Jermaine Dupri Reveals His Most Vital Business Advice | ForbesBLK Summit 2024
Songwriter, Producer, and Entrepreneur Jermaine Dupri closes the 2024 summit with an in-depth look at how he built a music empire, working with icons Jay-Z, Usher, Maria Carey; building generational wealth, and reveals his most vital business advice.
Jermaine Dupri, Songwriter, Producer, and Entrepreneur
Interviewer: Jabari Young, Senior Writer, Forbes and Editorial Lead, ForbesBLK
Jermaine Dupri, Songwriter, Producer, and Entrepreneur
Interviewer: Jabari Young, Senior Writer, Forbes and Editorial Lead, ForbesBLK
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Now for our closing conversation, please welcome back interviewer Jabari Young
00:05and songwriter, producer, and entrepreneur Jermaine Dupri.
00:11I thought Jermaine was behind me. Did he want to leave? There you go.
00:23What's up, y'all?
00:28Jermaine, man, thanks a lot for coming in, man. This is your city, so thank you for having us in Atlanta.
00:33Welcome to Atlanta.
00:34Yeah, man. Why you didn't bring Ludacris with you?
00:38I don't know.
00:39Yeah, man. I mean, listen, your career, man, as we sit here and closing this thing out, y'all have a good time?
00:47Yeah.
00:48Good. Your career, man, is star-studded, and to prepare for you, I went back and started looking at all your classics.
00:55I'm looking and looking at the credits and all that, and you always start at Crisscross when you talk about your career, right?
01:02Because that's what helps you at age 19, was it? Sell 8 million records with Crisscross, right?
01:07Talk about that phase, man, when you were starting off in the business, just learning it, right?
01:12What were you looking for, and then what did you eventually learn that allowed you to turn into this pioneer today?
01:17Yeah, I mean, I always talk about Crisscross being the first, because that's the actual success story.
01:23But I actually started before that. I had a group, a female group by the name of Silk Times Leather.
01:29That was actually my first group that I produced when I was 16.
01:34And they was like the first, it actually was the first rap group in Atlanta to get signed to a major record label.
01:42So that was my first project of me just getting a taste of being in the music business and getting money for the first time
01:53and being able to just finally breathe and be able to just work on the records that I wanted to work on,
01:58and work on the music the way I wanted to work on it.
02:01And then that kind of carved me into wanting to understand more, right?
02:10And then that's when I found Crisscross when I, you know, so I was 17 when I found Crisscross.
02:17And listen, the journey is crazy because you were the first Crisscross.
02:21You wanted to do Chad, you had to live in Brooklyn and all that to kind of, for final, listen to the Combat Jack interview, man.
02:27That's a classic, right?
02:29But, you know, you're going through this journey, man, Crisscross, the brat, all of this talent that you're getting.
02:34But I noticed one thing throughout your career, man, you seem to kind of just live in the moment, right?
02:39And I flashback to the story, but when you made Money Ain't A Thing, you're driving to the airport, right?
02:44When you get the concept of this song to pick up Jay-Z, talk about living in the moment, man,
02:49and just kind of looking around you so that way your creativeness can kind of be enhanced.
02:53I mean, I feel like those are the best records for me just because when I'm writing songs,
02:59you know, I need a therapeutic way to, you know, get this out as opposed to just sitting in the studio.
03:07And, you know, you need a space where you can talk to yourself, you know, crazy people.
03:11I do it in the car. I talk to myself in the car.
03:13You need a space where you can talk to yourself. Now that I'm older, I take these walks every day.
03:17So I walk for like five miles every day and it's time for you to have a conversation with yourself.
03:22And if you want to write songs in that period, then that's usually what helps me at least get the thought across.
03:30And the pressure, the pressure of like, so here's this plane, Jay-Z's flying to Atlanta.
03:37I don't actually have an idea for what I want to do, but I've called him to come work.
03:42It's like, OK, I'm in the car. I got to figure this out before I get to this gate.
03:49I mean, to the concourse. And I just start listening to his record and I'm listening to his music
03:56and I'm trying to like, like bring this all to life in like, I mean, I live off Old National,
04:03so I'm trying to get to the airport so y'all know how quick this little trip is.
