KevOnStage

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jay Valentine and this is the RMB Money podcast. And today I got the homie. Listen, he'll tell you later on, I'll just be pulling up on him. Maybe he be trying to do his little walks in the park. Which probably can. And I'd be like, pop, pop, pop. He be dunking and everything. But you know what? Listen, he is a comedian. He's an actor. Man, a nigga on 2B. I finally met somebody that's actually on 2B. And I'm going to call it right now. I think he the next in line to own the biggest gospel, secular, all cool stuff. Major motion picture studio. We're going to get to it. He be selling out shows. Actually, first person I ever met who sells out a church. Camo stage is here today, y'all. Bang, bang, bang. Let's start there. Nigger, how you sell out a church? Is that a thing? It is a thing. It is a thing, you know, you know the business. I don't know that business. I mean, you know the music business. You know, you know, it's interesting because I started in churches. Just like the first time I ever did stand up, it was a talent show at my church. Okay. It's like a PYPU thing was like young people's thing. PYPU was like all I know is PYT. Listen, he's a star on me money pocket. I know the pretty young thing. Now, what's the Pentecostal youth, Pentecostal youth, people's union or something like that. You don't even know it either. Now, I don't know what you stands for, but it was like the team. So, you know, most people sing, you know, playing instrument and my brother was like, you should do stand up. Kevin, I was like, I should. And he was like, this girl who goes to our church, don't think you're funny. And that put like a battery in my back. Turned out he was lying. I talked to the girl like four years ago. She was like, I never, I wouldn't even know if you're funny. I would never say that. But I did that, you know, when I was 16 and I got bit by the bug, you know, immediately. But that's not why I did churches. When I started, when I went on tour in 20 by my, actually, let me back up. I was doing a tour with other Christian comedians, three or four other people, Carlton Banks, Anna Douglas, Christie Show, and the promoter was booking us in churches. OK. And I had a life changing moment because up until then, I had been booked in churches by myself or with my brother and aunt. We would do comedy shows in churches. They'd bring us in, pay us some little money or give us an offering and stuff like that. What is the whole church and little money thing? Brother, I promise you, Brob and Paid in so much fruit, so many baskets of fruit, bananas. So they really take this fruit to the labor thing. Not dead serious, Jay. We appreciate you, brother, the biggest cellophane bag of Easter basket type stuff. You know, I would flip that over. Bro, I'm talking about hissed. I done poured my heart and soul out. Then sometimes they raise an offering for us. We split me, Jay and aunt was split three ways. OK. It'd be like 84 bucks. And we done drove from Dallas to a church in Oklahoma or Tulsa to split three, 84 bucks, three ways. Like that's what we were. Our wives were like, hey, brothers, where Melissa was married to you. Why you brother, she married to me. Oh, we. Jay, I done gave her a good amount of times to bail by the grace of God. She's still here. She's right here. I see. I don't gave her some time, Jay. I'll give you one real quick. All right. All right. I used to work at the bank, right? Me and my brother and my boy, aunt was like, we go make it. J'Karris Johnson, who was a big in the play world. Karris Johnson was hope. But he rich. No, no, definitely. So I'm sure I figured this out. I'm going to tell you why I was dumb and poor and broke. Because we had it in our mind. We was going to meet J'Karris Johnson. OK. He was hosting like he was opening a play in Miami. And he had like a dinner, fundraising dinner. They were celebrating him. Wasn't even his dinner. They were some people were celebrating him. $500 a plate, right? We like we got to go and shake J'Karris Johnson's hand. He going to change our life. We buy three plane tickets from Washington, pay the 500 each rent of Volkswagen, Volkswagen Beetle, the little green lime green joint in Miami lost. We go to a corner store trying to find the place the police are like, you are going to get killed. You need to know where you're going quickly. I'm going to show you where you're going, because you're not in the right part of Miami to get lost. We had a corner store asking for directions. They like, you know, I was in the parking being project. Bruh, in a lime green Beetle. And the police are like, I want to rob you. You guys think out something. We in full church clothes. If I saw you on a lime green Beetle, I would think to myself, it's not worth it. We look so robable. No, but I'm saying you don't have anything. Oh, for sure. Three niggas in a Beetle. For practice. You just I'm just wasting the time. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, we find our way to the thing. Mind you, we put credit. We put the plane ticket, the hotel, the rental car, the five hundred dollar plate on the credit card that we take out. OK, we get in there. We like, we got to meet your carries, Johnson. Jay, we go to the thing and do a little play. It's amazing. It's over. You care, Johnson walks by, shakes our hand and keeps walking. We didn't have no plan. He don't know. No, he don't know. He's supposed to change our life. You don't know. He just shakes our hand. Very nice. He's like, nice to meet you, brother. Yeah, I'm gone. We were like, nigga, we didn't have no plan behind shaking the hand. We don't have no way to meet with him or nothing. So we did things like that and ran up a fifteen thousand dollar credit card bill buying a at that time to take debit cards. You got to buy a phone terminal and plug your your merch line into a phone jack. So we spent five hundred dollars on that. We sold probably twenty eight dollars worth of shirts in three years. We like, nigga, but we got to have the terminal because people ain't going to be carrying cash all the time. Fifteen thousand dollars. Yeah. It makes it makes sense. But then we don't sell it enough. It don't make that much sense. We can't have that credit card balance for like seven years. We used to meet in the parking lot of a bank America once a month to all turn in our 80 bucks to pay the minimum on this credit card for seven years. We didn't pay that off until Tracy Edmonds gave us fifty thousand dollars to move to LA. The first thing we did is pay that credit card off. Our wives were like, finally, we carried that for seven years, ran that up in like maybe six months. If even that. So what is your sale to Tracy, a kidney? You just you jumped to. We sold. She gave us fifty. She gave us fifty grand to to to make ten Playmakers YouTube videos. OK, at the time, which changed our life. Eternally grateful to Tracy Edmonds because that that amount of money we shot and edited and directed everything. I edited the videos and paid our debt and paid our debt and moved down to LA all off the fifty. Fifty gone, by the way, before the summer's out. You can't spit fifty three U.S. With three different families and no jobs among the six. Miss Melissa stayed. Still she still stayed. Yeah, she's with a lot of people with a laugh. Yeah, this sounds like a big brother. If she would have left every time I tell the story, people will be like, you was married to so many women with broke singers. She was with me broke for a long time. And it's something about walking in the studio. And this broke singer walks in with a really pretty girl. And you like she she just she don't know. That was her. Melissa knew, though, but she knew she had to know something. She knew something. She had to know something. These girls be knowing. No, I think they just. They like, oh, yeah, baby, that's how good. Listen, Robin, the music business a long time. Yeah, I've seen it. And I've seen that same girl come to the studio with baby three or four other. You know, we're not talking about that. We're taking we're getting out this time. We you know, I feel you. But yeah, so so I started in church. Me, Jane, I used to perform in churches when I started popping a little bit. Churches used to bring me out. Yeah. So I had all these relationships. So it was time to go on tour. I didn't have no manager, no agent. So at that time and really still today, without a booking agent or a manager, how to get into these clubs and theaters, it's impossible. Like they purposely don't want people just calling and trying to look. So it seemed impossible for me. So I used to I use this website called unique venues.com. Come on, give me the game. Yeah, you know, venues.com. And I used to put out on social media. Yo, it's Kevin on stage. I want to go on tour. If you're a church that seats over 300 people. Here's my email. I want to come bring a show to your to your church. Yeah. And because people knew me, they'd be like, yeah. And churches are not like they're not in the location business in the way that like Live Nation is not now. Some are getting in now. OK. Some are getting in. But most of them are like, as long as it's clean, people can come. It's reasonably priced. We'll we'll rent it to you or do a ticket split with you. And that's what we did. You know, I booked the tour myself. Matter of fact, the tour I did last year, I booked myself. So how do you turn people away from the church? Well, the church is always supposed to be open. Not tonight. So Sunday morning, y'all can come. We didn't but out the church. Not tonight. I need that 30 that 50 up out. I need that event bright QR code brother. Tomorrow when they come preach, of course, the Lord, the Lord. Friday night, Kevin stages here. Turning people away from the Lord's house. Fifty dollars. You can come in for the 50 discount for your members. I give you all special event, you know, a little QR code, a little bit Lee for your members. And we got security at the door too. And in Texas, they got the blicky on the side of a hip. I'll kill you if you try to get in here. Man, now Sunday morning, Jesus rose, Jesus rose. All right, we go. We go break this down because I'm trying not to get struck down. I'm trying not to get struck down by this brother. My signature. Sit next to him. Let's start the beginning. All right. El Paso. Yeah. Chicago. Seattle. Nick, I don't know where you from. Where are you from, bro? So, OK, part of the reason it's so confusing because I'm a military brat, OK, me and my wife are both military. So if you know people in the military, take as a military. OK, perfect. So you got three, four duty stations that you lived in. And you're like, where are you from? Question is, what do you mean? Like I was born in El Paso, 1983. I lived there from 83 to 93. OK, first 10 years. So you don't really got no hood. I ain't got no hood. OK. I ain't got no hood. I'm just out here. I moved to Virginia, North Carolina. Back to El Paso. Where was the tank was there? Might have been. Yeah. What is that? Andrews, right? That's Andrews. Yeah, Andrews Air Force Base in Alex. That's his hood. Yeah, Alexandria, Virginia. That's Texas. Yeah, Andrews. I was up there for a year. Then I moved to Washington. That's where I met Melissa. Our dads were stationed the same duty station in the same neighborhood. She was one block over from me. Yeah. And that was 11th grade. Met her, started dating her in 11th grade and never broke up since May 15, 2000. That's when we started dating for real. Technically, we started dating like May 1, 2000. But I thought we were together. Really good husband, bro. You remember. Oh, yeah. This is awesome. I love her for real. I see why she stayed. Well, she didn't stay at first. OK. Because I try to be smooth, Jay. I'm like, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Why don't you be my girl? So I thought she said yes. OK. All right. So one day on the bus, I used to have this trick. I would put my hand on the girl's knee and like open it up and tickle your knee. And one, she didn't get tickled. So I'm already died. My stuff ain't working. So she stops my hand and she's like, what are you doing? I was like, I was doing my tickle thing. Because you know you my girl. She's like, what are you? I'm not your girl. I was like, no, because remember like two weeks ago, I said, yeah, you're going to be my girl. And I whispered. She's like, I never said that. I was like, ah, cool, cool. So now that's cool. It's cool. So you was crushed. Oh my god. I make it more clear. It was cool. I see you girl. You know what I'm saying? We don't say it outright, Jay. You know what I'm saying? Why don't we just you don't feel me? It was that because I was murmuring. I don't feel you. She didn't feel me. You need it. I get it. So let me tell you how I get clarity. Shout out to her cousin, Tony. He was living with them at the time. It's my dog. We used to hoop together. We used to share clothes. We used to do these in different grades. Let me get the chap shirt. All right. You wore it last week on A day. Give it to me. I'm aware it on B day. Like that's my dog. OK. So me and her and him walking home because they used to walk our home to the bus from the bus stop because we know we can live in the same neighborhood. So Tony's like, come on, Liz, man. Why don't you be with the cab, man? You know what I'm saying? Y'all be together, man. You know he like you. Kid you not, Jay. She grabs my hand. Fine, Tony. We will be together. Are you happy now? Throws my hand down. And I'm like, so you're telling me that's a chance. From that moment that was May 15, 2000, we have never broken up. It's now June or no, it's what March 2026, 26 year. Y'all got together on a fine, Tony. On a fine, Tony. Are you OK? Yes, Gina. I will marry you. It was on that type of time. So he was shut up. I took it, Jay. It's a clear yes. I can go right back to my knee thing. I go right back to the knee thing. I never did it, but I feel like I can now. And yeah, and that's 13 years. You know, we got married in the junior year of college. I try to marry her after our sophomore year. I was like, look, we get married. We get the good financial aid. You know what I'm saying? I got my own apartment now. Let me go. Always in the house later. She's like, I'm like, girl, we can get the married people's housing. We'll get the good financial aid. Married people's housing. You can qualify for the married people's housing. Nobody even being there. We get the good stuff. We can stay on campus. She's like, no, that's taking another time. What school y'all at? University of Washington in Seattle. We both got there. But she agrees to marry me junior year. That must be, that was 2004. And we were together about a house, had his kids. And then we moved to LA 2013. So that was 13 years ago now. So 13 years in Washington, 13 years in LA, 26 years total. How you from Seattle? Yeah. Well, that's my thing. It's like, I usually just say Washington because it was the last place I was. And but the thing is, my grandma was in El Paso, but she moved. And both of our parents were in Washington, but they moved. So it's like, how are you from somewhere, but none of your people live there. So now she's famous. Who claim you? Everybody. El Paso. She's a real famous nigga, man. El Paso. That's a real famous nigga, man. Yeah. And people don't even know. The whole Chicago thing was just a joke. It was a joke. Because I just love it. But AI now says I'm from Waukegan. It's what I couldn't believe. But Chicago people really rock with me because I really do love the city. Yeah. And I think it gets a bad rap a lot of times. And it hasn't been my experience, obviously. So I'm about to just mess up all your Chicago stuff. Because we know how much Chicago love R&B music. And I want to get to, what is it, what you and R&B singers, bro? What you, come on, Jeff. I just want to know. Come on, Jeff. Always care on stage. Always comedy. Always, you know, I was married. I only know my wife. Hey, it's cool. It's cool. Um. Keith Sweat. Dave, come on, man. I couldn't have you on this show without bringing up Keith Sweat. The fact that you started a frenzy about Keith Sweat, a debate. A debate. Listen. Five hits? Yes. So let me explain. OK. OK. And I'm going to say a name. Courtney B is the comedian that caused the frenzy. Courtney B, me, Courtney B, Tony Baker, and Nick Cannon. We're on Nick Cannon's We Play In Space podcast. Yes. We chopping it up. And we get to talk about R&B. And we talk about hits versus, like, Billboard hits or just hits in the hood. Right? And Courtney B, Courtney B says, Courtney B says Keith Sweat ain't got five hits. Time out. You know your husband is snitching. No, no, absolutely. I'm not from the streets. Your honor, it was Courtney B. She's right there. I don't, I'm not in the streets. Snitching is for people who are in the streets and playing by these rules. I am a civilian. OK. I'm a tax paying American. They were robbing, sir. Your honor, officer, Courtney B is the person who was like, Keith Sweat ain't got five hits. Wow. So me and Tony and Nick Cannon are all like, Nick, are you crazy? We start naming the hits, naming the hits, naming the hits. She's like, no, that ain't no hit. She talking about Billboard and stuff. So I'm like, we're going to settle this on the streets of social media. And I'm like, on the streets of social media. And to make it fair to her, I didn't say what part mine was. Because on social media, people will side with whoever posts. If I say, I don't feel like that. People will always side with whoever posts, especially because I have a lot of fans. She's like, you going to side with your fans, Kevin, you got more people. And I'm like, no, I'm going to say that. You know, I almost got you put in the truck. So now, so I now you, when I see you in the streets and you like, hey, brother, Keith Sweat ain't like that. I was like, what? He ain't like what? What? Keith didn't like. So I go online. Sorry, Courtney. I love you. I grew up on Keith. You know what I'm saying? But yeah, I was I was like, girl, I'm blowing up your spot because episode wasn't coming out. OK. I'm trying to prove my point. I'm like, soon as episode coming out, I'm going to cut this part and post it to the world. So y'all know it's her. It ain't me. You know what I'm saying? So it went a little too far. Yeah, you got you got putting the trick back. Like seriously, to the point I'm on the phone with Keith. What did you tell him? I told him, don't hurt you. What I told him. What do you mean? Keith against it, man. Like I said, he a good church dude, man. But I do know where he jogged. Tom Stahlermalke. I'm saying the crazy thing is I was defending him. I'm on him. I thought she was crazy. You know what I'm saying? Keith's sweating. Got no five hits. Nick what? Nick. My first album got more than five. Keith, I know. Which is literally what everybody said. Everybody in the comments was like, Nick in his first album, Every Song. I just feel like he was gonna pull up all me in the back seat. It was gonna happen at some point. With a cane. Yeah, you little nigga who said, Keith's sweating got five. Yeah. Take his knees out, y'all. The funny part is, I woulda, do you remember I saw you at the BET Awards? