Jermaine Dupri Part 2

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The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. R&B money. Money. Money. Woo. We are. We are. We are. Take. Take valentine. We are. We are. The authorities. On all things R&B. The Mr. Jermaine JD, the prettiest mother. That's going to my brother. Come on, man. What an intro. God damn. Yes, sir. It's got to be right. So they go back to the hip hop shit that you wanted to do in the beginning. Yeah. OK. I see where you going with this. So I'm like, Brian, I guess we got to come up with, we got to do some uptempo, fun, this is what they want to do. Now I'm not writing it either, so it's making it harder for me because I can't use my ideas. Right? I know that they write. So I got to just come up with a beat or track that sounds like something. And I got an old guitar at my house out of key. Guitar. And Brian started playing with it and fucking with it. And I'm like, yo, we should use that. And he's like, what? Guitar. I'm saying like, make it, get in key or whatever. And I'm a sample your licks. And he started playing with a party at licks on the guitar. And I'm like, yeah, this it. I start taking the parts, making the beat. And then J.A. come over to the studio and they start singing. And they start going. I'm like, oh, yeah, this sound like it. This could be it right here. Hey, where the party at? I'm like, then the song needs something, though. It's still like it ain't all the way there yet. And by the way, I never use no artist outside of my artist to break, to do anything like that. So they like, get Nelly on the song. Nelly smoking hot at this time. I'm like, get Nelly on the song. You sure? They's like, yeah, that's your boy. What you think about a car or a nigga? I called Nelly Universal 250. Mmm. In a duffle bag. I said what? I said what? Ain't no trades, nothing that can't, no bartering? 250. I never had paid that type of money for a feature. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nelly's on top of the world. I said 250. He a diamond nigga. I said, damn. Now I gotta call Columbia. Because I'm like, listen. Hey, hey, hey, listen. But Columbia's, they stoke, because they jagged it. The remix, Let's Get Married, is peak doing some shit. Yeah. So now they see light with Jag. They like, what you got? I'm like, I got a song. I just gotta put Nelly on it. And I feel like we can follow up, Let's Get Married with this song. You put Nelly on the record, it's a go. He's like, all right, well, what you gonna do? I said, we gotta give 250. They said 250 what? I said, we gotta send them 250,000 dollars. He gonna go to the studio. Donny I was like, okay, let's do it. Let's go ahead. I feel like this gonna do it for him. I said, yeah. So you get the verse from Nelly. I think the song is a hit. I go to New York, play the song for Donny I know. And he listened to the song. He's like, it's cool. It ain't there yet. I'm like, what? We got Nelly, we got all these different parts, it's going. Yeah. He's like something, it just ain't there yet. Something ain't, it's still missing something. So I come back home, I call the guys to the studio. I'm like, yo. He said the song missing something. Oh man, fuck him. He don't know what the fuck he talking about. You know what I mean? So it's like all that. I'm like, man, we gotta listen to him. He said it's missing something. We gotta figure out what is missing. And then Wingo's like, so we start having a conversation about party things that happen at a party. What is the thing that Carl and repeat that happens at a party that happens all the time at a party? Right side of your hands up. That side of your hands up. My ladies running this motherfucker. So we start just bringing all the ideas of like what happens at a party. We put that on the song. So this is not on the initial? No, this ain't on the initial. Okay. We put that part, we figure that part out, put that on the song. I go back to New York the next week. I play it for Dunny. He's like, that's it. And I'm like, are you fucking serious? Like this is eight bars are just us. Call and respond. Can you by each side run this mother? He's like, that's it. You got it. Y'all figure it out. That's it. And where the party at gone? It was gone by then. Gone. The art of making records. But it's also right. It's also the respect of like listening to a guy say, you're close and taking all of your producer ego and writer ego, the thing, the success that you've already had up to that point, taking that out of the picture and say, hey man, there's got to be another level we can get to. This guy says there's another level we can get to. Let's fucking find it. Yeah, I mean, I'm determined to find it. I hate when people tell me though, it's not that, but I, I, I, I trusted they saying it for a reason. Right. Fast forward 2000. I think we, we, because we from, I think the last album at my house, my mother's house was J. E. Heartbreak. Fast forward 2000. I built my studio Southside. The first record we make at Southside is we start on us. It's his first, second album, third album, basically. The first song we write when we move