 to be doing your homework, right?
09:13 But here you are upstairs
09:15 and she was thinking you was doing homework,
09:16 but here you are writing all these papers
09:18 and jotting down, right?
09:20 Take me back to that room
09:21 where all that paper was on the floor and you was writing
09:24 and that young Mario Mims was just discovering his craft.
09:27 What were you doing?
09:29 - Well, I was in love with hip hop, you know,
09:31 and I was trying to figure out how to critique my craft
09:35 to be something that was special,
09:38 that would cut through in the world
09:40 where so many people was doing it.
09:41 What was gonna make me different
09:43 than everybody else that was doing it in my high school
09:47 or even just in my neighborhood?
09:49 Like, what's gonna make me be special
09:51 than the thousands of people that I was seeing
09:55 that was trying to do it?
09:57 'Cause I had to be in school
09:58 and they had a, what they call it?
10:00 Not battle rap 'cause we didn't battle rap where we from,
10:02 but everybody rapped.
10:04 I wouldn't consider battle rap
10:05 'cause we weren't talking about each other,
10:06 how they do that on East Coast.
10:07 - Just a little crowd.
10:08 - Yeah, but like where you counting like in
10:10 who got the best flow.
10:11 - Yeah.
10:12 - So, and there was a lot of guys in my school
10:15 I thought had better flows, you know what I'm saying?
10:16 So, and I had to be like trying to figure out
10:19 how to come up with different flows so I'd be ready.
10:21 When we go back in the lunchroom, you know, but--
10:24 - Freestyle. - Yeah.
10:25 But even before that, but that was just a thing,
10:27 but before that I feel like my mom and my aunties
10:31 put the value of nice things and luxury things
10:36 in my mindset 'cause they had 'em.
10:38 You know, like you said, the Fila jogging suit,
10:41 putting the big ropes around me, taking me to the fights,
10:43 we had houses in Vegas, you know,
10:46 this whole lifestyle was like, you know, having money
10:49 was what I seen them doing, they was having money.
10:52 You know, my mom, my aunts,
10:53 everybody around them, they friends,
10:54 everybody was having money.
10:56 So that's, you know, I thought you supposed to have money.
10:59 Right?
11:00 You know, then I seen it all get taken away from me.
11:03 - When your mom left.
11:04 - Yeah, so I seen all the money go away
11:06 and people go to prison and the lifestyle change
11:11 and, you know, so then that was kinda like a hold up.
11:14 You know what I'm saying?
11:16 What's going on here?
11:18 And--
11:19 - Did that make you wanna be a rapper more
11:20 or make you wanna make money to get it back?
11:23 - Nah, nah, nah, I don't think that made me wanna be
11:25 a rapper more 'cause at that point,
11:26 I don't even know if I understood
11:28 that rapping could make money.
11:29 - Right.
11:30 - You know what I'm saying?
11:31 It made me probably wanna be a hustler more
11:34 or it made me wanna be the man of the house more.
11:36 It made me wanna put my mom in a better position
11:40 after I seen her go from driving Benz's
11:43 and stuff like that to the car she was driving.
11:47 You know, I think it was like a blue Cavalier
11:51 or something, the seat broke.
11:53 It was like, you know what I'm saying?
11:54 It was like a, you know, it was a whole different lifestyle.
11:56 So to me, and she never said this to me out of her mouth,
11:59 but to me, I looked at her like
12:01 that was an uncomfortable situation for her.
12:04 So at a very early age, I wanted to change that.
12:07 You know, then I seen my brother try to change it
12:10 and I seen him go to prison and then, you know,
12:14 I wanted to change it, so.
12:15 So that made me start taking whatever I was doing serious.
12:20 - You went to Tennessee State and your mom says
12:22 she wanted to force you because she wanted you to major
12:24 and you went to, for a semester I believe, and did business.
12:28 - Actually I went to Southwest Community College.
12:32 - Southwest Community College.