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And during the commercial break, I'm like, hey you the nigga with the far ones with all the R&B niggas. We ain't got a whoop in the night. No whoop in the night. No whoop in the night. That's why I gotta be chill, man. Hey listen man, what you're doing now is really cool. Right, cause you're doing it in such a fun loving way and you're having a good time and you don't, like you would have to, you gotta be crazy to think that the things that you're doing have malice behind them. 1000%. They just don't have no malice behind them, man. And it's like, yes, maybe he doesn't agree. Right. Not in this situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously you do a lot of reviews, you do a lot of like, you know, catch ups on social media. So obviously you're not gonna agree with everything, but I've never seen anything where I felt like you were being malicious or like agents trying to talk crazy about somebody. I try to do comedy that, and the black community is really good about this, will allow a love tap if we feel like you being fair. Right? I don't ever wanna feel like if I run into somebody, it's gonna be beef for real. You talk about the BET Awards, you know when Kevin Hart's hosting or Monique's hosting or Jamie's hosting, they taking jabs at people, and you know it's a like joke, a love tap from love. And in the black community, we know the comedians can get away with stuff, but it's gotta feel like you love us though, and you with us. Yeah. And you can get a joke off or two, it's all ha ha ha, but don't talk crazy. Right. And that's why my thing, I would never just be like straight up disrespectful to black people. Now, when it's white people trying to encroach, I might be a little more disrespectful. Uh-uh. I don't know how I feel about the Jermaine Jackson thing. No, okay, no, see. You went a little far. You went a little far. That? You went a little far. But see J though, but I feel like I got to get through the Jermaine. I feel like he's not hearing us. Jermaine is Jermaine, okay? Jermaine is royalty. But Jermaine tried a lot. Listen. Jermaine is royalty. He is. And listen, it's, we got entertainment. We got two royal families in the entertainment industry, the Jackson's and the Wans. Yes. Yes. It's about the ones that's close, but those two for sure I'm talking about as families. For sure. They are royal families. But think about this, okay? To that point, I'm coming up in comic view, deaf comedy jam time. Michael Jackson was 35, 40% of the jokes. Okay. We know we love, some of my favorite jokes were about Michael Jackson. Jermaine ain't about to play with you. Okay. Okay. Cause if he jump out of one of the rose voices he be in. Sometimes I do take the risk. That's the thing about comedians. Sometimes you got, I told my wife this, it's about being loyal to the joke. If Jermaine don't rock with me, I understand. If Jermaine like, I think of Kev Trash, I feel you Jermaine. I feel you Jermaine. And now I got to take that risk. Cause I got to say what's on my heart. But was it a little more personal because you can't whip yours? 1,000%. Okay, let's see, you know, let's let's- 1,000%. Let's unpack this. 1,000%. Let's unpack this. He lying on the side, but that's truth here. That's truth here. And I seen Jermaine one time at the Woodland Hill in Woodland Hills. And I said, Jermaine, I ain't say nothing. You just didn't like that he called it an Afro. He lying. That's my thing. J-Jack, you lying now. Oh, you gave my nickname. J-Jack. You don't know Jermaine like that, bro. Okay, give it to him. Cause I don't know J-Jack. But he was just been like, you know what I'm saying? I got my, it is what it is. We understand. It's like when you see people with bejean, it's like brother, we all know you're lying. You're lying. So you got to just not say nothing, but you're talking about I'm rapping it. Come on, Jermaine. That's not true. That's Michael Big Brother, dawg. Yes, Michael Big Brother. Cause J-Jack is Big Brother. There's all these big brothers. That's how you act. It's Jackie Little Brother. It's Jackie Little Brother. Here we go. And I'm like, come on, J, you ain't got to lie, Craig. You ain't got to lie. I just don't want nobody to do nothing to you, man. You know, I also, I'm a big dude. I feel like Jermaine won't have to send somebody. You thought you could whoop Jermaine? This is crazy. This is crazy. I'm just saying. You got to. Now you whooping Jermaine? Jermaine? All I'm saying is I imagine he going to have to send somebody. He not doing his own evil bidding. I imagine. You think Jermaine run up on me straight up? I think Jermaine is from Gary, Indiana. He says C70 though, ain't he? From an actual hood. No, they from real. I think it ain't hood. Gary, no, that's. I think it ain't hood. That's Chicagoland area. It's different. Yeah, they say Michael's out here fighting niggas for real. You might want to relax, bro. You want me to edit that part? They're not. Jermaine, I'm sorry, brother. I was wrong. I was out of place. You do have an afro. Everything here is real, brother. If you see me in the streets and we're seated, brother, you ain't got to do nothing. This all you, J. I don't want no problems. I don't want no smoke. Stal him out, OG. Stal him out. He ain't mean. He ain't mean. He ain't from here. He ain't even from Acorn. He's stalling. Stal him out. The last but not least, the other R&B nigga I seen you take a shot at. Who? Me. You? Me. I'm watching the interview. I see it. OK, so they asked him about R&B. You know, his wife answered him a lot of questions for him, which I respect. That's how you stay married for 45,000 years. But he ain't even asking this. And he just threw it in there. He was like, yeah, get you no records. Like, ah, beat it, beat it, beat it up. I'm like, let's take a talk about my song. Like, J. Is this how I'm about? Up? J. Is this how I'm about ladies, this your song? You brought me to the, my Emmy to the Bay? And then he gave me some extras like, yeah, man, because you know, it ain't, it just ain't no foreplay. Damn, that's how you felt about me, dog. I got the free. Why, yeah, J. I need to, they don't have the liner notes in stuff anymore. When I was coming up, y'all know, live. No, no, no, no. You used to be able to open it and say, who wrote this? I would have known, J. But you know, Apple Music, it don't say I don't got title. I don't have title. I didn't know you wrote that. That's an old joke, J. I just wrote, I sang it too. That's you. That's you. That's you. Low key, J, I've been telling that joke since I was in Tacoma. When that song was like at its apex, that joke used to kill. Oh, I'm sure. Because it, and I had like a two summers with that joke. Like that song in Tacoma was on the radio, probably two years of my comedy career. I said, nigga, no matter how bad I'm doing, I'll be the beat. This is gonna work. Oh, brother, I'm digging myself out of any hole that would used to be my back pocket as a spade. Technically, it was a rap song first. We took it and made it an R&B record, me, Chris Brown and Pleasure P. Wow. So it came from a rap mindset. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm gonna let you write. Start them out, OG. I know, I'm gonna let you write. He ain't from here. He ain't even from here. No, I was gonna tell other niggas about you. No, I'm telling you. No, I know me though. No, no. I ain't gonna work on you. I can't say start them out on you. You can't pull a me on me. Yeah. Yeah. What's going on here, man? Oh. What's going on? So, do you have any other beats with R&B singers, bro? And I just, let's just get it out while we're here. Low key, my, I ain't gonna say no names is, you know, I don't wanna clue you in. Okay. But I say too, I make too many videos. Okay. That's really what it boils down to. All jokes aside, my wife was like, hey man, you gotta watch what you say. She said, it ain't like when you were starting, you never ran into these people. Right, right, right. But now you saying stuff, you seen them at the BET Awards, they recognizing you at the NAACC, you in the straight, they seeing you. And as you notice, like less and less of my making videos like that, it's more like, man, I saw it on the internet. Are you scared now? I ain't scared, I'm still real nigger. You feel me? I'm still real nigger from Tacoma, cut, two, five, three, on me, Dan Homies. Can I say that? I don't know if these things are allowed. I just like rap music on the dead guys. On the dead guys, I ain't going. I heard GNX, I've heard some lingo, but she was just like, yo, Ken really though, for real. Right, right. But then like, you know, covering a pop culture podcast, it's all too like, you gotta cover this stuff. So I asked Big Boy this actually, I was on a set with Big Boy and I was like, yo, how do you deal with this? Cause you running these people, you know the people, they gotta come through you for press. And what he said was some good advice. He was like, I don't say anything with malice. They know it's my job. I gotta cover it. And I try not to say nothing in a disrespectful way. Right. And sometimes he was like, sometimes I let my co-hosts who ain't got as much to lose is, I do say some stuff cause I'm going to be the one that's actually in the rooms with these people. You know Big Boy Street Nigger too, right? See, man, everybody's on the street. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Big. He is? Big Boy Street Nigger. He seems so kind. It's a lot of kind and funny, but yeah. But if you're going to have a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what, that's the, you know what now he'd have turned me into a snitch. I'm sorry. Cause that's not even how I get out. I didn't know. I'm just trying to tell him. He's running to Big Boy all the time. He's to pull over on the side like he do. Big Boy do whatever he wants. He be in the streets. He's like, in the back seat? Yeah. Somebody else driving. I can't see the window. It gets more and more gangsta as you start to think about it. Gangsta don't drive down cars. No, they do express that down button. And when he done, he do this. You know, I'm really an old nigger. So I was really when niggas had to do this. Then the back seat. Doing like this. Oh, stop. Then they got to go back up when they pull up. The crank. The hand crank. I ain't seen that in a minute. Oh man. All right, all right. So we go get away from that, babe. All right, all right. I think we didn't squash all the R&B beat that you had. Thank you, bro. I got a hood pass. I got a J Valentine pass. Nope, you don't. I'm telling you to be careful. So what pushed you into the space of writing books? Money. There's no money in books. At least that's what they tell you, right? No, I'm about to say it to you how people say it, right? Do they say it? I mean, you talk business. So we know this. I'm saying what the people be saying. I ain't no money in books. They give you the little advance and then it's a deal. I heard this too, right? Yeah. So that's why I really, honestly, bro, you my friend, I knew it was going to be hilarious for coming. But I also wanted you to come here and give lessons. Yeah, yeah, no. I'll just sign this. I don't really get to this bad. It's not all money. That's not true. The Marriage Be Hard book, me and Melissa wrote New York Times Best Seller, by the way. Congratulations, man. Thank you. That book was for people. We wrote the book that we wanted people to have, right? We felt like we'd grown up churchy. We'd try and do the right thing. We'd ask it for advice and we'd get in a lot of just pray, just pray, give it to God. And it's like, you know what I'm saying? I feel you. Love God. That's not very practical advice. We beef in. We pray we still beef in that type of stuff. I'm not saying my prayers are not answered, but she's mad at me. I ain't getting no blessings. So are you hungry work after your beef? No, don't work. That little stuff was gone. We was like, my wife used to teach marriage enrichment at our church, teach Sunday school. We wrote the book that we wanted people to have. And I kind of did the same thing with successful failure. I'm not a harbor of information. I don't feel like, oh, because I got it. You got to go through what I went through. I want you to have every tool available to you that's available to me. So that's really why I wrote the books. If you want to have a good marriage, everything we knew up until that point, we put it in that book. So you can give that as a gift to a newlywed couple going through. And a lot of people stop us in the street, like, yo, your book really helped me. Blah, blah, blah. We're actually developing that book into a TV show right now to be able to keep doing those lessons and stuff like that. And successful failure, the same thing. I did a master class where I wanted people to have the game. I wrote a book so you could see, like, one, everything I've done, you can do. I really truly feel like that. The usual part of the equation isn't talent. I'm not the most talented comedian by a lot. I can name 10 women, 10 men, funnier than me, on any given night, stage, screen, whatever. What I am is smart, good at marketing, good at business, and have a good work ethic. Those are actually the things that qualify or disqualify you. The talent is evenly distributed. You know music-wise, you've probably seen 1,000 singers who can sing well, who can write. But you don't have a lot of people who want to sit in here and do 10 backing tracks, do another 10 backing tracks, get it till it's right, rewrite the hook, work the hook. You see a lot of people who are like, I ain't really trying to do all that. But the people who are like, no, I'll stay in here till it gets right are the people who usually succeed. And then go out and do the marketing behind it. And then go out and do the marketing. That's the other thing about content. When I was coming up, it was like comedian-wise, you could come to LA, have a great set, and agents in the crowd, they put you on Comic View, Deaf Comedy Jam, Tonight Show, have a great set on that. You're sold out. And you're naturally torn. There's comedians that are still working today who had one or two great Comic View sets, Deaf Comedy Jam sets, PDD, Bad Boys Comedy, Martin Lawrence, First Amendment, whatever those sets are, still working today. That is not the world for us today. You got to make these niggas laugh every single day on social media. You've done that for me, bro. Like, I go to your page, and I find something, and I'm like, oh, this shit funny. Yeah. You know what I mean? I still want to get to where the money at. Of course. Yeah. I feel like you're gatekeeping. I'm not gatekeeping. You didn't tell me where the money was with these damn books. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you. Now the truth is, I got a pretty sizable advance from the rip, from the rip, for Marys B. Hart, for each book. I got a pretty sizable advance because, based on my track record, they looking at everything. They looking at, the thing that separates me and why I get stuff that all people don't get is because I have hard ticket sales. When you look at my thing and you see he sold out, and that's why I put this stuff out, 300 seats back when I was doing 300, became 500, became 1,000, became 3,000. Come on, keep going. 