into that studio is you got it bad. He's going to pay for the studio. As soon as you get in the month of. Oh man. Oh man. I had to pay for this shit. We need to stop. So Brian, I heard him say this on when he was here. He wanted to work with us just so bad. He didn't know he was going to get opportunity to work with us. I called him like, man, he would do Jaggedesh. He ain't know if I was going to keep using him. He thought, you know, he did Jaggedesh. He ain't know what I called him. I'm like, yo, I got to start on this usher record. I need you to come over. He come to Southside. We start working. And I'm like, this, we got to do an extension of nice and slow. I'm saying like nice and slow was like about it. People love it. Brian was in love with nice and slow. I was like, I want this next song to sound like it's that is right there, but it's something else. Right. It sounded like something else. So you start writing. You got it bad. And we make we make it in the music. I'm not even, I don't have the lyrics yet. And then I should come to the studio and usher got a girl. Matter of fact, we had another song. I think we had, we was working on another song. Matter of fact, that's how we got to it. We was working on another song. He was in the studio. So the girl called him on the phone. He hang up. They going at it. I'm like, what's wrong, man? Can we get this fucking song? You know, I'm watching them to drama. Can we get the song done? He like, shit, I'll be back. Right. In the middle of the session. So the girl got him fucked up. Right. And all I could sit there and think about was this nigga got it bad. Like you got, you got it. You got it bad. You got it bad. And I just start putting every pieces that I saw him do. I start writing them. And I start thinking like, and I call them when he left, I said, come back. I got it. He came back. I had this. I ain't got for you. Call right back. I hate, I hate this. This nigga's so good. This nigga's so good. But you know, the other part that I've noticed, your humility in all of it is what makes it, in my opinion, just from the outside looking in, is what makes it work because you're never above the song. You're never above the situation. In all of these hit records, you keep saying, I was under pressure. I didn't know. You know what I'm saying? It's not, you know, because you understand, we've been in music forever. We've done 150 interviews. You see when certain niggas is like, the humility may not be there. Right? And that's cool. That's fine. However, that works for you. But what I've found in talking to you is that you get out of the way of all the bullshit and just fucking write a great song and just write the record. Even if you gotta tweak it, even if you got, you know what I mean? Like all of these things that sometimes as we become successful, people do less and less. Self-auditing. Oh, nigga, this is back to you. What you mean? What you mean? You know, buy somebody else's record then. You're saying, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna figure it out. Yeah, because that don't, none of that worked for me. Only thing worked for me is your reaction. If I play a song, you don't react. I know it ain't no hit. That's it. I'm not even gonna argue with it. I might think it's a hit. I'm still not gonna argue with it because I'm saying that reaction is what, that's what I, that's all I got. That's all I know. And I'll keep going until I find that reaction. Until you give me that reaction, I'm not gonna stop on every project. That's what I have to get. I have to have that reaction. The same reaction that I got on every record, it gotta be the same thing. Somebody gotta come from the back. Somebody gotta jump in. Somebody gotta do something. If they don't, if they don't do that, that song is not coming out. It ain't, that ain't, that ain't the song. Nope, that ain't it. I don't care how niggas jumping around in the studio and all that. I don't, that ain't, I gotta see somebody, somebody else gotta show me. The natural reaction. Yeah, they gotta show me a natural reaction before I actually believe it's a go. Oh, you've had, you've had a lot of go. Still to this day. Still to this day. So, so, well, y'all wanna go next. No, no, bro, listen. No, I'm gonna tell y'all, I know LA was here and I saw LA. But I was gonna say that what you said about, I mean, oh, you both are y'all saying it. You both are y'all saying it, about me not like really cared about what people, you know what I mean? I always get knocked down. So I'm already, it's not like JD, we believe you. It's almost like my success, they use my success against me to be like, you can't eat, I bet you can't do that shit again. You think you got another one of them in there? You think you got another one of them in there? Yeah. Right? So I'm always mentally, I'm going into the studio already thinking like, these niggas don't believe we can do it again. We gotta do it. We gotta find it. We gotta do it. That's all that mattered to me. I'm not thinking about nothing else. None of that, nothing else shit mattered. Even the song, go number one, cool. It went number one. They wanna