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00:00Ten years of Drink Champs, and for those that don't know, we have a little bit of a different audience
00:04here.
00:04But, I mean, you guys started this out as basically kind of an indie project, a podcast, if you will.
00:09It has grown into an actual business, a media business.
00:13Huge business.
00:13When did you know or realize that it had become a business?
00:17You want to ask that one?
00:19Well, right out the gate.
00:19When we started, we started just as an audio podcast, like most podcasts start.
00:23Yeah.
00:24And we were told if you get a couple thousand downloads on, like, iTunes at that time,
00:30Apple Podcasts, then that was a pretty successful podcast.
00:34We came out the gate 300,000.
00:36And from that point on, we knew.
00:38And we had already kind of understood that we wanted to go in the visual realm,
00:41so we had started filming from the beginning, where most podcasts at that time were just audio.
00:46So we knew right out the gate that we had something.
00:49And it's also interesting, too, particularly in the early days.
00:52I mean, a lot of the folks you were talking to were other rappers from your era.
00:56It was a lot of reminiscent about old times.
00:58And that kind of humanized it in a lot of ways.
01:01It was more than just an interview.
01:02It sounded like, oh, it's just two friends or two acquaintances just catching up.
01:05Yeah.
01:05Like, our very first episodes, like, I thought, because it was me, one of our very first episodes
01:13was with Fat Joe.
01:14And I thought that me and Joe, our conversation, this is the same conversation that we have
01:18every day.
01:19Yeah.
01:19So I did not think that anybody would care.
01:22But coming out, it just blew up.
01:26And like he said, I believe he did 250,000, our first episode, something like that.
01:31300.
01:31You said 300?
01:32Okay, my bad.
01:33Let me not forget that, 50,000.
01:35And so, yeah, it worked.
01:37And we're here 10 years later, and we're celebrating, and we're pretty happy.
01:42I'm curious.
01:42Go ahead.
01:43No, what I want to say is we wanted to bring those conversations that we were having in
01:46the studio or backstage that, at that time, weren't in the forefront, and that we knew
01:51the fans would appreciate that.
01:52And that's why we wanted to have this really relaxed environment for these guests to be
01:56in.
01:56What was sort of the connection, though, between you two?
01:58Obviously, you had a great rap career, first with CNN, and then there's a solo artist.
02:03I mean, it's been, what, 20-something years since Super Thug, and T-O-N-Y.
02:08And, I mean, you were running three teams down in Florida for Def Jam, and you started
02:12Crazy Hood, and all that.
02:14What was the connection between you two?
02:16I believe I used to do his mixtapes.
02:18I used to actually do his mixtapes.
02:20I would love to come to Miami, and we just developed a relationship.
02:25I believe he was the first show that I've ever done in Miami.
02:28Yeah, I brought him to do his first show in Miami, his first solo show.
02:31Yeah.
02:31And we just formed a connection, and then we started doing, I started working in his studio.
02:39He had a studio, what was it, Crazy Hood?
02:41Yeah, yeah.
02:41Crazy Hood, I started working.
02:42He moved to Miami.
02:43I moved to Miami, and he would play poker, and I would work in the studio.
02:50And we would say, whoever, like, survives that night, we would call him a drink chat.
02:56Okay, yeah.
02:57And that's how we developed the name.
02:59And he's so smart.
03:01He was like, I'm going to trade off the name.
03:03Yeah, I grabbed the dot com, copyrighted it, grabbed the IG handles early, early before we knew what it would
03:09be.
03:09Yeah, and we didn't know what we were going to do with it, but then later on.
03:12When did you have a business?
03:14I mean, so you started, like, with Rock Solid and Mental's Bleak and all that.
03:16When did you sort of figure out what the business model would actually be?
03:19I mean, on our own, when we saw what we were doing, we were able to have partners.
03:23At one point, we had Tidal as a partner, Mass Appeal on the audio side, and Revolt on the video
03:29side.
03:29And we saw we can create all these different partnerships on the distribution side, get sponsorships and advertisers and merchandise.
03:36And we just saw this is a big business we can create out of this.
03:39And then why don't we expand it to now have a network?
03:42Because, naturally, everybody wanted to be, they wanted to learn from what we were doing.
03:45So we're like, let's bring them under the umbrella of the Dream Champs Network.
03:48But our first partner was CBS.
03:50I don't want to.
03:50That's our first partner.
