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00:00Today, so this is the In His Own Man Experience, and today I want to introduce two very special guests,
00:09two industry heavyweights who managed to flip their legendary success in the music industry
00:14into forays into other industries as well, too.
00:18So please clap your hands for Cortez, Tess Bryant, and Maino.
00:30How y'all doing today, fellas?
00:44Hey, we good. What's happening?
00:46Yeah.
00:49All right, so my first question is actually for you, Maino.
00:52You from Brooklyn, as everyone knows.
00:54Brooklyn, big Brooklyn.
00:56Yeah.
00:57You spent a couple years in jail, too.
00:59Oh, wow, that's a hell of a way to go.
01:00You just gonna throw that like that?
01:02You just gonna throw that.
01:04That's how you gonna start the whole conversation.
01:06Really?
01:07But then when you gained the freedom.
01:08A couple of days, right?
01:09When you gained the freedom, you know, you hit the streets with an imprint.
01:13Right.
01:13And you kept every deal that you signed, correct?
01:15I did what?
01:16You kept every deal that you signed after you got out, right?
01:18I kept them every deal.
01:20No, some deals, we expired.
01:22Okay.
01:22Right.
01:22Okay.
01:23But then you took your talents over to Grand Theft Auto, and you're still redefining yourself as a rapper, correct?
01:27Grand Theft Auto?
01:30Auto, yeah, the game.
01:31Yeah, I don't know who wrote this.
01:32Yeah, I don't know who wrote this.
01:33It's crazy.
01:34Yeah, we did a song for them alongside them a few times, though.
01:38Yeah.
01:39Yeah.
01:39Okay, so here's the real question then.
01:41When did you decide to come more than a hip-hop artist?
01:44I think, naturally, that's just the progression of the game.
01:49I think that right now, with hip-hop, you know, we got the opportunity to do many things, to do many different things.
01:55I started a podcast that actually turned into a show that I did a deal with, Fox Soul.
01:59So now my show's on Fox Soul, comes on, you know, seasonally.
02:04You know, right now, I'm also co-hosting with Angela Yee on Power 105 in New York City.
02:11That's actually, it's syndicated here as well, number one here in this market.
02:16And we're still competing.
02:17We're still putting out music.
02:18We dropped the project last year, Lobby Boys, with me and Jim Jones.
02:22And we just, yeah, yeah, definitely.
02:23So, you know, I just think that right now in the game, you don't have to give up one for the other.
02:27You can do many different things.
02:29How do you feel about that, man?
02:31I mean, I agree.
02:33Hands down, he spoke the truth.
02:36I think that, for me, on the back-end side, on the management side, it's literally how, you know, our philosophy for our company, that's what we lead with.
02:46We look at our artists, not as artists, I say, but we look at them as brands.
02:51And that's literally how we build them from the ground up.
02:53So we understand that it's more than just the music.
02:57And we leverage that well while we're building our artists' brands to make sure they have a whole lot of other things going on outside of music.
03:06So, all right, so Jackson State alumni, correct?
03:10Absolutely.
03:11All right.
03:11The Jackson State University.
03:13You had a lot of management accomplishments, too, with Young Money Entertainment.
03:17Yes.
03:17With great successes as well, too.
03:19And you also kept it fluid when you got to education, activism, and philanthropy as well, too.
03:26Yes.
03:26So tell me about what makes you stay connected to the youth and also, too, like how do you uplift your community when you're doing your work as well?
03:34What makes me stay connected to the youth?
03:38I think I have to stay connected to the youth.
03:39I'll age out this game.
03:41That's right.
03:42That's a smart thing you have to do.
03:44I mean, I'm still fairly young, but I'm still 19 years in the business.
03:47So I center around my office with the younger voices.
03:52I'm not naive to know that I'm getting older and there's different trends and hip-hop has been evolving.
03:58It's going to continue to evolve.
04:00So I think keeping young people around you is strength.
04:03Keep you smart.
04:03Keep you sharp.