know if we can do it again. Right? So you got it back, came out, 87.01, popping, whatever, whatever. And then it's time to make Usher a new album, right? Which is Confessions. And me and Usher go to LA's house and we pull up to LA house. And we have, I think we did, we started, we made a song and we go in there and play the song for him. And he's like, I'm not saying it. And he's like, Usher, you're not interesting enough. Like people don't care about you till your album come out. And then when your album come out, that's when people care about you. Then when the songs go away, you go away. Y'all need to write something that's interesting, that make people wanna think about you. Things like, you need to get a girlfriend or something. He said all kind of wow shit. I'm just sitting there listening like, damn, the man just told this nigga, he not interesting. He just sold like 5 million records. Cool. But I also understand what he's saying. I also understand like, yo, you know, you make a record, the promotion got you popping. But that, it's that in between shit, people don't know who Usher is. They don't connect with you as like doing some regular shit. And this, you know, rappers is coming out. Rappers doing that thing. Yeah, it's more reality type of thing. And we go back to the studio, we both like fucked up. I'm like, this man just told this man to his face. You're not interesting enough. And when I heard him say it, my mind started trying to figure out what can I write to make this nigga interesting? What can I do to make him interesting? How do we make this nigga interesting through music? So I'm on what like, it's like, yo, you should get it. You should start dating the hot girl. Find it's, you know what I mean? Do some shit that's like more internet driven. I'm not thinking about the music. There's no way in hell, right? So we start trying to work on the records. And then he tells me that the girl that he was dating, it's over with. But it's feel like it's burning his soul. Like man, I feel like it's burning me. It's burning. Like it's like a burning feeling that I have. And I'm like, what? I'm thinking like nigga burning like you're going to STD. I got a doctor on the load of the come through. Bring your penicillin wherever you need. So he's saying this. That's the first thing coming to my mind. I'm like burning. He's like, yeah, man, make something that got that burning in there. Say something about me burning or something like this. And I'm thinking like, I don't even know what this nigga at with this shit. I don't know what we at with this. You sure you want to burn? Yeah, I can't, I can't, I ain't never felt the burning feeling. Right. I'm not, I can't get into that space. He like, I got to go. So he runs out of the studio. He left me with the burn idea. And I'm saying like, I'm trying to flip the word to me and the many things I'm writing sentences to see what it's making sound like it's cool. Like burn. I don't know how this one's gonna work. And then it just hit me. I was like, let it burn. Let it burn. Like, right. So I'll start. I get it. I'm like, yeah, I got it. I got it. He come back to the studio. He listen. He like, yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what I was talking about. And I'm like, okay, cool. We on a good, we on a rare to this new album. Yeah. Then the next day he come and he say, man, you know, I don't think we should work in Atlanta. And I'm superstitious about leaving Atlanta. Right. Right. And I just got my studio. Yeah. Just a new studio. We just got the new studio. I got to pay for it. What you doing? You want to go somewhere else. He's like, yeah, man, we should go to LA, man. Y'all should come out to LA and we should do it. I'm like, no, dog. I'm like, we just got let it burn. Let's go. No, I'm too distracted in Atlanta. I'm like, all right, cool. I come out here. Me and Brian comes here. Us should we be here at Brandy's Way. And we don't really know what we doing. Right. We just in there. Us just once again, he come in, he say, whatever he say, he got ideas, whatever he leave. I'm like, shit, Brian, we got LA told us nigga, he wasn't he wasn't interesting. We got to start trying to make some music that that feel like we got to make him interesting. Yeah. Now I don't know what that's supposed to sound like, but I'm just like, we got to make something that's got to feel like people got to have some kind of little drama to it. Right. So my homeboy used to be saying all bad. He's like, man, that's all bad. This shit all bad. Everything all bad. So I'm like, all bad. Everything that I've been doing is all bad. Got a chick on the side with a crib in the right. I've been telling you so many lies ain't nothing good. It's all bad. I just want to confess I've been doing it so long. They put the beat up. Let's go to Brian start playing the course. I'm like, I got it. He start doing all these things. I've been doing this all bad. Got a chick on the side with a crib in the right. I've been telling you so many lies ain't nothing good. It's all bad. I got the hook. And then I wanted to be a writer. So I said, I got writer's block. You know, that's