While We Wait at 808 (Hosted by Man-Man Ft. interviews with guests Tracyan Martin & Yung Wurld)

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what's up everybody welcome to another episode of town hall meeting with the mayor i am your host eugene man robertson i just want to thank you guys for tuning in yet again so you know how this goes i sit down and talk to some of my favorite people and some people that are just your favorite people first up is my homegirl music director keyboard player well she's a multi-instrumentalist actually she does everything but give it up for my homegirl tracy

hey everybody i told y'all i always got somebody cool and got my sister here we connected some years ago hey what up connecticut it's my sister tracy what's up what are we doing what's going on what's up man man listen i don't think i've seen you since like nam 2019 i think and i got receipts i got a picture you got receipts oh we got your receipt hey y'all hold on hold on a pause for the receipts right about now

here we go what's on what's going on what you doing what you up to man today i'm home i'm actually off i've been working almost every day it's it's a blessing to like be busy during this time for real for real i don't take that for granted but today is just about being here and cooking hamburgers at some point like once we get up hashtag goals yes i cook too i use my hands for other things y'all hear that y'all she cooked too yo i'm saying we multi talented around here

this is a question i like to ask people what new trade did you pick up throughout this whole time of being home because i feel like everybody picks up something new like you you know what okay i might answer this in a tricky way but i picked up the trade of rest like in a real way you know how we run it even when we're not on the road we are still running trying to catch up yo i've been sleeping so good man it's like what happened what i've been doing like yeah yeah like this i mean this is what i've been missing out on when i told my friends they were lazy they were actually enjoying sleep yeah not a lot of work don't get me wrong but like for real for real it's this rest man it's a cool trade i'm i'm into it i mean i love it i love it i love it i i i've been getting into video and like i like to cook so like i've been i try to find something say that again before i well i don't like i love to cook actually so i get into things where you know i try to go back to the basics i like to go back to the basics and make sure you know i'm good on all you know you want to be able to make a whole thanksgiving dinner so you want to make sure your mac and cheese is lit your fried made mac and cheese on sunday i did i got it you know what i'm saying like and then now now i'm stuck in sushi land yo you get out my my life i had sushi last night

i've been to sushi land and i've been making sushi yeah yeah so it's been like it's been like a thing hold on where's my sushi picture hold on hold on y'all hold on for this one

seriously so um i know you put out like a cool video with a couple of the home girls you know yeah so what's been the thought process because i know a lot of people like have been collaborating yeah throughout this time which is pretty cool so one what was it like collaborating and like but that was a first of all it was a dope video like that y'all did i don't even know got us through the process like i came up with it and then the part two of it is who would you want to collaborate with if you could during this time virtually okay oh that's a good question so the first thing we did um the don't rush challenge and with that roland didn't ask us to do it but i'm like i want to show love to the company that's shown me and my people that i work with so much love so let's flip it we're not doing anything that's like really keeping us away from you know doing something cool and productive so i was like i want to do it but in a way that hasn't been done everybody's doing don't rush but they you know popping into somebody else's screen throwing airbrushes or makeup brushes i said i want to do it in a way that's highlighting women and music but without flipping we we came on already ready because i ain't gonna look crazy and then um i was like yo why don't i just get my friends that i know play other instruments to have some affiliation with roland so i hand picked these three other ladies there were you know some others i was trying to consider but it was just something about these three in particular and yeah and they were so down to do it i was trying to get that cash out and like try to do something because i know this is going to be right up like no we just want to do it and it hit and we were not expecting the responses that we got like it took us for real for real it took us two months to do it because everybody's schedule was like casually crazy granted for just a minute in eight seconds of a song it took us that long but we did all um for the most part that ranging was between shea and myself and other girls put their input i mixed it i went to school for music engineering by the way so that's that shout out see that's another thing if y'all need something mixed you know what i'm saying hit up trace you know well hello hello oh wow if she got time why is she not sleeping i don't know you know but for real so it was cool to like use our own gifts between you know amongst the four of us like why not we're not gonna outsource and have to pay somebody if we can make this cool for instagram and like from there we just been getting calls to do other things it's like you never know those ideas you have in your heart that might seem just a one-time thing can open up so much more and this is the and this is the internet i call it the blessing and curse of the internet yeah it's like a digital resume that's what i call it because you know you could put the right things out there you could put the wrong things out there i've seen some yeah i've gotten people not called back it's unforgiving you know yeah it's very unforgiving yeah you can get a lot of views for doing something great or you can get a lot of views for doing something crazy you know yeah um so that that was that so actually and that's another trade that you probably didn't understand you learned how to not outsource because because what happens is when we're out moving and you know it's like uh you know i'll get so-and-so to do that i don't want now i was just like you might even not have the time but it's still like i mean i got nothing but time where am i going and you know i you know i i've i've adapted you know taking the most and making the most out of my time aka maximizing my 24 because you know without being on a plane you know for five hours losing communication for five hours that's like work you're not doing so now it's like when you can only do two things in a day now we got time i could do six things in the day you know what i mean absolutely and i've been getting into the videos but i was gonna say to that point also you were saying like outsourcing it's one thing to outsource to your homies but like i didn't really know these girls that will so it's like i know we have our people we call on but i also want to try to help you know give something to somebody else's life like well you know that that per that that pushes me to my next point well actually before i go there you got to answer the i got to answer another question hmm god tremendous spot so who would i like to collab with okay well easily man man would be one i don't know if you heard of him but i don't know who that is we family now but if i wanted to collab with some it's so oh god you know what i'll say this it's a it's an artist i would love to work with okay and that would be billy eilish she's got some really dope stuff like and it's simple but it's beautiful like the content of of her music the musicality right you know she reported it back in garageband if i'm not mistaken i was like that's that's cool i like to collab with her and i'm just on a musician one