04:05And as far as the community, you know, I've been blessed coming.
04:08I'm born and raised here.
04:09I'm home, New Orleans.
04:11And I've come a long way and been very blessed along the way.
04:17So it's only right that any time that, you know, anything that I could do, as soon as I started getting any type of success monetarily for myself was to pay it forward and lift the hand to lead back.
04:33Yeah.
04:35And, man, a simple question, my brother.
04:37Like, how do you use your art to uplift your community?
04:39How do I use my way?
04:40Your art to uplift your community.
04:42Inspiration.
04:44Inspiration.
04:44We needed it because we didn't have it.
04:47You know, one of the first things that I did when I was able to was open up a store in my community, you know, and give jobs to, you know, young people in my community.
04:57You know, they need to see it.
04:59They need to see us.
05:00You know, it's one thing to become an artist or become an entrepreneur or whatever, and then for them not to see you.
05:06But they need to find inspiration and motivation in what we're doing.
05:10I didn't have that.
05:11I had to find that elsewhere, and I found it in the wrong places at first.
05:16And then once I figured out that I could shift the energy and do different things, one thing that Ted said that was very important, and I said this to myself the other day, I said I got to start looking at myself as a brand, as a brand.
05:29And that just encompasses everything, not just our artist, because we're not in those times now.
05:35This is the greatest time right now because you can just flourish in so many different things.
05:41But, you know, giving back to the community, for me, it's important that they see me.
05:48It's important that they're able to still tap into what I'm doing and for me to keep, you know, some of the younger guys around me so that I can still learn and still keep, you know, things moving.
06:02So with that, I want to piggyback off that, too.
06:05You know, I think you're a seasoned veteran in the game.
06:08You know, you've been around for a long time, too.
06:10So how do you keep reinventing yourself as a musician?
06:14Man, just staying young, just keeping young energy.
06:16Young is an energy.
06:17It's energy, right?
06:18It's energy.
06:19It's coming to the game and, you know, never looking like you need a favor even if you need one, right?
06:26Hip-hop is the way we dress, the way we talk.
06:28Got to be looking good.
06:29You got to put that shit on, man.
06:30Come on, baby, you know?
06:33And, you know, and just keeping the young energy around and being able to continuously learn, right?
06:40My son is 20.
06:41I learned from him, you know?
06:44We, your dad, this is the new artist.
06:47I'm like, this is him?
06:48Okay.
06:49And I want to be able to have that dialogue with him because we didn't have that when we was growing up with our fathers.
06:54It was like they wasn't tapped into what we was doing, you know?
06:58So that's how I stay young.
07:00And I keep that young energy around me, you know, the way I can learn from it and tap into it.
07:05So, Tess, my brother, you've done a lot in the game as well, too, man.
07:08Do you think you find more inspiration in faith or in fear?
07:12Most definitely faith.
07:15That's the foundation of everything I do since the beginning, you know?
07:21That's what leads me and that's what literally drives me.
07:25Fear doesn't even, I don't even, that's not really in my vocabulary.
07:32I have an understanding that even, you know, when I jumped off the porch when Wayne hit me up and asked me to, you know, manage him, we was figuring it out on our own early.
07:41I understood that, you know, there was going to be a lot of obstacles, bump my head along the way, still to this day.
07:50You know, I'm still ever, ever learning in this business.
07:53So, never been afraid of those type of things.
07:57I lean into those things because it brings learning lessons and valuable skills to help you grow.
08:02So, faith is what literally is the foundation of my entire career and fear just doesn't exist for me.
08:10How about you, Mano?
08:10Yes, I'm going to ask you.
08:12That's an interesting question.
08:15I think a little bit of both I felt like I learned from because the thing about faith is that you can live off that, right?
08:22You can live off hope.
08:24And when I was in my situation, you know, and I was finding myself because I had never wanted to be an artist in my life.
08:30I didn't know nothing, I didn't start, you know, rapping until I was incarcerated, right?