3,000 in Brooklyn, 3,000 in London. You see that. OK, they know you over there, bro. You over there, bro? I'm in it. I'm in the fields from selling the food from. It's a matting still. Are you in Toronto now with your accent? Are you still? I'm just saying things I heard on Top Boy. OK. I'm just saying things I heard on Top Boy. You just sound like a Drake in a loop. Loud at me, don't mind you. I'm just saying stuff I heard on Top Boy. But like I'm when we first do them first two tours, when my wife was on there, right, we was and we would do the love hour first. Right. You we were selling two and one tickets. You come see me and Melissa at six o'clock. We'd go from six to seven thirty. OK. Take a 30 minute break and me, Tony Baker, into here from eight to nine thirty. We'll give you both for 50 bucks, right? And people was like, bet. So we selling from Seattle to LA and everywhere in between from LA all the cross to Atlanta down to Jacksonville. Full night of entertainment, full night of entertainment, 50 for 50 bucks. Two shows. And I'm doing the whole show with Melissa. Take 30 minutes off to here does 15. Tony does 25. And then I do another 45 50. And then we would go and do a meet and greet for two or three hundred people taking pictures after that. And mind you, Jay, at this time, that first year, I was working at all deaf. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, take a red eye Thursday night to the Friday City show. Work remotely on Friday and really be in slack, giving notes on stuff, all that type of stuff. Yeah, show Friday, wake up Saturday morning, drive to our next city. Do a show Saturday there. Sunday morning, drive to another city, drive or fly. Do the show Sunday morning there. Monday morning, fly back to LA. Melissa would go home. I would go from LAX to all deaf. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I did that for 10 months straight. I worked every single day for 10 months straight because I needed that actual job to make sure my family is taken care of, health insurance. And if I can't pay these comedians with these ticket sales, I'm going to have to go into my pocket and to my savings. I didn't know I was going to be able to pay the comedians until the third month of the tour. I had enough ticket sales. I'm like, OK, bet if I don't sell another ticket. You had no investors. Any no investors, no agent, no manager, no capital. I saved all my church show money. And I I I I this other influencer did this thing where he he sold. I forgot what he titled it. But basically, I opened all my ticket sales and I said, before I even had a venue, I said, if you know, you want to come see Kev on stage in Orlando, I must sell you a ticket for $15 while I try to find a venue. OK, OK. And once I get this venue, your $15 gets you in. If you find out this venue is too far from you, I'll refund you. You kind of like became, in a sense, like the home shopping network. No, as you as you're breaking down the business, bro, it's yeah, you just because I think what happens with entertainment is that it turns into this passion project for most people. Yeah, it's just what I love. Other than what I actually do. And this is my livelihood. Yes. So I need to do it when and wherever I can. Absolutely. You know what I mean? Like you got really talented people that are like, oh, I'm not performing there. Or I'm not doing this. Right. Like which is their prerogative? Yeah. Those same people should not complain. Right. When the Kev on stage. Yes. Is continuing to grow to bigger venues. Yes. And sell out more and more churches. Jay, we was performing in their first two years. Anybody who would take us with a microphone. I learned you can't do that. But the first time we were performing in South Carolina at a hotel ballroom. And we found that they give us a good deal at a hotel, but they don't have good performance equipment because they're usually just hosting wedding receptions. Like you don't have to have. So that's another thing about churches. Backline. Pristine backline. Yeah. A church's action. It's big churches. They got a board that you could do a live recording for. Professional, front of house people. And yeah, they go on tours with everybody. Literally. Yeah. Literally. You go to Noel Jones Church. That band is Mary J. Blyche's band. Yeah. Jay Z's drummer. Beyonce's keys. Right. These ninjas are rotating the greatest niggas on earth. And when they're back home there. That is Grace Jones brother. I know. Yeah. He was my Michael Jordan. Yeah. That's Noel. He's spinning the mic. Yeah. Right. So we will perform Emerson to Natty one time. Jay, we were we we were in the high school. We get there at three o'clock to set up. They forgot they rented it to us. There's nobody there. And I'm like, yo, I have a contract. What we were with? I hit you tonight. I'm like, what you mean? Nobody there. They're like, oh, yeah, we do. Oh, we forgot we even do that. Well, I mean, the gym is open. Got we even do that. Yes. They're like, oh, the janitor's here. Luckily he can unlock. I'm locking for you. He unlocks the gym. The sound thing is the door is locked. We have to climb through the seats into the sound booth. Turn the lights on and run the sound ourselves. Our green room was in the band room of the high school. They got timpani's and all that stuff. We sit in high school chairs, backstage, ordering, overeats. My brother lost the keys to the van that same night. So that's when I found out you lose the rental car keys like $500. Yeah, no, I happened on the plane with rental car keys one time. Oh, snap. I said, yeah. Yes, whatever it costs is what it costs. Literally, I'm not flying back. Two shows that night had a wait another hour and a half for the tow truck to come. We're pissed at him. And this thing is to this day, he died. Never admitted the truth. He died with that lie. You know, you lost them keys, Jay. I know you in heaven smiling down. It's time to admit, you know, you lost them. You snitching on people and it happens. I will tell the truth. You tell on that. Your honor, he died with that secret. He got them keys and he lost them. So, so yeah, I was I was I was literally there was nothing. There was no, I wouldn't perform. Yeah. No, I literally performed restaurants, high schools, bars, churches, anybody who would take me by the grace of God, my audience was coming to see me. Yeah. And we deliver shows. A lot of times these people hadn't even seen me live. They just going off my videos. So funny, like I started to stand up and to come up, proud of doing the Internet. And those were my first fans who saw me live on stage. That's actually where the name Kev on stage came from. Okay, I'm glad you said it because I was just like, okay. I used to be Kevin Frederick to remember on Facebook, you couldn't have a fake name. Right. At first. And then I got on Twitter. I was at Kevin Frederick's. But what was happening is 09, Twitter, 08. People were getting fired for their tweets. People were tweeting real reckless. And I was like, I can't get fired for these tweets. So I need to come up with a different name so they don't know who I really am. So I'm there like, what do I have? I'm Kev. I be on stage. I'll just call myself Kev on stage. I said, hey, Kevin, what's your rap name? Literally. And I wish I would have just kept, because I got fired from that job anyway, just for not being a good employee. So if he was a rapper, you'd be like, well, yeah, I'm Jason and I be shooting people. So I'm a J-shooter. That's me. Literally. That took me two minutes. I just was like, I cannot get fired. What can I do? What can I do at work? I changed my Twitter handle on my work computer. So I got a question. J-shooter and Kev on stage aren't being in comedy tonight. I'll beat it, beat it up. He's going to do that. And then Kev go do some jokes about I'll beat it, beat it up. Because so when you came up with your two minute name, somehow your wife became adjacent to your two minute name too. I picked that name for her. I said, now we're branding it. Because she didn't even have Facebook. I created her Facebook. She looks very pimpish, right? It's almost like a matching suit. Oh yeah, we them old heads. We going to be the people who dressed in a red suit, bright red. Yeah. You weren't Frankie Beverly at the cookout in 20 years for sure. Because I'm like, OK, so Mrs. Miss Cam on stage. For sure. All right. I created her Facebook page and all my friends Facebook page. Because I was the only one on there. I had nobody to talk to. With their friend of Kev on stage. There's some niggas out here that that's their page. Bro, like what is going on? I created her Instagram and I was like, list of Fred, list of Fred, in Fred. And I miss Kev on stage. And that's it. So does Tyler Perry want to fight you? Because everything feels like Tyler Perry's studio. Oh, brother. Tyler Perry, the blueprint. For me. Listen. He should be the blueprint in business. For sure. We wanted to be him. OK. Our greatest goal in time. So I used to go by me, Jay and Ann. Used to be called the playmakers. Because we made plays and that was going to be our thing. I actually got on the internet. You got to name yourself of what you do. Yeah, 1000 percent. Playmakers Kev on stage. Brother, there ain't too much talk to it. I see where this is going, bro. We make plays, y'all. Playmakers. One, because playmakers was actually taken. Because we're athletes. Like, niggas already got the playmakers? All right. So we're the playmakers one on YouTube. And there's another one that we've been the playmakers to. There's nobody sued you, niggas. Nobody sued us. Dion Sanders let it go. He was the original playmaker. But we actually started making videos because we were in the play business. OK. And I'll never forget this. We were in plays. Yes, I see. I see. You feel me? I feel you. You feel me? Because Jacarious was supposed to. Because Jacarious, David E. Tower, and Tyler Perry were the big three. All right. And we were like, I mean, we, man, we lost this investor $40,000 one time trying to sell plays. We had, there was a place called the Show Where Center in Washington. It was a brand new kind of mid-sized arena. It sat 6,000 people. Up until that point, we just did high schools or churches. Yeah. And at this point, the investor was like, no, we got to go big. What's the name of it? Show Where Center. I feel like. Yeah, they've hosted concerts. Yeah, we keep you cool. I feel like I've been there. Yeah. We saw Music Soul Child there one time. I remember our pastor got mad at me for, I put on Facebook, man, Music Soul Child had a great concert tonight. He was like, brother, you can't be leading the people of God to Music Soul Child. I was like, Music Soul Child doing it. He's so called love. He don't even sing about, he's not even listening to people. He's talking about. My pastor was like, brother, you can, you can, you do. And that song was called Lord. Originally. Yeah, that's upsetting. I wasn't even trying to hear it. No, OK. But they sat like 6,000 J. Investor paid 40,000 for us to put our play up. When I tell you of 6,000, we sold 88 tickets, maybe 90. We did not sell 100 tickets. Selling. Our friends didn't even come. Our friends did. All of our friends did. We have 6,000 friends. We have about 50, 60. It was only friends and family. So we are performing to 90 people in a place that seats 6,000. So what do you tell your investor? When that happens. When he shows up and he sees 88 people. What is that? Because. Because people don't understand business, bro. And I try to give an insider's view to people who want to do these things. Yeah. Right. And they need to know. Yeah. Because you didn't know. No. And you didn't know if they was probably going to show up with bad fish. In the backstage, they had 40,000. 1000%. Like what is going through your mind is you're like, man, we about to hit 88 tickets. So in my mind, I'm like, first you got to be a little delusional. So my mind, I'm repeating stories I heard. Tyler Perry's first thing. He didn't sell no tickets. And then it was raining. There was a line around there. I'm looking around like, maybe there's a rain. There's a, maybe in Seattle. Maybe there's traffic. At first I'm like, maybe there's traffic, y'all. Yeah. So at first I don't believe it. I'm like, oh, people just running late. Did you hit them with the walk up? The walk up going to be crazy. Walk up. Because we ain't, it probably, honestly, probably was 200 or 300 people. That's the, like in the Jackie promoter playbook. It's a walk up, Tyler, y'all. It's the greatest thing for the Jackie promoter to be able to say. Yeah, because you know. So yeah, we about 20% sold. But once walk up come, we're going to probably be at 80. Yeah. The bigger no you not. But you're not. You're not. You're not. And the thing is we did everything we knew how to do. But at that time it was like Flyers at the Barber Shop. Flyers on your, you know, we go to every church concert in the Tacoma, Seattle area. Paper, every, you know, car, perform. Here's our play. But people hadn't been used to paying. That's when I first started to learn what people would do for free. When we did free shows, we was cracking. It's popping. High school auditorium full, but we got the high school for free. High schools, I love it's free. We can, you know, it's community service. So we've seen 700, 800. So we're telling the investor, oh, we going to flip this. We on the radio, stuff like that. That's when we learned early on, this would really help what I try to tell people on social media. It doesn't cost anything to like your video. Doesn't cost anything to comment on your video, to share your video. It costs that person nothing. It costs a lot to go into my phone and enter my credit card. I really got to want to support you for doing that. And if you have not convinced anybody to do that for a shirt, a ticket, sewing into your movie, a Kickstarter, I wouldn't even say you have fans in that way. Because if it doesn't cost me anything, there's a way to monetize you. But if you're not buying hard tickets, you don't really have a true fan. I can be aware of you. I can be aware of you from a TikTok song, from this. But if I'm not actively buying something from you, I don't think that's a true fan that you can build a business on. I don't mean to tell people that you don't have fans. Right? It's like Beyoncé, she has a great flywheel. She does a lot of stuff for free. Right? The music is free now. Bey cello is free. You can see her on Netflix for free. Okay. So she's trying to convert you into a fan that will buy music, buy a vinyl, buy a hoodie, buy a ticket to a concert. Right. These are the fans where I actually can build a business off you. I'm a super fan. I might be buying Ivy Park. I might be buying your jeans. I mean, buying your whiskey. Right. These are all starting from Netflix. So she gives everybody this and then she needs you to come deeper and deeper. Now, down here, you got, I'm going to Cowboy Carter. I'm buying Cowboy Carter clothes. I'm sitting on the floor. I'm getting a VIP. I'm getting the special drink that's Beyoncé. Yeah. Most business people, you can actually build the majority of business people on those small amount of people. But you got to start them all up here and then follow them down, down, down, down, into your super fans. But most people on social media are there. They're just here. They're just here. And they never get you to convert anything. And it's like even moving from Instagram to click my link in my bio and go wherever else I'm telling, taking, that's even hard. That's tough. And the industry found that's how years ago they were trying to put YouTubers, they were trying to sell more Broadway tickets. So they're putting YouTubers in Broadway shows. And they found out just because I watch you on YouTube does not mean I'm going to buy a $300 ticket to see you in a Broadway show. Right. Or doesn't mean I live in New York. Like that $300 ticket is not really $300. I got a flight, hotel, drive, parking, dinner, whatever, babysitter. So a $300 ticket actually costs you $700, $800. So if you're not doing that, then you're not going to make actual money. Yeah. So I started off selling tickets, but that's why I post two or three videos a day. I want you to associate funniness with me. That's what my face is always in the videos. I don't care how funny the thing is. I just love you, sir. No, I do. But I want you to remember. My name is Kev Olstay. My name is Kev Olstay. You clearly love yourself. I love me. I'm a handsome nigger, even with the man boobs and the titties and the stomach. I'm still out here. You feel me? Everybody ain't got the S curl in the slide back. Everybody ain't got two. Jermaine? Jermaine ain't going to whoop you, bro. That's you, J. No, you know, no, no. You got real girl. It ain't me because it ain't me. It ain't me. Because you took another shot at Jermaine. You took another shot at Jermaine. But no, that's why I put my face in every video. Because I want psychologically, I want to connect you. Man, that video was funny. And when you go to my page, I'm going to have something to say, right? So I want to convince you, okay, come see me on a show. And then I really got to earn. When you come see me that first time, if I'm not killing, you're wanting done. You're not giving me a second chance. So I had to make sure my standup delivered. And then if you really have a good time, you're like, oh, I'm going to buy a shirt on the way out. And next time he comes in town, I might come. They're fully invested at that point. But I had to deliver every single step of the way. And also it's just like a music artist. Like if you want to sell tickets again as a musician, your album got to be good again. And that stands even for Beyonce. Less for everybody. Yeah, Beyonce, she has delivered. Over and over. Since I was 15, 14 years old, she has delivered good album, good tour, good performance, new