12:33 - I tried to go to Tennessee State.
12:34 - Okay, mom says you went to Tennessee,
12:35 but you went to community college for a semester.
12:36 - Yeah, so, you know, one of the things I wanted to do
12:39 was graduate from, 'cause I would've been the,
12:41 I was the first, you know, my bigger brother
12:43 didn't finish school, so.
12:45 And my mom wouldn't play by school.
12:47 You live in her house, you woke up, you went to school.
12:50 If you were sick, you didn't leave the house.
12:51 So if you wanted to play sick, you sick, cool,
12:54 stay in the house.
12:55 And we didn't want to be in the house,
12:56 so we'd go to school even if we was sick.
12:58 - Yeah. - You know what I'm saying?
13:00 'Cause we wanted to be outside.
13:01 You dig, so.
13:02 You know, that was something I wanted to do at the time.
13:06 You know, thinking back, it wasn't even for me,
13:08 I wanted to do that for her.
13:10 I just wanted to finish school,
13:11 'cause it was so easy to drop out of school.
13:13 You know, everybody around me,
13:14 in the environment I was living in,
13:17 nobody was focused on finishing school,
13:18 so that was the easiest thing for me to do, to not finish.
13:22 But I really wanted to, you know,
13:24 I really wanted to do that for her, and I done it.
13:27 Then I wanted to go to TSU, I applied, and they denied me.
13:33 So I went to Southwest Community College,
13:36 'cause I heard that if you do a semester
13:39 in a community college, you can then transfer up there
13:42 to Tennessee State, but I never made it to Tennessee State.
13:46 - But you was majoring in business for that one.
13:48 - Yeah.
13:49 - What was your, at that point,
13:51 if you had put hip hop or rapping aside,
13:53 like, did you wanna be a businessman?
13:55 Is that what you were gonna suit for?
13:56 - Yeah, businessman, entrepreneur, yeah.
13:59 - Did you know what that mean?
14:00 I was asking Pharrell, he says he didn't even know
14:01 what that word meant.
14:03 - But I was already a businessman, actually, at that time.
14:08 You know, a businessman without the degree,
14:11 or without the paperwork, you know what I'm saying?
14:13 So I guess I was just trying to go see the other side
14:16 of the, you know, what else I don't know.
14:20 - Yeah.
14:22 One of the things that impressed me
14:23 when your mom was talking was that she said
14:25 she had purchased tickets to a hip hop show.
14:29 Is that two stories, actually?
14:30 Your first rap, or your first concert,
14:33 your mom, your sister show up, you said if they come in,
14:35 you're not getting on stage.
14:37 She said it's because maybe we wanna have profanity,
14:39 and you don't wanna be here.
14:40 Is that what that was?
14:41 - Yeah, I didn't like my mom listening to my music
14:44 early on or none of that, because, you know,
14:46 I'm a big, big person on respect, you know what I'm saying?
14:49 So I know what I was talking about,
14:51 I ain't even wanna hear it, you know what I'm saying?
14:54 So that's probably what she was speaking about,
14:56 'cause I ain't like her to listen to the music
14:58 and come to the shows or nothing like that,
15:00 'cause, you know, I was talking wild.
15:02 - But she did hear it, and as she came in,
15:04 you was like, can you tone it down?
15:05 You don't gotta tone everything,
15:06 but you was just speaking what you know.
15:08 - Yeah, but I had, you know,
15:10 music is an expression of life, so.
15:13 - Yeah.
15:14 - Or imagination, so.
15:16 - Yeah, the second story was,
15:18 she said she had got you some tickets, right?
15:20 It was a big show, and she thought you was gonna love 'em,
15:23 and all of a sudden, she go to present you the tickets,
15:26 you say, "No, Mom, I don't wanna go.
15:27 "I wanna be on the stage, I don't wanna be in the crowd."
15:30 What show was that?
15:31 I thought it was a Jay-Z show, was that a Jay-Z show?