04:06This ain't really, you know, I ain't got that far to drive.
04:10And I'm just trying to put it together. And then I heard him say in the song,
04:15kicking up dirt deep in the south, kicking up top game, you know what I mean?
04:19Screaming through the sunroof, money and everything. And I'm just like,
04:21You talking about you?
04:23Oh, this sounds like he's talking about me.
04:26Because you kicked him up in a Bentley. Drop top.
04:30Yeah, but he don't live in the south, so I'm thinking he's talking about me.
04:34So, I mean, that's basically how I just, you know, I fell into that lyric.
04:39And as soon as he got a call, I was just like, I got this idea.
04:44And he's like, what? And I told him and then it was just like, oh, OK.
04:47Yeah. Game clicking.
04:49What's it like running a music empire today, man, running a label?
04:52Because, you know, you hear all the time people screaming independence,
04:56independence, independence. And there are artists who are like,
04:59no, I like the label check, right?
05:01Here you are in the middle of it, an icon in yourself, right?
05:04How are you navigating this changing business,
05:07especially with generative AI kind of impacting things?
05:11I navigate this business in a different way than anybody else.
05:15And I don't know if any of you have been following me recently,
05:18but I've been doing these things where I go on Twitter and I ask these questions
05:21and then I go live and I'm just starting to just try to see like
05:25where this younger generation is going.
05:29And what I've learned is that this younger generation in the music industry,
05:34they don't understand that you can't do any business
05:39without education of the business, right?
05:42And everybody just think they're going to get in the music business
05:45and just run this race with no education.
05:48These people have no education.
05:50And it's not school, I'm talking about education,
05:53educating yourself about the business that you want to be in, right?
05:57I did that my whole career where I just paid attention to people,
06:01whether their business was bad or whether their business was good, right?
06:06Just because I, you know, I don't know why I did that,
06:10but that's just where I gravitated to just like information
06:13and trying to listen and trying to learn from people.
06:17I had a kid just came up to me last week and this whole story went viral.
06:23I was in Lenox Square and I was shopping and he walked up to me
06:26and he said, what can I do to get next to you?
06:30And he was like, I'll pay you $10,000 to listen to my music.
06:35And I was like, what?
06:36Wow.
06:37Did you do it?
06:38And when he said that, I was like, you're not from Atlanta, huh?
06:42I knew he wasn't from Atlanta because that's just not,
06:45I don't, we don't do that.
06:47Like, that's just not the way.
06:49But then I also, immediately I'm like,
06:51I would never charge you $10,000 for me to listen to your music
06:54because me listening to your music is not going to do nothing for you.
06:59It might give you a sense to know that, oh, okay, Jermaine Dupri said I'm good,
07:04but you still got a battle to go.
07:07And I would be crazy to take your money knowing that you got that battle, right?
07:13So we had this conversation and he told me this whole story.
07:16And one of the things that he told me was about artists
07:19not making it from smaller towns.
07:21And he was from Alabama.
07:22And he was saying how hard it is for artists in these smaller cities to get on.
07:27And that's why he was here in Atlanta.
07:29And I started realizing, damn, that's why so much traffic in this city now
07:33is because everybody keeps moving here because they're tired of being in their city.
07:38Sidebar.
07:39Anyway.
07:41So he said this and it threw me off.
07:44It threw me off.
07:45So I went to the studio and I wrote this tweet about it.
07:48And I wrote a tweet about it and I asked people a question,
07:52is this actually accurate?
07:54And a lot of people basically were saying, yes,
07:56this is what happens in these smaller towns.
07:58This is what's happening in these smaller cities, I mean smaller towns.
08:03Fast forward, the next morning I woke up and this whole story had went viral.
08:08This whole story had gone viral.
08:10This kid told JD he'll pay him $1,000 to listen to his music.
08:14Everybody wanted to know, did I listen, blah, blah, blah.
08:17I posted his record on my Twitter page.
08:22I didn't take his money.
08:24I just posted his music.
08:25That's the least I could do.
08:26That's not even nothing as far as I'm concerned.
08:29I'm just posting his music.
08:30And he was actually much better than I thought he was going to be.