bullshit. Right. It's some bullshit. Absolutely bullshit. But niggas that right, they said, just as like a way to get away from the song. You don't really have writer's block. You can just write about anything you want to. I might not sound good, but you still can write, right? You don't just have complete block. Right. So I said, I had writer's block. I'm like, Brian, let's give me, give me the burn the CD. I got my Lamborghini out here in LA. I do. I do. Right. I'm like, shit, I'm going to get ready. I'm standing. I'm standing Malibu. Right. Are you doing the whole thing? Oh yeah. I'm good. Are you doing? I get the, I put the CD in the car and I'm going down Beverly. And I'm thinking about Kaiser Soze. I don't know why I'm thinking about Kaiser Soze, but I'm thinking about Kaiser Soze and I'm thinking about the movie, Usual Suspects. And Kaiser Soze was in the, when he went to the jail, he looked around the room and he made a story up of everything he saw. It was on the wall and he made all the shit just go. He figured out how to make everything that he saw in that room work to his story. And I'm driving and I'm like, shit, I might try to do that. Let me try this. Let's try this Kaiser Soze shit. And I stop it to light. And I'm like, every time I was in LA, I'm with my ex-girlfriend. Every time you call up to you, baby, I'm run. No, I was out doing my work. I was thinking about you getting hurt. I was hand in hand in the Beverly Sunder. It's right there. Damn. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. If I wouldn't have been here, none of them words would have been in that song. I would have never been in LA. I was here in LA. I'm writing the song as I'm seeing what's going on. And this verse goes to all bad. This verse goes to the all bad song. It's not even Confessions yet. You know what I mean? So I'm writing this to the thing that I've been doing this all bad. This is the first verse of all bad. I told them niggas I had right this block, but by the time I passed the Beverly Sunder, I had the whole verse done. I was ready to go back to the studio they had left. So I'm like, God damn, now I got to wait till tomorrow to try to cut this shit. But I'm singing this shit all the way down PCH. I'm writing the whole song all the way down PCH. I'm flying, but I'm listening. I'm saying I got it. This shit right here. So to come back, I tell us to hear it. Yeah, we fucking with it. Cool. All right. All right. But what happened after that? That's what he say. I'm like, what do you mean what happened after that? Locked into the movie. Yeah. Like what's going to happen after you know you got a chick on the side? What happened with it? And just so happy that my real life, my real life, this is happening. You know, I got a girl pregnant and I had to tell my girlfriend that I had a girl at time. I had to tell my girlfriend at the time that I got a girl pregnant that I barely even knew. Right. And I call my homeboy and I'm like, yo, how do I tell my girl this? He's like, you got to call her and tell her. I'm like, shit, nah, I'm gonna just leave on the answer machine. I'm calling. I'm just calling leaving on the answer machine. So I called her. I left a message on the answer machine. She called me back. She wanted to know all the information about it. What's how? What? And I'm just like, I'm fucked up. I'm actually not even thinking about the song no more. I'm in this real life. So then usher and mark come to the studio and they like, man, we got to make part two of this. It's got to, what's going to happen? The girl got to get pregnant. And I'm like, oh, I know this too well. This is too easy. Like this story, you really want me to say this? Yeah. What is the story? And I'm like, okay, these are my confession. Just when I thought I said all I could say to the chick on the side, say she got one on the way. Man, I'm thrilled and I don't know what to do. I guess I got to get y'all part two of my confession. Because the niggas asked for a part two. Huh? Because they asked for a part two. Because they asked for a part two. Yep. We wouldn't even made that. That song, confession would have never came out if they didn't ask for a part two. The song was all bad. That's what the name of the song was. I mean, that's what it's on the album. It's all bad too. Which? But I say I confess. I've been doing you so wrong. I say it in that song. So that's how it became like, that's when I start connecting to like these are my confessions. I'm just took that part from that song and put it into there. But it was like, this was, and by the way, this is a remix of all the back. Of all bad basically. Of a song that nobody ever heard. It never worked. Like these records never came out. We were already on the part two. Yeah, we made part two before the song even came out. And that's how you get the number one R&B record of the century. That's how you get that. Congratulations on that too. Thank you. Yeah. Let's go. And invoke. Hey there. This is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring Podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. But it's the life in the song. Yeah, yeah. It's