album, good, good performance. But even if she's. And a lot of reinvention. And a lot of reinvention. And she's like the pinnacle to me of what an artist can be. But it's so interesting. Musicians, the audience doesn't want to hear your new stuff. Comedians, they don't want to hear your old stuff. So we both got to be reinventing. You have to continue to find pockets. Absolutely. And that's why I was going to ask you, like you said, you do a couple, two to three, post videos a day. Like how do you really decide? Is it do you guys have like a family brainstorm? If I make a video. Honestly, like before you even post something, like is there or at this point, are you just kind of in mode of like, okay, I think this is funny. I think what I do is if it catches my eye and I think it's funny, interesting. And if I can say three things about it, three jokes, three, whatever connected to nostalgia and something else. If I have three things to say, even if one is just adding, like I saw me see what I posted today. And I'll tell you what's my thought process on how I go through it. I'm scrolling Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and threads, just like everybody else. But I'm not scrolling to just scroll and be entertained. I'm scrolling to see what I can do about it. So yesterday, as we record this, Miles Caton, somebody threaded Miles Caton, black people, Miles Canton, right? I knew his name was Miles Caton, but I was on my podcast the day before and I saw a lot of people arguing me down that it was Miles Caton. So I'm like, okay, this is the first thing is this is interesting. I thought about this when I actually had this thought because I've been seeing it on social media, but it didn't click to make a video. So I'm like, oh, somebody else did that. That actually reminded me that I already had this thought. And somebody else made that thread. Okay, boom, that's one. Two, here's what's funny about that. Black people always add letters to stuff, right? That definitely S's. S's to everything, which is what I said in the video. I was at Family Dollars. Family Dollars, Save and Below, Nordstroms, Costco's, all that. So that's two. Black people love adding a letter that's not there. And the third one is people do that with me. They call Kev on. It's not my name. It's Kevin. Kevin on the stage. So it even happens to me. That's three things that actually somebody said that his family was part of Caton's spirituals. And I was like, that's not true. But then they started just adding. And the funny thing about that, I found out on social media and I almost made this video, the Caton spirituals are named after a city in Mississippi. Their actual last name is Watkins. The Caton spirituals last name is Watkins. But he's their grandson. But he's their grandson. But black people. And he's from a whole different Gotha Royalty family, the Figaro family. Timmy Figaro of Hezkine Walker, our nation Figaro of Cooper. They're a whole another family. So that's it. I'm like, oh, that's three things. Let me make that video right before I went to bed. That video did very well. And I make it, post it. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes. I try not to do anything that takes me more than 10 minutes because I have too many other things to do. You're a freestyle rapper. Basically. Yeah, you don't write nothing. I don't. You ain't. I'm Wayne. You Jay-Z. I'm Jay-Z. You two change. I'm out here. But I try to throw up three videos a day and I don't really put too much thought into any of them because I know I'm going to make three tomorrow. Like today I had meetings. I was doing budgets. I'm editing budgets myself. I have calls on the way here. I know I had to do this. I had a lunch meeting about something. I still found out how to do them three. And sometimes I cheat. Like I made so many videos. I know the algorithm is not going to remember everything I did. Freddie Gibbs tweeted. He said, top dog, that top dog nigga always on the radio. Top dog law. And I'm like, I made a video about that last year. Let me search my name. My daughter knows all of the top dog laws. He's the greatest ever. She's like, dad, he's got another one. He's the greatest ever. And then a dog bite your leg. Accidents are real. I got two million that I can't walk. So now for tomorrow's video, first thing in the morning, I'm like, let me just post this thing I made. Because I usually think if it's over a year ago, either people forgot about it, the algorithm didn't show it to you, or if it's funny enough, then it'll be funny enough again. So now tomorrow I have one. You're doing a remix to Ignition. 1000%. Got that from Tony Baker. He said, when you watch Martin, it ain't a new episode every time. They got new episodes and reruns. Some people didn't see it the first time. Some people saw it like it again. Algorithm doesn't even remember. Shout out to Tony Baker. Tony Baker. I take a lot from everybody. That guy is great. Oh, he's the best. That guy is great, bro. And I think y'all together is really cool. That is my nigga. He's really cool, bro. He's one of the comedians that's funnier than me. I'm not saying that to put myself down. I'm in the league. It's like watching Bron. Like, nigga, I'm out here, but that nigga's out here. Like, that's how I feel about Tony. But we also work well together. And I'm OK being the way to your Bron. If we win a championship, I'll be the boss to your Bron and your way. I'll be the bird, man, to your boss. As long as we get a ring, I want to win. I'm not intimidating. And that's why I'm grateful to come from the play industry. Because in the play industry, you need everybody to do well. You need the actors to do well. Singers, the band, the stage hands, wardrobe, stage manager. The lighting tech. Everybody has to do good. So you want to cast people who are good everywhere because the audience only remembers that they had a good time. So I don't have to be the reason you laughed. I'm a part of the show you enjoyed. And that's how I do my business. That's why I have no problem casting people who are at the best. And I'll let you shine. Because I found another comedian told me this. He said, people don't associate the funny person of a funny joke. They associate everybody they saw when something funny happened. No, for sure. So for sure. Martin, Tisha Campbell, everybody. Tashina Arnold, Cole, Tommy Schoen, Brumman. All of y'all are funny because I like the show. Yeah, Martin used to kill, but Pam used to be funny too. So did Gina, so did Cole, so did Tommy, so did Brumman. Did Tracy, Tracy Morgan, I forgot his character. Hustleman. Hustleman. They all funny. Chief. Chief. I got these vision low chief. To this day, me and Tate call each other chief. From that. From that. And he ain't even, what, 10, 15, 20 episodes? Maybe. Maybe, but you still remember how funny he was. So that's my ideology. So say myself with greatness, put people in positions to win and be around them in their orbit. And the audience will love you. What made you decide to continue to just reinvest? In my business? Self and in your business instead of being like, you know what? I'm going to go cut this deal. I'm going to take off some of this overhead. And maybe I won't have as much ownership in what I'm doing. That's a good question. I've never been asked that before. I think I always did it. My first investment was I worked a regular job. And in order to do plays, me, my brother and aunt used to have to chip in our own money from work. And I knew I couldn't, the place wasn't making no money. So it wasn't no investment. It wasn't no investment. Whatever we made, oh boy, they lost that. He lost that 40. And then the next person lost 20. So we owe niggas $60,000 to this day. To this day. Never got it back. Oh, I didn't finish that part of the story. I'm talking to the jog with you. Well, that's the, I'm giving him now. Will you change your name? No, I'll change my name. That first, so what happened with that investor, we were like, we're Tyler Perry, a promoter for Tyler Perry, we flew him out because we're like, this is going to be our moment. Okay. Right. This is when we had the $20,000 investor. And we're like, I don't remember who connected them with us, but like he was like the guy. If you impress him, you can make it. You can go on a tour. We flew him out, put him up the finest double tree that we could find and he took it. There's a joke. Just that's the one to give you the cookies. That's the one to give you the cookies. Right in Seattle center. You near the mall. It looked nice. Nice area. Solid hotel. I like Seattle. Yeah. Good place. He comes to the show. Jay is the best play we've ever done. My wife to this day was like, this is the best play you all have ever done. We absolutely crushed it. We go out to dinner with him and he's like, you guys are next up. I've been with Tyler, I've been with Jocarias, I've been with David E. Taubert. Y'all are ready. Y'all are ready to go to the next level. What we got to do is go to Oakland. Right. He's like, Oakland is where you break black plays. If Oakland rocks with you, I can take you on a 30 city tour. Okay. But you got to be proven by Oakland. I learned this when I did my first show in Oakland. If they don't rock with you, they not going. And I bombed another story another day. He's like, I'm ready to take y'all to Oakland. We need to put this play up. We need to do a week in Oakland. If y'all can sell 5,000 tickets a night for three nights, I guarantee you I can take it. 15,000. 15,000. Mind you, we have only sold 300. If you can sell. 15,000. And he's like, you guys got to get somebody who used to be a star. That's how you sell gospel plays. You were a star in the 90s and you ain't working at the moment. Or you're in the movies. But I know your name because he's like, you got to, at that time, got to be on the radio. It's got to be on TV commercials. Y'all names are not big enough. So you need to get, for example, these aren't the people we said, but for example, you need to get more chestnut. Vivica Fox, you know, Jada Pinkinsmith, somebody that black people will be like, Oh, I know them from this. So they can say from set it off her from this him. And we're like, okay, babe, we ain't got to be the stars. We can, we can do that. We, and we also watch plays. We outside of Tyler, everybody did this. Tyler was the only one who was like, he is the star person. And he's like, all right, so all y'all need is $300,000 cash. We were like, nigga, you could have said that at the beginning. We didn't even have to go nowhere else. At that time, not kidding, UJ, we probably did not have $3,000 combined in our savings. And he wanted three. I could have sold my house and I still would have $3,000. We was upside down. We actually have less because our house was upside down at the time. I'd actually owe the bank $40,000 if I sold my house. So we don't want to do that. Need to hold on to that. Housing market was upside down. This is 08. Housing market was upside down. We had a mortgage for like 187. And at that time the house was worth 137. So already don't buy anything for 187. Okay. That should tell you. You 187.5 was our first house. Anything 187 sounds like that. It was going to kill y'all. How's it going to kill y'all, man? How much you over the house? I'll give you 190. Okay. I actually pay more just so we get away from this 187 thing. You didn't know. It's okay. I didn't know. Because you're not from the streets. I'm not from the streets. I'm from the military bases. It is safe out there. We are safe. So at that time I was about to quit. I was like, we done lost this dude $40,000. Right. The next dude $19,000. We can't make money doing this. We can't go to Oakland and put a player for $300,000. There's not enough black people in Seattle, Tacoma, or Portland. Oakland is impossible. You got to rent trucks and drive down there. We got to, you know, mind you, at this time when we lost the money, I want to be clear, we paid everybody. The investor lost, but every actor had to come. They got paid. And I remember I'll never forget this day. We paid an actor like $1,000. My mortgage was around $1,000. And she came by the house to pick up her check. And I had a cashier's check for her. And it was so hard to let that check go. Like I held it for a minute, Jay. Because I'm sure you want this. She was like, look at that. My bread. Right. Because I'm handing you my mortgage. Your mortgage, yeah. And we made nothing. Like mind, we didn't pay ourselves. We didn't make a dime. But everybody got paid. That was part of- This is the real information. Yes, bro. Nobody, everybody wants to be a boss. But boss got to write a check. Don't mean they got to check. Boss got to go lock up the sound stage. When somebody can't- Like this is what a boss does. They take the risk and sometimes you lose. Most times you lose. Most times you lose. Even right now, Jay Valentine, I'm gonna keep it with you. I'm doing my grief sucks tour. My poor name? Jay Valentine. You got a good name that flows. Hey, you didn't put ass on it, did you? No, not Jay Valentine. And not Jay's Valentine. Jay Valentine. But I'm doing my grief sucks tour workshop. I'm only selling $100 seats for $10. I'm still paying my tour manager his full rate. My photographer his full rate. I'm literally losing money to make sure this show is good. You doing promo run? I'm doing promo run. Because I don't want to go into selling a thousand seats and the show's not good yet. So I got to work it out low key. But that don't mean my people expect to be paid less. So that's me. I'm still investing into myself. But at that time when we lost that play, I was about to quit. I literally prayed to God. I said, God, just if I'm not going to make it, just take the desire away. Take the desire to be good, be a comedian, be a play. Just take the desire away. I will work my job at Boeing. I will coach my son's basketball team. And I'm not even, I won't even be upset. Like, we'll have, we had a good time. You know, we have Cook outside my house. Yeah, we had some homegirls. My sister-in-law was on section eight. We had plenty of state sponsored barbecues at my house. The finest selections, the state of Washington. My brother used to work at the state of Washington. He used to finagle the system for food stamps. Stop. He's snitching, bro. He's gone. There's no statute limitations on the dead man. This nigga was feeding the hood. He would sell you a thousand dollar worth of food stamps, cash. But you can sell it back to him. I can't wait for Boosie to make a video about you. Boosie? Yeah, about you being a rap. Boosie, hey, Boosie, Boosie's gonna be on your ass, man. But we were living a good life. I'm like, God, just, just, I can't. We've all been there. Yeah, just let me be regular. Just if you're not gonna do it, then just, I don't want to dream about it. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to daydream about it. What are y'all doing at Boeing? I was a scheduler. My wife was in procurement. So she's buying parts and stuff on a military plane. I essentially was a glorified data entry specialist. Okay. Buying a plane at Boeing is low key, not that much different from buying a Toyota Camry. You say, okay, I want this, you know, 737 is the program I worked on. That's basically the size of a Southwest plane. 