← Earn Your Leisure
Earn Your Leisure
EYL #348: How Dre London Discovered Post Malone & Built a Multi-Million Dollar Tequila Empire
01:19:19
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- [00:00]
A
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B
Special episode of Earn your leisure.
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C
Yeah, we got the good brother. Trey.
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A
Trey.
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C
London.
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B
Building something, my brother.
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A
What's up, my brother? How are you?
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B
I'm good. How you doing?
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C
Shout out to Brixton, yo.
- [03:02]
A
You already know you did in the building. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
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B
So, yeah, long time coming, man.
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A
Very long time coming. First of all, thank you for having me, guys. This one of my favorite podcasts, one of my favorite systems business projects. Just everything you guys have been doing for years has been a monumental thing for myself. Watching it, and I just want to say, forget talking to me and interviewing me. I just want to say thank you, and I'm proud of what you guys are doing, because what you guys are doing for us, I don't know, like, when you guys only had a couple hundred thousand followers, I picked up on it, and I was like, who? And what the f is this? I was like, yo, this is monumental for us. This is monumental. What you guys are doing did not exist. You found a piece that we need, that we needed. And the way you guys break down financial, the way you guys break down business, the way you guys break down every single thing. I just want to say before we even get going, thank you. Give yourselves a round of applause.
- [04:14]
C
Love, love, love. Appreciate it.
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A
You guys have done is monumental, and I love it.
- [04:19]
B
Appreciate that, my brother.
- [04:21]
A
Anyone I could tell I tell about this? Any? You'll earn your leisure. Go follow them. You'll earn your leisure. Watch the movement. Earn your leisure. Because no one today is doing anything. What you guys are doing for us, and you're breaking it down in layman's terms, if that makes sense. You're breaking it down in such a way that it's like one on one for dummies if you have color, if that makes sense. So I want to start right there, man. Thank you for having me, and thank you for doing what you guys do, man. I appreciate it a lot.
- [04:51]
C
Likewise, man. I feel like every time we run into each other, it's been the same energy exchange. It's always been that praise of it. So we appreciate you. And I always say, when Dre's in the room, we in the right room. We in the right room.
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A
Many times, man. Many times.
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B
100%. So you've been somebody that's been behind the scenes. If people don't know who you are, you've been a music mogul for a While. Did you find Post Malone?
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A
Yes, I discovered him.
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B
You discovered Post Malone?
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A
Yes.
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B
That's one of the biggest artists in the world. Management. You were management as well, right?
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A
Discovered and managed for 11 years, I think, like 2014. I discovered him when he was rapping and wasn't even thinking about singing. And we didn't even call the word melodic. Then, like, I literally was telling him after watching him play guitar at night. He used to play guitar at night but wanting to rap in the studio all day. And I was like, hold on a second. You have all these people looking at you while you're singing in the kitchen on the island counter. This, this, that. How on God's green earth would you just rap? I don't care. Mix it. Sing rap if you have to. Back then we call it sing rap. It wasn't even called melodic, like. And he went away for one weekend. I didn't think he was even listening to me. He went away for the weekend and after he came back from Texas, he made a song doing exactly what I asked him to do. And it was kind of crazy because it was like, you know when you're trying and trying something in the studio, you're doing and you're doing something. That was the moment for me, like, where I was just like, wow, that's it. He hit it. He hit it right there. And from there we made another two songs or three songs. And then right after that it was White Iverson, Late White Iverson. November 2014. November, December. I can't even say December. It was like November, December. We put it out February. Not saying that's how just went like that. But that started the snowball.
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B
So we got a lot to talk about. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about your spirits brand. We're going to talk about. You have a extensive real estate portfolio.
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A
Yes.
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B
And just all around entrepreneur. So first and foremost, thanks for coming. Appreciate it.
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A
Thank you for having me. Absolutely.
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B
All right, so let's start at the beginning. So you from London?
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A
Yeah, Bricks.
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B
Brixton.
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A
Yeah, Brixton, South London.
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B
Okay. Shout out.
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A
Come on.
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C
Come on, man.
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A
Come on. Shout out to the man.
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C
The man, them. Shout out to. Shout out to the Jamaican.
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B
We got legendary run in London.
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A
Yo.
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B
Royal Albert Hall. We did Royal Albert Hall. Sold out. Did you know that?
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A
Yes, I did.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I was shocked. It's the Internet. You don't know how far the Internet goes. Same thing like we was just saying with post. I didn't know how far the Internet goes until you Go out there. Like, I remember one time we had a show, our first show in Toronto. Shout out to the man, them in Toronto. Shout out to the six. Shout out to Drake and my guys. Like, I went to Toronto and I looked at a room full and I was like. Like, the Internet's real. You understand what I'm saying? Like, don't know how far and wide that it goes. Like, the Internet is something that's very, very real.
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B
100%. 100%. But you know, London's always been a good town. Shout out to Hackney.
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A
Shout out to yes.
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B
All the mandam out there.
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C
That's a fact, man.
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B
So, so how did. All right, so what's the journey? You start in London. You start and it ends. How do you make it to America? How do you start music? How does this whole thing start?
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A
It's kind of crazy because people tell me that I tell pieces of the story and I leave out very important parts of the story. But I'm gonna just. There's no better place to put it like this and no better place to tell it, like, raw. And I started in Brixton, South London, and everything started with the Hustle. You name it, you think it, I did it. I'm not gonna say anything more.
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C
Statute of limitations, that's your limitation.
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A
Because in that place, yeah, it lasts forever here, I think, yeah, there's. There's none.
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C
Okay.
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A
And in the UK, it doesn't move 100 years from now, then we're gonna.
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C
Leave it right there.
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A
Yeah, so that's why I describe it the way I describe it. But man was a road man. Came up off the streets, you name it. From a young guy, I would buy a. A car with a knock door. I remember my first car when I was 16. 17 years old was a 1996. Giving away my age was 1996 BMW. I remember, man them on the end telling my uncle to tell me to slow down.
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C
You got Jamaican in your blood.
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A
Yeah, slow down. You tell your nephew to slow down.
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B
Doing too much.
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A
Yeah, he's doing too much. But at the time, I wasn't doing too much. I was doing the right thing. No one knew that I bought the car with a crashed door. The door is fixed. They just saw me driving down the block, you know, like, paid in full. No, no one really looked at it like, oh, they just looked at like, this guy is doing too much too early and telling him to slow down, which makes you want to talk about something like, a little later. That just gave me a thing in my mind with, like, how do you guys deal with the family situation? Like, I know you guys now, where you're coming from. I don't know enough of the story. But how do you deal with that situation when you start getting really big?
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B
Your family, like your kids or your extended family?
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A
Extended family, Cousins and stuff like that? Yeah, like your cousins, your uncles, your this, your that. Like, the kids is cool. My kids, they don't want for anything. And, you know, they don't really know what's going. They're still young. They don't really know what's going on in this world apart from they living a life that I wish I was living at their age. But how do you guys with success deal with the family situation? How do you deal people wanting things from you, you giving and giving, and them still walking around like you didn't give a thing. Like, it's a. It's. I don't know. Only because we just mentioned that subject. Hit me immediately. Like, how do you guys deal with that?
- [10:57]
B
I mean, for me, I think it's. It's important to set boundaries. So I always kind of have boundaries. And luckily for me, I don't. I don't really have people that's asking for a variety of different things. Like, I mean, somebody asked for something that they really mean it, need it, but other than that, I'm not really in communication with a lot of people on a daily basis. So I haven't put myself in a situation where I'm taking care of people. Right. Like, I said that early on, like, so for me, I've been fortunate. I don't have a lot of people that's around me that's trying to take advantage or trying to be greedy. And if I do see somebody has that level of characteristics, then we gotta separate early because that's not.
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C
That's not sustainable long term, I think it's very similar. We've been blessed in that nature where it hasn't been too many people that's been around us that are trying to take. I didn't grow up with a large family, so, like my friends, all the people I speak to on a daily basis, and my friends are who we created the business with. So we talking about that regardless. And so I think the most, the biggest ask that I tend to get is information, which I think is more important because information can lead to opportunities, it could lead to networking. And that doesn't take much from me because we give information every day. Like, we give it out on our show, we give it out on. On Mondays when people See us, we do speaking events. We giving out information all the time. And so that seems to be the most important currency that people will ask for.