15:33 - I don't think it was a Jay-Z show,
15:35 but they took me to a couple shows.
15:38 Like, I used to go to, like, New Edition shows,
15:41 and I remember going to a couple shows
15:44 that I actually went to with my aunt and them, you know.
15:47 Like I said, I was just fascinated
15:48 with hip-hop and the artistry,
15:49 so, you know, after a couple shows,
15:52 it wasn't the first show, but after a couple shows,
15:54 I was kinda like, "Nah, I'ma do that."
15:57 - Yeah.
15:57 - So, you know, the concert,
15:59 I can't remember the exact artist,
16:00 but I remember it was at the Orpheum, I think,
16:03 in Memphis, and I was like, "Nah, I'ma go in there,
16:06 "I'ma perform in there one day."
16:07 - You wanna be on stage.
16:08 - Yeah.
16:09 - Yeah, who was you studying at that time?
16:10 I mean, I know you said 3-6 was some fans,
16:12 and then, you know, Al Capone back then,
16:14 you know, A-Ball, MJG, you know, Memphis Legends.
16:19 - I think I studied everybody, I feel like, a little bit,
16:23 you know, because I wanted to know what they was doing.
16:25 Anybody that I seen that people liked,
16:27 they wanna know why people like you.
16:29 - Yeah.
16:30 - What is it, right?
16:31 So, some music that I didn't personally,
16:34 it wasn't my style of music that I like,
16:36 but I still, you know, listen to it
16:38 to try to figure out what's the components
16:40 that people taking away from this,
16:42 that I may not like, that I need to know about.
16:45 So, I used to, you know, I would listen for that,
16:48 but I liked it, A-Ball, MJG, of course,
16:51 'cause they were doing storytelling,
16:53 music and stuff like that.
16:55 - Coming Out Hard, it's one of my favorite tracks.
16:56 - And Juvenile, Juvenile, Cash Money,
17:01 and we were listening to Jay-Z, like, early,
17:05 and being from the South, like, me and my crew,
17:08 we was riding around in the J-Rack,
17:10 talking about, you know, "Damn, I just shot my brother."
17:13 Ran off in the night, like, "They want my brother."
17:16 Like, we were, I remember riding in a Galante.
17:18 You remember what them cars is?
17:19 - Yeah, Mitsubishi.
17:20 - Yeah, we in a Mitsubishi Galante.
17:23 Man, well, Lord knows what's in the car.
17:25 (laughing)
17:26 You feel me?
17:27 This thing is Jay-Z.
17:28 - The Galante or the Diamantes.
17:29 - I just shot my brother, you know what I'm saying?
17:32 I remember that like it was yesterday,
17:33 with no idea that I would ever meet Jay-Z,
17:36 or do business with him, or do anything with him,
17:39 you know what I'm saying?
17:40 But, you know, with hustler music,
17:43 I feel like I was on hustler music
17:45 when a lot of people was on, like, ra-ra music.
17:48 You know what I mean?
17:48 It's just like, wow.
17:50 Nah, for some reason, I just gravitated
17:52 to, like, the get money, get money music.
17:55 - Yeah. - Yeah.
17:56 - Again, man, thank you for inviting us to your house.
17:59 It's been so much to get into more,
18:01 but early in your career, once you figured out
18:05 you had the hits and you were going through,
18:07 I think it was TVT.
18:08 - Yeah.
18:09 - And, you know, you meet with Baby and Slim and Cash.
18:11 What information are you processing at that point?
18:14 When you're down there and you're watching them
18:15 build cash money, you're studying Master P,
18:18 like, what information are you processing
18:19 as a hip hop artist?
18:21 - Well, you know, what I was doing at the time
18:26 was kind of lucrative for me, right?
18:29 And not knowing any real artists
18:34 that was really, like, successful,
18:36 like, personally knowing them, you know?
