Life is just music.
Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
We wake up, make music.
We at Magic City and he'd be like,
"Do you want to go to the studio?"
Dang bro, let's get in the studio."
I'm gonna have a studio set up in my living room
'cause I don't want to be caught chilling too long.
I'm like nervous as [inaudible 00:00:18].
You never know.
Hell yeah let go to the studio.
(singing).
My name is Domani, ain't nothing funny.
19 with dreams of being on the big screen.
All of the bi hill crew rapping to a T.
Man that shits hard bro.
The most talented people in life don't always win.
They don't win as often as the overachievers.
So you got a talented person
and a overachiever who's not as talented.
I put my money on the overachiever all day.
All day.
In sports, in business, in music,
in life the overachievers win.
The people who put in the most work
and are relentless at achieving those goals.
The super talented people have a tendency
to be a little arrogant within their own mind and be like,
"Well I'm better than all that shit.
I know I can sing, rap, dance better."
But you're not the best hustler.
I got to get up and go to work. I got to get up and go to work.
Sometimes I'm in here 'til 9, 10 in the morning.
If I don't somebody gonna do it.
Like somebody gonna fill my shoes.
I can't nobody fill my shoes.
So I outwork everything around me.
I don't care if I get a million dollars tomorrow,
however I got that million dollars
ain't good enough no more 'cause it already happened.
Whatever way I did that I got to out work that,
I got to be that.
So I'm always in competition with myself.
Always.
Once I got old enough started rapping.
My dad was always like, "Look," just like grown man shit.
"All right I sound good. I don't know about no hop-hip,
but if this don't work what you gonna do in five years?
How you gonna get up out the house?"
And that saved me because I ended up saying,
"Okay you're right.
If I don't rap I need to learn how to engineer and produce."
And my brother bought me an MPC200XL.
Beat machine from guitar center.
I built my closet into a booth,
put my engineer board on top of my bed
and I locked myself in there for about two years.
Made like 700 terrible beats,
but I learned it and learned it and learned it
and that's really how I got started.
Life is just music.
Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Like we wake up, make music.
We were in the studio for two months straight everyday
and making music. That's how we got here.
When we first started Wav3pop we did like five,
six, seven songs a day.
Just everyday for two months straight.
Yeah.
You never know what an individual could bring to you.
I had a booking agent
and she wanted to introduce me to a talent agent.
I wasn't so sure that I wanted to meet that person,
but that person ended up being one of my biggest avenues
to getting into the film world
and getting my first role as an actor.
So it's good to meet with people that may be outside the box
'cause those outside the box ideas
are things that could turn into a guru.
You never know.
Last summer when we finished my last project
my manager Chris Hunter, him and TI have the same barber.
He gave her the cd and she gave it to T.I.P.'s cousin
[Javon 00:03:32],
Javon loved it so much that he played it for T.I.P.
and they're calling us back two days later.
"Yo we want to meet." And I'm like nervous as
[inaudible 00:03:40] because I have a line in it
where I'm like I don't need B.O.B
or T.I.P to stand next to me,
no co-sign needed for my thug thizzle.
I'm writing it thinking I will never meet him.
You know what I mean? And I remember we were first,
we sat down we was having our first lunch.
I was playing him the video to that song and I was like,
"Yo, before you say anything I got this line coming up."
He was like, "Look man I already heard it.
We not sensitive over here man."
He was like, "It's dope song bro so like
I'm not even tripping like that man."
Then fast forward now me and T.I.P and B.O.B have a video
that we just put out called Writer.
So that was just how that kind of worked out.
When I met T.I.P we was in Magic City chilling.
And he be like, "Shit, you want to go to the studio?"
I was like, "The [bleep].
Hell yeah let go to the studio."
But it was just weird for him to ask me that
'cause I'm thinking like we had met
just sitting all this ass in here why
[inaudible 00:04:35] studio sir?
He still like a new artist. Like he still work like hell.
T.I.P. real, real, real competitive,
like weird competitive.
"Like man we just walking to the car,
why you got to beat me to the car?"