08:34And that's why I put it up there.
08:36Then did you take the $10,000?
08:37Huh?
08:38Then did you take the $10,000?
08:39I took the $10,000.
08:40So he just kept going.
08:44It went on Spiritual World.
08:46It went on Shade Room.
08:47It went on ATL Top 20.
08:49It just started a whole viral pickup by itself.
08:53And everybody, this kid got a million dollars worth of promotion.
08:58Because of you.
08:59For asking me to do it for $10,000.
09:02And I'm getting to this part as I'm trying to get to.
09:06I left and I went to L.A.
09:08And they started doing these polls on these sites saying,
09:13Should Jermaine Dupri sign this kid?
09:15His name is Heard.
09:17Be Heard.
09:18And it's like, should you sign him?
09:19I saw all these things that said 90% you should sign him.
09:2190% you should sign him.
09:22So then the businessman in me said, okay, let's figure this out.
09:26I called him and I said, yo, I'm trying to figure this out.
09:32Let's try to make a deal.
09:35And I said, who's your lawyer?
09:39You know what he said?
09:41I don't have one.
09:42I don't have a lawyer.
09:43And I'm like, damn.
09:45Like, this is, you know, this is your moment right now.
09:50This is your moment.
09:51And you out here moving around.
09:53You out here, you want to pay somebody $10,000.
09:56You want to do all this work.
09:58But you don't have no education about the business.
10:02You don't even have no lawyer to talk to that's going to tell you if I'm going to give you a shitty deal.
10:07Right?
10:08I'm not going to give you a shitty deal.
10:09But you don't have nobody that you can talk to that should tell you what to be looking for.
10:13Right?
10:14And that in itself was crazy to me.
10:17It's like that's the thing that I think that this younger generation,
10:21they got to focus more on educating themselves on the business of the business.
10:27Yeah.
10:28Or did you tell him?
10:29You know, did you hook him up with a lawyer?
10:30He's still ain't got no lawyer.
10:31He's still ain't got no lawyer.
10:32I'm not going to.
10:33I mean, because it's a conflict of interest for me to find him a lawyer.
10:35He has to find his lawyer.
10:37I mean, I've been doing this since I was, I'm saying, 16.
10:41I know the do's and the don'ts.
10:44And I'm just, you know, like I said, it ain't, it don't take, this is my life.
10:48I bleed this.
10:49Right?
10:50So it don't take me nothing for me to tell somebody what they need to do.
10:53And if they don't do it, that's their problem.
10:55I heard if you listen, I'll listen to your music for $10,000.
10:58Just call me up, and I'll, and I'm sure everybody in this crowd will listen to your music.
11:02We're not Jermaine Dupri, but we can tell you if it's good or bad.
11:05I mean, and you, that's what you're looking for, right?
11:07That's what you're looking for.
11:08That's what you're looking for.
11:09Social death, man.
11:10Where is it at today?
11:11I mean, listen, you've had such, so much talent come through.
11:14So much talent you may have missed out on.
11:16I mean, I love the left eye story, how you, you know, lost everyone to deal with TLC,
11:20and then they bounced.
11:21But how are you dealing with that today?
11:23Like, where is social death at today?
11:25I mean, I think that we're in a time where brands are the thing.
11:33If you're a brand, that's the thing.
11:35It's the brand.
11:36People pay more attention to the brand, right?
11:39I was just having an argument on my way over here about bad boys,
11:43and I was trying to ask people.
11:45But let me try to do this in here because I see y'all.
11:50By raising hands, did y'all go see Bad Boys just because you know that it's a franchise
11:54or you saw promotion?
11:56And if you saw promotion, raise your hand.
12:00Did you just go see it just because you know it's a franchise?
12:03Raise your hand.
12:06Okay.
12:07Well, see, this is what I'm saying.
12:08I believe in promotion, and it seemed like it was more people that went because they
12:11saw it promoted than being a franchise.
12:14And we was arguing about this, and somebody was just telling me that that's
12:19people are more keen to do things that's something that's a brand that people
12:25already know about.
12:27And for SoSoDeaf, that's what I've been really just focusing on.
12:30I am SoSoDeaf.
12:31I'm the brand.