03:51We've had several partners.
03:52But, yeah, you've been through a lot of iterations.
03:54CBS and, what is it, obviously the Revolt video, Warner Audio at some point.
03:59I'm probably forgetting a few others here.
04:01I am just curious.
04:02I mean, which one brought you the most reach?
04:05I mean, what sort of, which partnership really helped you sort of get out there?
04:09Yeah, I would say Revolt's been the most successful.
04:11And, I mean, also, iHeart, we've been very consistent with them.
04:13Yes.
04:14Well, what happened, though?
04:15I mean, you had an exclusive deal with Warners, like, in, like, 2023.
04:18Yeah, and then Warner Folded.
04:19Yeah, the new CEO come in, and they kind of took a little bit of a different direction.
04:23I mean, Warner Folded, but they kept their word.
04:26Oh, yeah, they made us whole.
04:28So we're happy with that situation.
04:30Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:31They've hated us.
04:31So what did it, okay, well, that's good.
04:34What did that teach you about corporate relationships?
04:36Oh, you know, that's a great question.
04:38Yeah.
04:40You know, at times when you do business, it's like, you know, I'm a family-orientated person,
04:46so I always, like, I think that I'm going to be with you forever.
04:49But, you know, the reality is that's just not how life works.
04:54And that was a big lesson for us because we loved the people that was at Warner.
04:59And, you know, but they kept their word, like I said.
05:01Like, they paid the play.
05:03When they folded or when they dissolved, they still kept their word.
05:09And that's when me and Eve was like, wait a minute.
05:12Like, let's continue this, and let's continue to go.
05:15And now we're here.
05:17And so you have Black Effect, which is basically your own network.
05:20Yes.
05:20No, Black Effect is Charming the Gods Network.
05:22Charming the Gods, excuse me.
05:23That's our distribution for audio.
05:25All right.
05:26And we partnered with them and iHeart to do our network.
05:29But they don't own you, right?
05:31No, no.
05:32So you own the IP.
05:33We own everything.
05:34IP.
05:35We license everything.
05:35Because I don't know why people think that, but, you know, people think, but we are partners
05:42with Revolt.
05:43We are partners with Black Effect.
05:45Yeah.
05:45And the fact is, they accepted that deal.
05:49Like, we all came together and we said, you know what, let's partner.
05:52And that's, you know, that's something real good because, you know, Blacks and Latinos,
06:00like, we don't usually own our IP, like you just said.
06:03That it's always us partnering with somebody and someone taking advantage of us.
06:08I felt like I got to take advantage of in the music business.
06:11And I just couldn't let that happen in my next career.
06:15Well, I am curious.
06:15I mean, I don't know.
06:16You've done, like, what, 400 or 500 episodes.
06:18500 plus.
06:19Yes, yes.
06:20500 plus of Drink Champs.
06:21And you have the back catalog, all those episodes of yours.
06:25Absolutely.
06:25And, I mean, you mentioned Latino heritage.
06:27You should point out for a lot of our viewers, you kind of brought reggaeton to America.
06:32I like how you said that.
06:32You have American-American, Puerto Rican roots.
06:34Obviously, you have Cuban roots.
06:36But talk a little bit about that.
06:37And obviously, working with Revolt, which obviously has a very culture-forward mission.
06:41Right.
06:41But at the same time, you're still partnered with iHeart, which is a legacy.
06:45Absolutely, yeah.
06:45A media company.
06:46They've been great partners.
06:46But they've been great partners.
06:48So, the symbiosis is there?
06:49Yes.
06:49You know, for us, and I'll let you in.
06:53But for us partnering, because, you know, you can own 100% of nothing.
06:58Or you can partner with people who are great partners, and they facilitate your dream.
07:07Because our dream is just to be, like, our show is barbershop talk.
07:11Like, we're just sitting around, having fun, talking about the old days.
07:18And we needed somebody to help facilitate that.
07:22Help say, and Revolt has been that person for us.
07:25And not be afraid of it, either.
07:26And they let you be yourself, too.
07:28And also, I mean, that's from the perspective of the business.
07:30Because, I mean, you have to get sponsors, ads, advertisers already.
07:32And they're comfortable with who you two are and what you bring.
07:36There's drinking, there's smoking, a lot going on in the show.
07:38We can talk about CBS.
07:39When we started, like I said, out the gate, we were a success.
07:43It took them six months to be able to sell ads on our show.