Like everything, even in the studio.
You gonna go in you gonna do a verse
and he gonna come out and look at you. "Who's next?"
And he's always weird like, "Yeah I'm gonna go next."
At first we was just playing basketball.
I remember I fouled him couple times.
Scratch you, we didn't even know each other.
Yeah. Then one day he just hit me up out of the blue like,
"Bro, I'm having a party bro come through."
Everything's like,
"Bro I'm having a party come through."
And I was like, "All right bet I'm there bro."
So I pull up, the parties going on like music is playing
and then all of a sudden one of his beats came on.
Oh yeah. The house of the hills.
The of the hills beat.
House with the hills beat. That beat was-
The house of the hills beat came on
and I just started free styling. Then he started free styling.
I'm like, "Man that shits hard bro."
He was like, "Yeah you know I produced that."
Yeah.
I was like, "Dang bro, like let's get in the studio."
He was like, "Bet."
Literally we did one song now we have 300.
Yeah that's real.
Think I wrote my first song when I was 10.
Let me see it was, "My name is Domani, ain't nothing funny.
You better watch your girl or she gonna be my honey.
Catch me at the [inaudible 00:06:02] big phase hunches.
King of the school 'cause you know I run it.
Everyday after school got all the girls running.
You know why I'm cool 'cause you see me stuntin.
New shirt, new pants, new shoes
I'm a baller got your daughter's number
so you know I'ma call her."
That was it you know.
I remember it was a nice little catchy beat.
I thought I was a super star.
(singing) "Yeah.
She just want a house in the hills.
She never been to Beverly Hills.
And you can come to my house in the hills.
You can come to my house in the hills."
"If you like it." "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
Yeah that's how it goes.
"Lately I've been up for days barely even blinking.
Rolling blunts and pouring cups to keep myself from thinking.
And I'm just a girl,
19 with dreams of being on the big screen.
Blue jeans, Jordan's kind of cute, but still could
[inaudible 00:07:03] me. Started writing poetry
and now I'm noticed off this rapping,
making music for [inaudible 00:07:08]
and Chicago they be snappin', but still could switch it off
all the poets they'd be snappin."
I forgot. I don't know. It's something like that.
My first was, "Well let me tell you about a trip,
a time ago.
I was going there to run a cold blooded show.
When I was there I saw some people jammin' too.
They called themselves the [inaudible 00:07:29] crew.
Dr. Ice, Romeo and Master E all of the
[inaudible 00:07:33] hill crew rapping to a T.
I asked them could they rock with me."
That's all I remember from that.
That was the first rap I ever wrote.
You got to be on a certain type of ball stacks to be a mogul.
You have to be able to reach farther
than just creating the music.
You can't just call him an artist anymore.
You have to call him a business man.
What makes Puff a mogul is his drive.
And the audacity.
Do this, do that.
We got to take it to heights that's never been seen before.
And I got a clothing line and I own a couple bottles.
That's mogul shit to me.
In the 90s the compact disc had arrived
and sales for the entire record business,
not just Hip-hop, were skyrocketing up.
But almost right after that the internet arrived
and the bottom fell out. And sales dropped 50%
because people were able to get songs for free.
So you saw really smart people like Puffy, Jay-Z,
a few others say what else can I do?
How else can I expand my brand. Touring, merchandise,
maybe a video game, maybe liquor.
This way of monetizing yourself and being an entrepreneur
has been extraordinarily valuable for a bunch of people.
Like moguls you got to be on a certain type of ball stacks
to be a mogul.
I look at people like Diddy, Rick
Ross you got to like really be on some Jay-Z shit.
All right cool I'm one of the most paid rappers
and I got a clothing line and I own a couple bottles.
And I own this and I ...
If you want to be a mogul you got to grow your worth.
Like you're not gonna grow your network
by just rapping your whole life.
The way that Jay-Z has transitioned from music
to the business world I think
when you get to a certain level like that where you have
that much influence you have to spread your wings farther
and be able to reach farther than just creating the music.