like... You gotta live writers. You gotta live writers. It's not gonna always be pretty. That's always my advice. Just write your life. There's gotta be something going on. Yeah. Don't make it too hard on yourself. If there ain't nothing going on, think. Get something going on. Get something going on. That you're not interesting lying. I mean, there's a bunch of things that went into confessions. Him telling us that. Usher telling me about the burning thing. We getting in the LA. Like I said, it was just like... And then them asking for part two of all that. Like, what's the continuation of this song? We gotta make a continuation of this song. And I was like, alright, well, I know this story pretty fast. Let's just start coming out like this. Like clock, like super. You talking like that? I think I wrote that song like five minutes. I never forget coming to Atlanta. Flying in to go see my partner, Shakir. Going up to Hicco and him playing me burn. And I'm like, nigga, what the fuck is this? Like, yeah, nigga, this that shit nigga. Nigga J.D. and Asha back in nigga. You know how he's talking nigga. This that shit Valentine. I'm telling you nigga. I'm like, so when he coming out, he like, yeah, this ain't the single though. I said, what you do? What? What are you talking about? Nigga, I've heard everything I need to hear. Y'all out of here. I thought that was the single too. By the way, I'm like, yeah, this the single LA. LA is like, nah, that ain't the single. I'm like, man, this nigga's different. This nigga's different. But it's continuous chess. It's y'all, he's setting the chess board in a certain way. He, because as an executive, you have to be able to see something that the creatives maybe don't fully see yet. Yeah. I mean, listen, it ain't my label. So I just start falling back like this, your label. I just make him use it. Yeah. You do what you want to do with it. That's what you feel like. Then cool. When I saw the track listing for, for confessions, he took all bad off the album. So then I'm like, how does it make sense? I'm like, people don't even know about the first part of the song. I don't care about the first part of the song. This is the song. So then they shot the video for it and they put the first verse from all bad at the beginning of part two. Yeah. So then they made the song go like this. Yeah. That verse is not in that song. No. No, it's not. You know what I mean? Stop playing, man. Stop playing, man. Don't say that, man. Put that on something. Put that on something. He was a full Michael Mote. Yeah. So that whole, we did all that here in LA, that call and all that's a real phone call. And yeah, LA didn't put all bad on the first release of Confessions. So all people heard was Confessions too. And I thought that was crazy. I'm like, we sang in the song, I'm going to give you part two. Part one, but it didn't make it. Is it accidental genius that you end up having to circle back to it? And that is now new interest in a re-release or even in the video for that matter. Yeah, that's crazy to think of it like that. You know what I'm saying? It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. Like the Star Wars thing. Like the Star Wars, the way they wrote Star Wars backwards. Backwards. So it's like the same type of mentality. The first was that you don't have to call? What? The first thing go from that one? No, you don't have to call. No, no, no. The first thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I always called, to me, I always called that sugar on the vegetable. Right? It's like when you have kids, we all got kids. How do you get your kids to eat vegetables? You got to give them something sweet or you got to give them something with it that makes them take in the shit that they need. And that's how I looked at the body of work of Confessions is was the shit that the world needed from an R&B artist. I felt like, yeah, was the, yeah, was the dangling carrot. I want the world to come in and now y'all getting this shit though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You give them said, because yeah, it was the only thing like that on the album. Yeah, it actually doesn't match the album. It don't match the album. But it was a hell of a commercial. It made everybody. What? Yeah. It's like a Super Bowl commercial. Yeah. A half time. Amazing record. Amazing record, but it does not fit the album. Yeah, no. I mean, what it does, but it don't know how to do with the confession. Yeah. Yeah. Because the rest of that is like, is that like the party after I get done? It's core R&B. Yes, not core R&B. Yeah, no. Yeah, it's new R&B. Everything else is core R&B. From the records that you did, the records that Duran Vidal did, Jimmy Jemter. Like, this is a R&B, R&B album. And yeah, it's like, what the fuck? Yeah. Like you said, it's the commercial. It's bringing everybody in. It's the shock value. It's definitely shock value. On a whole other level. 