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A
Yeah, it became an issue, like, because obviously I like what you guys said, and I had to start doing what you guys do. And, like, just cut, cut, cut. Use the scissors. Stop looking back. As one of my guys say, keep looking forward. Because every time you look back, all you're doing is holding yourself back. And, like, it's just a serious situation. It's only because of what I just thought of. And I remember a situation where someone came and told me, oh, like, your uncle said this or this one said this. Your cousin said. And I'm like, hold on a second. Does these people not know what I've done for everybody in my career? Does people not know, like, how far I've stretched my hand? And then they come back for me to stretch my hand again, and that's when I cut the scissors. And it's like, there has to be a moment when you say no. And, like, you said, you didn't even enter it. So I'm in that not entering stage where it's like, yo, just.
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C
It's always been a monetary ask.
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A
Yeah. In some way, you come from Brixton, South London. People see you move to America. They see the stars, they see this, they see that. They see you on private jets. They see you own a private jet. They've seen this, they seen that. They're like, what? Like, so then they start reaching the hand, and it's like the Jamaican mentality sometimes, like, oh, my man thinks he's too big, or my man's this or he's this or he's that, but it's not even that. Like, when do you stop? Like, that's why I wish I started and did it how you guys did it. Just kept it where there ain't even an entrance for that. If that makes sense. Yeah, like, not even. Like, when is the time when you say when no is not good enough or when no is just no, if that makes sense. I'm only saying that because of the conversation we just had. I'm like, wow, he just bought me a flashback.
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C
Yeah. They tell us that no is a complete sentence.
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A
Yeah. I learned that no is the most powerful word in the dictionary. And, oh, the shortest word, the most powerful word is just no. The more you could say no, the more powerful you get. Also, the more you hear no is the more powerful you get. It works two ways. You say no. It's harsh, but even the person you're saying no to it. Should make them stronger. Every time I heard Noah made me stronger in life, more creative. Yes. Yes.
- [14:42]
B
Yeah. Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Don't act straight for none.
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C
The man said no unless it's about these spirits.
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A
We got that this is about Don Laundres or growing the brand or growing the business even stronger. Like, no means no. Like the ODs you could have is you can find Don Laundry's in a store near you. Like, yo, total white and more gentle. You name it, you could. That's the only yes for me because everything else is no, man.
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B
So, all right, so back to the. To the South London story. So you start in South London and you hustling. You know, you.
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C
You.
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B
You're doing whatever you gotta do to survive. But how do you make it? Like, how do you make it to America? How do you make it in the music industry? Like, what's. What's the. The key from the streets to being, you know, in the music business?
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A
Perseverance, man. Perseverance. You got to visualize it. You got to really believe it. Like, I remember how much people fought from. From England to America. This guy's a dreamer. Do you know how much people looked at me and was thinking, all right.
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B
What year did you move to America?
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A
2008.
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B
You just said, I'm just come to America.
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A
Yeah. It got to a stage where I was watching and seeing a ceiling shout out to the artists in the uk that's killing it right now. From your skeptors, my brother Central Cee, to that. Back then, we didn't really had that. You had grime. You had garage. You had like a more. There wasn't a hip hop scene in there.
- [16:19]
B
Detour. Explain to the audience that doesn't know. Cause I recently got educated. I saw Giggs had posted it, and I didn't know the difference between grime and. So there's drill, there's grime, and then there's rap. Yes, grime and rap are similar, but they're not the same.
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A
Yeah, so grime is like real gritty London streets music that, like, has variations of. I can't say dance music, but it has a variation which mixes some form of like, hip hop. Y Drill.
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B
So that's skept.
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A
Skepta, yeah. So Skepta is like anomaly. Skepta is like, here he can rap and do. Yeah, he could rap. He could do grime. Give Skepta any beat, and he's eating it for breakfast. So, like, what grime does is, like, it's a fast, more up tempo beat. They have a different bounce to it, but they're spitting. They might spit faster, they might spit harder. But it's not hip hop, if that makes sense. But it derives from hip hop. It's really hard to explain, but like.
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B
It'S his own genre.
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A
Yes, it's his own genre in itself. And like grime just has. Like even just now, while we're talking about it, I can hear a grime beat, a particular grime beat in my. In my head. And it's like grime is in its own lane, its own thing. Like back in the day, before grime, it started off with a. I haven't say before because it was around the same time, but there was a music called garage and like house music over here is nice, it's soulful, it's this, it's that, it's like that globally. But we used to have house music and guys used to spit on top of the house beats and people would have their own. People would go and get crazy to the lyrics, bouncing in the clubs and like that grime, garage, house music, it has its own similarity, if that makes sense. But grime veered off and was like a product of the streets. Definitely straight from the UK Drill. I know they say like drill comes from Chicago drill in New York. But like the drill in the UK was similar to the drill in New York.
- [18:39]
B
It was the same producers.
- [18:40]
A
Yes.
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B
Like pop smoke.
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A
Wow. You know, I didn't know, you know, shout out to em on the beat, like pop smoke, Rest in peace. Heard what was going on in the uk, reached out to the UK producers and done something that no new New York rapper ever did. And it made the New York drill, if that makes sense. But it was from the sound in the uk, so you guys definitely know the difference.
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C
Yeah.
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A
So that was more the UK thing and hip hop wasn't such a thing. I met this.
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B
But like Giggs, he's hip hop.
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A
Yes.
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B
He's like old boom bat rap. Like he's a rapper.
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A
Yes. Giggs is a straight rapper and so many others. But like I said, even Central Cee, He's a rapper, but Central Cee veers from crime. Crime.
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C
He's under that skeptic.
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A
He's not under him, but he's like. He veers across it.
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C
I'm saying in a sense of like his crew. Like the first time I ever saw him, he was in a video with Skeptic asap.
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A
Yes.
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C
I'm like, who's that kid? Yes, he's from that. That crew.
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A
Yes. Okay, so there's a difference. But it was me. I wanted to be the. It's like. I can't even say, like, I wanted to be a manager, an agent, a this or that. It just got to a part. I was in the uk, I was on the roads, and there was this artist that. From my hood that went to jail. And just before he went to jail, he was going crazy. And he was just. Today, we could call it content, but it wasn't content. It was just. He was doing a lot of things knowing that he was going to jail. And he was on every dvd. Shout out to streets, incarcerated. That was like the UK Smack or the UK in Cocaine city. Cocaine city. Shout out to my brother, French Montana. Like, that was what we had then. And he was going crazy on them. And when he came out of jail, he heard some people tell him, yo, Dre, Dre wants to see you. Dre wants to see you. And he was like, word, okay, let me go see Dre. But it was like, I always had a love for music, but I felt like that was a part of my path.
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C
So.
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A
Shout out to Saros. I have to like, because that was me. That was the bridging of the Gap. Whether he made it huge or he didn't make it huge, you managed to. That was. Yeah, that was the Gap. I moved to America because of him, and it's crazy. I moved, but he didn't. He kept wanting to go back and forth, back and forth. And I told him that to crack this cold in America, you gotta fully live the hustle. You gotta eat and sleep this hustle, this isn't something that you can go, come back. Go and come back, people. You can't just go to England and think you're gonna take a piece of what's going on in England and go back to your country. You can't come to America and think you're just gonna come and take a piece. People gotta see you eating and sleeping and going through the same daily hustles and struggle as them. And he kept going back and forth. And one day he went back and I told him, listen, this is not gonna work if you keep going back and forth. It's not just gonna happen. One day he came back, and I was just going mad, going crazy about this guy called Austin Post who turned into Post Malone. And I could see it in his eyes. And I just saw, like, he knew when he came back that my concentration was on something totally else. And I had found. I cracked the piece. Like, I Cracked a cold and I was still living in New York at the time. Loved New York. I was living here for six years. But then I went to LA in 2014 and after meeting him, seeing things I had never seen before. There was something called gamers. Like you guys might think that's normal now.