see i'm getting in trouble now so i'm just keep i'm gonna keep it i'm gonna keep it there but the thing about it is you know you put it out there you never know it's going to happen you know that's the thing you know stuff yeah you know we'll circle back if it hits me because i want it because it's something something ruined right here all right whoever that person is she's gonna reach out we're gonna make this happen you know who you are you know you know who you are okay so let's segue to this let's talk about relationships and you know in the industry and just in the world and how important they are and just like your take on them because like you said you know you chose those other three young ladies for a reason you know and it's not nothing against anyone else but it's a thing where you know i told people now is the time where you can either build relationships create relationships or simply just mess them up so you know you took a chance to build a relationship with some people which is great you know what i mean so like i said you can expand upon that a little bit just relationships and importance so relationships who relationships are the reason why i got um my first gig with music that's that's right there so that's our connection too that's philly that's philly that's really really that's real philly you know unless you know i'm saying you know but it's simple but it's not but it's simple um the key for me was really just being cool with people you know i know this is a clickish you know environment industry to some degree but when i auditioned for music i didn't get the gig i did not get the gig and so they went on tour five months later one of the girls tell me i was like hey you want to come hang out i'm like sure they ain't saying anything about it um fast forward they were really just kind of checking out my vibe we hanging out having ribs or something at the time yeah i don't know just chopping it up and i wasn't thinking anything about a gig i was like oh my gosh i'm hanging out with music social background singers and it's bass player and drummer yeah and that was it i'm 21 at the time or 22 so it's like that's not even something i could see i was just happy to audition fast forward they were looking for a second keyboard player which is why they called me to hang out so that was one thing then that led to me playing in like a corporate band who ended up getting me the job with melanie fiona but relationships it wasn't about being the best or the most skilled it was about the relationships and being cool yeah same every every opportunity for the most part that i've had has been on a relationship one and so i see how people were able to build me up which is my intention behind setting up these other ladies other guys you know in my community for the same opportunity to like you know get into some stuff like that you may have reacted the reality of it is you know you can't cheat the system when it comes to personality and relationship yeah just as well as how you're explaining your situation that's kind of almost what happened to me to be totally honest you know what i'm saying really like i started in this industry as a drum tech and stage manager wow with john actually in 2000 wow you know so i and every and every gig i've gotten has literally been you know an artist reaching out to the artist like when i got snoop snoop reached out to john wow you know what i mean like so it's like those those type of things and it's just like yeah it's a respect thing you know it's it's just i don't know it's pretty cool though i enjoy it you know what i'm saying but yeah again it's those relationships that that make it all worth it it's just important and i try to stress that to people like by even this like us we we never hang out much but this is our we have a relationship like this brother sisterhood this is a vibe you know what i mean it's like we start to realize there's so many similarities you know yeah when you hit me for real for real men i was like yo he he needs me to do something i don't know what it is but this is cool that he reached out like just the value that i mean because i'm a person that is like you work hard and you and you're you have a pure heart in in intentions like you know like i'm a person that like i lead with love like you know yeah for a while and everybody knows that like i'm gonna always show love to everybody because that's what it is if you leave with love and you have pure intentions the rest will follow but you know what i'm saying that's not even getting spiritual and being deep that's just literally know what what it is like you know like i like to ask people even when i hire people for gigs it's like what's your intentions with this money yeah what are your intentions with this popularity you may receive what's the intentions you know what i mean and that's what really matters to me because i want to make sure we we now we get deep where it's like now i want to make sure i'm sowing the right energy energy i want to make sure we selling this money into the right person because yes you're good but do you do the right things with it you know lifestyle is a big thing you know like that's true even on social media i'm big with what i post and what i don't post like i'm really proud

for real you i don't know if you know i'm a teacher like on the side like i taught it on a montessori school like as a substitute teacher in addition to piano teachers so like along the way like this year i will say a new trade i've had was teaching virtual camp so virtual piano lessons and i've had like 10 10 students my youngest being four the oldest was like 11 or 12. and it's like trying to keep everybody together one session you know that was something different for me rather than like being just with somebody next to me and i can be like no it's this um so that's that's been a cool trade but i said all that to say like intentions

obviously we're doing really cool things on the road but coming back home for me the success i find success when there's somebody that comes up under me and they learn something you know then they somewhat become a predecessor um to what i've been doing but it starts from like that little age i love the kids like i do i kind of like teaching sometimes morning playing got to be honest you know what i mean because you you you foresee what you know they can do you know yeah i tell people all the time like no matter what you think you are somebody's hero yeah you really are like like straight up whether it's that whether it's the old lady that's in the back people at the church whether it's a younger kid that comes to every single one of your camps because they saw you on stage with whoever like you know what i'm saying like and you know just like me outside looking in like seeing some of the moves you make like i love it i'm just like oh she's going yeah she's doing that all right cool didn't you bring it you uniting the women and like it's cool to me like i'm a watcher on the internet a lot of times i may not be as present as people think i should be but that's because i'm more of the i mean i'm watching i'm saying what's going on because by the end of the day i try not to make any wrong moves you know true and a lot of people understand

a lot of people when they're like what does the music director do a lot of people miss out the one thing i say my job is to think ahead of everyone else and people that's it you you know for any reason and like that's like that's the biggest part of my john legend gig is like i gotta think ahead no man dude is smart like for real smart he writes he reads he plays he knows sports he can cook he know politics he nothing getting past that really yeah so i was like you even like want to sharpen up on politics because you might be sitting in the dressing room with them for 30 minutes like you know what i'm saying like it pushes you to be a better person you know what i'm saying all around um here i am 15 years later still working with john you know what i'm saying so it's like yeah like i took over md in 2008 wow yeah you've been doing it a minute i've i've had two md jobs that was between melanie fiona and janelle monae but to your point of being able to anticipate the needs you're not just doing it for the artist but you're doing it for the engineer who doesn't know that the pack fell off of the arm you know like you you looking you're the nurse you know it's just so many different things you know yeah yeah yeah that's just being ahead of the curve yeah but i was i was saying like to your point of people watching your social media it's not just about putting up the wrong things but in addition putting up the right things that will encourage inspire you know expand their minds like oh maybe maybe i can do that miss tracy said you know so that i constantly watch my social media lord knows i'm like i you know you know i mean you know i always used to have this fear that like you know this one person that's in charge of making the decision of me making x amount of dollars is like oh man i seen this guy on this on this thing taking shots and they were drinking and you know i lost a family member to a drunk driving accident and it's like so i can't pay them a million dollars to do this project because i can't support that you know what i mean it's just like that's my thought process a lot of times it's like that's a little deep but i'm like hey guess what i mean it happens i literally was on a call with somebody and they were just like you know what's crazy is we look at the last nine pictures on someone's instagram to figure out who they are wow wow