18:38 And for some reason, and it may be still like that today,
18:41 but for some reason, there was a stigma
18:43 that people thought that, like,
18:45 oh, you was in the street, you having money?
18:49 Oh, the rappers ain't really having money for real.
18:52 You know what I'm saying?
18:53 Like, for some reason, I don't know where it came from,
18:55 but, like, that you thought everybody's stuff
18:57 was rented in the cars, everything you seen on MTV
19:00 and BET was fabricated, right?
19:02 So I think for me, going around cash money
19:06 was the realization of, nah, it's shit real.
19:10 You know what I'm saying?
19:11 You know, 'cause I went around Baby's Slim
19:13 and everything you ever seen in every video
19:15 was in their driveway, you know what I'm saying?
19:18 So I'm at the house, I'm staying at their house,
19:21 and I'm looking at, you know, 10, 15, 20 cars
19:24 in the driveway, and I'm just around,
19:27 and that was the first time that I realized, like,
19:31 nah, the rap game, like, it's for real, like, you know?
19:35 So I think that was a pivotal moment for me
19:38 because, you know, sometimes sin is believing.
19:42 So that was the first time that I was able to see
19:44 and believe and know that, nah, it's real money
19:48 in making music.
19:50 - I mean, listen, you proved me wrong, man.
19:51 I was able to see and believe
19:52 that a lime green Rolls Royce exists, right?
19:56 We pull up in one sitting in your driveway,
19:57 matter of fact, the guy comes past,
19:59 I'm like, what is that, is that a?
20:02 I see your car collection, you know,
20:03 again, you have that album out right now,
20:05 I showed you so, great album, "Driveway Furniture,"
20:07 man, you was sitting down talking about it,
20:09 and as we pull up, all these cars
20:11 is parked in your driveway, right,
20:12 including that lime green Rolls Royce.
20:14 What is your favorite car out of all the ones we've seen?
20:18 - At this point, probably the Phantom,
20:21 you know, the OG Phantom, the big one, you know.
20:26 - The black one? - Yeah.
20:28 - Over the lime green?
20:30 - Yeah, that's just, that's like a fun car.
20:32 - Yeah. - You know, we do,
20:33 I put together, I love cars, so I like to put cars together,
20:38 different color coordinations,
20:39 and do things that's different, you know what I mean?
20:41 It's just my way of playing with cars.
20:44 I was a Hot Wheels fan when I was a kid.
20:46 When I was a kid, I had to collect Hot Wheels,
20:48 and I loved-- - Did you get the little track
20:49 with the cars? - Yeah, I love cars,
20:51 so, you know, that's one of my things.
20:54 - Listen, God, you can give us one of yours
20:56 when we leave, it's a Christmas gift.
20:57 You feeling in the holiday spirit, you know?
21:00 But listen, man, jumping into the business again,
21:02 you know, CEO of CMG Records,
21:06 when you look around, and I listened to a comment
21:10 that Jermaine Dupri made, right?
21:11 Jermaine Dupri, one of the more respected icons in music,
21:16 and it was something he said earlier,
21:17 he was asked about if Atlanta is still the center of music.
21:21 And he says it feels like it's shifted to Memphis.
21:25 Atlanta's still great, but the talent pool
21:27 is not what it once was from him.
21:30 But Memphis is where it's at now, right?
21:33 You being where you are, positioned in Memphis,
21:35 having CMG Records, artists down,
21:37 coming from there, outside of there,
21:39 but do you feel that that's true?
21:41 - Yeah, I feel like the light on Memphis right now,
21:44 you know what I'm saying?
21:45 But I feel like the light moves, you know?
21:47 It was on Atlanta, it was on Houston,
21:50 you know, it's on Memphis right now.
21:52 And I think probably what you're referring to
21:54 is that, you know, artists from Memphis nowadays,
21:57 you know, have a better shot,
21:59 likely of one of these major record labels,
22:01 picking them up, when nobody looked at us at one point.