100%. I'm so angry whenever. You was? Oh. Because it's like, it's no competing. I had done my little dirty South record with cash money. I was like, R&B dirty South collab. I'm about to kill him. Ship out the go crazy. DUD. He said DUD. DUD. He did his self audit. I did his self audit. Party like a thug drinks up in the sky like thugs. No sparkle. No sparkle. No sparkle. No sparkle. Ain't nobody run from you. That's a problem. Fresh told me I was sweet though. Fresh was like, you having fun. Do that shit, nigga. You killing that shit. Baby came and wrapped up. I said, nigga, you can't tell me this ain't it. What's that? I needed you, J.D. What were you? I was like, I was like, I was in the car just saying, did anybody look like they like this one? And then that song came out and I'm in the club on La Brea in Hollywood. What did they call that club then? My house. Not my house. My house. Okay. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck the gang. I don't think I had a good time that night. Fuck the gang but for everybody. Nigga. Yeah. For everybody. Fuck the gang. Fuck that song. It was too much. Thank you so much. How do you feel about, because you're like, you're always you. The cool nigga that you guys see right, it's always you. It's never too high. It's never too low. Nigga come back, nigga, you got no more regular. That's dope. Thank you. Appreciate it. How do you feel about being, first of all, you're one of two in the Hall of Fame. But what you've accomplished in music, you're one of, you are one of one. How do you feel about that? Do you feel like you can bang on your chest at times and appreciate yourself? No. Because the people that idolized, they did more with less. Hmm. Hmm. Explain that. Motown. You know what I mean? Barry took $800 from a bank and made Motown $800. Right. I mean that was equivalent to, it took $800. It was not a thousand. $800. Borrowed money. Borrowed money, put all of these writers and people inside this house, has mother cooking the food, and made everybody sit in there, and he made Motown records. Right. With things that were just connected to his block too though. Yeah. Yeah. I don't disagree with that. I might not argue with it. I might not even say but. I just want to say. You wrote and produced and then performed. Barry Gordy did what Barry Gordy did. You, my friend, were, you were Smokey Robinson. You were also whatever band he called in to do the instrumentation. Holland Dozier, Holland. Holland Dozier, Holland. And then you were also Barry Gordy. Again, I respect, I respect your answer. But only you. No, not just rap and R&B. And R&B. And R&B. And pop. And pop. Bro, like the things that you've done in this, in this business. Once again, you've been the first to us. You know, listen, I'm, I'm all, I'm with all the shit. I would all arguments. All love it. Dixon argue all they want to. You can't argue with me about your main debris. No. That's why we want you on this show so bad, bro. Because you are that important to us. And it bothers me that you don't get as much credit as you deserve. I don't care if you care about it or not. I'm talking about me caring about it and somebody who love this shit that we all do. Yeah. That we give our lives to. Yeah. I mean, I have, I have come to the realization of why that is though. When you don't have a two, then the people don't have no conversation about it. Right. So it's not like you just said, it's not another. Jermaine Dupri in the music industry. Not today. And it wasn't, you know, before. So then when people like try to, you know, like everybody always tried to pit me against Puff. That's the person that they thought was the closest to me. Right. I've been telling niggas the whole time me and Puff is not alike. Like, you know, he don't write songs. I write songs. He don't, he don't do. He don't make the beats. He don't do half of the shit that I do. He's a great producer in the mentality of how he's here music. But that's the only person that people have ever pitted against me. Right. They ain't never put Ronnie Jerkens against me. They ain't never put none of these other guys. Puff is the guy that they said JD trying to be like puff. You know what I mean? They try to put us against each other. And I just start realizing like, if it's, if you only got one person and they know really no other person that they can compare to, then they're not even going to have the conversation. They just going to start, they're going to just like not even talk about you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I've seen what y'all did with LA. He had him and face and Jim and Terry. Right. It's one and two. Like you go here, you go there. You go here, go there. When you come see me, whatever you get after that ain't going to be like what you get from me. It just ain't, it ain't going to be like that. And I think that's what, I think that's why people, people have, then there's, it's not a lot of that going on in the world where you only have one. And I just, that's just what it is. And I realized this when I went into the Hall of Fame, the Hall of Fame is a writer's for the last 40 years or even longer, maybe 50 years of writing. And I'm looking at all these writers and I'm like, you know what, I'm different. That's the first time it dawned on me that I was different because Babyface don't got no number