okay that man that changes a lot even perspective obviously we know what our social media looks like but i'm like man i feel good right now though based off of what my he was like hold on i posted that but but if you think about it though within nine pictures that may be some people it's one day some people it's a week some people it's a month but those first nine pictures like that's what are the memes what are you saying about women what are you saying about a different race what do you you know like that whole thing like yeah you know yeah showing your productivity wow wow and that was like a corporate that was like a you know that was a little deep you're wise you are wise but i i agree i definitely agree to your point though yeah i mean the reality of it is your name is going to be in the room before you physically are in a room a lot of people don't really understand that so yeah those cosigns those relationships

like you got to be able to vouch like people like you said with the music souls kind of thing like people knew you but they didn't really know you so it was like all right we gotta see if we can hang out with this person because are we gonna be able to be on this tour bus together for three months right she's gonna be here you gonna be that person as soon as you come to the back of the bus everybody goes to the front of the bus like you know what i'm saying like it happens like you know what i'm saying like oh here they come let's what do you want to watch because i know you don't want to watch this like you know it's like that whole thing i was like you know what i was cool because they never say it like you're just going to do this tour and then that's going to be it i was wondering i was like now am i going to be on after this six week run i was like right right on the road but i thought i don't want to be a has been meanwhile i'm now 11 years in a couple of months it's a touring so it's like yeah yeah if something something was done right you know and those relationships and networking obviously serve its purpose and um yeah i mean you know you can you can tell like it's only a certain amount of us that we see all the time where it's like yeah you know if if i pop up at uh when i what show did i see you at last um oh god that we were in was it detroit

um rockstar what's her name uh robin thicke was on the tour uh yeah fantasia yes fantasia yes yes that was last year that was real that was so i did see you later man no well cause it's those scenarios where it's just like i knew everybody's bands and everybody's like you got to come through so if you rewind back when robin thicke was touring uh when evolution of robin thicke okay lost without you well he was opening up for john when we were on a house of blues tour wow in the tour before that neo was opening up promoting so sick in all of those songs well sir so full circle so it's like you know that's why i knew larry that's our new lb that's how i know you know all these people so shout out to the homies yeah so of course i'm up and then i knew uh vaughn and all i know went tank and then i knew tango coming out on guy and black street shows and like this whole thing so it's like again you see certain faces all the time because it's a big world but this is a small big industry based upon relationships and different things you know a lot of times when i'm in when i'm in philly like a lot of people a lot of people hit me when they get here like hey listen i was no way i'm coming to philly without calling you know that type of thing it's just like that's what's supposed to happen because we have these relationships if i pull up the atlanta i go to l.a it's certain people that you link with that's just what it is you know nam ma'am just got canceled there is no nam this year you know what i mean so people got to figure it out and i got a plan for that so everybody stay tuned but you know we got some things going on but until before before we get out of here because again i love keeping my family on here because we talked forever but then my editor shout out to joel joel will be like alright bro okay not really like sometimes i'll be like so we make them 10 minutes and we make them fifteen what do we make what do we do just i'm gonna just talk i'm just talking but um before we get out of here first of all thank you for representing not only rolling but just like as our people you know what i'm saying as a woman doing it like really doing it you know what i'm saying and giving back like nobody has to tell you to give back you're teaching your kids you're making the future brighter for us like you know what i'm saying well we can sit back and we will watch an episode like this of them like you know like that's the goal yeah but before we get out of here what's something you want to tell the people like what do you got coming up what you working on and if it's just something like hey guys i want y'all to practice and do this like whatever tell people okay so i'll start with what am i doing i'm doing something for the first time that i've never done um as an adult and that is releasing my first single it's gonna be third quarter so you know this is a good time for everybody we we've been figuring out our best us while we've had time you know if i could say that and so i'm like man i got a few gifts and i would like to use them all you know i grew up in church i'm a pk so i'm singing i'm playing much trombone my keyboard and uh uh i had some guys to come in to play that i looked up to and it's like yo these guys in atlanta are like doing it so uh i have producers i'm working with and i'm excited it's scary all at the same time and uncomfortable but it feels great because it means i'm growing and i'm about to step in a different world you know for myself it's like i'm not necessarily trying to tour the world but i'm also not uh be 80 years old and wish i would have just put something around so many other people but if we could keep the same energy that we use to invest in other people invested in ourselves you know be realistic about what you want to do um put in the work and then put in the work that is necessary for the desired result okay um so i mean that's really it that's why i'm doing it i'm doing it for me i'm doing it for the culture i'm doing it for the next artist that's afraid to like you know we're behind the scenes but you're afraid to step on the other side of the board and like being mike it's just you on stage or just you you know nobody's around to be that i think i think um i think it's very special when a musician or a background singer anyone has the chance to tour behind an artist especially like on a higher caliber as well well you know i think it's a i think it's good to do smaller and higher caliber like that's like like me i love working with newer artists like i love you because how you teach kids it's like teaching them how to tour teaching them how to respect the stage how to respect the staff how to respect the sound engineers like that's our job yeah you always want to do gigs at this level this gig is going to turn out to be a catastrophe when it gets to this level if no one is really helping making this grow yeah so a lot of the artists i even worked with like have been from the beginning like i worked yeah from the beginning i worked with and you've grown with them you you've helped to shape their careers and i don't know if people give credit to the people behind the scenes but you're just as vital to them they look to you for energy they look to us for how we feeling because they might not be feeling it that day which i touring for years and it's their first tour they don't know that when you go to this city you supposed to eat here when you're supposed to go visit there you're supposed to go see that site like yeah you know we we are the constant thing in this industry where it's like as this is like moving around like they're like coming in on this cycle and when we jump around they're out then it's another artist that said you know it's like this whole thing and it's like now we're at home people are starting to realize either you can record yourself or you can't either you can mix your stuff or you can either shoot your own video or you can't you know it's like you know yeah it's kind of it's kind of a leveling playing field but it's not like i yeah i'm prepared out of the way my last thing to your point of being prepared my last thing is um every day that you wake up it's an audition somebody's watching you that you don't even know is watching you and they're talking about you and it may not happen this year may not happen next week or it could happen today if you get up and walk out the house like i'm auditioning today it ain't and even like it ain't got to be about music or because there's so many other facets of entertainment or just business that we can get into so i tell my kids i'm not trying to make you the professional keyboardist of a lifetime but what i am doing is i'm teaching you life skills and you just need to be prepared for responsibility yeah responsibility and accountability like that's really what it is because by the end of the day i tell people all the time you can be 25 i can guarantee you if i go on youtube i can find a 12 year old that can outplay you oh but what they don't have is the experience yeah yeah so