22:04 You know, everybody, you know, went to Atlanta
22:08 to look first, I guess that's what he meant,
22:10 you know what I'm saying?
22:11 You know, but I think Atlanta got dope talent.
22:13 Memphis, we just always had a,
22:16 it just was overlooked for so long,
22:17 but we always been great musicians, you know?
22:21 The history of Memphis, soul and stacks,
22:24 and you know what I mean?
22:25 Like, it's a music town, so we always had the music.
22:29 You know, people just didn't know,
22:31 and then a lot of bigger cities would come,
22:33 you know, taking the flavor, you know what I mean?
22:36 They would come and take the flavor,
22:38 putting their little sauce on it, you know what I'm saying?
22:41 And taking it national, so,
22:43 but you know, that part of the game.
22:45 - Yeah, I mean, listen, man,
22:46 all the years I've been going to Memphis, I love it.
22:48 Gus's Fried Chicken, man,
22:49 you get that authentic feel down there.
22:52 The music and going to the clubs,
22:53 like, you really feel it.
22:55 When you look at Memphis today, right,
22:57 in 2023, heading into 2024, what do you see?
23:01 - You know, it's my hometown, so,
23:04 I feel like they develop in the city way bigger.
23:11 You know, they spending more money on the city
23:12 than when I was coming up.
23:14 You know, high-rises, different hotels.
23:17 From the music scene, again,
23:19 there's way more opportunity for artists
23:21 to have better shots to come out of that.
23:24 But you know, Memphis still is just Memphis to me.
23:26 It's still just home.
23:28 You know, I know all the back roads, back streets.
23:31 I know everybody.
23:32 It's still just home to me.
23:35 - Again, into the business, when I say these names, man,
23:37 just give me one word that pops to mind, right?
23:40 And I'll start with Master P.
23:42 - Icon, legendary, awesome.
23:46 - Jay-Z.
23:47 - Like, JJ to me.
23:51 - One word, Gotti.
23:53 - Gotti, go, go, go, go, go.
23:56 - 50 Cent.
23:56 - 50 Cent, you're a legend.
24:00 - Legend.
24:01 I say 50 because, you know, he was one of the people
24:04 that stepped to you when you were talking
24:05 about changing your name, right?
24:07 CMG now, Collective Music Group,
24:08 it once was Cocaine Music Group,
24:10 and you said, hey, that was good then,
24:12 but you had to pivot, right?
24:14 Business, sometimes you gotta pivot,
24:16 you gotta change the image.
24:17 Take me into that conversation what 50 said to you
24:19 that allowed you to understand it was the right move.
24:22 - Yeah, so I had, I think it was Chris Light
24:25 who introduced me to 50 before he passed.
24:27 I was talking to 50 one time,
24:32 and I think it was around the time
24:34 I was doing a deal with Epic Records,
24:37 and we was talking about CMG,
24:38 and he was familiar with the mixtapes,
24:41 you know, the mixtape series and all that.
24:43 And you know, 50, if anybody know 50,
24:45 you know, if he talked to you, right,
24:48 he just volunteering information from you,
24:50 I think, if he like you, you know what I'm saying?
24:52 So he used to tell me a lot of information,
24:54 just things that I thought was valuable information
24:58 that I should use, you know what I'm saying?
25:02 Things that he probably had, you know,
25:04 walls he had probably ran into early on
25:07 that he probably seen that I probably could have ran into.
25:10 So he was just giving me game,
25:11 that like, yo, you probably shouldn't do it this way
25:13 and do that.
25:14 So basically he was just telling me that, you know,
25:16 you should change the name from Cocaine Music
25:19 'cause you may scare the corporate people.
25:21 - Yeah.
25:22 - And I had never thought of that,
25:24 and I'm like, he probably right, you know what I'm saying?