08:34And, you know, and I was living off of faith.
08:37I was faithful that one day it would be better.
08:40One day I would get out.
08:41One day that I would be able to, you know, do something, right?
08:45But the fear of not knowing what I was going to be able to do is what drove me, right?
08:52The fear of coming home and having a three-month-old son is what made me kick into high gear because it's all about perspective, about how you look at things and how you manage them.
09:07You understand?
09:08We don't get consumed with fear, right?
09:11We don't get consumed to the point where we don't, it disables us from moving.
09:16So for me, I think the fear pushed me to a point where I was like, whoa, that's a scary thought, not knowing what I'm going to do, how I'm going to feed my family, how I'm going to feed myself, how I'm going to feed my son.
09:27Because all I got is these streets and I need to get out of them.
09:31I won't be here forever, you know?
09:33So I think the fear kind of drove me.
09:36So what advice would you give to your younger self to avoid on the way up, man?
09:41My younger self?
09:43Don't scare the money, man.
09:45Don't scare, don't, don't not scare the money, you know?
09:48I found myself bumping my head early on in the game because I just didn't know and I didn't have the information.
09:55And then I had to learn and unlearn some things, you know?
09:58We come from, like, you know, violent backgrounds and, you know, these backgrounds that we come from, you know?
10:06These issues as young black males that we had growing up.
10:10And then you get into the game and you think that you're coming through the game with some of that energy.
10:15And all you're doing is really scanning away your opportunities and you're putting yourself in a position that people don't want to invite you to the Essence Festival.
10:25You understand?
10:25So that's what I would tell my younger self.
10:28It's not to, you know, disassociate yourself from the opportunity.
10:34Tess, how about you, brother?
10:36Oh, man.
10:37And I don't know if I would tell my younger self to do anything different.
10:43I think my experiences that I went through and had to learn from built who I am today.
10:49You know what I'm saying?
10:50So, like I said, I'm content with all those things that I had to go through along the way because it built who, you know, the person you see in this chair today.
11:03I would just tell, you know, I would give my younger self confidence in understanding that, you know, you could do it.
11:12Because at some points, you know, in the beginning, all I had was faith to lead by because, listen, I was just figuring it out.
11:19I didn't go to school to be a music manager or understood anything.
11:23Literally, you know, Wayne saw something in me that I didn't even see in myself based off us being best friends.
11:28So there was times when I didn't know what I was doing.
11:31So I would just tell my younger self, have confidence.
11:34You know, you know you got it.
11:35You're going to figure it out because that's what it is.
11:37And like I said, I accept all those things along the way as far as the journey.
11:41But I probably just instill confidence knowing that you could do anything you put your mind to.
11:47And when it's all said and done, what would you want your legacy to be?
11:50As a man and as a manager.
11:56Man, that's a tough question because I really just started thinking about this.
12:00I just had a son three years ago, so my perspective kind of shifted.
12:04You know, at one point, you know, all those accolades and all those amazing artists that I was able to help architect me and my team to build up to.
12:13That's one great thing.
12:15And, you know, lately now, last couple years since I had my first and only son, you know, I've been thinking about, you know, pouring it, you know, the things that really matter outside of the success.
12:29And the type of man that he's going to see in those core valuables and principles that I live by to make sure I'm doing more of that.
12:37That's why I'm in education and giving back in the community and all those type of things.
12:41So it's kind of shifted.
12:43I still haven't figured that part out, so I can't really answer that question.
12:45Because I literally really just started thinking about that at my big age right now when, you know, I had my first child.
12:54That's real, though.
12:55What do you like your legacy to be, man?
12:56I think I want my legacy to be inspiration.
13:00I think I want my story to be inspirational, very inspirational for those that come from turmoil, whether they're coming from the streets or they're coming just from any kind of deficit, you know?
13:14And the way you start, you don't have to end that way.
13:18You understand?
13:19You know, I come in contact with a lot of younger artists, with a lot of younger, young black men, and I try to just tell them.
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