737-900 extended range. That's a Southwest plane that can go from LA to New York. Most of them only go two or three hours. The big ones can go, you know, the whole distance to the United States. So are you G5 classified? No, she was though. She actually had security clearance because she worked on- Cause I'm gonna ask your wife after. Yeah. Aliens are real. She worked on a naval, basically a naval 737, that it was a Southwest plane with missiles on it. Right. Like she literally- I'm gonna ask her and then I'm gonna ask you after because I know you're gonna tell the truth because you're a snitch. I am a snitch. So- Your honor, my point finger is strong. Him. Let me wink and make sure it was him, your honor. How long did it take to make a profit for you? Ooh, a profit? Wow. See, we started, man. What's the first profit we made? Was it LA? So 2013 is probably when we made any money that we could actually put into our pocket. We started plays doing anything like that probably in 2002. So I probably didn't make a dime for 11 years. For 11 years. Just pure investment. Yeah, from pure investment and taking my money from Boeing and the bank paying for plays, using my first YouTube money to upgrade my camera equipment or laptop or whatever. It took a long time. And like I said, when we first made that $50,000 from Tracy Edmonds, 15 went to the credit card. We split the other three. Then we had to pay people to act and edit and buy. We had bought computers to be able to edit and deliver. So I don't think we even really, I mean technically we made a profit, but it was probably like in the bank, made money, maybe $1,000. If that- So what's the sign for you as you as God? Either take this away from me or give me something that shows me- It was incremental progress. When I prayed that prayer, I was ready to quit. And then I saw a video that changed. There was in 2012, YouTube videos that were going viral. There was it was Stuff Black, Stuff Girl Say. And it became, you know, first it was Stuff White Girl Say, then it was Stuff Black Girls Who Look Like White Girl Say. Francesca Lee did that. This sounds like looking up porn. No. This is, you know- And I remember Billy Surrells was a comedian how I'd seen perform at Nate Jackson's Comedy Club. He did Stuff Black Girl Say. Yeah, he's funny. He's hilarious. And that video did like 9 million views. And at that time that was like a platinum. And seeing somebody I knew make it was different than people I didn't know. So I told my brother and I said, nobody's done Stuff Black Church Girl Say. That's our lane. And nobody's done Stuff Black Parents Say. So we actually tried to get our wives to be in the Black Girl Say. All of our wives are like, absolutely not. I'm not an actor. What are you talking about? So we put on wigs just like Tyler. We did for a little bit, Jay. I retired him. I know. I know. You were dressed too? I didn't want to dress. I just did wig. I had regular clothes on. You know it's the internet. I know. They'll find you. Illuminati, a new- If you got- If you got- You really ain't your ritual. Right? That's why I took the wig off years ago. Is that the place? Yeah. Niggas, you guys are open with your third eye. You know, nigga. How Hollywood gets me out of it to cover? I mean, I'm doing this for free. Is the third eye on the side? Third eye is. It's not here. Third eye activates the light beams. You got to over stand, brother. That's what the man wants you to do. You must over stand. But at that time, it wasn't even negative. It was- Tyler was doing it. Martin, like I grew up watching Martin, Flip Wilson, all these people, Big Mama's house, all this stuff. That's how you were funny. But we really only did it because our wives said no. It's literally it. So we did the- You don't want hair again? That wasn't it. I'm sad. So those two videos, Jay, both went viral. Both over a million views. Because it's humiliation regime. And I actually don't even think we got paid off those because I- Because we never get paid, brother. Brother, that's it. A humiliation for free. For free, brother. So yeah, at that point, those videos go a million views. People are starting to try to book us. And that was enough. I was like, okay, now I almost immediately started my own personal page. Because I was immediately like, I don't want to just do church stuff. I know I've been in church my whole life. We're going to run out of material very quickly there. But to answer your question, I was just like, I, you know, came on stage. First, it was I want to get to 100 views. Because mind you, on my Playmakers page, we're hitting a million, 700,000, 600,000, all. And then my son's also in the game. He's going viral as the five-year-old comedian. He's doing a million views. That's for you, Joe Jackson too. Are you jealous of your man? All this stuff is man. That's funny, Jake. It all connects. That's funny. It all connects. So my Playmakers is killing. My son's killing. He gets to deal with Awesomeness TV. He books a Little Rascals movie. Kev on stage page, I cannot crack 100 views for probably a year or two. Then I was like, OK, I'm up to between 100 and 500. And I'm like, well, I'm going to get to 1,000 one day. Two years, 1,000. I'm like, pushing, pushing. I probably didn't get to, I just hit a million followers last year. I thought that was impossible. But I was just like incremental growth, incremental growth. I'm going to get it. I'm going to get to 100,000. You can see it. I can see it. And I'm working a regular job. So I think that's another thing that was key for me. I worked a regular job so I could build this. I wasn't trying to make this my job because that was, it was going to take too long. Nowadays, you can actually make money faster. But at that time, you could only get paid on YouTube. You could only post videos on YouTube. No such thing as a brand deal for the common person. You got to get so much to even be a YouTube partner and get some cash. Like I was really hustling for the game. And then the crazy thing is I get a job at All Deaf. And this is 2013. And I'm the head of talent and content over there. And I'm seeing people really get bread. I remember I'm paying influencers from the company's money. We would control these big accounts like you want to promote a movie. You give us say $700,000 to split a month's black influencers. Yeah. And this is the time when Vine was popular. I'm handing this white girl a check for $75,000 to promote this movie. She makes this 6.5 second Vine in one take in our office. $75,000. And is there like, hey, can I submit my invoice right now? Approved? Approved. Bet. She made more in literally six seconds than I made that year. That year, yeah. And was out. So it's just like handing that check. You have to see it. I got to see these people come in and get this straight cash. And this is no hate. This is for me inspiration. I'm like, okay, that's more than I make in a year. I have this talent. But at that time, I'm not competing with the people that work or work with the company. I know enough to not get in the way of company business because I got fired before for doing that. So I'm just watching and seeing how these people build their businesses, how they take this money, how they make this money. We paying them $100,000 to do a show. They work for a week. $100,000 gone. They don't even have to promote it. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to stay until I can be that person. You know what I'm saying? So up close, I saw it happen for other people, which meant I, it can happen for me. It's possible. It's possible. Because you can't outwork me. That's really the thing. You might be funnier than me. You probably will not outwork me. You won't post as much as I post. I have infinite ideas. I'll work with other people. And together we'll have infinite ideas. And I'm just relentless. That's really my greatest skill. I'm really relentless. And you have to be in this day and age. Yeah. Right? Like there is no one hit record. You got to have 10. Low key, Jay. That's what teaching, that's what posting a video every day has really taught me. No matter how good that video is, if you post every day, what I did yesterday doesn't matter. Right. And if I have a bad day, three videos today, I did nothing. Today I posted a really hit. Well, tomorrow I got two or three more shots. Something's going to hit. And then I get to the point where I ain't had a hit in five days. I'm out. I ain't funny no more. My days are numbered. Is that how you look at it? Oh my God. You be stressed. I'd be like, my family, my kids is going to the streets. Crips are on the way. Okay. Crips are on the way. They're going to recruit my son. Your daddy ain't nothing no more. Come over here, young blood. Do this little robbery for me. I got 500. Young crips don't say, you know what? It's fine. Oh, dang you right. It's fine. That's my bad job. Dead homies. But I get in my head immediately. Right. Yeah. Right. And it's been like that for years. I feel like that rat race is not healthy, but you know, neither is my obsession. I'm just going hard. I mean, I'm one of those people that don't, I don't subscribe to the rat race ain't healthy. Really? I'm in it. I'm in it. We get into it. I love that. What we doing? Wait, nigga, you chilling? For real? I love that. One thing shifts and we back in the project. You know that, right? That's literally how I feel. I think for me also too, right, I come from a very interesting background. And I'm still so close to it. Still take jail calls to this day. Oh, dang. Oh, yeah. When my phone went off earlier, we had to stop. I probably, it might have been press five if you accept this call. J.P. I think this is real life for me. Wow. So I understand and have a respect for the space that I'm in. Yeah. And a respect for what it takes to stay in this space and the work that I have to continue to put in. I have a lot of conversations with counterparts that are like, man, why would you want to stay in California? Because it forces me to go hard. Did we not say this? J. Your wife probably. My wife says she want to move. I kid you not, I have said this thing. Bro. I come and I see what other people have. And I know if I move to say, you know. We ain't got no respect to no other place. A place where cost of living is lower. No disrespect to anybody. Yeah. I know I would like people to go say you're just suspected. For sure. I was supposed to be Idaho. And I'm not going to. Wyoming. Stop. Ain't no niggas out there. It's probably two or three. Niggas, nigga, we out here. It's probably two or three. Big Wyoming, niggas. Four, as you said. Big W. Big dubs, nigga, on me on horseback. Okay, get out of there. All right. All right. So these places. But if I move to a place where cost of living is more reasonable, I know I would be like, I'm good. Right. I'm good. But here. And I've watched people who've been very successful in California go to some of these places and be like, where are they now? Yeah. And they still cool. They still able to pay they rent. Yeah. Are they mortgage, but are they truly competing? No. Some are and some aren't. Right. And it took for me to randomly end up at a very successful person's house. You know, they might not want their name. Yeah, for sure. You can tell me later. Who I was like, this is incredible. Yeah. And I know what this house cost for sure in California. 1000%. This house is 35,000 square feet. Jesus. In California. It's 20, 30 million, 40 million. Nigga, we made it. Right. Are you made it? And no, no, no. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm like, well, you made it. But that's how I be. Yeah. I shoot at some of these houses. Sometimes you, you know, we do like a spectrum commercial. They rent that house and I look it up. Yeah. And it's in, in Sino, for example, $25 million. And I'm like, man, I don't even know how to get to that. It's possible. But somebody, somebody rents this out once a month and pays their mortgage for that month. Because I know what these, what the business of it is. Yes. They're like, and they, they got family pictures in the room. Like this ain't no set house. Yeah. They go, this is my child's room. Right. Me and Melissa shot a commercial earlier this year. And I'm like, these are, these are children's toys. This kid lives here. For me, man, it just pushes. It just pushes me to, you know, to continue this, to strive for it and, and just have the energy. Because that's the other thing I'm one of those people too. Like I'm, and I don't know if you're like this, I'm never retiring. Never ever. I like, I'll go do some other shit. Never ever. I'm not retiring. I'm never just, what's Jay doing? Oh, you know, Jay over in a room with just, you know, Pina Colada every day, not me. That would be the worst. People ask me like, how do you do this every day? It's, and I say, how does a fish swim every day? I am a fish swimming. This is what I was born to do. Right. And I spent them years in that, in that cubicle. About to be depressed because I could only, at that time, I could only do it on my 10 minute break, my lunch break before a worker after work. Now I can do it anytime. When we moved here, we rented our house out. And the part of the reason we made it is because we had nowhere else to go. I signed that, Nick, we signed that nigga to at least for a year. I can't go back to Washington. Yeah. I'm not going to North Carolina to live with my parents. Wait, North Carolina is in this too? Yeah, my parents. They named five or six other cities. We all over the place. Nigga, North Carolina too. North Carolina, my parents are living there. Keep the pop all over here. We got a man. I got two. I have nowhere else to go. And that back against the wall was like really like, and that mindset is still here. I still be like, man, just like you said, if I, if I fall off, I'm going to be back at Boeing, you know, I'm going to be back in that cubicle. Boeing is actually a really good company though. It's not like, I'll be back at such and such. No, no, no. I think it's something. Let me see if we can get a good life at Boeing. But the, for me, I can't think of like, if I got to ask for time off, I will disintegrate. Because I remember at my bank job, my manager, I had a show in Miami, paid one, and I didn't have no more time off. So I just went and I called off from the airport in Miami. Of course you did. And when I'm calling off, I didn't even go outside. She hears the gate announcement. I'm like, yeah, I'm sorry. That's your call. I'm fakes it. Yeah, Joan, I can't. I'm not, now boarding flight 46 to Las Vegas. She said, are you at the airport? No, the TV. She called me. She said, Kevin, I know, I know what you're doing. If you would have just asked, I would have let you go. Now I'm writing you up. And I'm like, she'll call off on Saturday. She should have called off on the whole day. Hey, I'll buy you a book of the Lord. Tell me, you're not supposed to be there. I can't, but I can't. You told me no, I ain't had no more time off. I got a gig. I'm getting $85 in Miami, baby. Speaking of the Lord. I got to get it. Secular or gospel for music for you? As an adult, now that you can pick it, because I'm sure when you were growing up, you couldn't pick. I couldn't pick. I got to fill you up from one of the houses all the time. I probably listen to more secular music now than gospel. I've become that old head who feels like, man, back in the 90s, early 2000s, that was the best gospel music ever could be. So I listened to a lot. You feel like that about gospel? About gospel. Okay. I feel like a couple of things happen. Mainly for me, gospel radio was a big part of my life. And slowly gospel radio stations stopped being on terrestrial radio. Okay. When I was in North Carolina, it was 24-hour gospel station. They eventually stopped. And to come to Washington, we didn't really have full gospel. We had like Spirit, which was like CCM music. And we had gospel on Sundays. They didn't even have that. And then at that time, I was going to church every single Sunday. So it's CCM, that's white people? That's white people. Yeah. Sometimes the black people take the white people's songs and make them black. And then they be good. But the white people get the publishing and stuff. So they'll be like, go on, take that money. Because I'm getting in front of the white people and the black people. Okay. But for the most part, I'm still listening to mostly secular music. And if it's gospel, I listen to all Kirk's new stuff. I listen to John McReynolds' new stuff. There's still people I listen to. But I'm more likely to listen to old John P. Kee, old Hazel Kair Walker, old Mary Mary, Tye Tribbitt. I listen to his new stuff. But I'm kind of stuck in my ways. The same way I still listen mostly 90s R&B, but there is more new R&B artists that I'm listening to. So, okay, so now moving into R&B. Now that you've grown. Radio versions. Or not. Clean the dirties. Mostly dirty for me now. I know Melissa don't cuss. Melissa don't cuss. Melissa really don't cuss. I don't cuss. You cuss a little bit. I don't cuss. By text. Amongst close friends, but not publicly. Melissa really don't cuss. She don't even play. So y'all don't cuss, but y'all listen into the dirty versions. Absolutely. You listen into the dirty versions. Okay. Yeah. All right. Some of them songs you just grew up on that clean didn't even know they were dirty versions of songs. But for the most part, I'm listening to the dirty now almost exclusively. I don't really download clean albums anymore. Because the thing that I was thinking, I used to feel so bad about listening to the dirty versions of albums. But R rated movies, Game of Thrones, I didn't feel no way about that. Didn't even cross my mind. But music, I was like, now I'm choosing this. Game of Thrones, they made it the way there's no clean version of that. Okay. In your house, you could watch R rated movies? In my house? Absolutely not. Okay. I'm talking about like when I'm with the homies, stuff like that. In my home, no secular music. Zero. None. Ever. Why though? It was the devil. It was the devil. To my family, that's the whole needy Baker joke about me. People don't understand like we were churchy for real. My dad got mad at me because I asked one time, well, can I listen to jazz? Jazz don't have no words. He said, them notes might be about the devil. I said, all right, man. Hey, he dead serious. It's some wild notes in your hands. Boy, because them niggas is high. Yeah, they don't care. But yeah, my dad, even Will Smith, just the two of us, he was like, that ain't gospel. I'm like, he talking about his son. Will Smith, just the two of us? They were like, no. I remember I had the TLC red light special. I had that album. I think it was crazy sexy. Cool. My homie let me listen to it. I had my own Walkman walking with my dad. He's like, what are you listening to? I was like, oh, no, no, no, my friend just gave it to me. He took it from me. Red light special took this tape out, threw it on the ground, smashed it. Yes. And I love that album. And he was like, absolutely. He knew what they was talking about. 1000%. I knew too. You know, I love that video when they was in the flowy clothes. I said, oh my God. In the pajamas. Yeah, I like this slidey slide. I went the slidey slide. But no. When I got grown, I bought the Sad Dish. I had them for about three months. They're too slidey. We had them for a while too. We had some gold satin sheets. Man, they always came off the bed. Bro, it's terrible. It's terrible. They're getting hot and slide. Oh yeah. It seems cool. Good for your wife's hair. It's not cool. It's not practical at all. No, no. But they have mostly dirty R&B now. I don't buy the clean album some more. But if it's too crazy, I'd be like, whoosh, Jesus. But rarely. Rarely. If it's I B2B to the upstair. I B2B to the upstair. That was a lot for me. At that time in my life. It's fair, bro. We're friends now. We're friends now, man. I get it. I get it. Okay, we talked about you modeling a lot of things you do with Tyler Perry and how he built his businesses. Do you look at the music industry at all with how we've done business from an independent standpoint? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And implement that? 1000%. I follow Chance the Rapper, free music. I'll make the money on merch on the road. You got to give away something to get people to consider buying something. So he gives away music or Beyonce or whatever in the streaming era. I mean, back in the day, you actually used to sell music. But now I got to give it away. I said they were selling it. Oh, they said they were selling it. And he's just like sliding the candy bar number to bar code. Oh, we sold the album. But yeah, you think about, I mean, musicians really, they got to work. You got to, I'm on the road, just like musicians say, you're only going to make money if you're on the road. To this day, still touring is the greatest pure profit part of my business. Lowest overhead, best return. Television is very expensive. Making movies is very expensive, not great margins. You have to pay a lot of people. So what do you do when you make your projects? Like you make a churchy, right? And you hire actors, production and all these things. Like what are the options for you as a businessman after you have this IP, you have this body of work? Like in your mind, what's the first thing you're thinking? Okay, where am I taking this? So the first churchy was I'm making this to be on my app. Okay. That was going to be the distribution model. Hopefully I'll have enough subscribers to stay along that I can. Cap on stage? Cap on stage studio, rest in peace. It's one of the big app store in the sky now. It died in 2023, 24. It was a good run. But I found that I had the same problem, Netflix, HBO, Disney Plus have. Oh, you got the same problem. They got everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? We all struggling. The big boys. The big boys. Yeah, Flix. I don't understand. Burn rate, y'all. You know, but most people ain't paying every month. They not. They sharing passwords. But the big difference between Netflix and me is they got endless capital to burn. So he was getting mad when they were sharing your password. I would run into people and they would be joking. Sorry, Kev. I've seen churchy, but you don't share it on my mom's plan. I'd be like, yeah, nigga. All right. That killing me, brother. It's all your shit. 16 niggas seen it. One nigga paid for it. That's $5 once. The niggas like, I'm sorry, Kev. I had to do it. You didn't have enough fights on your app. Oh, bro. All right. You gotta have a lot of fights on your app, bro. And that's the thing, Jay. We would, me and Melissa couldn't do it. She produced a show called Love on Stage, Jay. And until this day, we had some footage that would break the internet. And Melissa was like, that's not the type of show I'm trying to make. And I'm like, baby girl, they signed the release. And she's like, I'm not, I'm really trying to find love. And that's why I realized we not in that game. And that's why we couldn't make money. But also for me, it's a moral thing. For me, I gotta be able to stand by what I believe in and what I make. And this goes back to even before I made money. I mean, when I worked at Bank of America, man, low-key during the housing crisis, prior to the housing crisis, niggas were at Bank of America scamming the crap out of people. Low-key, you could make a lot of money. I already wrote about this in my book, so it's nothing new. And I was like, I already snitched one. I already snitched one. This one. I'm on paperwork, brother. Your honor. But I'm like, yo, I live in this neighborhood. I can't trick you into a loan because you might see me at the Puyall Affair and hit me in the head with a brick and be justified. Right. So I would actually rather make less money, but be able to sleep at night. That's why I don't cheat nobody. Like, I'd rather tell you straight up, Jay Valentine, I want you to be in my production. I can pay $350 to you. Right. And that's all I got. And let you make the decision. Then say, OK, man, maybe I cut you in and I know I'm lying. I just can't live like that. I'll let you decide if the 350 is worth the time or not. And that's up to you. Right. And if I have more, eventually I want to be able to have more. But like I told you, bro, low-key production is super expensive. Like camera. And these prices just going up right now. Hard drives went from $150, y'all know, to like, bro, it's a thing in our industry. Hard drives are like $2,000. $1,000. It's like, and you got to buy two per day per shoot. This is a huge increase overnight. It's like AI or something. I don't know. There's a whole bunch of talk about hard drives. We were on set last week and my head of TV and film didn't know. And he's like, Kev, hey, man, are you brother? They say in the hard drives are $1,000. It was 200 when we did the ball brothers. I'm like, yeah, brother, there's something going on. There's like, not enough space. Something to do with AI. I remember the exact reason. We got to start erasing. Bro. And you can't erase it. I haven't been like this. You got to back it up three times. No, no, we got it there. It's like, oh, I'm about to shoot this show on the airport. Right now, the Iran war affects gas prices. In Atlanta flight, my last time I was buying people, $500. Now it's $1,200. I didn't get any more money to produce this. And you flying six niggas out, hotels that was 180s, now 300. It's like, bro. So that those, and there's nothing you can do there, except maybe cast less people. So touring is just this grief tour, me by myself. Tour manager, videographer. Usually I carry seven, eight people, but I can't. When you work with Live Nation, they prices Live Nation, AEG, Outback. These fees are the fees. Regardless. There's no negotiation with these companies. This is the fee. At a church, you can actually work with them. I actually can charge much less at a church and make much more because there's no fees for the venues. Parking, all that stuff. Live Nation, you got to pay Live Nation to sell your merch. 30%. Yeah. Or you can go, no joke, you can stand outside is what they tell you. You don't want to pay, stand outside. You can sell it for free on the street. It's raining. 30%. Are y'all going to help sell it? Absolutely not. We're going to give you a corner. You can have a corner. And if you need a table, you got to buy that. You got to rent the table from them to sell your merch. The mob would be easier. At least they were fans of the arts. Live Nation ain't no fan. I don't care what you talk about. I'm taking that bread, nigga. And I remember at the beginning, I'm like, okay, so what's the negotiation? My manager was like, there is no negotiation. These are the deals. These are the deals. So that's why I just try not to play the game at all. That's why I'm grateful to be able to be able to go into a church. Or a comedy club, like low key. If you can't sell a thousand tickets, you're better off being in a comedy club. That's why you see big time comedians in comedy clubs, their margins are way better. But for me, I don't have the time to in order. I want to perform five times. I just have other stuff to do. I can't spend the whole year doing it because I'm doing other stuff. So I actually got to take less money in order to do the other things that I want to do. But luckily for me, touring isn't the only thing. If I was only touring and doing podcasts, I would be in comedy clubs. It's just better margins for me to spend five nights in any city in America, lower cost, lower flight, lower hotel, less strain on your body. You actually have the mornings to sleep and rest. You get on the road every morning. No, you're doing residencies with comedy clubs. Basically. Yeah. Basically. Yeah, I had a conversation with Jill Scott about that. Where she was just like, my next tour, I'm pretty much doing residencies in city. I noticed that on her flyer. Three nights in DC. But everybody can't do that. Not at home. I mean, not at the tickets that she's selling. She's earning it. Thousands of tickets, four nights in a row. Most people don't have that much people in one city. Right. They got to pay 300,000. Literally. And that's why you got to go to Oakland. To go to Oakland. That's why I have Vegas residency. If you could stay there. Yeah. Jay, that'd be the pinnacle for me. No travel costs. Stay there. Boy, I remember I used to, Sean Stockman used to be, I used to be flying to Vegas on Thursday and see him going. Oh yeah, when they were doing their residencies. They would go Thursday morning, do three nights, come back Monday morning. Little 45 minute flight from LA. People saw that as a negative. I'm like, this is the dream. I would love to be. Me and Tony could get a Vegas residency. Oh, nigga. So we're there. What is your ultimate goal for Kev on stage in a process? World domination. Come on, man. World domination. You want to make a movie, nigga? All right, pinky in the brain. You got to come through there. What you mean? You got a little dream? What you mean? You got a little dream? Yeah, I'm the one rolling the window down. So you want to be live nation? No. My true, true, true dream. Everything you hate on, you actually want to do. You want to be your main Jackson. My true, true, honest dream would be able to elevate other black creators who don't have it and aren't even in LA. My specific dream is somebody in Mississippi who is a creative. I want to do what people did for me. Like Tracy Edmonds believed in us enough that we could move our family from Washington to LA because she said, I believe in you. You want to make 10 of it? I'm going to give you $50,000. And then when we got here, she put us up on game, Jay. She used to invite me, my wife, my brother and his wife to her house, beautiful house. Let us, the kids swimming the pool. She would teach us about the game. He offered me a record deal one time at the house. Did she really? Yeah. I believed that. I said no. It was just with the situation. No, no, I feel you. But nah, like she believed in us and she changed our life. And then she kept going on with her life. Yeah. Like, and I, Oh, great businesswoman. Great businesswoman. Great fair, nice, taught us everything. Damon Deacon was her business partner. He taught us everything we could ask any question about moviemaking business. He told us everything. They were, they were not hoarders of information. And also they taught us when, when all right TV went under, they were like, God bless y'all. I'm on to my next project, which was a valuable lesson for me. Like people can be nice to you, treat you well. But if the business ain't the business, I'm not going to take my personal money and make you rich. Right. The business, we, we did good business. We were fair. We treated you well. She kept us as long as she could. When it went under, she went on about her business on her own stuff. No harm, no foul. But that would be my ultimate dream to be able to say, okay, you got a script. Kevon State Studios is going to produce your script. We're going to pay you fair. We're going to produce it. Give real opportunities. Real opportunity. Because all my life people have done that. I got the job at Boeing because a black woman was, this is part of LinkedIn. She was looking to hire black people at Boeing. On my resume at that time, I had the last thing was a youth pastor. And she was like, this is probably a black person. Because I was a youth pastor at the time. After getting fired from the bank, she gave me a job. I mean, I did a good interview. Don't, don't get me wrong. I can interview well. Yeah. At the time you gave me that job, nigga, you got another nigga now. Yeah. Interview nigga Kev is great. Employee nigga, you don't have to fire me too late. But she changed my life. That job allowed me to put my kids in private school for a little while in Washington. Melissa got her job. Like black people have always at every stage looked out for me. When they didn't benefit at all, but just because they did. And that's what I try to do the most. There's nothing that makes me happier. I did it at all depth. I did it with Keep Your Distance. Nothing makes me happier than to elevate people and introduce them to the world. Yeah. Done with comedians, actors. That's what I feel like I get the most passion. So if I'm old and we retire what we was talking about, I'm not just sitting on my butt. I'm like, oh yeah, let's pick this script up. Let's make this. Let's do a comedy show. Let's produce this person's special. Let's try to lend our name to the next crew of creators. So flood his DMs, guys. Well, you can't get in there. No. No. If I don't follow you, I don't see it. I'm so sorry. It's hard to get in contact with me by design. I can't help everybody. The gatekeeper that got a gate. I want the non-gatekeeper. Just keep creating because I got my eye on the pulse. I'll DM you. That's usually what happens. I'll find you. You got to keep you DM me, brother. Don't call me. I'll call you. I'm going to find you. You. Yeah, you. Yeah, I'm going to find you. You got to call a little Hollywood lingo. You got all of them. You still got a card. You got that thing? Take my. All the cards say it's Kav on stage. Hey, no number. No email. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing with that, brother. You got a heart in the black light at a certain place. The number you reveal them stuff to. Oh, no. We'll find you. But I always have new talent. Every show you've seen, you're going to see somebody you haven't seen as much as I possibly can. Now, that's dope. Even though it cost me a lot. Like, I remember when I was doing Keep It Distance, I was like, every single show I have to have a black woman on. I've got to find out how to do it. So at first, I was doing only LA, but I ran through my list of contacts real quick. Then I realized, OK, in order to really do this, I got to fly people in from Atlanta, New York, Mississippi, you know, Chicago, Detroit, because it was important to me to make sure that I'm giving back to black women because in my life, black women have given to me. Yeah. So I got to come out of my pocket to do that. But I never feel bad about it. And I don't feel bad if you blow past me. Like, we was rocking for a moment. I'm not the owner of your talent. OK. We just get to work together for a time. If you blow past me, you blow past me. Trevor Wallace was my intern at All Deaf. White dude, he blew past me three, four times. He's selling 6,000 seats, specials. You still can get some tickets though, if you want to go see him. I could get two tickets. Listen, that's all I be counting on. I could make a phone call. Yeah. I could make a phone call. Just take my call, man. Just take my call. Take my call. That's all I ask. But yeah, that's my actual dream, is to be able to use my name to help other people. I love that. Yeah. So let's get into some R&B. All right. What we got over there for them, Rue? We got something that a good brother, Tate, part of sent to us. My wife will never cope. Let me know this is churchy enough when he finished my song. Churchy? Come on. Come on, nigga, sing. We got to know before you go, here on this show, everybody want to know. What they want to know? We are top top top. Yes. This is great. This is fantastic. You're top top. That's fantastic. Appreciate you, Tate. So as the good brother, Tate was asking, we want to know your top five R&B singers in the R&B song. OK. We're going to start with the singers. Number one. Top five singers who need a baker. OK. That's my OG grew up on her music. Every Saturday you clean in the house. What's your mom put on? A need a baker. Rapture. So y'all could listen to that. We could listen to that. OK. Right? A need a baker. OK. I just have to make sure. Number one. That's the one thing we could listen to. It's my honorable mention though, because everything I told you was a lie, I didn't find out about need a baker until like four years ago. Literally, my wife threw me under the bus because Spice Adams used to make these videos. My wife is playing a need a baker, literally cleaning up the house on a Saturday. And she plays that song. And I'm like, oh man, that's the Spice Adams song. She was like, the what? Turn the music off. The what? I was like, no, the Spice Adams sound effect. That's where you, what is that from? Why did I let you come on here? She was like, you don't know a need a baker. They going to blame me. Blame me, this nigga said the Spice Adams song. You know what? Okay, a need a baker rapture. We not even saying the song yet. A need a baker. Need a baker. Right. But she actually loves me, by the way. She's a huge fan of mine. We went to her concert at DC. We can't have one stage. And she was like, young brother Kev, stand up. Makes Tony Baker mad to this day. She called me out. She sold out probably 4000 seats, something like that. MGM National Harbor. For sure. Sold out. She's like, you doing your own independent thing. I appreciate you. Brought us backstage, got a picture. Tony Baker never met her. And they got the same last name. So that's my old, yes, my honorable mention. Top five. Got a lot of like underlying hate in your heart, bro. Impettiness and grudges. What is going on? I want to stick the knife in, turn it. That's just your friend. Pull it out, put it in dirt. He's your friend. Infection. Turn it again. Take it out. I'm not rolling. Warm it up. I'm not rolling. Stick it in dirt and fire. I'm not rolling, bro. Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder, top five R&B singers, Music Soul Child. I've heard you say. I love music. Music Soul Child is the king R&B, in your opinion, right? Yes, he is. Because I don't lie, Jay Valentine. I don't say the popular thing. I'm uncomfortable with you saying my whole name. Jay Valentine, I tell the truth. I'm going to dive on you in a minute, but you got to relax. Just call me Jay, dog. All right, Kev. I consume so much of music's music from high school on. We had somebody sing his song at our wedding. That's just, I love his music, right? So when y'all renew y'all vows, y'all going to get music? We just did. Did we get? We didn't get music. We did a her song and a different song, but we didn't get them because we didn't have the breath. We didn't want to spend the breath. I didn't reach out. I mean, look in the camera, man. I love you, music. I just want to sing. Just listen on my radio, fire albums. So Stevie, music. Anita Baker. Anita Baker, on my bench, and Jasmine Sullivan. I always say this and this might sound crazy. So grateful she didn't sign that gospel album. Her talents are better used for R&B music. I think it was so, Hotels is one of my favorite albums of all time. It is such a visual storytelling album. Yes. I love it. It's amazing. It could be amazing about your work. It could be a movie. It's almost like the vagina monologues play where you have all these women's different stories. Hotels is just beautiful. So you sue his ass if he does a play. That's similar because I see where he going with this. Usher is in my top five. Okay. We kind of grew up on his music. Me and Melissa talk about that all the time. We grew up on his music and he's been great from album to album. Confessions is one of the greatest albums of all time. He just couldn't miss at that time. Great performer. Me and Melissa saw him maybe three, four times. There was a time we were going usher concerts in Vegas. So in essence, he was amazing. Beyonce. You're going to keep, come on. Come on. Where are you at now, Seth? That's Anita Baker's honorable bench. Oh yeah, you did. I just want to get that out. Okay. Because I start with your honorable mention. I start with my honorable mention because I don't want to forget the greats. Okay. Which made her honorable mention. Because she's so honorable. And she brought you backstage. And she brought me backstage. You're ungrateful. See, it's what I'm finding out. This whole thing. What is that for then? Man, you can't count either. I hope your wife do your books. She does. She does. Is that for her? You pass five. No, he doesn't. Okay, that's fine. No, go ahead. Anita Baker's it. She's not honorable mention. She's in now. You can't care about stage. Anita Baker actually made six. Anita Baker, she's in. She's in. That's it. That's my top five. That was top six, but I'm sorry. Is that it? Is that it? Oh, sure. Beyoncé, Music, Jazz and Sullivan. Anita Baker. Oh, Stevie, that is six. One of them can be honorable mention. My grandma, my Chinese. So my math is really good. Just to let you know this. You can make any of those for the honorable mention. But those are my five plus one. Five plus one. Yeah. Five plus one. Okay. Top five R&B songs. Okay. SWV week. Okay. Okay. Just perfect song. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I agree. I agree. Great bridge. Incomplete. Cisco. Love this song. It's just a perfect song to me. You know who wrote that song? Did you write it? No, I did. Oh, I was about to say. Who wrote it? Babyface. Montell Jordan. Did he really? Yeah. Montell, he don't write his nicky song. Montell Jordan is cold. I did not know that. Montell Jordan. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I want to say he wrote How Did You Get Here? too. Devil Cox? Yeah. That's my next song. I want it. No way. Dead serious. Montell Jordan is your very right of all time. I love Montell Jordan. He's a pastor now. Yes. Yeah. Montell Jordan. Nobody's supposed to be here. Me and Melissa argued about this. Is there a bridge in this song? She said there was no bridge. We argued about it on a road trip for an hour. She posted about it and I forget who wrote the song. When somebody was like, there's no bridge. I was in the session. We decided it's not a bridge. And she was like, told y'all. So yeah, nobody's supposed to be here. Now the last two are special to me. Okay. These are R&B church songs. Okay. And these are songs that felt like R&B to kids who couldn't listen R&B. One is One Minute by Mary Mary. It's on their first album, Thankful. If you listen to it, Warren Campbell. Warren Campbell is an R&B producer. I know. I know. And a pastor. And a pastor. He my pastor. Right. We go to that church. That is as close to R&B. And you literally could make that about a man, not Jesus. And it's basically the same song. And the other one is Need to Know by Dawkins and Dawkins. When I was in 11th grade. Hi guys. We, Skating Rink, youth group, we was, we couldn't grind. But if we could grind, we would have grinded to that song. Eric and Anson. Oh my God. Eric Dawkins is my nigga. Anson still living in Washington. Eric down here. He be in the studio. He's still out the door. I run into Eric, you know. But for church kids, boy, we was trying to go to the lock-in girl. Wait till they go to sleep. Now I ain't praying for you. I'm trying to feel something. I'm so glad that your wife said yes. Because your life could have went so bad. That even just totally different way. It could have went bad for you. She changed the trajectory of my life, man. I like the Lord. But this amazing black woman. She changed my life. Saying, fine, Tony. Fine, Tony. Are you happy now? Through my hand down. I was like, yes. This is great, bro. For sure. This is great. That's my friend. So our next section. We have a section where Tank says he wants you to build a Voltron. Yes. And we old enough. You old enough. I know. I watch Voltron. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you want to form like Voltron. You want to do the whole thing. Yes. Where you give us who's going to be a singer. Who's going to give you the performance. Who's going to put on the fly shit. Our fly stuff. I'm sorry. It's OK. Fly stuff. And who got the passion. All right. This is my answer. OK. OK. Y'all feel how y'all feel. The singer is an artist known as B Slade. B Slade. B Slade. OK. He used to make gospel under the name Tony. Oh, yes. He now goes by B Slade. The greatest voice I have ever heard. Tony is amazing. In my own ears. Yes. I have not heard a voice better than his. Yeah. I just saw him at Corey Henry's show. Incredible. Incredible. Incredible. Can do anything. I didn't know he changed his name. Yeah. He changed his name to B Slade a little while ago. That's my personal greatest voice. I'm B Slade my bad brother. Yeah. B Slade. Incredible. Incredible. That's my that's my voice. Who's giving me the performance. Who got the performance style. Performance style. But what do I have left? Performance style. The drip. Clothes. And the passion. And the passion. OK. Performance style. I'm going to Ran Benar. Amen. The rain can perform his ass off. I have had a blast. You have a guitar. You have a great song. Me and Melissa saw him DJing. He didn't even talk. Where he was DJing. He DJed at Lion Barber. Me and Melissa went out there. This nigga killed. Yeah. He sang at our wedding. Oh, OK. Revalor Newell. He put on a show for an hour and a half. Bruh. It was the greatest time ever. Tamar Jade was sitting with her. She's also brilliant. She congratulations brother on your grand. Grammy award winning. The Ran Benar. I love him. His live performance. He can do no wrong in my eyes. He's funny even when he's not singing. Yeah. He gets the audience involved. Give me the Ran Benar. You have a great time. Style. I'm going Michael Jackson. OK. Silhouette. White socks. Fedora. He can put it on. He gonna spin. He has multiple signature items. Yes. My wife literally said that. Multiple. The glove. How you make white socks a thing? We was all wearing white socks at that time. And glitter too. And glitter. And penny loafers. And penny loafers and the hat. And a thriller jacket. And the jacket. With the push down. Fedora look cool on mine. No look cool on me. When he pushes down. Smooth criminal music video. I see there was a picture you would like to. Yeah. Like flowing like you did a spin move. I saw that. Yeah I was tripping. You had a mic moment. I had a mic moment. And at the time I thought it was cool. And then goes back to the Jackson. Then my niggas bro. I secretly want to be a Jackson. You want to be a Jackson bro. That's really what it is. That's really what it is. Give him Jermaine. He wants to be you. And passion. Passion. Passion. Okay I tossed between these because there's passion performance. And there's passion for the art. Okay. I'm going to take the whole package of passion. And I'm going to give it to Beyonce. Because we've seen her live every tour since probably 2016. Me and Melissa have won. Okay. She's leveled up every single time. The last time no openers. Two and a half hours. I could have bought a condo. Bro. For the money y'all spending. It's so funny because we are ten years of Beyonce tickets. When we first used to go we were so churchy and so scared we wouldn't tell nobody. Because we knew back home they'd be like we knew they loved the devil. They went to that on the run tour. They on the run from God. I knew it. They on the run from G. Like that's how we would not post about it. Melissa posted a picture of the stairs of the Rose Bowl. And somebody was like they had Beyonce's concert. How you know what the stairs? How you know? How you know that much? They was there too. Because they was there too. Yeah. But now we just be out with it. For her birthday we saw Beyonce three times last year. We saw her in LA. We went to Atlanta and saw her for a brand deal. And then we saw her the next night to celebrate my wife's birthday. That's incredible. And they listened to Beyonce while they were getting the makeup done. In the car on the way to the show. Two and a half hours of Beyonce. On the right back what you think they put on? Beyonce. Beyonce. Seven hours straight of Beyonce music. I wish you would complain. Every album. We just did the music we just heard on the way home. Cowboy Carter. Cowboy Carter and I don't care. But her attention to detail, you watch the documentary, she's like she really is meticulous about the art form. And as a play, as a comedian, the production value, the work, the musicians, her level of detail, the Coachella performance. That was her Motown 25 to me. That was such a moment. Start off on Joy the drummer with my home girl. Netflix most recently, the Super Bowl. That would be, I'd say different. She's really the pinnacle of creativity. I get inspired watching her. I'd be like, I got to level my game up because she's at the top of her game every time. And I don't see many artists who level up their music and their live performances, even as she ages. Every time. Every time. If she's not dancing as hard because she's, you know, I think she heard her foot or her knee, but she makes up for it in production value in what her dancer's doing, stage, design, direction. Yo, I kind of want to know, like, does the horse fold down? It's a hundred foot of horse on stage, bro. No. I would love to go back. Can somebody tell me how, how y'all transport the horse? Remember the horse? I was broke. I'd be trying to ask, I'd be thinking about stuff like that. For sure. Like, I know how the car got there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I get to get the car that they almost messed up with. Yes. You know what I mean? Was it the car broke or the horse broke? The car broke. The car broke. They almost flipped me out the car, man. And she maintained it. It maintained. He said, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. And still out there. Yeah. She is the best to me. And then I got, I'm going to throw you a curve ball. Okay. For a loving laughter tour, who's the comedian that opens up, or not even just opens up, just host this tour for this artist that you just created. If you can pick the comedian that goes on the road with that artist. Okay. Okay. One comedian. That's good, Jay. And I'm on the spot. Let me think. Do they got to sell tickets or they just got to deliver? Just somebody that just, nah, because with that artist, the tickets is going to sell. They got Beyonce performance and passion. Now the thing about Michael Jackson clothes, the Rambinard, on the ground and shit, like the Grammys and Tony Laysing. I'm going to throw you a curve ball. Because with that group, you got to get people who are not there for comedy. That's the hardest comedy to perform. Okay. So you got to be strong on the mic. I would pick Nate Jackson. Nate Jackson is great at crowd work. Nate Jackson can sing. So that could get you in. And Nate Jackson material is also very strong. And he's, I've never seen him taking an L. He could handle that audience. And what, because when people are there for music and you trying to be funny, Nick's not trying to hear it. Yeah. So I need you to be able to cut through and get their attention. Yeah. So if you were, if I was a booker, I would book Nate Jackson or just niche. I love the information you're giving because there's going to be a comedian out there that think they can go and do one of those type of shows and find out the hard way. So many comedians take L's because they're not here for that. I'm not. And that's a hard way to perform comedy. People standing up, you need to be sitting down to enjoy stand up. Yeah. One of the best that I've seen do R&B night type shows, Bill Bellamy. He's, he's, he does amazing. They do a Chicago show. In that space. Yeah. I like, Swedish day. He just did that. I've seen him host R&B events. Yeah. And he kills it. Every time. Every time. Absolutely right. We got something else for you. Okay. We're gonna go, we're gonna get churchy. Okay. You can get churchy, man. What, what we got? Huh. You heard it. I said no names. Hey. I said no names. Look at you. You can't even help yourself. I said no names. Hey, you're a real church. Oh. We'll win what you did. Don't say she. You. Yeah. I said no names. Resolve. Resolve. Good resolve. Good resolve. That's a great resolve. I gotta get you right back in. 145, 41. Come on. Come on. Come on. Oh, the one. Come on. Cry the one. I'ma tell this story. Hold on, hold on. Oh, my bad. You stay down, nigga. Okay. I got excited, Jail. My bad. You do a little bit of churchy. You just go crazy. I'm right in my lane now. I'm not here. Start out, bastard. So we got a special part of the show. My favorite part of the show. Will you tell us a story? Funny or fucked up are funny and fucked up. Which a lot of this should be doing before the end. But the only rule to the game is Kev on stage. Can't say no names or use his name. I'ma switch it up on you. Come on, switch it up. I had a story, but I'ma tell a story I ain't never told. Come on. You know what? I think you lying, but cool. I don't know. It's true. My wife just looked at me and did this. I ain't saying no names, Liz. I ain't saying no names. Or just her name. It ain't about her. Clearly, because you made a change her name to Ms. Kev on stage. I think. All right. This is when the playmakers used to go out and do a three man show. Okay. At this time, we were invited to a conference to perform at this church conference. And I don't know if you know, but church conferences are very lucrative for the thrower and often the performers. Okay. And this is at a time. I don't know. Oh no. You can be breaded up. At this time, we all needed this bread in the worst way. Right. And it was a five figure offer. Okay. Offer. I like what you say. It was off and shake. Contrary? Because you people of God feel like this is enough. Affronting. Let me tell you what, this ain't enough. No deposit. We're going to give it to you after because you got to, you know, we at this time, we believe you, man, you people of the Lord. Don't pay us the door. You're going to give us at the walk up. At the walk up. We go south of walk up. Go south of out. Y'all fly yourselves down. Oh. Put yourself up. Y'all wouldn't even flew it out? We wouldn't flew it out. And at this time, we went somewhere. However many layovers it takes to get there for the cheapest. Many layovers. Jay, we used to go from Seattle, Memphis, Detroit, wherever your hub's at. Back up and back up. We'll stop five times. I ought to get to LA. To get to LA. To get to Houston. To get to Dallas. Yeah. We didn't know hub to hub. We don't fly enough to know where Delta goes. Okay. We going Expedia. Sort by lowest. Yeah. We checking travel time. 17 hours to get there. Okay. We'll leave the day before. We going to get there. Don't worry. We not buying the hotel the night before. We going to sit there until we can get in the room. Yeah. So we accept this. We get to the city. This is actually sold out. Oh. Three nights. Three nights to sell out. Three nights to sell out. We go every night. We not supposed to be there but not paid. Wait, but y'all didn't get paid after the first night. We didn't get, we only performed