one rap song. Jimmy, Jimmy, Terry Lewis don't have no number one rap song. LA Reed don't have no number one rap song. Right. Right. I have number one rap songs. Right. Not along these R&B records, I got number one rap songs that Quincy never had, Quincy, you know, he never had number one rap song. Like you said, Bery Gordy never had, they never had number one rap song. So that's what, that's the day that I realized, oh, I'm not, I'm trying to be like them, but I'm actually different. Right. That's the first time it hit me. So it took a long time for me to even realize that. And I mean, like, because I just put all of it together. I never paid no attention to it. But like, you know, he ain't got no pulling me back. He ain't got, you know, that's a number one record with Ching and Tyrese. Yeah. Right. They don't got them songs. That's why I kept saying like, when niggas was like me doing verses, I'm like, y'all niggas, I get it. Y'all think that y'all know what's going on, but I'm saying I'm gonna stop pulling out records that you ain't even, you're not even really bringing into the, you know, you're not even thinking about it. Talk your shit, JD. No. Talk your shit. It's not like that. It's just like people leave it out. It's like you just leave it and stuff out. You know what I mean? Like that's what this space is for. What? They talking shit. This space is to let motherfuckers know. Yeah. In case you didn't know. Yeah, I must have forgot. Y'all know. Now y'all know what it is. Yeah. Now y'all know what it is. Yeah. No, for real, it's like, it's not, it's not a bunch of people that first 100% writers. Talk to talk. Right. And then writing the whole concept of song, then producing the song. That's just not happening. So back to my one of one. I'll take that. I'll take it. Hey there. This is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here, aren't we money? We ride what you made to preach. I appreciate it. That is what it is, bro. Thank you. I appreciate it. Always having before we had this platform. No, for sure. You know what I mean? Conversation with you again. You know that. These studios, niggas start talking about this. Amen. You made the pre-dog. By the way, you got it bad. I told the story before. You got it bad was like a battle between me and Rodney Jerkin. I think, I don't know, Rodney and Michael was in the studio doing Rock My World. Usher and Prime. I mean, yeah, we was doing You Got It Bad. And Michael called to the studio or something like that. They called to the studio and they was like, which y'all over there doing? Michael called to the studio and asked what y'all doing? What y'all doing? What y'all doing? Yeah. I mean, you know what you're mad at. Him and Rodney Jerkin's day was on the phone. Some kind of way this happened. I don't know why it happened, but they called the studio and I put it on a speakerphone, right? Because Usher was there so he could hear it. Rodney was like, which y'all over there working on? Michael was like, yeah, which y'all working on? And I said, I'm doing Usher. And then Michael said, who? And Usher's on the speakerphone. And I'm like, oh, this nigga's dirty. This nigga just said who? You know the fuck Usher is, nigga. Right. Mike knew everything that was going on. Yeah, he's like who? And I'm like, did he just say who? So I got mad. I'm mad as a mother. I'm mad for Usher. Right. I'm like, Rodney, man, fuck this shit. We got a song right now that's better than y'all whole album. I don't know. I just shot my gun. But you got it bad. I'm sitting on you got it bad. And, you know, I was I was that that that's what fueled me that day. Like, man, I got to that's all I'm not just fueled by like the competition. You know, so so death is created because you deaf. But I'm so, so much deaf in you. That's how the company that's where the name comes from. It's like it's about the competition. I like that. I love it. I love it. I like that a lot. It's just about I'm just about competition. I'm into the competitive nature of making music and the fight of it. Like, let's go. Let's see what let's get in. Let's do it. Let's get the rain. Then you've had all the success, right? And I mean, I know the answer to it because you said it's the competitive nature. But for you then to say, you know what? I'm going to make some new R&B for y'all to I'm going to go in with our Lennox. I'm going to make this pressure after I go on with our Lennox. I'm going to go in with money long. And I'm going to make this made for me. Like the shit does not stop, bro. Like when people say, oh, a person can only do this for so long, they were not talking about Jermaine Dupree at all, especially an urban music. You know this. It started off with you being too young, but at a certain at a certain stage in this business is all this is I can't do that. No way to owe. Time is bad. And you've proved them wrong in both spaces. You did not stop making hit records, bro. Like you have current records right now made for me held the winning. It just literally held the year in a chokehold. Yeah, we won at Grammy too. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, bro, like and what's that 30 years since your first hit? Yeah. Insane. Insane. Insane, bro. But I mean, like I said, I just don't get into the I don't get into. I understand that one hit record only pushes people to ask you if you could do it again. So therefore, I never get into the success of records. I just get into the. Okay, let's go. Do you know how many records you have? No. No, I mean, what? And like I said, this year, this year, this the year that I've really just been paying more attention to it. So when I DJ, I've been trying to like when I do these R&B parties. And so I have a different set than anybody. I don't do it just because I'm trying to be cocky. I just be like, you know, you got a bunch of DJs doing sets. You be trying to figure out like, oh, this nigga just played the record I was going to play. God damn. So now you got it, you know, right back there trying to figure out my playlist because this nigga just played the record. I wanted to play my first set, right? So I started saying, man, fuck this shit. I'm going to just play my music. It's all R&B. I could do R&B records for a whole hour. Right. We could do, I could do my own R&B records for a whole hour. And I just tell the DJs don't play no Jermaine the Pre-Records. That's going to be my records. You can play everything else R&B you want to just don't touch my little shit. And I still have a full set. And I come out and I just play all my records. I was there. Turn that motherfucker up. Play all his records. They all work. They all work. Congratulations, brother. Thank you. Congratulations, man. Listen, I had him hemmed up in the back of the kitchen. I need my week, man. I need my week, man. Yeah, come on, Tanya. You got to come with me. You see, he got a really, you got to come with me. You got to come now, man. That's what I'm saying. You got to come to A&T and work for me, man. You ain't... Welcome to Atlanta, man. You got to come do it. I promise you, you ain't got to convince me. I don't do it. I'm just saying. I know, I know, but I'm saying, you know, you know, he all, you know, he all, he all, he all, he a thespian now though, you know what I'm saying? Like he's on Broadway now. So, you know, congratulations by the way. Thank you, my friend. This is my handshake now. I got to grab the fingertips. That's your new one? That's my new one. That's my Broadway. Hey, bro, if we learned anything from Shemaine DePri, stay helpful. Come on, bro. Don't give nobody a dumb-ass handshake. You gave that dumb-ass handshake to me earlier. Yeah, he gave it to you? Yeah, he walked in. He gave that to me. I was like, what is this bullshit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's great. That's what you're doing. What is it? Hell's Kitchen, Alicia Keys. Alicia Keys. What's up? Incredible. Incredible. My brother on Broadway, man. I went to the show every day, huh? I went three times a week? No. Every day? Every day, except for Monday. Eight shows a week. Yeah, yeah. Got to have them vocals right, huh? You got to believe it. That's right. What you went? What is it? Emmy or Tony? Tony. Tony. Tony. Tony. Tony. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tony. Yeah, yeah. Tony. Yeah, yeah. Tony. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I didn't even think about that. Like right now, when you're back, do you have questions that you asked me about? Do I ever think about it? And I'm like, no. Last night I was watching the Oscars and they was playing all Quincy music. You know, all the songs that was in the Oscars was all Quincy's soundtrack, Quincy Jones. And I was just thinking to myself, like, I don't think I hit that mark yet. Like if I pass, they ain't going to do that for me. My challenge in life now is to try to get to that space. I don't know about that, brother. Not the Oscars. The Oscars? Yeah. Soul train awards, maybe. The Grammy's better, dude. Grammy's going to do it for you. Grammy might give me a little space, but I'm saying I want that. That Oscar look to just be like. But he also scored movies, too. Yeah, he did. He did. So that's what I'm saying. This is what I'm talking about. It's the new challenge. This is the new final frontier for JD. I got to get to it. So that's what I'm saying. It's not, I still see so much stuff that I haven't done that I need to do. That's all I'm thinking about. Hey, Ryan Coogler. Come on now. You from the career of my area, niggas. Hey, listen, tap in with JD, bro. Yeah, let me do the whole soundtrack. Come on, man. Tap in. I know you watch the show and all that shit. And you know, you got the movie theater with the Rolls Royce. You got that. Yeah, like that. Selling and all that. Yeah, tap in with JD. Yeah, let me do it. Let me do the soundtrack. I promise you I'll get it right. I never did it before. Everything he's ever done before. If he's never done it before, it's going to be great. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to try and figure it out. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to try and figure it out. Hey there. This is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring Podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.