25:28 So he like, you know, you still rap about
25:30 what you wanna rap about, you move how you wanna move,
25:33 but just make sure on paper though,
25:35 you need to make sure your business like clean
25:37 and that you don't wanna like, you know,
25:40 scare, you know, the farther you get up,
25:42 you don't wanna scare the people, you know,
25:44 on first impression and they hear the name Cocaine Music,
25:47 it's like, oh, we already don't wanna, you know,
25:50 do business with you.
25:51 So that was a good piece of advice,
25:55 50 gave me a valuable piece of advice.
25:57 - Do you share that with your artists now?
25:59 - Yeah, of course.
25:59 I think it, like I said, information,
26:01 if you pick up information, you pass it down.
26:04 - The word valuation keeps on popping in my mind
26:09 when I talk about you now,
26:10 'cause apparently you're into valuations
26:12 and taking classes about it,
26:13 and I'm just gonna read you a couple of numbers, right?
26:17 500 million, right?
26:18 That was what Bruce Springsteen's catalog,
26:20 sold for Bob Dylan, right?
26:22 400 million, that's what you said,
26:24 when you hear big numbers, you pay attention, right?
26:28 Looking long term, what's the plan for CMG?
26:31 I mean, is this eventually, I mean, you own,
26:33 do you sell or do you keep it in, you know,
26:36 wealth, built wealth, legacy, what's the plan for CMG?
26:39 - I don't know right today, I got the exact answer,
26:45 what, you know, what I do at the end.
26:47 - Still got processing.
26:48 - Yeah, but what I do know is that we come out on top.
26:53 I do know we come out on top,
26:56 I do know that we not one of the stories of,
27:00 you know, what they had and could have been,
27:02 and you know what I'm saying,
27:04 how they fumbled the ball, that's absolutely not happening.
27:08 You know, so all these guys you're talking about,
27:09 I studied everybody, I watched everything,
27:11 I watched, you know, Iving's story,
27:14 I watched the Geffen story, I watched everybody,
27:17 you know, P, Ruff Rattles, Murray,
27:20 anybody that done it, you know, on different levels,
27:22 I watched everybody's story, you know,
27:25 and I just, you know, I watch it from my own study
27:27 to know what people done the right way,
27:29 what people done the wrong way, you know,
27:31 and I do all that to make sure when it get to our turn,
27:35 that we come out on top regardless.
27:37 - With that said though, a couple more things
27:40 I'll let you get out of here,
27:41 'cause you're a CEO, you busy, right?
27:43 But when you look at that, they may not have fumbled the ball
27:47 but I look at empires in music
27:49 and they always go through some turbulence
27:51 before they eventually break.
27:53 Jay and Rockefeller, the history's there.
27:55 G-Unit has some problems, you see the history.
27:59 No Limit, same thing.
28:00 Cash Money, same thing.
28:02 How do you avoid that?
28:04 How do you avoid the human being stuff
28:07 that takes down empires?
28:10 - I look at them as two different things, right?
28:13 'Cause I look at them, when you talk about
28:14 the human being things, me and my brotherhood,
28:17 my artists, you know.
28:19 - And sisterhood too.
28:20 - Say that again?
28:21 - And a sisterhood too with the women.
28:23 - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:24 With the artists, I look at that separate
28:26 because no matter what happens,
28:28 I hope that the relationship stays in tact,
28:31 you know what I'm saying?
28:32 Because I don't just look out for my best interest,
28:34 I look out for our best interest.
28:36 So when I'm talking to my artists,
28:37 I tell them, "This is what I'm gonna do
28:39 "and this is how I'm gonna exit.
28:41 "And this is what I think you should do
28:42 "and you should do this so that you move with me
28:45 "along the same side."
28:47 So I feel like my job is to give you the game
28:50 and give you the information on how we gonna do this, right?
28:55 You know, and if you happen to choose a different path,
28:58 everybody, grown men, grown women,
28:59 they can do what they wanna do.
29:01 But I think the human thing is like,
29:06 for me, it's always do right by the artists I work with.
29:12 And the other part is, the turbulence on me
29:15 being shod with the business ain't happening
29:21 'cause I'm already on that.