like i said thank you for your time and being able to yo you're welcome this won't be good this won't be the last time this won't be the last one we got we we whenever you want to come on bring like we was talking about before bring the ladies on i want to we're going to have a lady tonight you know what i'm saying gotta get the ladies on you know what i'm saying tracy gonna co-host ladies night with me we're gonna do a two-part we're gonna do it with the don't rush crew and then we're gonna do it with another crew we just do that you know let's do it that's what we're gonna do hey but like i said thank you i love you you're my sister man love you too bro thank you for having me no problem we're gonna do a collaboration i know you're working on your project your record so you got me whatever you need okay this is documented yes at 401 eastern standard

yes whatever time this airs but yes

but uh yeah people tracy the great i mean what else can i say oh man i love get out of here take care peace

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yeah yeah shout out to my sister tracy man she's amazing i'm sure you guys learned a lot about her hopefully you guys stay in tune in what you guys coming up next up i got a chance to uh tour this guy man around the world and one of the first people i've actually toured with like you know playing keys with and um he's an amazing guy amazing friend brother um just great man give it up for my bro young world like i told y'all i'm always gonna have some surprises and this one right here is this is this is dear to my heart because this is one of the very first people i've ever toured with and i was a little young scrappy

yo what's up bro what's up everybody tuning in uh thank you all for being here thank you all for supporting my brother this platform bro thank you for having me on it's an honor man i was excited uh when you hit me because you know you're one of the ones that like you said i i echo that sentiment you're near and dear to my heart man because you meet people along the way and you you oh bro bro and you get cool but it's like he was there from the beginning for a long time so love you man i'm thankful to be here love you too man so let's just jump right in let's let's let's let's take a little history trip let's let's start here let's talk about the importance of us

playing parts in the right sounds especially working on the teddy let's just start there yeah i mean the unique thing about working under teddy um is that he's not only the artist when you you know sign on to to work for him when you get hired but he's also the producer which is unlike any other gig currently

unless you do have artists that say they dibble and dabble production but i'm talking about you know ma'am bonafide producer arguably one of the greatest of all time created a whole genre of new jack swing so it was such a hands-on experience um and i want to sidetrack for a minute because i want to be able to speak to the people that's listening to this when you get with cats like myself or man man or anyone who comes from that school it's not that we're trying to you know one-up you or trying to make things difficult is that i really believe that thanks to teddy riley we learned the real way to approach music because as a musician he's going to show you what's what where you can go but as a producer he's also going to show you what's just enough and what takes it not too far and so you're basically enhancing the record from a sonic sound design point to even your part playing okay you can play this and get away with this alter chord or get away with this but keep it off that you know he showed us the boundary and the limits of expanding the tune without taking it so far out the vein that now when the pain customer comes they're like okay wait wait wait they want to fall in love and have those memories a lot of times if you're really paying attention on musicians your job is to not only make the artists happy but give the people an experience they'll leave oh my god i went to assistant i always always tell people do not arrange for musicians do not that's not that's the person that actually wants to pass the coast of the show you want to get a raise for the person paying for a ticket it's been times for the people that's listening that let's say man man and i we've been on stage playing let's chill for example and he's playing some sweet stuff i'm playing we're having a conversation for the musicians on the front row they're doing it but you also get the other thing where you might see a couple slow dancing they're not even looking at the stage they're just you're giving them that moment you're giving enough experience and when the artist like teddy or whoever looks out and sees that happening where everybody's on their feet nobody's sitting down people are engaging they're crying and falling in love now you're coming through and that starts from uh having enough respect for the music and for yourself to learn how to play discipline i mean it's been hours that man man and i will be in there with headphones on maybe not even speaking to one another because he's over there i'm over here and we might stop and get food but we get back i mean we're not headphones off and the monitor's jamming and we have headphones on like literally with our notepads and programming sounds like being sound my spells and sound gurus so all of that is i mean if you get your own your own trio your own group then that's different when you're getting hired to play for an artist your job is to serve that music for sure yeah what's crazy is i had a a current it wasn't a challenge but it took me back to the teddy days when i did chromio because you know they play and produce all their stuff you know what i'm saying it's electro funk it's cynthia it's junos it's yeah you know it's moogs it's like you know real hardcore simpson it's like we had 30 tunes to learn you know and it's like you know we grew up knowing teddy music at least if our parents was playing you had some ideas but when you got 30 records you've never heard of in your life yeah and it's like real strategic synths and like i mean it's like oh you know no you know with the hi-hat you know rasheed's an amazing drummer and they were like you know so actually they sent us the songs it was like 30 titles of the songs we learned them then they sent me 30 pro tools sessions which were different arrangements with no lead vocal then i put the two track of the itunes to at least line the vocals up so we know where we were and at least know where this with parks was moving then we went back and learned the music that way and then once they came into rehearsal it was like now we want to hear you guys play how you want to play and we're like so you know we had to like blend the two and it would be like you know you just like you know even in programming it was like yo can you pan this one synth two i'm like

when two think it's not even noticeable to the ear it's just like yeah all right like 0.5 dbs and you know like real meticulous and it's like like i said that was the biggest challenge i've had in a long time and not because i couldn't do it but it was just like you said earlier it's very rare that the producer is the actual artist and they really that hands-on like and we're not talking about just producing we talking about the mixing the front of house the programming the panning the you know the whole thing the whole thing it stretches you yeah so um in the more recent i know you've been doing um the k-pop thing man that's like oh yeah oh like talk about that