- [22:26]
B
Like Faze Clan.
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A
Yeah, like just in 2014 there was no gamers in New York. I'm not gonna say there wasn't cause I know someone somewhere there was a gamer. But it didn't really exist in New York. I was going over to the west coast and I found. Hold on a second, there's an 18 year old kid with an Aston Martin outside from wearing a headset with a microphone.
- [22:47]
C
Yeah.
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A
Commentating on Minecraft.
- [22:49]
C
Yeah, yeah. The monetization.
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A
And that happened to be what's today's known as streamer.
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B
They like the new stream. It was like the old streamers.
- [22:58]
A
Yes. He was streaming on YouTube and his name was Jason Style To Jason. He had moved from Texas, from Dallas to Los Angeles, got an agent which was managing him and that was how I met Post. When I was going back and forth from a house. Like someone brought me to a house in bronze. He brought me to a house in Encino and there was this house and like there was producers, there was gamers, there was this, there was that. No one really had a capture on what was going on or what was happening next. And I went into this house and I was just like, wow, there's something here. It's like you ever walk into somewhere and you feel you smell gold and you're like hold on, there's something here. And I'm capturing the gold. And that's where I met Post. He used to change his clothes two, three times a day. I used to think this guy was crazy. We're in the same house, we didn't go anywhere. We're in the house all day. But you're changing your clothes, all of a sudden you come out, you're changing your shoes, this, that. I was like, what the hell? Then shout out to fki. First he got bought over from Atlanta or he came, flew in from Atlanta and everyone used to talk about this guy. I was like, who the hell is this guy? Like I didn't know who he was at the time. Legendary producer that started a lot and was just key into knowing a lot of things early. And I watched these two form relationship. And the same time, while Post and Hit was forming a relationship, I was forming a relationship in my head of what to do next if that makes sense. The thing why I had it different is because I had already done it in New York, if that makes sense. Shout out to Jadakiss French Montana. Like, I already made or executive produced big hits in New York already.
- [24:44]
C
Which ones?
- [24:45]
A
So New York minute shot caller. Like, all these records wouldn't have existed if I hadn't introduced French Montana to this producer. So that's when I first knew, like, bro, you could do this. Shout out to my brother Emmanuel. Before all of that, I was running around doing the same hustle I bought truck routes. I did this. There's no hustle I haven't done. I bought a truck route, was delivering Starbucks coffee in the glass back in the day. Like, there's no hustle I haven't done. Whether it's buying it, whether it's selling it. Like, I said, some I can say, some I can't say. I've done it all. So by the time I had met French Montana, and that was, like, very crazy in New York, no one even knew who he was. No one. I remember in the barbershop. Cause I'd moved from New York to New Jersey to just Edgewater, up the hill from Edgewater, New Jersey. And people in the barbershop was kind of laughing at me, bro. Because it was like, this guy's taking advantage of Dre. Dre's letting this guy sleep in his couch. This is that. Blah, blah, blah. He used to talk a lot of shit.
- [25:51]
B
French Montana, Yeah.
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A
And it's crazy today.
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B
He lived with you.
- [25:54]
A
He had lived with me.
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B
He was staying. He was staying.
- [25:57]
A
But if you'd see in a few of his interviews, like, shout out to Nori, like he said in an interview, like, I used to sleep on Dre's couch. And people thought I was crazy at the time. But I knew he was gonna be big. I knew you have to be able to see things before you.
- [26:11]
C
You gotta have a vision.
- [26:11]
A
Yeah. And I had a vision for. And an earth that no one could take away from me. The billion dollars ears today is like, what everyone's now looking at me. He's like, yo, I go and see French. We're in the studio. He's like, yo, go in that book of Eli, man. Go in that book of Eli. Bring me something, bro. Take out something. Like, people in the barbershop would laugh because they're like, this guy. What's he doing? But now the people in the barbershop. Ha, ha, ha.
- [26:39]
C
Schedule my appointment, please.
- [26:40]
A
Yeah. And that was a part of the journey. Leaving from the uk, Moving To New York. I wouldn't say I discovered a French Montana. Cause Garby and these other big guys was around him before. But I had a lot to do with his career. And also he had a lot to do with my career. Because I was watching him and Max B. The first time I ever saw him making it clap was in my living room. I never seen nothing like that in my living room on River Road, Edgewater. Like, back in them days. Welcome to America. I was seeing things. That was my real welcome to America. Like, I was seeing things in the living room, but I was like, oh, shit.
- [27:18]
B
Private show.
- [27:19]
A
Yeah, I was seeing real stuff from then, but they didn't know. And I know Max V's coming out in a couple of months. Like, which. A couple weeks? Yeah. He comes out on French's birthday. How crazy is that?
- [27:32]
C
Oh, really?
- [27:33]
A
Yeah. His release date is on French Montana's birthday. But, like, I was learning and watching the game back then. And that's what I feel helped me. Schooled me into the game. Because it was DVDs then these guys was. I watched French going to distributors for DVDs. It wasn't even. He wasn't even having. There was no dsps. There was no. He was putting out spitting bars on his dvd in between the big people who was on the dvd. Like, I remember your Nicki Minaj spitting on the stairs. Like, smack him. Cocaine city. Like, I seen everything. I watched them recording behind the scenes. Like, I was in Max B Videos back in the day. Like, I just remember so much that then I was watching him go to distributors and picking up cash for moving DVDs across the country. And I was like, wow. I remember our first trip was like, Connecticut and Boston. And I was just like, wow, These guys was going from. This is before the Internet. I'm not saying the Internet wasn't there, but hip hop was not so much in the Internet era before Worldstar. And they was going up to Boston and these places and selling out these big clubs. And I was like, wow. So that's really, like, how I learned the game. The New York hustle mixed with the London hustle. And by the time I went to la, I was ready.
- [28:54]
C
Yeah. So this. This is the. So now you're in. You're in la, but you're in what is now known, like, as a content house, I'm assuming.
- [29:00]
A
Yes. You see posts.
- [29:02]
C
He's rapping.
- [29:03]
A
Yes.
- [29:04]
C
But at any point are you thinking, like, this is a risk, right? This is white rapper at the time, you don't have him doing melodic yet no, correct. When the world gets introduced to him is White Iverson. And then something smart happens when he connects with an Atlanta rapper like, what are you thinking? Risk at that point.
- [29:22]
A
It's so crazy because Shout out to a friend of mine, Rama, like, I remember her braiding this kid's hair that used to be a skateboarder in the house. And like I said, content house. One day she was braiding his hair and then Post wanted to get his hair braided. And I don't know if it was exhibit looking style or he wanted the Allen Iverson. I'm sure he asked for the. He wanted braids like Allen Iverson. He went from wanting brais like Allen Iverson to one day being in the studio making a song called why Iverson? And things just always have some form of a journey. And it went from someone I knew and known for years coming in the house and braiding his kids here, to braiding posters here, to him saying he's Dwight Iverson and then making that song. And in February, I was putting it out and shout out to Fat Man Key, Mac Miller, Rest in Peace, Wiz Khalifa. These people heard this song and just started tweeting it. It was like how great this song was. And radio was telling me that, like, not radio, but like the Internet started to pick up on the buzz and I remember starting to go and pump it towards radio and they're like, this will never be played on radio. It doesn't. It's not the style. It doesn't suit this. It doesn't suit that. Four to six months later, I remember ASAP Rocket asking me why I waited so long, why you made us wait four months for a video. Like, we wanted to see it, but it was actually a part of the routine back then. Like, why just put out a video for everybody now? Content is different. But I wanted people to gravitate to his Instagram because he only had 600 followers before White Iverson. And I want to build that, make people go to see his socials. And the more people that went to his socials was, the more people that was fascinated with this guy's look. Like, you have to think about it, you had a black guy with an English accent walking in rooms with a white guy with Allen Iverson braids and gold teeth. And I'm telling them he's gonna be the biggest thing in the world. People looked at me like I was fucking crazy. We're gonna listen to this British speaking, fucking black bloke and he's gonna tell Us. This guy is gonna be the biggest thing in hip hop and music, full stop. And I'm like, oh, and he knows how to play the guitar. They looked at me like I was crazy. So it went from that to, like, nonstop, just snowballing that one record, putting other records too young and some other records together, and just really going out on my backpack. I remember south by southwest, he had four shows booked. We did 14 shows in four days. Hustled. I took the same hustle. That's why I like that you asked that question earlier. I took that same hustle from the streets of never saying no to or never taking no. Sorry. Remember I told you no is a good thing. Everyone who told me no, thank you. Like, I really thank you today because that no was what got me stronger. And I took that hustle and nonstop, like a basketball player bouncing the ball. They're born with it. That was my hustle. I was born bouncing that ball. You couldn't tell me no. I was gonna kick off the door whether you liked it or not. And shit just kept going and kept going, and I took it to the next level.