12:33And wherever I move is what SoSoDeaf is doing.
12:37So this is my, what, 30-year run in music, and I just had number one record
12:43with Money Long.
12:44So, I mean, that's what SoSoDeaf is doing.
12:47Nice.
12:48Give him a round of applause for that.
12:50I know Teddy Riley, man, is one of your biggest mentors, inspirators.
12:54You know, he inspires you a lot, and you've, you know, really kind of followed
12:58him over your career.
12:59And I remember listening to Teddy on a podcast, and he was saying how his moment
13:02was when he had to go out to California to work with Michael Jackson.
13:06And Michael was really getting on Teddy for not telling him if he was bad or not.
13:11Like, Michael wanted to be great, and if he was bad, he wanted you to tell him.
13:15But Teddy picked up so much in that session with Michael Jackson.
13:18He made that album with him.
13:19What was your Michael Jackson moment?
13:20Was it Mariah Carey?
13:22What was your Michael Jackson moment where you're in a session, and you're
13:24picking up so much, and it's able to make you into a better producer?
13:29Aretha Franklin.
13:30I was in the studio with Aretha Franklin.
13:31I flew to Detroit.
13:33And Aretha Franklin, she came to the studio, and she was like, listen.
13:40Was it a pause after that?
13:41Listen.
13:42She said, listen.
13:44I left some food on the stove cooking.
13:47I'm going to give you about five tracks, and I'm going to go home.
13:51And I was just like, wow.
13:52OK.
13:54And then she got in the booth, and it was Aretha Franklin.
13:56And I'm just like, I'm not about to tell Aretha Franklin nothing.
14:00What do you tell Aretha Franklin?
14:02And this was the first time.
14:04My studio was in my house.
14:07My mother lived with me.
14:08My mother seen everybody come to the studio.
14:10Biggie, Snoop, Mariah, everybody.
14:13She never said anything about them.
14:17I went to Detroit and was with Aretha Franklin.
14:19My mom was calling my phone like my girlfriend.
14:22What's going on?
14:23What's happening up there?
14:24What's going on?
14:25What y'all doing?
14:26And I'm like, oh, OK.
14:27I guess I've made it now.
14:29But no.
14:30But Aretha, she did the same thing to me.
14:32She said, it was one point where she just kept singing this part.
14:37And I was like, well, you just do it again.
14:40I was actually just saying, let's do it again,
14:42just so she'd feel like she was working.
14:44Because she was.
14:45She's Aretha Franklin.
14:48And she hit the glass.
14:49And she was like, listen, boy.
14:53And she said, I didn't fly you out here to Detroit for you
14:56to watch me sing.
14:58Watch me sing.
14:59If you ain't going to tell me what to do,
15:01I'm going to go home and fix my food.
15:03And I was just like, oh.
15:05At that moment, that's when I realized what my job was.
15:10Really, it don't matter who the artist is.
15:16You claim to be a producer.
15:17Produce the artist no matter what the name is.
15:20And that was that moment.
15:21And I left there with that attitude.
15:25If I'm telling Aretha Franklin what to do,
15:27it ain't nobody 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 years old
15:30that could ever say anything to me when I'm in the studio.
15:35We're ready to wrap up, man.
15:36And thank you so much for the time.
15:38But I mentioned Mariah Carey because I
15:41felt like you learned so much in that session.
15:43And you're tired in the studio when you made, I believe,
15:46was it Shake It Off or We Belong Together
15:48when you came up with the rap.
15:50And it's the only rap.
15:51And I think it's We Belong Together.
15:52Yeah, We Belong Together.
15:53We Belong Together.
15:54What's it like to work?
15:55And how do you produce superstars of today?
15:58I mean, Aretha's a legend.
15:59But how do you produce superstars, the Mariah,
16:01the Jays?
16:02How do you produce them?
16:03You just got to be real with them.
16:04You can't lie to them.
16:07You got to tell them exactly what's going on.
16:09And We Belong Together was a period of time
16:11when Mariah was singing where she was singing more breathy
16:16than actually belting the way people wanted her to sing.
16:20And it was that moment where I had to like,
16:24am I going to say this?