that's something i ain't done yet i'm eyeing a lot i would love to do a k-pop game just because it's different in different cultures but speaking on that okay yeah i mean it's so unknown to us being black americans like okay what's going on over there and um i know you were happy for me we talked offline but it was a lot of people um that i hadn't heard from that are up or up and we would call like our heroes our big girls that came and reached out like yo like that's kind of cool and that's when i knew like okay i don't know if they talk to you but you notice i'm like yo yeah it's like where you come from oh okay you know but they were so interested and so basically where it came from was years ago i had a manager and and uh and i'm only going back here to show you guys the importance of relationships i had a manager who was when i was ti diddy um some of the gigs you helped get me on you know i won't call any of that for your respect that you but you you helped recommend me some for some things and you put me right right in the chair which i was thankful for but so she represented me on a lot of those accounts and uh basically we got to appoint her and i in our relationship where she started growing she got a reality tv show and her her you know her client's health started growing and some of the things i knew firstly didn't work out and so i asked her if we could move on you know if she could remove me from her site things like that and so because i did it y'all listen to me because i i didn't i didn't get my feelings i had oh geez that i called and said listen i don't know if man my management is really clicking what's the best way they talk so that's why it's important to have a big brother to have og because they'll talk you off the lid especially if it's a veteran you know they'll they've been there before so someone help me with that conversation and i presented to her properly in a way that however many years later almost 10 years later i was on the road to keep sweat coming off stage and she texts me and said hey i may have an opportunity for you and she she was real big at first because i guess the situation was a little sensitive in terms of what they were going to do with the guy who was there so she was just soft checking what's your schedule looking like maybe here maybe there so a few months later turning okay we'll send you a passport just so i have that ready if they need that then i think a few months later she's like okay it's an international artist but she she was still gonna tell me who it was and then i'm thinking like maybe it's nicki minaj or rihanna you know someone here that travels but i didn't know finally when she rebuilt she said listen this is a long-term situation in terms of working with this company that puts on these k-pop groups and basically you sign on with them or you do business with them and then they put you where the priority is for whatever artist that they have going on i'm like wow that sounds kind of cool because for job security we're always stuck on what the artist is doing that we're particularly working with well this one was almost like if you were getting hired to be like an executive at a label now you're dealing with all the artists on the label so that's kind of how it is so i guess uh before my coming into the band uh some you know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody got in contact with four black american band members here from all over this this state i mean this this country and got a black pro twos guy and they thought that that was the important piece of their sound having brothers behind them playing even though it's korean pop and so that's what's kind of made them a little different than some of the other k-pop groups because they have that energy and that aggression that we play with as african-americans so that made it very particular but very very particular but very special so yeah i had to go to the auditions of sending it wasn't like a formal audition but it was like i guess in the show they will out this baby grand piano and the gentleman that was there he plays and the artist sits on the piano that was a very big moment so they wanted to know whoever they were bringing in could they handle that so luckily you know i got the baby grin downstairs and then it was like hey let's can we hear you play some stuff so i sent the video in the first video they critiqued it like ah can you do something a little more you know so i was like oh okay cool you're looking for that because i played a cover tune they wanted to hear no we're gonna give you a spot like they're very big and korean pop of letting the artist shine you get a solo we go put the spotlight on you so i played a pop tune by queen that allowed me to show my dexterity but they were like no that's a queen thing we want something that you could actually play during our show be creative be so i sent them that and it's probably about another week or so two three weeks and they called me and let me know i was in and um from there all the traveling that you and i have done ma'am and all the places that we've been in japan the tours we've done with teddy and things like that working with a japanese crew working with that language barrier if you need things done you know we're very technical but we were as kids learning how to communicate with those people from dip from where whether it was we were in japan or iraq or anywhere that we went we learned how to communicate you know with other people and so they didn't know the history so they're like are you okay i have a korean tech i have a japanese tech so but it's been a journey it's been a journey but that's basically how it came about and um ever since then yeah it's a stadium tour you know they tour all over playing stadiums yeah yeah yeah i'm great it's been great man it's been great that's basically but that's basically how the inception of it came and now it's yeah the fans have embraced me at the companies that you know they even bri i mean obviously because of covet we're a little down but you know trying to get us back working because they have coveted a little more under control than we do here in the state so it's more than likely that we'll go back to work soon uh provided that the borders will be able to get out and move around you know yeah yeah yeah yeah but it's been a blessing man so so speaking so now let's tie the past and the president together and we'll we'll talk about the blessings and curses of the internet right because i mean you know we didn't have the we didn't really have the internet as a crutch like we didn't have instagram we didn't have i mean i was i think twitter was just kind of you know doing his thing twitter and well back when we first started it was like myspace yeah we were myspace it might have been the early ages of twitter but it was definitely just myspace maybe black player and and you know i think people just need to capitalize on it in the right ways and just realize like everything you do on the internet is like a digital resume because like i know a lot of people hit me up like yo you know we need a guitar player for this i'm like what's his instagram i'm like oh man right now well we got that crazy up there because this is a female artist is he calling women bees and every post like what is he doing like you know exactly people don't really understand how important that is so talk about um like i know you've been posting different uh arrangements for people to learn and just like different things you have i know you like i guess at quote unquote i want to say like mentor and you you critique their work like talk about that and how important it is how you kind of we had it like we were kind of thrown into the fire but talking about how important it is to you know have that person in your life or you know yeah well for the people listening you know like like i would say um when when when man man came on with us he was a tech and we were playing now he was already working with john legend's crew but he was you know working as a tech for us because you know he's you know you're just multi-facetly talented and once i heard you play keys i'm like man and teddy was like yeah he's cold right i'm like now back in that day though a lot of techs could play that was a part like you could play because it was like you you know texts were the guys that just didn't have that a plus thing they were like the homies in training so you bring them up that's important because a lot of y'all are there thinking you want to be ready for that it's like no you would learn as a tech yeah you learned everything but obviously what you had was so much more elite so much more special but the thing that i noticed was helping you and all of us working together as a family they were i mean from me to gene to demetrius to teddy you had so many big brothers in one band that knew the terrain that had been there and you got a lot from just being around um but i noticed i was talking to valdez about this nowadays if you're not around a good coach you're gonna miss all of those stories and all of that upbringing all that training but you might go to an open call audition you may not know how to look the part you know not know how to play the patterns or it's like a new world of how we've already known it's a walk of life for us you guys come in blindfolded and then you leave like what did i do wrong so i don't know i mean god has been putting it the lord has been putting on my heart more where now with the age of the internet you can find i mean all the greats from the cory henry's to the you know yadda yadda people that are just playing you know based virtual souls chris dave and the drum stuff you can get the different things that inspire you but what i i didn't see was people really giving back with the with the knowledge and i'm not saying that those guys don't i'm saying in terms of being able to be on youtube or instagram i felt like okay well out of you know the people that are working on at this professional level i want to be a part of the movement of raising my hand and just doing my part to help which a lot of the ogs was kind of like oh you're kind of giving what's special about when they get to the road i'm like but a lot of these people nowadays won't get that chance because there's not even as many artists to even get a job for i mean think about when you think about how many artists there are that you can actually i mean back with me and you as runner it's like oh i'm doing john legend this week i'm doing usher this week and then we come back and do a teddy gig and you'd be like yo i was at usher gig i'm like how was that john gig it's not so i'm so i'm showing you guys listening that at one point man man and i playing for god playing for black she playing for erin hall he also had john in the pharrell stuff i also had usher in the chris brown stuff we we had a plethora of gigs within the gig so we would come back and talk about the other things now it's like it's hard to especially with the covet thing so i was just like let me try to train and raise and inspire and not just the cats that are in my roller decks but the guys that need a shot and so i started unknown killers which you know it's just almost like a consultation type thing i'll allow guys to showcase their talent and then constructively i'll tell them from a music director's standpoint what we're looking for or what works what doesn't work and they appreciate that but that's basically where that came from that whole idea of just wanting to give back and so they you know outpost and show love and some gigs have came of it you know cats hit me up hey who's that he's a young guy where's he from he's from dc oh okay we think people have gotten hired so i think it's important that we continue to you know i don't know if people have thought this way but it's like if you see myself man man cats like that trying to help don't get discouraged if it doesn't happen overnight oh they're just trying to you know uh but you know me like that's that's just part of my culture like especially oh i'm calling i'm calling all the women between you oh