- [32:48]
C
What was the bigger moment? Obviously, you have White Iverson, which introduces us to the sound. And at first, I never even thought about, what does this person look like? I was like, yo, this. This is. This sounds. It felt like in a Wiz Khalifa vein. It felt like that type of flow. And then we're like, oh, it's a white dude that's doing that bigger moment, having that go or having rockstar following. Cause it's like, yeah, you did this one, but now you've done it twice.
- [33:16]
A
Yeah. So the album took a long time to come out. I can't remember. There was a lot of little things going on in the background. Bidding wars. This. That label wanted him. And we put out a mixtape called August 26th. Tiger even said to me, years ago, was like, bro. That was like. That's how I heard him. That was a turning point when I believed that he could really do it. But we piled the album in December, and everyone knows how dangerous December is. December 9th, we bought out the album, and by January, no one was really thinking about him. And I remember going and spending my own bread to make a song called. To make a video for the song called Congratulations. Oh, so that's another. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's what happened. I remember taking out 10, 15 grand out of my own pocket to go and shoot the video myself. I didn't wait on the label. I didn't. Like, I went and Shot Congratulations, shot the best video we could. And that was more the turning point. Congratulations went crazy. And it was because months was passing. The song was growing, like, again, like white Iverson. There was a snowball, and then schools was graduating. And I'll never forget, one day I was watching the news.
- [34:37]
C
Good timing.
- [34:38]
A
Yeah. And it was a black school. And they said that the kids in the school would. The whole class wasn't gonna graduate or they would stick for failure. And everyone was jumping up and down, cheering on the news. And it was like this class in D.C. or something like that, or Baltimore. And everyone was jumping up and down, cheering. And they were singing Congratulations. And I'll never forget it. In my head, I was like, bing, bing, bing. We have the song to thank God, to thank any moment that you're going through in life. So that was like, morally the turning point. Because Congratulations was his first top 10. It didn't go to number one on that thing. It was his first top 10. But to correct you, to accumulate what you're saying, Rockstar was the one. Rockstar After Congratulations, after that album, moving on. I had him here in New York. And I remember Crazy, like, going to Quad Studios. And Quad Studios is where the thing happened to Tupac back in the days. I'm in Quad Studios and Christian's there. Diddy's son. I'm like, this is quite weird. I'm in Quad Studios with Christian. And Christian was with this producer called Tangod. And I remember him asking me by the pool table or something. He wanted to play some beats or something. And we just had some fake wannabe producer, I don't know, talking crap in the room. And it was like, we didn't really want anyone coming into session. But this guy came in with this sound. And immediately Poster started mumbling. I was like, what? And he mumbled some, he spat some. And it just became. I knew immediately this was gonna be one of the biggest songs in the world. I remember when the song was finished. Now everyone does this. They preview music on the Internet. But back then, it wasn't a thing. He had a Bud Light. He was playing it, he was previewing it. And I remember Chris Brown, all these different people reaching out to me, like, yo, I wanna get on this record, but. And I remember Post originally thought was like, I wanted to maybe featuring Travis Scott. And I was like, no, 21 savage. We was already friends. We were already like. I was shout out to Key. I was already close with his manager. I watched his whole career coming up. Him and Metro booming just was on A mixtape tour on some big tour. And I had to wait my time till he came off that tour. You know, you're on a high. And like, he's too much on a high right now. And he got off the tour, the tour was finished, and he reached back out to me, was like, yo, you still want that verse? And I was like, of course. And that happened to be Rockstar. I remember going into the labels, telling them, listen, I already have this buzzing on the Internet. Charlie Walk, Monty Lippman, like, don't play with me. Do not play with me. I have this song buzzing everywhere on the Internet now. I just need you guys to connect radio. So the first week sells. I want this to go straight to. I was so disappointed when the song first came out because it debuted at number two in the charts. Anyone would be like, what? What do you mean you're disappointed? I wanted to debut at number one. I wanted some Michael Jackson shit. Like, the song came out, it debuted at number two. Then the next week it went to number one. We had our first number one. And like you said, it became.
- [38:00]
C
Nothing was the same.
- [38:01]
A
Yeah, nothing was the same after that, man. Nothing was the same.
- [38:04]
B
Let me ask you, what's the role of a manager as far as, like, people hear manager a lot, but from a business standpoint, like, you know, what does that look like as far as making sure the contracts is straight and making sure, like, you actually can get paid the percentage that you have to get paid and what's the responsibilities that you have to do? Like, all that type of stuff.
- [38:22]
A
The manager is everything, man. Like, I have to tell you, like, people nowadays, like, it looks bigger and like, back then, everyone just wanted to manage to be a quiet guy in the corner. And I was far from it. Like, I'm making all these moves. I'm doing all of these different things. I'm putting all of this stuff together, brand deals. If the artist has a high, you are providing and pushing that high. If the artist has a low, you have to make the high again to make him feel better from then, from brand deals, from dealing with the record labels, from dealing with music. This, that. There's nothing that a manager doesn't do in an artist's career today, the manager's the label. Like, yes, you have record labels and that, but tell me the last time a record label really broke a big record. Like, the manager has to go on the street and has to push everything. He has to do everything from the street to the boardroom to brands, to, you name it. Like, as A manager. I did every corner of it. Like I went from the streets of making a record big on the streets, to making a record big in a boardroom, to making a record big on the radio. You have to deal with so much things. Like a manager is like, what did I hear? Someone tell me? It's like the most thankless job. It's the most thankless job in the music business because no one comes and tells you, thank you, man. No one says, thank you, great manager, thank you. Like you've been a great manager or thank you very much. It's just a thankless job that you don't really get thanked for, but you work your fucking butt off non stop for. It's like, it's something that, like I said, man, being a manager is how Don Laundres and how I started my own brand from making all these brands big. I remember this guy wasn't even 25 yet and I was in a meeting, in a board meeting with Bud Light and Anheuser Busch. And I'm telling them, this guy's been drinking Bud Light since before he was meant to drink Bud Light. And I'm like, one day he's gonna have his face on the can. They looked at me and all laughed. Two, three, four years later, he had his face on the can of a Bud Light super bowl commercial. Yeah, super bowl commercials. This, that. I saw all of that before. You have to be a visionary to be a manager. I saw stadiums, I saw so much. Like you said, it's an all round job. That is a thankless job, but at the same time, when it pops off, it can really work. But this is like a piece of advice, like make sure as a manager you have your paperwork, make sure you get in your shavings. Because it's like a barber. I used to tell everybody, like, I'm like a barber, I'm just here collecting the shavings. They make all the big money. You're just here collecting the shavings. And if you make the artist big enough, your shavings get bigger. Do you go?
- [41:11]
C
I'm saying yeah.
- [41:12]
A
And another piece of advice for managers out there, and I couldn't tell this on any other platform better than earn your leisure. Make sure that you got your sunset, man. Make sure you, if you don't know what the sunset is, or managers out there that's running around with artists or managers that are doing what they're doing or believe in something, make sure your paperwork's correct and make sure you looking at that sunset, man. And if you don't know what it is. I gave you something to go Google today. Go look up and make sure you got that sunset, bro. Because that sunset is everything.