07:46Because they said, we grew too fast, too quickly.
07:49And the advertisers were scared of us.
07:51So, they didn't know how to price us.
07:53They didn't know what to do.
07:54So, it took six months for us to make a dime, even though we were the top-rated podcast in
07:58music at the time.
07:58What about just the editorial content?
08:01You've had just kind of a who's who of hip-hop culture, sports now, movies, entertainment.
08:08I guess, forgive me, but probably one of your most well-known episodes is with Ye, an artist formerly known
08:14as Kanye West.
08:16You had him on twice.
08:17You had him on once with Around the Dawn to Release.
08:19And then he had that infamous episode, something like Three Hours.
08:21He said a lot of things, a lot of anti-Semitic things, and other stuff.
08:26That got pulled for a while here.
08:28Yes, it got pulled.
08:29And we learned valuable lessons from that.
08:31Because at first, we wouldn't edit because we just wanted artists to feel comfortable, and then we learned very early,
08:40like, please, edit now.
08:42Go through your stuff.
08:44And so, from here on out, like, we do that now.
08:49But that was a very valuable lesson because it was a lot of things that were said, that were stated,
08:55that we didn't stand by.
08:56Like, we didn't agree with.
08:58But, like, we were really, like, he literally called me at Saturday at, like, 6 o'clock at night and
09:07was like, yo, I'm going to be there Sunday at 7 o'clock in the morning.
09:10And we literally filmed that episode, like, 7 o'clock in the morning.
09:14And we put it out at, like, 9 o'clock.
09:17And, boy, did we learn a lesson.
09:19It's something that I wish that we did have edited it.
09:23I wish we did have, like, went through it.
09:26But it was something that was a learning lesson.
09:28Plus topics that were outside of our regular wheelhouse.
09:30Yeah, that's not us.
09:31We're here to celebrate.
09:32The thing is, we're celebrating the guests in our episode.
09:34Yes.
09:34We're celebrating the culture.
09:36It's about hip-hop, hip-hop history.
09:37So that stuff that happened in that episode was kind of outside of that.
09:41Your show, and more importantly, your business model, has become a template for a lot of other, we'll just call
09:45them videocasts at this point.
09:47Right.
09:47Because they're all on video.
09:48I mean, they're everywhere.
09:48Yeah.
09:49Do you ever feel pressure, like, you know, the competition?
09:51Because it seems like, you know, every rapper wants to have something basically similar.
09:56And they want to have the same vibe that you and EFN had.
09:59Now, yes, I do feel pressure.
10:01I don't want to say, like, it's pressure that's breaking my pipes or nothing like that.
10:05But it is pressure because everybody is taking off format.
10:09And if I say, yo, you're taking my format, they're not kind of, like, seem like a hater or something.
10:13Or it seems like I'm critiquing my own peers, which I told them to do this.
10:20Yeah.
10:20Like, I asked them to do this.
10:21So, yeah, but, you know, for me lately, it's been so smooth because, like, I'm sitting around and I'm like,
10:30yo, I love this.
10:31I love the fact that hip-hop is now in control of hip-hop media as opposed to before where,
10:37you know, we had no control.
10:38We had, like, you would go do an interview at the source, let's say, and the source will come out
10:44three months later.
10:46And it would be, you didn't feel this way because, you know what I mean, it's print magazines.
10:51So now, like, I love the fact that hip-hop, we're controlling our own media.
10:56Like, if I want to look at sports, I can look at my own peers talking about sports.
11:02If I want to look at fashion, I can go look at my own peers talking about it.
11:05And this is the first time this has happened, so, you know, sometimes being the first or sometimes being, like,
11:12you know, the person that leads the way, you're the person that gets crucified first.
11:16So, yeah.
11:17I think I'm proud of what we were able to do by inspiring.
11:21We advocated to every guest to do podcasts, and a lot of those guests went ahead and had successful podcasts.
11:27I also see the competition as a signal to what's the next evolution of what we do because we helped
11:32to evolve this space.
11:33Let's evolve ourselves.
11:35What is the next evolution?
11:36I mean, I know you guys don't disclose revenue figures, but you're doing all right, revenue-wise?
11:40Yeah, we're doing great.
11:41Can you tell me what the revenue is?
11:43I mean, yeah.
11:44Well, our next, I can tell you our next thing.
11:45Our next thing is becoming the Def Jam of podcasts.