man between e trip uh the music director for black pink omar he's a philly boy it's like to be honest black stuff i mean listen black was calling me for gigs back way back in the day like it's it's just crazy that philly man and i've always used philly as the staple for a lot of the stuff that i've went through my personal city buffalo a lot of the things that i've experienced in atlanta i'm like yo we should all pattern ourselves i'm not just saying that because beyond i'm saying philly has done a lot for my career and philly has also showed me the way of how to be it was weird because like philly talked about each other even behind each other's backs positive see it's one thing for me to praise you because you're looking at me in my face man man but for me to be somewhere like yo you don't know man man he's a philly boy he quartered i mean the way you guys support one another is just stupid i've seen a lot of people fake jacks in each other's face but you guys were doing it from afar oh man you played with such-and-such on drums like y'all do such a thing where in some cultures or i'm gonna say most cultures you hear i mean he cool but he it's something negative that follows y'all wasn't doing that and i'm not saying it though but you know like my my whole thing has just been even like with with the show and it's crazy that you hit on it earlier um like i've just been big on relationships i've been big on like leading with love like intentions like what's your what's your end goal intention that's how i know how to deal with you you know what i mean and a lot of people don't even realize like some people think down the line like are you cool right now i'm talking to you but i'm fast forward we through rehearsals we through production rehearsals we own the tour bus do i like you now that's how far ahead i'm thinking like you know what i'm saying right like that type of thought process man so with the unknown killers i know you got the whole patreon thing going on so like i know what it's about but let them watching know what's going on with the patreon and how they can get down and you know yeah so i'm so i'm one of those and this is just a personal thing for me i'm one of those guys that because of you know my 20 plus years in the game i've you know i'm just getting older so now i i'm not as accessible right it's like unless my brother man man's throwing something or black hits me you know people that i respect you know come through they already know i'm probably not gonna play i'm gonna probably just be in the back chilling but i'll come through and show support um it's just my way to relax i probably just gotta finish mixing for 15 hours i probably just got done programming so i'm not coming to jump on the keyboard i'm coming just to show my face but it's very rare that i keep a tight tight knit thing and so for the most part even that weight on my heart i'm like you know what i'm so closed in whether if i'm on the road in my hotel room or if i'm just at home in the man cave just you know being diligent to my craft i'm i feel like i don't know man i've heard you talk about this but when we're doing what we do sometimes we feel like the kid that's stuck in the house that can't go out and play with their friends because while john's band is waiting on you to do all the arranging you actually have to sit down and get it done and mix and then meet with him and then get all his edits and revisions and so while everybody's partying and having a good time you know we're the ones i mean it's like heavy as the head that wears the crown so for me in order to stay sane and keep a youthful thing happening i also need just my unwind time whether it's playing video games whether it's watching movies so with that being said knowing that i'm not the guy that you're gonna see at a normal shed or oh this is people's in town young world's going to be there no i'm probably not so what i did was i just started a movement a private club that i could commit to that allows me to answer all the questions that a lot of the cats i felt like there's a language barrier between cats like man-man and not who have the information and the young cats that need the information or some of the veterans you know meaning you've been playing for a while but you just you're not a professional in terms of working in that land there's a language barrier because if you're old on your instrument meaning you've been playing a while and you didn't get opportunity you kind of feel embarrassed like i'm getting a little old ain't nobody gonna play with me and then if you're young and you feel like yo these old hands ain't trying to look out and all this other stuff so those that are brave enough i checked my facebook i checked my instagram i was like wow a lot of these cats are asking the same questions or i noticed i would go on live on facebook whatever and speak for 15 20 minutes and then cats would hit me the next day yo that was amazing how you spoke and i'm like i'm talking about stuff man man man just laugh about like stuff we and i and i enjoyed it and i'm like they don't know okay

they don't know so the patreon just came about it's just basically a private club where you know if you can subscribe and you want to support you come over and i'm answering questions i'm doing one-on-one video chats like what man man that is exclusively for the people that want that opportunity um i'm i'm posting downloadable show tracks show arrangements that i've done for the tlc's the new editions the chris brown's you know things that get you guys excited about downloading and playing and checking you see me and man but we didn't have all these different opportunities i'm giving you guys show arrangements

recordings wow now that i think about it bro you know we've already had show recordings bro that's what i'm saying out of all of our years gigging together all over all the decades i may have like three shows with us playing together or something i know i