16:25Or I'm going to let this just be whatever, right?
16:28And as a producer, your job is you're
16:32the person that makes sure that the people hear it
16:35the way they feel they hear it, right?
16:37And if you don't make that decision,
16:40the final product is on you, right?
16:43So I had to have that conversation with Mariah
16:45and be like, listen, if you don't hit the high note
16:48at the end of this record, it's not even going to matter.
16:51Like, this is what the people want.
16:53They want to hear this.
16:54And I know how you want to do it.
16:58But I know how they want to hear it, right?
17:02You know, it's tough.
17:03It's easy for me to say it right now, but it's tough.
17:05Telling her at the moment, right?
17:07Did she cuss you out?
17:08Oh my God, let me figure this out.
17:10And no, no, because I'm very much like, this is my job.
17:15You know, if you want to get mad at me, that's cool.
17:18But at least I'm going to go down in the fire
17:21doing the right thing as opposed to just sitting there
17:24watching it burn down.
17:26Best advice that you can give CEOs in the crowd
17:29running their own company about what trait you need
17:32to make it a good or great company?
17:35What would you give them?
17:37Find your own teaching about what it is that you're doing.
17:43Because I have a way of how I got into the music business
17:48that people always think that, you know,
17:50my dad was in the business and he did this for me
17:53and he did this for me.
17:54And none of that actually is actually the truth.
17:57I actually started like writing raps for a radio station
18:01and I just paid attention to the fact that
18:05if I write a jingle for the radio station,
18:08they might play my jingle.
18:09And it's nothing for them to play a jingle
18:12because it doesn't look like an artist is trying to be a rapper.
18:16Right?
18:17So it's a sneak way for you to get into the music business
18:21or a sneak way for people in your city to hear you.
18:24And people don't even realize that I did that
18:26and I was like, and these are things that I just started
18:31finding more and more little ways to break our artists,
18:35to find ways to bring artists to different things.
18:38Look at the entire spectrum that's happening.
18:42Don't just pay attention to like V103.
18:44I was going to Georgia Tech radio stations.
18:47I was doing everything that I thought
18:51if I couldn't go through the front door,
18:53I'm going to go through the side
18:54or I'm going to go through the window.
18:55Right?
18:56Because somebody's window is always open.
18:58You just got to find which window in the house to slide through.
19:01Right?
19:02And that's just my mentality.
19:04And I kept that same mentality all the way.
19:07And I feel like anybody with a business,
19:09you have to find that for yourself
19:11because majority of people today, I find,
19:13they just following what somebody else did.
19:15You can't follow what the next person did.
19:17Because they don't know where the hell they're going.
19:19Well, they just don't.
19:20They not you.
19:21You not them.
19:22You got to do what you do.
19:23Yeah.
19:24Get you out of here, man, on this.
19:25Good to Great.
19:26You know, Jim Collins wrote the best business book for me,
19:29Good to Great.
19:30If you haven't read the book,
19:31I tell you all in the crowd, read that book.
19:33Good to Great.
19:34Phenomenal business book.
19:35Good to Great.
19:36Jim Collins.
19:37Phenomenal business book.
19:38What's the difference between a good artist and a great one?
19:43Oh, man.
19:44Good artist and a great artist.
19:48Great artists don't stop trying to be great.
19:51A good artist is good with.
19:53It's just really that simple.
19:54They're good with what they hear,
19:56and they're good with just that.
19:59A great artist will, like,
20:01listen to something that's good already and make it better.
20:06Like, might take it home and be like, you know what?
20:08I could do this better.
20:10Right.
20:11And that's sometimes when you're sitting there,
20:14you're watching that artist, and you're like, it sound good.
20:18But then they'll say, I want it to be great.
20:20You know what I mean?
20:21And great artists do, they just do a little bit more.
20:24They work a little bit harder.
20:26They stay at the studio longer.
20:28They get up and work out.
20:29They got a regiment that other people don't have,
20:31and you can automatically see that when you speak to that person.
20:34They tell you what they about to do in their day-to-day operations.
20:37Absolutely.
20:38Jermaine Dupri, a great producer, super producer.
20:40Give it up for Jermaine Dupri.
20:42Thank you.