11:50Like, you know, like, we know we signed Mick Bleak, you said earlier, rock solid.
11:53Yeah.
11:54We're getting Angela Simmons.
11:56We have Latino champs that is, like, it's in a whole different category, and it's catering to the Latino community.
12:04And that's what we want to do.
12:05Like, we want to, like, not only continue to do what we're doing, but we want to put other people
12:11on for them to be, you know, the next.
12:14So if some major media company came along and offered to buy a drink chance.
12:18Absolutely.
12:19What's your price?
12:21I mean, look, the dream of every entrepreneur is to build something and eventually maybe part with it and, you
12:27know, walk away with something that was worth.
12:29Well, it's been 10 years, and a lot of people would say, particularly when you go back and listen to
12:33those first few episodes, that this has been a phenomenal run.
12:36You've got the template for it.
12:37It'll be interesting to see.
12:38In five years, maybe you are the next Def Jam.
12:41Yeah.
12:41I would really love that.
12:42I would love to give people opportunities.
12:45And, you know, I just mentioned blacks and Latinos, but listen, we want to sign white people, too.
12:51We want Asians, wherever you're at.
12:54Yeah, yeah.
12:54Like, we want them all.
12:56Yeah.
12:56And especially we want to get behind talent.
12:59Yeah.
13:00You know what I mean?
13:00I remember how rough it was for me to become a hip-hop artist and to get a deal.
13:07And I'm sure it was rough for him.
13:09So I want to make it easier for the next people to come in.
13:13So that's really what we want to do.
13:15And we've been successful at it.
13:16Like, we haven't pressured.
13:18We haven't.
13:18Yeah.
13:19Like I said, like, we have Rock Solid.
13:22We have Grumpy OGs.
13:24We got Grumpy OGs.
13:25We got Watch Stalkers.
13:26We got Watch Stalkers.
13:28And these are all working simultaneously.
13:31And I feel great about it.
13:34Like, I feel great about us being and not having to compromise, not having to change who we are to
13:40try to be successful in a business that we're already dominating.
13:46And so I love it.
13:48All right.
13:48And I can't believe, you know, it's been almost 30 years since War Report came out.
13:51Yes.
13:52Can you believe that?
13:52Yes.
13:53I do have to ask your question.
13:54Please.
13:54So I'm told, from what I've read, that EFN sort of was one of the people who kind of lured
13:58you down to Miami.
14:00Yes.
14:00But you're from New York.
14:01I'm from New York.
14:02Left Rack City.
14:02100% yes.
14:03So my question is, are you a Knicks fan or are you a Heat fan?
14:06You know I'm a Knicks fan.
14:07You know I'm a Knicks fan.
14:08And also, I want to throw out there, I want to know, I know the whole Left Rack family, the
14:12people, you know, very, you know, you know, Bloomberg, this is about money over here.
14:16So I know the whole Left Rack family.
14:19They're friends of mine.
14:21But what's happening in New York City right now is so beautiful.
14:25Yeah.
14:26I don't agree with the violence.
14:28I don't agree with beating up Spurs fans.
14:30I'm one million percent totally against that, but I'm also one million percent totally with the passion and the euphoria
14:36of us being together.
14:38Like, it's the first time you ever see somebody and they say, I'm a Knicks fan.
14:41They don't say, I'm from Queens.
14:43They don't say, I'm from Brooklyn.
14:44You know, we're so territorial out here that a person will say, you're from New York?
14:48And they say, no, I'm from the Bronx.
14:50Like, wait a minute.
14:51You're supposed to be from New York.
14:52I'm from New York.
14:53No, I'm from Brooklyn.
14:54No, this is the first time, like, we're actually saying they're Knicks fans.
14:58And the other day, I was in the Jewish parade.
15:03It's the Israeli parade.
15:04It's the Israeli parade.
15:06Wait, you were in that parade?
15:07They invited you to that?
15:07No, no, no.
15:08I was in the parade.
15:09Oh, yeah.
15:09Like, as a friend, like, as an attendee, and I was just walking around.
15:14And it was the first time, like, ever in my life I seen the police officers.
15:19They was like, no, we come through.
15:20And they were opening the gates for me, and I was sitting back, and then I didn't realize
15:23I had on a Knicks jersey.
15:26So I was, like, safe.
15:28Yeah.
15:29And I'm like, even the police is with us.
15:31Like, I just really want us, I really want us to win.
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