Jay-Z you can't just call him a artist anymore.
You have to call him a business man.
You got to shake his hand
when you talk to him and show him his respect
'cause he did invested in Sprint.
He's competing with Apple Music like that's a black man like,
"Yeah I'm gonna compete with Apple."
You know what I'm saying?
That Reasonable Doubt album was like the hustlers bible.
Like anything that you're doing to make money
that thing will make sense to you.
If you just replace every drug line with what you do,
it will make sense for success. I guarantee it.
It's the craziest trick in the book.
Jay-Z talks a lot about dealing in the street.
I think he was dealing into his mid to late 20s.
You know there is definitely a sense of how to do business
that he learned out in the street
[inaudible 00:10:34]. For Jay-Z to open up clubs,
put out clothes, these other sorts of things
makes perfect sense for his brand.
It's been an extraordinary career.
What makes Puff a mogul is his drive.
His hunger and being relentless and being fucking fearless.
Puff, Shawn 'Diddy' Combs
like I believe he's the best that ever did it.
You know just in terms of like commodifying this thing
at a time when to make money off of hip-hop
was seen as selling out. But how he flipped it was like,
"No we created this shit. We got to eat off this.
We got to take it to heights that's never been seen before."
His thing is to outwork everyone.
When we were doing American Gangster
we would be in the studio all day
though then he would come in the studio
and he would want us to stay a whole 'nother day
with him in there
because he would be running his other companies
and come to the studio
and his staff is coming in and showing him Sean John slide
or he's tasting the new flavor of the liquor.
He's like, "Okay, yes, no, yes, no.
[inaudible 00:11:47] this. Okay what's the next thing?
What's the next thing?" Then he gets to the music.
Diddy. I think he's just super dope just in every aspect.
Like he hustle. You know what I'm saying?
And he's branded his self and pretty much everybody under him.
You know what I mean? So I think he's super dope.
And the audacity I mean like I'm Puff Daddy I can do anything.
I can do minx and the chains and going into fashion.
I'm rolling with Marc Jacobs
and I mean like I can do anything.
Puff and Bad Boys impact on hip-hop changed hip-hop
where the just brought a different style.
"Oh we wearing diamonds now. We looking good. We dancing.
It's all right to dance because at that time
it was like you know the 90s and we call it the grimy 90s.
You had to be back in the fuck up with Onyx
you wasn't drinking 40s.
Puff was like, "Nah we can do that shit.
We gonna do that shit with some style.
We gonna do that shit acting like we got a little class."
Like you know what I'm saying?
"Anybody ain't fucking trying to beat people up nigga,
I'm trying to get fucking girls and trying to make money
and try and look good."
When somebody is expressing a vision to you
and it's crystal clear it's one thing,
but when someone is expressing the vision to you
and it's crystal clear and they're actually activating it
as they're speaking to you then you have to say to yourself,
"Okay this is not just talk.
He's doing this, this, this got a kid.
Running this company. Got these employees doing this
and he's getting up before me and going to sleep after me.
And he's putting points on the board.
[inaudible 00:13:22], Mary J. Blige,
Heavy D, styling this thing, producing this, rapping on this.
So he's scoring too. You know what I mean?
So you got somebody who's like, "Okay we can follow him
'cause he's not just on the bench saying,
'Do this, do that.'"
He's actually saying, "Do this, do that as I'm putting up 22."
That was Puff.
Fucking genius. He's like our Berry Gordy.
Like I made money just being around him.
Money like you know what I mean, like just ...
And that's my friend.
How many friends you got like that you could just be around
and you just like, money's just there.
Around. You get to make it.
And knowing just how to go get the money.
That's mogul shit to me.
That's good. Are you gonna-
The sad part is I can make myself laugh
and I do this all the time
so it's like once I start it, just can't stop.
Hmm?
Seven, four, three, one, two. Did it have to be in order? No?
No that was perfect.
Doesn't matter.
You make me feel so lit.
Behind him.
Damn she's quick man.
That's funny as shit.
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