once. Oh, okay. I'm about to say. Last night. Closing out. All right. So I know y'all got Friday's money. Yeah. Y'all got Saturday's money. We performed Sunday. Y'all got clothes on Sunday. And we close it. Yeah. And we kill. Okay. Kill. Go backstage to collect. Oh yeah, yeah. We going to get with y'all in just a second. All right. Get something to eat. Okay. Oh yeah, yeah. It's cool. Hummus, dip, dip, eat, eat. Pineapples, don't mind if I do. Can I have a Fiji? Tank two. Okay. All right. Been about 30 minutes. People starting to leave. Hey, y'all still, we got you, we got you, brother. We just counting. You know, we going to get y'all. Okay. Because we got, you know, we got to get back to the house. Yeah. Can I have some more hummus? Oh yeah. I'm just, I ain't really hungry. Like I was. Yeah. I'm sorry to kind of get, you know, my hands are actually starting to sweat now. Right. Hour goes by. Green room empty. They're like, oh yeah, they got you outside. Okay. Cool. Y'all go outside. The person. That booked us. Who is the headliner of the event? Oh, they got your bread. Oh, cool. We go. Oh, another artist. Yes. Book job. Okay. Direct. Okay. So I know you got my bread. Because you have a person. Yeah, you're a person. Hey, Valentine. Person is in a Range Rover. I had never seen a Range Rover with my own eyes. Yeah. Oh yeah, man. They didn't take care of you. No, they said, they said, hummus and come talk to you. Oh yeah, man. We ain't really settled everything yet. We're going to get with you. Rolls the window up on us as they're talking. Yeah, we just going to go ahead. Everything's going to be set. We're going to get with you. Gate opens. They lead to this day. I've never seen that bread. Have run into said person. Okay. Many times over. I don't know if they remember who I am or what happened. But we were promised five figures. We left with hummus and Fiji bottles of water and came back to our wives. Where's the bread? You see, it was a walk up there. They didn't get it. The last time I ever did a show with anybody without a contract. From that moment on, we don't even consider it real until you deposit. Deposit. Flight, hotel. I never thought a person in that industry could play you. Did you ever have the conversation again? Never had the conversation again. You just charged to the game? Charged to the game. Low key at that conference though, we were so broke I was on the altar crying. God, I need a way. And I still left with a piece about it. And when we got back to LA, Kid U Na'Jay, things started working out for our career. Silver lining. Silver lining. You know all I have is violence in my head right now. I kid you Na'Jay, when we got back, deals, things, click, booking gigs. And that's why I feel like that's why I wrote the successful failure book. Because I learned that lesson now. It don't matter who signs me, promises me it's not real until it's on signature and the money is in my account. Because now I'm supposed to be my kids with that. Right. Like you, I need that. At that time, if you promised me $25, $24 is spent. Right. This going to a bill to Capri Suns, whatever I need all that. Brother, I got kids. My brother got kids and got kids. So yeah, at that point, I had never happened to be before and it never happened since. I want to say it's funny. It's not funny. No, it wasn't funny. It's completely fucked up. Absolutely. Because I feel like you use God. There's somebody in there, bro. Business ain't funny. And they use God. I feel like you use God as a cover because I would never think you would do that. And I know you made out. It's one thing if it's light in there every night. I'm like, hey, okay. It's packed, standing room only three nights in a row. Y'all got it. We helped. Yeah, it was cold, brother. You would think gospel, church, bro, people are people. Do you remember what if it was like a 4.0 ranger over our 4.6? I don't even know the difference. Jay-Z said. When Jay-Z said that other thing, my feelings were hurt. And you didn't even have one. Because I didn't know either. And I was curious. I didn't know either, Jay. Well, I can't be curious. But now I learned a tough lesson that day. Like you said, you learned a lesson. You were able to apply that. Yeah. And you didn't go to prison. I didn't go to prison. Because that's a three on one. For sure. For sure. Y'all could have chased the truck down. Absolutely. I had never had a window rolled up in my face. Mid conversation. Like, that's why. Wildly disrespectful. Very big red. Big red. Now, office hours are from 9 to 5. Eleanor. Did they get that fake apple brownie? What is this? It's a shame what happened to Jimmy. Man, what? If you need anything, you come and talk to me. Oh, man. No, bro, that sucks. Yeah, it's cold. But that is the business if you're not on your business. Absolutely. We let people take advantage of us. Yeah. And then you put yourself in a compromising position. Because with that situation, you could have only chosen to either take it there. Right. Or take it on the chin. And we took it on the chin. We lost money. Because mind you, like I said, we flew ourselves, put ourselves up, rental car, food. And then y'all had to take six more layovers. And then come back and explain to our wives that we left for nothing. We are now negative when we need it all. So you like, you looking at her in the face, she like, man, come on, bro. Right. How many mistakes y'all gonna make? Like you dumb, but we were, I was so hungry, I let people take advantage of my hunger. You can never be so hung. Because that's when people beat you. Yeah. When you're so hung, people can smell desperation. If you, your only real leverage in a negotiation is no. If you're not willing to walk away, the other person has you beat. Yep. Because if you won't walk away, you'll eventually give more than they get within what you want to give. And I didn't learn that early on. My first contract, Jay, I signed no red line. I used to think if you, if I say no red line, and now I know that first deal is like, if you take this. Yeah, it's just an offer. It's just, everything is for me. I used to scroll down to schedule a how much money Kevin Frederick. You really are a rapper. At the time, the red is right. You signed a 360 deal. Bro, what? What? Man, but no, but listen, that same hunger has led you to for sure being fed. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so many people try to get in front of the business too soon. Yeah. Especially in this new day and age of knowing too much, but still not really knowing how it goes and when to have discernment of when you should say, you know what? Actually, I mean, I am going to take less in this situation because this opportunity will lead or believing that it will lead. 1000%. You know what I mean? And sometimes that you just, that's not bad or wrong. No. Sometimes you don't have the cash shade to demand what you're actually worth, but you get your foot in the door and you flip that. And I think of it like a rookie deal. I know I come in the league, the NFL, NBA, this first deal, it's capped out. But if I ball out my second contract, y'all got to pay me. Or in my first contract, I got this from the NFL. I can do brand deals. I can do commercials. I can do whatever the case is. Bonuses and incentives. Bonuses and incentives, how much I'm going to work, right? But when you have leverage, you got to exert it. Because when they have it, they're going to exert it on you. On you. And some of the best things I learned from that moment, the first deals, when I first started getting into selling TV shows, J. Them offers were so bogus. I'm sure. And I literally had to say, no. Not having a TV show sold. Absolutely not. I'd rather not sell it than sell it for that. Yeah. And going about my life. This is not a negotiation tactic. Yeah. No. We don't hear back for weeks, months sometimes. You really got to make them feel like, oh, dang, he really means. Yeah. And I mean. Because you got to really mean it. You got to. It can't be a bluff. Yeah. They know when you bluffing. And that's why I need them two, three videos a day. Because that's actually what I can control. Yeah. You're not going to play me. I'm so hungry that I got to take it. No. Kev on stage. Tupelo, Mississippi, three nights only. I'll do that before I, now before I sign a bad deal. I'll do that stuff. But I can't get played no more. Yeah. And I'm not, you know, I'm smarter now. Bro, your story is inspiring, bro. Thank you. I just, I really wanted to say that. Like, you know, we see each other all the time. Yeah. I'm always trolling you're messing with you man. As soon as you, as soon as you walked in, your wife was like, the trove. Right. But honestly, I only troll people I got real love for and real respect for. I appreciate that. You know what I mean? I appreciate that. Other people be saying shit to me. I'm like, no, it's time for you. Right. Damn fool. You know what I'm saying? But like, no, that's how I show my love. I come from one of them type of family. Oh, yo, big head ass nigga. That's the family I come from. Absolutely. So, bro, but I really wanted to tell you that. Thank you. What you've been doing, what you've been building, what your family has been building, you know, what you guys give to the world. How you project, what you show. You know what I mean? Yeah. Pretty much being married since the 11th grade. You know what I mean? Like all of those things. I want to say this. People often try to use that as a negative to me, especially men. Like, no koochie. When I tell you, Jay, there's a certain, I am more successful and creative because I am devoted because I'm not wasting. Chasing women is energy. Yeah. Lying is energy. Yes. DMing, all energy. I, and that's not why I do it, but I realize it's, I run on efficiency. I check in with my wife that it takes the same energy to be happily married. And in exchange, I get love, I get safety, I get sound business. If I just today, Jay, we, what's, what happened today, Jay? We negotiating this deal with this TV company and some is not right. And I'm not, I'm great at a lot of business, but I'm not perfect on everything. My wife is like, they're going to pass and they want to do something else because XYZ is just not making sense. This is yesterday. Okay. Right? She's like, this, this and that guarantee you, Kev, when you finally talk to them, this is what's going to happen. Kid, you're not Jay. I had lunch before I came here. The person's like, all right, so it's going to be a pass, but here's what they want to do. And in my head, I'm like, Nika, this is my wife. This is her all the time. Girl in the DM couldn't have told you that. Nika, you don't know nothing girl in the DM. You don't know anything. But I need help negotiating business deal. Titties ain't going to save me a hundred thousand dollars. Fat Coogee, boo. Why is this deal not closing? I don't know what a Fat Coogee is, Jay, but I don't care. Maybe the lips are fat. Maybe they're uneven. I don't know. Oh my God. But what I'm telling you is my wife helps me close deals. I'm not giving that up for fat butt. Fat butt, fat butt, boo. How do I make this show more efficiently? My wife knows. Can we make T-shirts that say fat butt, fat butt, boo? Bro, y'all not, y'all missing the thing. If you pour into that woman, she going to help you negotiate the deal. This is my secret weapon. Come on. She knows. Bro, and- It's not so secret. Not so secret. Jay, and she knows me like I'm all games and fun, but I low key can be very vindictive and X, Y, and Z. I low key, Jay. I'm kind, but not- Not nice. Like don't let the jokes fool you. When it comes to that bread, you got to become a hardened businessman to be successful. She knows when to say, I'm not careful. You need to tap into that part. It's F them. She don't cuss. It's F them. Or you actually got to give on this. You actually got to give more than you think you got to give because it's going to protect you down the line here. When I want to be too hard to cut through, she's like, you actually don't need to do that. Every time she's ever done that, it has always been proven right, usually within a week or two. She's that foresight, super power. This is just something happened. I don't want to go too much detail. I won't say no name. Won't say no names. But she was like, here's what I think you should do because you don't know when that decision is going to come to bite you. And I didn't want to do it. In my head, I'm like, Alice, I think you're wrong. Yeah. Right. I think I should. She's like, I'm telling you, it's going to be bad. Don't do it. So I'm like, bad. I won't do it. Just yesterday, what would have unraveled to me just started happening. And she's she's coming around the corner. What I told you, what I told you, right when we're about to announce other stuff, she's like, you can't risk this. I know how you feel. You got to eat this one. You got to take it on the chin. I promise you it's the right choice. But that's been happening forever. And I didn't always listen as though. But now I listen. Now I got to remind her because she'll be like, you'll never listen to me. Now when I listen, I texted her, put this in the care of listening box. Because you always want to say you don't never listen to me. But when I when I don't listen, you remember every time. But when I do listen, you don't remember. I got. Yeah. I got. I want to make sure I shout out cousin Tony. Because I'm Tony my nigga, man. Because if it wasn't for Cody's cousin, I don't know where you would be. I don't know. It's not even. Strung out on crack. Seven baby moms. For sure. Jake Valentine, I got a song for you, man. I'll eat it. I'll eat it down. Damn, damn. I would take the song. I would take the song. But no, that's why that's low key. Just shut up and meet me. No, no, I'm just telling you what I mean. I got a demo for you. I got a tape. I already had you a tape. You got a way to play this on your iPhone. We're going to whip you after the cameras go off. No, man, but I appreciate you putting up with it. Thank you, bro. Bro, this has been amazing. I feel like you've given so much great information for the content creators out there, for the future business people that want to be in this game to have a different understanding and to be able to understand that you can do it without fucking people over. That's the only way I can do it. You know what I mean? No, but I mean, it shouldn't just be you. It really shouldn't. It shouldn't just be you. I feel like you're leading by example. Yes. Your team is leading by example. I've never heard anything but good things about y'all and how y'all do business. And we've never even done business. Yeah. Can I give you a quick story? They get people. Absolutely. One more quick story. I know we eat over time. I know I'm hungry, too, Les. I got to say it's just one more than my wife saved me. OK. We produced a show, Jay Valentine, and I made a mistake. Trusting somebody with the budget they didn't deliver. We had gave the money to pay these actors and background actors. We thought they got paid. We were closing our production. We started getting emails. Yo, we didn't get paid. We didn't get paid. We didn't get paid. We didn't get paid. We didn't get paid. And we're like, how? How? Here's our, here's wire. The money's there for you. Short story short because I know this is long. If you're still here, then you're still here now. You see how long the podcast is? You made the choice. So in my head, we talked to the reps and they're like, legally you guys don't have to pay these people because you did your part. It sucks for them. But legally you've done what you're supposed to do. Me and Melissa are sitting there and we're like, at the same time we're both like, we gotta pay these people. My wife was like, when they don't get paid, it ain't gonna be the producer, this person. It's gonna be Kev on stage did not pay me. And no one will care what really happened. So we had to reach back into our pocket for a second time and pay these people out. And they might not ever know that. But to us, it's like you trusted, I don't want to be the nigga rolling up the window on you. And I don't care if it's $50, $25, $100. It's not about that because I remember when I needed $25 and I'm telling you nigga, I need it. It's accounted for. So I don't get to the point where I'm like, oh nigga, it's expensive out here. What's promise, this promise. I promise you trusted me with your thing and you did your job. You did your part, I gotta do it. And that's my wife being like, and we both were on that one, but it's like that person, I don't know, that person could become Denzel. It could be them and that story's either gonna be Kev took care of me or Kev screwed me over. And I don't, everyone to be Kev screwed me over. And that's how we operate our business. And I think I can sleep at night every night because I know I'm not screwing you over. You're saying you screwing me over, you are lying. Because I say it everything upfront. I deliver on my promise. Even if I don't get paid, if you trust me with your money, you getting paid. That's why you blessed. That's why I'm blessed and because I got one Kuchy. You know what? That's gonna, that's, that's- You can't edit some stuff out. I, I, I, I, you know what? I probably, even make skit, it makes it. My name is Jay Valentine. Just Kev on stage. And he's the R.B. Money Talkass. What if I got myself into it? I see y'all next week. Oh, this is everything I hoped it would be, Jay. This is an I Heart podcast.