yeah i got uh i got the forum i got the la forum i have an adidas show remember when we went over to teddy with adidas and it was all the background singers doing i got that one i got that one to japan i got that one too i got that i got those two and then i got uh i think we were playing with either black street it might have been black street or guy and it was um i think my same band i think myself you sleepy but it was just we were playing you know with the actual artist at that time i'll check my itunes but yeah the way we so so so the way we had to get information we had notepads we had pens we had dictaphones that we were recording to we didn't have i mean if madman knew about a tape or i knew about the tape it was just that a tape yo did you get that george duke dvd did you get that live in concert vhs tape we was in itunes sharon

i no that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying so it's like so so the patreon is just a place to come and get fed you can talk to me offline you have direct access to me and then i'll be critiquing i haven't gotten to certain things yet because it's the launch is not even um it's it's not even a month old yet it's still just three weeks and something oh i'll get to breaking down video equipment and you know in terms of watching someone uh play a song and critiquing them live on video so you can see that i'll get into the things that man man and i do the the layering and the sound design i mean man me and man man i know he did it with his friends but we used to have uh uh like sheds or battles like it's funny that the versus is going on because man man man used to do that we'd scroll scroll scroll and whatever sound you want to sound doing while we say but you got a solo but i ain't talking about just whipping off your favorite if you had a flute you had to solo like a flute and i'm like oh so batman goes crazy like a flute with the with the articulations of a flute player and i'm scrolling and i get something like marimba and i'm like yeah but now i gotta go

and that's just how we challenge i'm gonna train you sonically even the feeling in your fingers that you get because i think i think what it also helped us do it helped us maintain our independence as players as players but it sharpened us as far as approach because you know we had to think different like because you had the you were playing mains so you had the the classical and like the chords and and i'm and then we had uh sweet fingers with demetrius playing the strings and then i'm just like all right i gotta just fill in everything else which was like complete opposite thinking of phrasing and you know rhythm going all the way like you know what i'm saying i was over the top of everything you just and you were the key because i felt like we were foundation me and sweet fingers and then you played all the pretty stuff and it just you know still to this day cats like uh keith sweat or johnny gill they would listen to us play and they'd be like sounds like one man it sounds like a stevie wonder type guy they said but you cease to realize it's three people playing this cohesive part it to me it sounds like when i was learning like flower trees showing i would hear paris playing something in his left but soloing in his right or something it's that type of vibe that we had where i mean it was godly full for it to just be a left hand but what i'm saying is structurally we weren't clashing we weren't it was such one voice that we had that you could almost mistake it for nowadays it being one keyboard player playing the program yeah back then we didn't have stuff in the track we didn't even have a click we didn't have a clip but you know people don't

we were in and then understand had to listen for a percussion or something in the in the track that let us stay in time or either we would just lock on something that this you know dj was scratching but we didn't have teeth talking out here we coming off wedges i don't even think we had