29:23 I'm already on the ideal of like, you know,
29:26 'cause when I say the two different things,
29:29 I look at that of me and the business that I do
29:31 with the partnership, with the labels,
29:33 or whoever that I'm doing business with.
29:36 You know what I'm saying?
29:37 Because I feel like the people who,
29:41 I don't wanna say fail,
29:43 but the people who didn't have the right information
29:46 at that point was 'cause they didn't have
29:48 the right information.
29:49 You know what I'm saying?
29:52 So I'm gonna like, I look at like,
29:53 if you look at our parents, right,
29:54 and you say, "They gave us the best information they had."
29:58 You know what I'm saying?
30:00 So it may not be as much information as we know today,
30:04 but it was the much information that they had
30:06 and they gave to us.
30:07 So I think some of these other labels
30:09 and from the stories that I watch,
30:12 I think they was playing with the best information
30:15 that they had and nobody had gave them better information
30:20 to help them exit in a different manner.
30:22 They may not had a Roc Nation and a Jay-Z
30:26 to talk to like I did.
30:28 They might not have a 50 Cent to tell them
30:30 to change the name to this.
30:32 They may not had, you know,
30:34 the experience to run with Cash Money and Birdman
30:37 for years and years to see for yourself
30:39 what they was doing, you know,
30:41 and decide for yourself what was, you know what I'm saying?
30:43 So I don't know what everybody was playing with,
30:47 but I know the information that I was able to see
30:50 and the relationships that I was able to build
30:53 and the information I was able to get,
30:55 that I'm gonna make sure that at the end of the day,
30:58 we come out on top.
31:00 - Jay-Z, again, you mentioned him.
31:01 He's a mentor for you, a guy who you rely on.
31:04 What's the biggest piece of advice he's told you
31:06 about the business side?
31:09 - Man, it's too many.
31:10 (laughing)
31:12 - What's your favorite one
31:13 or one maybe you still, you know, think about today?
31:16 - It's too many, man.
31:17 And I think, but I honestly feel like the biggest thing,
31:22 information is what he showed me.
31:25 You know what I'm saying?
31:26 He showed me that somebody from Marcy
31:29 that come from a lifestyle like I came from,
31:31 you know, could build a Roc Nation
31:33 and could buy a hundred million dollar houses on the ocean
31:37 and could, you know, can be a company
31:42 that put together the Super Bowl halftime.
31:45 And you know what I'm saying?
31:46 Like all these things accomplished,
31:48 these things he showed me because I'm watching
31:51 and you know what I'm saying?
31:53 Like whether I'm in the room or out the room,
31:57 the things that he showed me is possible to do,
32:00 you know what I'm saying?
32:01 Start from where he started from,
32:02 which is likewise from where I started from.
32:04 That's probably the biggest thing that he,
32:09 you know, that I got from him.
32:11 And I got there from him, like I said,
32:12 not even just him physically telling me that,
32:16 him just showing me that it is possible,
32:19 that anything is possible.
32:21 - He became a sports owner, you are too, right?
32:23 You got the MLS field.
32:24 - You know what I'm saying?
32:25 So like, he just showed me a lot through his actions.
32:27 Of course he had told me a lot of great things too,
32:30 a lot of powerful things, a lot of valuable things,
32:32 but you know, another thing I picked up from Jay
32:36 is focusing on your impact, not just the money.
32:40 You know, what your impact is,
32:43 how many people you can help.
32:45 You know, how many people you can help along the way,
32:47 how much change you can help change,
32:51 how many people you can pull up,
32:52 how many people you can, voiceless people you can speak for.
32:56 You know what I'm saying?
32:57 That's a whole nother rich in itself.
32:59 - And you guys adapt with the Mississippi State Prison.
33:01 - Yeah, you know, so you know,
33:04 I mean, that's why I called Jay to go,
33:05 because it ain't just about
33:06 what he accomplished financially,
33:09 it's about the whole impact.