- [41:44]
B
Sunset as far as the exit. When you leaving.
- [41:46]
A
Sunset clause.
- [41:47]
B
What's the sunset clause?
- [41:48]
A
The sunset clause is in the paperwork. Like, suppose the artist gets so big and so huge, and then what happens today when people get in people's ears, or this person's whispering, that person's whispering, or whatever happens, you just put in all that work and you just walk away like a dog with his tail between his legs. No. Make sure that you got that sunset clause in your contracts. All of you out there is very important because it's the only thing that you have will give you a leg to stand on in the future and show your hard work.
- [42:22]
B
So that lets you still get paid after you leave.
- [42:25]
A
Correct.
- [42:25]
B
For, like, a certain amount of time.
- [42:26]
A
Correct. Whatever you had in the contract. Correct.
- [42:30]
B
Wow.
- [42:30]
C
So that's good information. I'm looking at this, right?
- [42:34]
A
Never told anyone that before. And I can't believe I even just said, don't worry over there. I believe he's talking like this, but this is real. I need to help my brothers and sisters to actually know what you're getting into when you're doing this stuff. Like he said, did people look at me crazy? I made the biggest white artists of today. I remember sitting down with Jimmy Iovine and Post, and he's like, no, Post. Not your Dre. My Dre. I'm like, sitting there like, wow. Jimmy Iovine is saying, not your Dre. My Dre. And I'm like, hold on. I did what Dr. Dre did with Eminem. I did the same equivalent. Okay, Eminem might rap, but it's the same thing. Being a black guy and bringing and making the top five white artists in the world, like, is a huge, huge thing. Because why look like people saw. A lot of people didn't want me.
- [43:26]
C
In those rooms, bro. You did something that his Dre. Well, not even his Dre. Dr. Dre didn't do. And that's put out multiple diamond records.
- [43:36]
A
Yes.
- [43:37]
C
I think at the time. I think he has. Is he number one for most diamond singles? Yeah, he's number one, right? All time diamond singles.
- [43:44]
A
Yeah. Sunflower with Swae Lee was the one.
- [43:46]
C
The most streamed song of all time. That just happened, like, last month, went out the window.
- [43:51]
A
Like, I put that deal together with some pictures for Spider Man. Yeah. It's called Spider Verse, but to me, it was Spider Man. And that was the first time I watched Big Money. That was the first time. Like, you, Oxford, as a manager, dude, that was the first time I got a chance to use the marketing money of a movie to move a record.
- [44:16]
C
What was that like?
- [44:17]
A
Like, oh, my God. Okay.
- [44:19]
C
I feel the excitement, bro.
- [44:22]
A
Like, because I remember walking, going to Universal, and I think I went to see Jody Gerson, who's the president of Universal Publishing. I went to a meeting in Universal, and I'm not trying to say I'm this man. I'm just a humble guy from London, man. I walk into a building, and the building starts knowing I'm there. So people start whispering that I'm in the building and someone call someone, and someone calls someone. And then all of a sudden, before I leave, there's a call on the desk and, like, dre, can you stop by my office on your way down? Like, I just want to. And I really, really, really mess with this woman. Like, I really. Like, she had a great soul, great spirit. And, like, I stopped by her office on the way down from me leaving, and she's like, what are you working on? What are you doing? Like, what's going on right now? And, like, I remember her telling me that she had a couple of different projects that was in front of her, and even though it was Universal Publishing, there was something from. She didn't. I don't even think she said spider Man.
- [45:28]
B
I don't.
- [45:29]
A
I don't even remember. But, like, I remember her telling me something about a movie or something that was going on. And I remember there was a song that we made just a couple of weeks before what was mostly Mumbles, Mumbling Melody and Sunflower. I think you're loving me too much. Like, people might not know back home. I'm living at a lot of gems here. I remember the girl in the studio at the time that was with Swae Lee saying, this song's about me. I was looking around like, get out of here. Like, Swae Lee did the hook in the beginning, and Post had to finish it by him doing a hook. And he took a while because Swae Lee's high note or he didn't find his tone or whatever. And I'll never forget the same night, this girl that used to cause Swae Lee a lot of problems, one of his ex girls, or just used to be a lot of trouble. She turned around and said, this song is about me. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah in the background. I was like, no, it's not. But the next day, I heard the words, and I was like, wow. It was really. That hook was really had some connection to her and what him had been going through. But I went in the room when I was leaving Universal Publishing and I remember playing it for Dana. Shout out to Dana, I'm going down. And I play this record for her. And I had to stop after like a minute or minutes, couple seconds. And she's like, why did you stop it? Because the record wasn't even finished. It was mumble, mumble, mumble. Poster's part was all, like, him just mumbling his melody and getting it right. Mumbling. The only thing that was clear was the hook. And I remember texting it to Dana and telling her, do not email no one. This record, you have to physically drop it off yourself. You have to physically text the record yourself. And while we. We gave. I gave that record to the people making Spider man before the song was even finished. It was like a crazy moment. And then the movie was being finished. Post wasn't finishing his verse. We had a deadline, and he's like, leaving the studio one day, and he was like, bro, I do it tomorrow. I'm like, when does it have to be in by? I said, yesterday. But it really did have to be in before. The day before he finished his verse, they was already lining up the song and the music. So they had this record while they were still working on the animation and lining up and finding the right parts for it. That's why I feel like this was such a magical moment, because I gave them the cadence of the record while they were still finishing the movie. It came together like a marriage. That's the biggest records, the biggest businesses, the biggest. Everything in the world is when two forces come together like a marriage. And that was like a marriage that I could have never, ever.
- [48:26]
C
But a budget's different for it, right? Because, like, we grew up in an era. You probably from that same era, if you push a 96 BMW, right, that we. We waited for movies, and then the movies had soundtracks. Right. So sometimes I remember, like, even Jay was telling the story how they would put a single on the record, but they would put the single on the soundtrack to get double the sales.
- [48:47]
A
Yes. Yeah, but this is a.
- [48:49]
C
This is a different era, right? Because Spider Verse, I'm not sure that people bought the soundtrack or they just heard that song in the score of the movie. And, like, we gotta go download that.
- [48:59]
A
Yes.
- [48:59]
C
Is there a different marketing budget that goes into the new age movie versus, like, now?
- [49:05]
A
Back then, there was more of a bigger marketing budget that they would put towards a movie And I remember the song was at the beginning of the movie, right? And I remember one of the smartest deals we done was we wanted. I don't know how to describe this in the best layman terms, but, okay, we've given you this record, but we still want this record on his album. And today it's really harder to do that. But we was able to pull off a deal where we put the record on Spider Verse and then we had the record on his album at the same time. So we had double marketing money for the same project. So by the time a year or whatever had passed, or nine months had passed, and whatever. Whatever it was on his next album, too. So I was able to manage. Like you said, I was able to manage and be smart about how I put across the two marketing budgets for one record. Made it the biggest record in, like, you hear, like, of all time, or the biggest record of our generation, you could say all time. Because I've never.
- [50:08]
C
Streaming.
- [50:09]
A
Yeah, streaming. And Double diamond or something like, you go look it up and see how many records have gone double diamond in your history. Not many or if ever. And it just became a monumental moment. And like I said, that was a part of managing branding, Sony Pictures, putting all of these things together.
- [50:30]
B
So what did you learn from that experience working with them as far as their branding and how they. How they market?
- [50:36]
A
I learned that if you use budgets correctly, you could blow up anything in this world. It doesn't matter what it is.
- [50:44]
B
What's the proper way to use a budget?