33:10 You know what I mean?
33:11 I think that's where I'm at now.
33:13 I think I'm at a point where when I wake up in the morning,
33:16 I don't think about how many more meetings can I make.
33:20 I think about how much more impact can I cause,
33:24 you know what I'm saying?
33:25 How many more people could I help?
33:27 How much more things I can learn to pass down?
33:30 You know, that's the reason why I go back to school
33:32 and do stuff like that.
33:34 - Jim Collins, man, wrote a great book,
33:37 Good to Great, I don't know if you ever read it.
33:38 Being a businessman, I hope you do,
33:40 is one of the best business books ever, right?
33:43 Teaching people how to go from good to great,
33:45 businesses to go from good to great.
33:47 How, what is the difference between a,
33:50 the difference between good information
33:54 and great information?
33:57 - The difference between good information
33:59 and great information?
34:01 Man, that's a good one.
34:04 Good information and great information, right?
34:06 Good information to me will be
34:11 leading somebody to how to make the money.
34:15 Great information will be financial literacy,
34:18 teaching them how to keep the money,
34:21 or letting the money grow itself.
34:23 Because again, that's some of the things
34:25 that nobody teaches us.
34:28 You know what I'm saying?
34:29 I consider myself a smart, pretty smart person.
34:32 Even in high school, I made straight As.
34:34 I mean, I could have not went just 'cause of the activities
34:36 and the environment I was in,
34:38 but doing the work was actually never an issue.
34:41 I made straight As, you know what I'm saying?
34:44 But still, I was a multimillionaire,
34:47 and nobody had taught me about financial literacy.
34:50 I just had the money, you know what I'm saying?
34:53 So, and that's things I tell my artists now,
34:58 you know what I'm saying?
34:59 I'm trying to, what we investing in,
35:00 not what new chain you got, a new car you got,
35:04 like what we putting the money in.
35:06 When endorsement deals come into us,
35:08 forget what they trying to pay us,
35:13 how can we get equity in the company?
35:15 There was a deal I just did with Glow,
35:18 where they came on to do some promo stuff,
35:20 and I was telling Glow,
35:21 "Yo, let's take the money and put it back in the company,
35:23 "'cause the company's growing."
35:25 I did the due diligence on the company,
35:27 you know what I'm saying?
35:28 This company is a cosmetic company,
35:29 but the company's growing, it's growing at a good rate.
35:34 How do we get into the company?
35:37 And I was able to go and broker that deal,
35:41 where she was able to get into the company,
35:43 and I bought into the company on top of that,
35:45 'cause we believed in it.
35:46 You know how we, to me, that's great information.
35:50 Good information is me helping her on a music level
35:53 to become Glorilla and be successful.
35:55 But great information is for me to help Gloria,
35:59 you know what I'm saying?
36:02 With financial literacy and making the right investments,
36:06 so beyond Glorilla career,
36:09 that she's financially successful as a person, as Gloria.
36:14 So I think things like that,
36:16 and passing along those things again,
36:20 'cause the Desirees and the Jay-Zs
36:24 put me in rooms to talk to me like that.
36:26 You know what I'm saying?
36:28 So that's another example of taking information
36:31 and passing it along to your people.
36:33 - Yo Gotti, Mario Mims, thank you so much for your time,
36:36 my brother, happy holidays again, right?
36:38 And I hope that I get some of this good information,
36:40 'cause I want a lime green Rolls Royce too, man.
36:43 You know, it wouldn't be nice to have that.
36:44 The upkeep is probably bad,
36:46 but you know, I would like that too, man.
36:48 So much success for you 2024 and the next 20 years, man.
36:52 Hopefully CMG can be around the same way Motown's around
36:55 and Def Jam's around.
36:56 Hopefully CMG can be around for the next 20 years.
36:58 - Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll be here.
37:00 - I know, appreciate it, man.
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