- [50:46]
A
The proper way to use a budget is like a hustler. Skim that, man. Stretch it, yo. Flip it, put it in the pot. Do whatever you do, but use the budget as best as you can and stretch it as most as you can and make sure you can get to as many avenues as possible. Today, they call it content. They call it marketing. From the Internet, from social media, from this, that. Stretch that budget as far as you can. Because the more you stretch that budget and the more eyes you can see and the more ears you can get to, the more bigger anything is. This is not just a song called Sunflower. This goes for everything. This goes for Don Laundres, my tequila. This goes for everything you're doing in this world. Stretch the budget, man. And it doesn't matter if you've had investors. And this is a whole nother subject, because I don't have any big investment. I don't have no institutions that came in on me with Don Laundres. I wanted to do it myself. I Wanted to be able. I looked at people in history like, Diddy 50, all these different Jay Z, all these different guys that had done huge things in the alcohol space. But at the end of the day, Jay Z was totally different because I remember him buying into. Bought one of the brands. But, like, most of them was using our culture, and most of them was using us as a people. And I wanted to not beg for a seat at the table. I wanted to make sure that I was at the table. Like, this is my table. I'm not begging for a seat at the table. I need to make sure that we have something different for the future. And I wanted something for my kids. Kids. Kids that I might never, ever see. So, like, I had to build my own brand going forward.
- [52:40]
B
So how'd that start as far as the pivot from music to this?
- [52:44]
A
Well, I watched us travel the world, and, like, I stopped drinking vodka, and, I don't know, a long time ago, I stopped drinking vodka, and I was, like, coming across tequila. I would be awake nonstop. I would never feel a drought or a sloppy moment in my life. Traveling the world and touring, Tequila was just became my favorite drink. This is many years ago when people wasn't even drinking tequila like that. 2015, 2016, and I never really got a chance. And when the world shut down in 2020, it was when I had this epiphany. It was like before. It was right after. I don't know the exact dates. It was right around the time George Clooney had just sold or whatever. Like, there was no celebrity tequila. It was none of these people trying to with their own alcohol. But I'd seen what we did with alcohol. And I said, hold on a second. Like, this is the pivot for me. You're out partying. You're out entertaining people. People calling me the curator, the curator for the culture, the party guy, the guy who brings all these people together and makes all these great things happen. And I'm like, hold on a second. We're drinking someone else's drink. Like, I need to figure out how I'm gonna make my own drink that we can pivot and we can have our own. Because my grandmother, rest in peace, my mother always said, bless the man that had his own. And I wanted my own seat at the table. So I made the table, if that makes sense. I made my own alcohol. I started in 2020 when there was. The world was shutting down. When the world shut down. And I remember people going crazy because we had, like, five shows and I was trying to Finish the tour. And we got to, like, the last fifth or the fourth show, and we had to shut down because people was, like, looking at post crazy. And when the world shut down, I was. That's when I got started. That's when I said, hold on a second. The world is shut down. Everyone was laughing at me because I was building this house, or I had a house that I was building to make my house my office today. It might sound normal to you, but most people didn't have a house's office back. Back then. And I was finishing this house to make an office, and then everyone's office shut down. Then I had all the great nerds, the great geeks, the great all. All coming to my office and working out of my office because it was a fun place to be and it was a great vibe. And the same time, while all this was happening, I bought a 3D printer because I had this vision of a shape of a bottle, but I didn't know how I was going to make the shape of the bottle. And I sat down with one of my geeks at the time, Jacob, and was like, yo, I want it to look like this. I want it to look like a vase, but I don't want it to be a vase. I want it to be monumental. I want the bottle to be really special, that after you're finished with this bottle, you want to do things with it today. Now, this is the same bottle where women make it into a vase. They put flowers in it, they put a candle on it. Like, this bottle became a monumental thing. But while talking about I had the bottle in my head, I still had to find the liquid. And I was on this crazy journey where someone, this guy called Track Dillon, introduced me to this guy that wanted to talk to me, and he just wanted to meet me. And I just had a lot of people that wanted to meet me because of my work and what I'd done in the game. And like Jean Michel, this guy came to this party to meet me and was talking about black coffee, and this guy had made coffee and this. That, like, it didn't even make sense. Everything that this guy was talking about didn't make no sense to me in the party. But he. I don't know if he was a partner in a Sprinter company. He knew the people who owned the Sprinter company. All that was on my mind was leaving from this party and bringing all the girls to Tiger's house in Palm Springs. Like, these guys trying to talk.
- [56:36]
C
Priorities, man, priorities.
- [56:37]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, but. But it's Crazy, because this guy John Michelle drove us in the Sprinter, and I could tell he wasn't a Sprinter driver, bro. I just knew. I don't know whether he was a partner, as I said, in the Sprinter company or what he was doing, but he wanted time with me. And his time with me was driving out to Palm Springs. We had to drive two hours to Palm Springs or just outside Palm Springs, Indio, to a house that Tiger had where I had, like, people going and partying. But by the time we got there, it was so late, like, everyone wanted to fall asleep. Never really told this story like it is. I wake up the next morning. I said, the guy. There was like, a more than enough space. The guy could have slept in the truck. And I remember E telling me, dre, what are you doing, man? Just make the guy sleep on the couch. Like, what are you doing? And I woke up at like, one o' clock in the afternoon. I remember Tiger walking towards me, and he had this look on his face, was like, bro, this guy, this driver, he's got to go. I was like, what are you talking about? This driver's got to go. He was in the pool, and he was in the pool in his boxer shorts. And then some of this other girl. Like, it was kind of crazy. The same girl who braided Post Malone's hair. This is years ahead. Years. Like, we've been in Front for years. She's like, yeah, and he's smoking my weed. And this is that. I was like, bro, you got to go. You gotta get out here. This is not your house. Like, what are you doing, bro? You can't just wake up in someone's house and think that you could just be going in there pooling your box of shorts, smoking weed. This, this, that. Like, he saw me flip out. He left. I only found out the rest of the story two years later when I saw him again. Two years later, he left, stopped at the BMW racetrack and heard a Post Malone song. I was like, wow, this is meant to be Monday morning, just Saturday. Went there Saturday night, the next day, Sunday, Monday morning, I had to get all these people back home, back to la. And I was like, wow, this is gonna cost me some Uber money, because I'm gonna have to call two Ubers vans, this, that, to get everybody back. Like I said, I was the curator, the vibe curator. I'm gonna have to get everyone back to civilization, bro. The guy came back for me. The guy, the same guy that I cursed out on the Saturday early Sunday morning, came back for me the next Day, he drove back two hours and apologized and said, no, you was right. This, this, that. On the way back, driving in the Sprinter, he's telling me, I have this. I have that going on. I know this person. What about this? What about that? And he goes, oh, and my best friend I grew up was the lawyer for the Don Julio family. I said, scurr. Huh? What are you talking about? He's like, talk to him right now. So I started talking to this guy on the phone. And this is why I'm telling you, this whole long story, guys, is because every path you lead down might not take you to where you think you need it to go. But just be nice and follow through and keep believing, and something will come of it. This guy introduced me to the lawyer from the Don Julio family. And the lawyer then, I don't think it was like, five days, bro. Three days later or something like that. Five days. Less than five days, man. I was on a plane going to Mexico for tequila to go and look at my. To go and find the liquid for my tequila.
- [60:04]
B
So you partnered with Don Julio.
- [60:07]
A
I didn't partner with Don Julio.
- [60:09]
B
Okay?
- [60:09]
A
So I partnered with a guy called Francisco Gonzalez. And he's probably gonna be mad at me because I never talk about this. I never say these kind of things I never say in public. But, like, Francisco Gonzalez was the premium maker of tequila his father made. Don Julio, he made 1942 for his father before his father passed away. To celebrate the first year his father was on the agave field. It was 1942. His father. His father just had a stroke, and he wanted to honor his father's birthday. After his father got. Well after the stroke and got back and he made 1942. I didn't know none of this history. I didn't know none of this story. I just knew that the guy that was driving in the Sprinter was introducing me to a liquor lawyer. The liquor lawyer was introducing me to this family. And before you knew it, I felt like it was a movie out of Scarface or Sosa or something. This guy with the big cowboy looking Mexican hat was opening this big door. I was driving into this great distillery, and that happened to be Francisco Gonzalez, who was the first premium maker of tequila or no, the first. Yeah, you have to say he made the first premium tequila. And I went in there and I looked at the history. I saw this, I saw that, I saw all this different stuff. And we hit it off right away. But it didn't just happen like that. I had to keep going back for A year, bro. Do you know what happened in that year while I was going back and forth just to get the loi to be able to even make my own tequila? This guy didn't just say, oh, yo, go like, you know, I'll do it with you. You had a black guy talking to a Mexican guy during the times of George Floyd. It was like all around that time, the world shut down. All these crazy things was happening. The George Floyd thing was happening. And you have me in Mexico talk with a Mexican guy about why my passion and why it's important for us to come together to make this drink. And he said it after a year. He said, I didn't find in a Forbes article. We sat down and we did an article. When Forbes came, took pictures this, that, and he said, I had to do with this guy. I'd never seen anyone as passionate as this guy. I've never come across anyone who really likes, deserved it. So Don Laundres was their first since original, since their drink was the first alcohol, pure, no added caca, pure tequila that we made smooth. I made it for women first. That was the main thing, what I wanted to do because of not just cause of the shape of the bottle. I wanted to look at a piece in the market that didn't really exist. No one was making tequila for women. People thought of tequila with taking shots, and women would scrunch their nose and their makeup would get all effed up. I was like, I want to make something for women, because what do women like the men love? And that was the story of how I went down a road. I started watching celebrities come out with tequila. Francisco Gonzalez made me go through a whole train of making me learn how tequila is Mehi watching it from agave to the oven to this to that. I had to go through the whole journey of while all this is going on, celebrities are now starting to make tequila. I had to start posting on social media, like my journey, because then it would look like I was bandwagon. And people started seeing like, hold on. This guy was on this journey since 2020. 2021 making his own tequila. And 23 it came out. And everyone was like, wow, this. And I'm not just saying this. People were like, everyone that tastes it, one taste is all it takes. They taste it and they're like, wow, this is incredible. Shout out to Terrence, like, Terrence J. My brother. That's how you guys tried it first. I want this to be bigger than me. This is bigger than us. The story of Jack Daniels. It was A runaway slave and a runaway orphan came together and made a drink called Jack Daniels. This is around today. This drink's probably a hundred years old. Before Prohibition. This, that, like, Jack Daniels was made. That's what I'm doing. That's what made me want to cross from entertainment music, using and leveraging the scene. Shout out to Michael Rapinoe from Live Nation, who's helped me leverage and do all. Just one of the people a lot of people have, but leverage the two together, because there ain't no party without alcohol, and there isn't alcohol without a party, if that makes sense.
- [65:05]
C
That's interesting because Michael Rapinoe, obviously CEO of Live Nation. Are they putting this in the venues that he has? How does that partnership work?
- [65:14]
A
So when we was going on tours, he let me test it. I told him, like, my brother, I'm doing something crazy. And he told me when he sat down, he thought Jay Z was crazy for buying the champagne and buying Ace of Spades or Doucet. And he was telling me the whole story when he sat down with Jay Z and thought that Jay Z was crazy. And the same time we was having this conversation, Jay Z just got acquired or LVMH or something. Just bought into it. And he was like, I don't think you're crazy, Dre. And whatever you're doing, you know, I always backed you. We, me and him and Carlin Lewis, shout out to Colin Lewis. Our business started off with a handshake. I never signed no contract. They trusted me and respected me and loved everything I was doing from the music game. And I bought them an artist that made them millions and millions of dollars, but it was all off of a handshake. We never signed the contract. We never had any paperwork. So my loyalty to them, he then helped me with the same loyalty. I told him, every venue you guys own, any venue we tour, I need to bring this there. I need to make sure that we have a tasting, we have this, we have that. And I started like that, leveraging it like that. The first tour was 2022, when I started doing just tastings. Then by 23, I had in all the amphitheaters. And he helped me to, like, just leverage it into more places in the beginning. And I never forget where I'm coming from. And I respect him. And that was my bridging of the Gap. That's when I was like, ding. Hold on a minute. You use everything you have from music and entertainment. Every person you know, every person you've ever met needs to try Your drink. And as soon as they try it, they're gonna love it. You wake up in the morning with no hangover because there's nothing in tequila, you're allowed to add stuff to it. I think it's 2%. Most of these drinks, Most of these drinks are getting in trouble today. I don't know if you know, I'm not going to shout them out because they don't deserve it, but there's a lot of people getting in trouble because it's not even 100% agave.
- [67:23]
C
How evolved in the process are you? Because I'm thinking about, we've had people who've been in the spirits industry, getting it distributed, having licenses in each state and then labeling it. Right. Cause premium tequila needs to be placed in a certain spot.
- [67:38]
A
Correct?
- [67:38]
C
How involved in the process are you, bro?
- [67:40]
A
I've been so involved in the process that from start to finish to every day, eating, sleeping, like I've been in every process to getting the licenses, to going through the interviews, to being able to import it into the country, to going over to my hometown, England and going through the same licenses and going through the same questioning and getting it to like, I'm so involved in the process. It's unbelievable. It's like I'm now, I thank God above that. I'm now like, it's growing to where we've built a hype on it in the States that now people want it in other places. We just got into Canada now after many years, now finally it's in Toronto, it's in the uk. I'm now talking to certain distributors and a few big people. I almost gave one away in Dubai and the uae. I'm talking to Africa because this is us. As soon as people find out, like, hold on, this is genuine and this is coming from a guy that looks like us. They want to support it. And it's just crazy because I'm walking into rooms, you know what I'm saying? How involved am I? I'm walking into rooms where no one looks like me. I'm going into GSM's general sales meetings with a whole room full of people where you might find one Spanish guy maybe and one black guy, or the black guy's light skinned, he ain't even black. I'm not saying he's not black. Don't take that the wrong way. He might not be fully black, but he might be half black, half white, whatever. I'm walking into rooms where no one looks like me and they're like, okay, entertainment, tell us about this, like, and I have to go in there and sell it. The first thing I do when I walk in the room is I tell them, guys, you're probably not going to see someone that looks like me for the rest of the day. Oh, you're not probably going to come across someone that looks like me that's about to sell you alcohol. They start laughing. It breaks the ice. And then I start going into the story of how I made Don Laundress. But there's no one that looks like us in this business. I'm so hands on that I walk in the room and I tell them, tell me the last time you guys saw George Clooney in here. Do you ever see George Clooney selling his alcohol? No. I'm here on the ground looking at you all in your eyes, looking at you right here. Because I'm believing I'm not just a founder. I'm every single thing to do with this. And I'm not going to stop until I get that. That joint. Like now I have companies trying to get involved, trying to invest, trying to once, I wouldn't say a buyout, but like, now I've made so much noise, people are now inquiring about it. And I don't think I would ever sell more than 51% because I'm not here to just sell out. I want this to be something for our next generations. I want to be the Jack Daniels In 100 years, where I'm maybe that face on the mantelpiece where my great, great grandkids or my great grandkids are looking at it, like, wondering. The people asking them how you guys living so good? And they point at the picture on top of the fireplace. I'm just a picture on the wall, but that's why I'm doing it. This is all about legacy. We need to do things for our legacy. We need to do things beyond just thinking it's some hip hop or it's some music or we're better than that. We could do so much to leave a legacy and to teach our kids of tomorrow what we're learning today. Because today, like you said earlier, we have the information, bro. We have the info that we. My grandma, when she came from Jamaica to London after The World War II, my granddad, they were sweeping streets, cleaning up, being bus drivers, this, that. Then my mom being the second generation, they didn't have the information. They were told to go to school, learn your books and get a good job. That's it. But today we have the information. You have your Earn your leisure. You have all these things today where you could go on the platform and learn more. For what we need, we need these tools. We need the information. The only thing that's stopping us from being billionaires or being more and more millionaires out here is the one word information. And I started getting the information. And that was one of the things, among other things, I'm doing. Like you said. I don't want to say I've lost count. I don't know If I have 12, 14, 15 properties. I don't talk about it enough, but I've been building buildings and building houses for a long time. Shout out to what you guys are doing in. Oh, my God. Shit hit my soul. You're building communities. I'm building one in quite outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Like, I'm building the first solar gated community in Georgia, 40 minutes out of Atlanta in a place called Coinyers, where I have 24 acres and I'm building 24 homes. Solar gated community, the first ever in Georgia. Like, we have to do things tomorrow, today, if that makes sense. You're doing it today for the people, for tomorrow to learn and see. Like, from that to. I have my first movie that I shot during the strike when everyone was striking. I don't know if there's something. Something about me when the chips are against the wall or the things are down, I find a hole. But I always wanted to shoot a movie. And now the movies about to go into festivals and this and that. The movie's called 86. It's coming out. I'd say next year, but I'm putting it into festivals first. This, this, that. Dre Vision Studios. Like, I'm just an entrepreneur who won't stop and can't stop. And you know who said that I won't stop. Shout out to him too. My brother.
- [73:19]
B
So right now, what's the primary focus for you right now? Real estate, liquor? Music?
- [73:28]
A
Still have one foot in the music. Shout out to Lil Q. I found this great artist, or she found me.
- [73:34]
B
Like, how'd that relationship end with you and Post? Did it just end over the course of time? Cause that usually always happens. Like managers, they don't last forever.
- [73:43]
A
Everyone says that, man, and it's so true. People talk about it like it's anomaly. Like it's just normal thing. Like, yo, so Post, like, you guys just. No, me and Post never had a falling out. But like you just said, after the course of time, by 10, 11 years, people start getting in people's ears. People. This, this that, oh, he has his own tequila now. Oh, he does this, he's doing that. Do you still need him? Blah, blah, blah. Like, I think. I think when post started veering off into country, I was building my. Doing my thing at the same time. And I don't know if you've seen the country rooms anything. Like, when you walk in with alcohol, I don't know if you've seen the country rooms, but whether you like it or not, people are looking at me like, who's this guy in this room? And like, I have so much love for him and we built something so special together. And he'll always be my brother. But like you said, after a certain amount of years, people start getting in people's ears. People start doing this, you start doing that. And I wouldn't say you grow apart. Cause we didn't grow apart. I just guess that people's like, oh, he's concentrating on all these other things and less of you. But that's not true. I still had a lot of concentration on him. But at the same time, I gotta build my legacy too. What happened to us? Like, I can't be this glorified babysitter for the rest of my life. Like you said, people come and tell me like, wow, you did over 10 years. You're lucky. I'm like, I'm lucky. That's like a normal thing in the business. Like you said, you just start to grow. And I don't know, like, maybe Dre London started becoming more Dre London and some people didn't like it. And some people got in his ears and started talking in a certain way and he started listening. One day I got tired of shielding people off and protecting. I was just like, no, this is the way. That's a chapter. It was the chapter before, and now this is the new chapter and I have to keep going. Thank God I had my own stuff going on. But, like, I had to keep building the Dre London chapter and the Don Laundress chapter and the properties, the this, the that. Like you said. What am I concentrating on now? My biggest focus has to be this. Because this is a full time thing. You don't understand the alcohol business until you're in it. How many shops. Just look how many stores sell alcohol in New York. Look how many restaurants there are in New York. On its own is just an island. And thank God we're now available in Costco's in New York and New Jersey. We're available in so many places. But I had to wait to even get this to New York because you're dealing with. This is like a country in itself to even be able to move alcohol, if that makes sense. Like every state is different, every country is different and you have to bend to the rules, bend to the culture. You have to make it what you can. So this became one of the full time jobs then having properties and permits and this and that, that became another like. So I would say between this, the properties and now having like this great artist from Memphis, that's incredible. Still have one foot in the game, of course, is what built me. And now I've started developing her and now she's growing and like people are starting to see her and like it's really great. I'm really grateful for it. But like I got my eyes on the prize and it's hard because I wake up every day with things on my shoulders. But you gotta go. It's not concentrate on one, you gotta concentrate on all. And you can't do too much. But they say seven streams of income. Is that what it is? Like, like you need to make seven streams of income before you could really say you've done it. So I'm just concentrating on my three to five. Three to five? Yeah.
- [77:35]
C
What would be success? I know we were talking before we started about year over year sales and in the spirits industry it's always by cases. How many cases you move a year? Yes, we've heard large numbers. A million cases. Obviously you guys are still in the infant stages. Four or five years old. What would be, how do you measure success at this age?
- [77:56]
A
4 or 5 years old since we've been on sell it. Maybe 18, 19 months since we like the second year of just being on sale. And like I'm grateful. After 18 months he sold 10,000 or more cases.
- [78:10]
C
Wow.
- [78:11]
A
Which is crazy to know. I've not spent million dollars on, on multi million on advertising. I don't have these big billboards, like all these companies. Diageo, Bacardi, all these big companies. Like I'm. I'm in a game where I'm being disruptive. Like one of my guys has this gala, this awards thing that he does every year in the UK and he hit my brother Blade. Shout out to Postie. Funny, his name's Postie. Shout out to Postie. He hit him one year and was like. I told him that we was gonna have all their drinks and you know, LVMH sponsor us every year and I told them that I was gonna have Don Laundress tequila and LVMH went to him and said, oh, my God. Okay, we was giving you 120,000. We don't want. We can't have another luxury brand on premise next to our brand. We'll now pay you 150 instead of 120 just to have our Taquina at your event. That was another turning point. You know, like you said, Rockstar, this, that, that was another turning point. I'm like, wow. Lvmh, Diageo. All these people are. They know what Don Laundres is. Right now I'm disrupting. I'm being disruptive. And now it's not a get down or lay down, but, like, come and talk to me. Like, we are the culture. I'm now being disruptive and I'm being in places I cannot not match their budget. But you can't match me on the streets with this culture. And we are the party, we are the vibe. And people are now starting to, like, shed away from the kaka and they want the pureness. So it's really helped. That's why we're going. We are over 10,000 cases, over 2 million in sales. Like, we've done really well. From me just doing things like this and talking to you guys about my career and what I've done and plugging what I'm doing, and hundreds of thousands of people watch it. They believe the story, they see it, they can see the pureness. You cannot sell unpure. Like when something is poor and pure and it has passion like I do, people believe it and then they want to try it. And soon as people taste it, it's game over.
- [80:35]
B
Well, always a pleasure, my brother. Tell him where they could follow you. The website, how to get the bottles and all that.
- [80:42]
A
My Instagram is Dre London, D R E L O N D O N and donlondres. You could get it at D O N L O N D r e s. Donlondres.com we have locations bar right there. You can also follow donlondres on Instagram, but go to the website and we have every location we sell it. If it's not in your location in the States, you can put in your zip code, find out where it is or get it sent to you. If it's not in your state yet, you can actually get it delivered to you by the mail in the post and buy it online. So there's no excuse not to try it. And like I said, if we bump into each other or anywhere, like, I'm gonna sell it because I believe in it. And you guys have tried it. You could tell me yourself.
- [81:32]
C
Like, it's definitely a party.
- [81:39]
B
Smooth. Smooth for sure. Highly recommended.
- [81:42]
A
Everyone uses smooth. Everyone says. The first words they say is like wow. This is the smoothest, nice, great tasting tequila I've ever had. Like it's smooth like, like nothing you've ever tried.
- [81:55]
C
If the girls like it, the guys love it.
- [81:56]
A
That's what I'm telling you man. The girls like the men love.
- [82:01]
B
That's how you have it. All right, my brother. Appreciate you. Thank you than you guys for rocking with us. We'll see you next week. Peace.
- [82:06]
A
Thank you. This podcast is brought to you by FedEx the new power Move hey, you know those people in your office who are always pulling old school corporate power moves? Like the guy who weaponizes eye contact. He's confident, he's engaged, he's often creepy. It's an old school power move, but this alpha dog laser gaze won't keep your supply chain moving across borders. The real power move? Having a smart platform that keeps up with the changing trade landscape. That's why smart businesses partner with FedEx and use the power of digital intelligence to navigate around supply chain issues before they happen. Set your sights on something that will.
- [82:49]
C
Actually improve your business.
- [82:51]
A
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- [84:26]
C
You know what?
- [84:26]
A
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