so that's another thing let's talk about that i talked about this on patreon drummers everyone don't get so used to the click learn how to play without it to me even to this day i hear the click i hear the click as a percussion i don't try to lock it and sometimes if i see a drummer i'm working with one now that i won't call his name but it's like hey bro you too stiff you two up and down you're that you know that's it and it was really used for open space you would have that count in there to kind of keep everything together well when i played with usher valdez is so old school we would hit a bomb boom and then bang and i'm talking about my piano had to be on what lighting cues and everything else and i'm looking at valdez he's like you got to feel it you got to feel it you know and so those techniques as old school as it may sounds it helps you really along the way because if you're on the gig and once you get to the clicks and all that it just makes it like it makes it okay it makes it like such a second nature so we talk about see the importance of patreon and see manman and i can get on and talk all day long about this because we have that relationship i feel like there's a lot of guys that i haven't had the chance of meeting yet but i know that they do want to learn so i was like let me create a neutral place so if i get the same questions two three four five six times i can just talk about it once everybody can come and eat and get fed and then do what they will with it but these are the things we talk about playing with the clicks not playing with the clicks being a player being a sound designer when it's necessary to play when it's necessary to just lay back and play it apart all these different examples of a push-pull type thing so that the magic happens like when i listen to you with john it's such a conversation going on that you you're holding something you may go off and play something pretty then you come back and catch like wow how did he know to do that i'm like it's that feeling that you get of just learning what the record needs what it calls for knowing your artists with what they allow it's like all those different things so basically in a nutshell the patreon is just a school basically that you just come and it's for us and we just we nothing's off limits and then i also i share a few personal stories some that'll make you cry so i don't make you laugh just things that let you know that we're human you know i think yeah yeah can't see us on the stage and sometimes they don't know the journey they don't know about the things we went through to get there so i'm talking about investing your money not spending your for being i'm talking about you know um how to go about uh not being so buddy-buddy with the artist that they don't respect you when it's time to negotiate your next you know rate because they feel like okay i have to respect them as a professional and not a friend you know we're talking about your your appearance your hygiene you know how you take care of yourself on the road so that you're appeal because we're we're on stage as well and and not so much that but you kind of hit on it with the whole when i get off the stage and i'm on the bus i have to like that's the same thing with the artist when you're working closely with them you're their friends they if they want to go to a dinner if they want to go roller skating if they want to have you meeting their family it's show business you have to look the part they have to feel comfortable enough having you in close quarters having i'm sure you've been one-on-one with john shoulder-to-shoulder he's got to want to be comfortable he can't be okay you're talented but you look you know like you don't have much going you smell awful so we talk about all the unwritten rules of just being a professional people simply for sure for sure with john i've been put in some of the most different positions in life like from from the bet awards to a i don't know a club show to white house to to the oscars like you know oh let me speak on this too real quick why are you talking i oh before and i'm just being transparent i was a keyboard guy and man man he helped me with all my rig we'd always sit together and sometimes when we got real good like like he would i wouldn't even i wouldn't even tell him what i wanted he'd just be like when you get to the venue i'm gonna surprise you and he would set up all these keyboards i didn't order i'm like what is that he had me looking like larry done he like don't worry about it i got you right so once man man and i we might have been on a break or something and i think i hope you remember this but man-man came to atlanta he played chat state park with uh john and so man was like bro you got to pull up i'm like of course so i come out the house he takes care of me i'm at soundcheck i didn't just show up at the gig with 15 of my boys i came just myself hang with my bro well i'm at soundcheck and the first thing he does he pulls me on stage he goes play my roads it's scary playing i'm like scary what's that again i'm only playing keyboards i sat down y'all and played that rose i just looked at him like he was like yo can you imagine playing that every night and so what i'm saying is long story short i thank you because one of the most questions that people want to know is when they see me now especially on the k-pop they're like i got the dvd you're playing keyboards i'm familiar with but you're not playing sounds i've ever heard came out of those keyboards i'm like because you don't see the lights you don't see the laptop you don't see what board is midi to what so you're looking at me playing the jupiter 80 but it's talking to a board that's over here tilt it down you don't see that my mains is coming from here my strings is coming from the laptop it's so many different things that so that's also what you learned in the patreon um still a lot of people that's like well is that jupiter 80 stronger than the sounds in your laptop i would think that the jupiter 80 is faster i'm like cool plug your phone into your laptop watch how fast it charge plug your phone into your keyboard watch how fast it don't charge and you're going to see which one has more power meaning when when man man and i are playing those pianos out this laptop those ropes those are hyper samples that's as close as you're going to get for the sound cards and different things the sentences in these keyboards they have to compress the sounds a bit in order to put it in this package but with the memory and the power of a laptop man you're playing as close as it can get to just having a real baby up there and then really don't have a question random question i ain't i don't talk keyboards on this show but i will ask you this have you tried the new phantom no but what what i did do is i sat on the phone with valdez brantley for about four hours on facetime zoom thing and he played just about every patch and the one thing i'm gonna tell you guys and we can get back to just talking regular but the one thing i'm gonna tell you guys about that val was going through i mean i haven't seen it but he said it's thousands of patches in each bank i know you know he was saying dig guys because all of the cool stuff is usually not look like look dead guys because all of the cool stuff ain't in the front it ain't patched number 36 38. he's like that's 2 000 he said but he said it's tedious he said but take the time to go through each bank and every sound i know mammon does all the time because look when you're in with these artists and you got a program a sound that's nothing worse than knowing exactly what it is but you can't remember where you heard it where it came from when you take the time to go through the keys and see what's in it then you can say because i've seen manman playing boards and people ask me why are you playing that old xp and i'm like you don't know what's in there like you don't know why he's doing that well now i've never really played it before you do i know people who've seen you with john and i think you or somebody i think you was playing a fender rose or something they're like why are you just playing it on the keyboard i'm like you know and that person had never even played a rhodes before a real right and i'm like we just come on young people like you've never played you come on now but you know what though i think i think the biggest misperception though is you know when you're working with an artist especially if it's a budget in your renting backline you get what you need to do the gig that's right this is not a local gig i don't have to fit everything into keyboard i don't have to that's right and without that i'm sharing val because i know he's kind of like an urban legend a lot of people have heard about him on usher but a lot of people haven't got to have access to him which is another thing i do on my patreon i'll be interviewing man man as well i'll be interviewing of course count you know what i mean i'll be interviewing people that that's a lot of people that ask me about you man that's your boy because they haven't seen me and you together a long time like you know man man from childhood what are you talking about his little son is my nephew that's my brother but it's one of those things where that's why i want to share these stories that you don't get like what val was saying basically a lot of these instruments are available they're at the place and they're available to be ordered but you just don't think to you know you just think to get these keyboards but a lot of the places have already invested in upright pianos acoustic pianos fender roads world inserts put it on your back line put it on your wish list like you said this isn't when you get to our level it's not a local thing you know this is the cream of the crop where that's what you need to be authentic to the record they're going to make sure you're the production manager whoever's in charge they're going to make sure you have that i know i was impressed when i did bob and he had a song john doe and i was playing on good morning america queen latifah and i'm like at the time i didn't have a decent piano library and i'm like i don't want to sound like i'm playing a keyboard you know i want to be true and i just threw a upright yamaha on there and i'll be doggone it was one writer that say alright he said well if it's a keyboard or a piano i'll play it

yeah so in a nutshell that's what patreon is we kind of kick it like this i mean it's not a lot of one-on-one stuff it's it's basically when you go over there i have three things already downloadable all ready to radio audio stories the whole night you know yeah it just gives you a direct access with me uh emails the whole nine um and then i will feature this as well i'm like i said it's not even so if y'all haven't subscribed please come over man man to be there shortly um a lot of your favorite musicians and then the off brand the engineers the you know yeah talking about sonic sound mixing blending um the tour managers teaching you about etiquette and being on time and you know how to get fired being the most talented guy in the room if you haven't took those professional things about so you got to keep it's one thing to get a gig because you know you're talented it's another thing to keep it and that's how you get a career i always always tell people you know i'm grateful for a lot of the other things i've done but i'm more grateful for like the longevity of certain things like you know john i'm going on you know 15 years it's been nothing but

great you know and you know off script you know business wise you know everything is in line you know and people just like you say this relationship is it's a lot and people as you can see this is my brother like for real oh yeah we can talk yeah forever and ever and ever and honestly i'm looking at the top like my editor's about to kill me but well i think there's gonna have to be a part two we're gonna get we're gonna get we gotta get omar we gotta get we gotta get everybody up on here and do a whole big family zone too man and get a good one in here let's do it y'all stay tuned make sure y'all tuning in to his patreon make sure y'all tune into everything he's doing unknown killers you might be one of those killers watching this stuff in let's get this thing cracking that's your world eugene man man roberts aka the mayor town hall meeting with the man we out of here yeah deuces

so my professional journey started with my big brothers damien hall aaron hall and teddy riley guy and so my next tour were with my big bros black street but it was crazy because and so there were these two calls that i got in my lifetime that i just knew i was gearing up to work with the king of pop so this was the call that i actually almost turned down um simply because yeah man usher was the dream call for me i believe the first gig they called me for was oprah but it didn't work out because now can you imagine what it's like being the music director for the five and then you add the wild tar bobby brown the truth of it is just as much as guy black street uh new edition has helped raise me in this game you gotta put tony tony tony in there as well basically they took me in when i was a kid and made me a part of their oakland family i'm thankful for those guys so yeah i actually had the opportunity to work with the original for and in vogue as well as rona and yeah basically brook payne from new addition uh he allowed me the opportunity at a very young age and i'm thankful for that man coco lily taj those are my big sisters man they know they'll tell you that um yep they've been around since the beginning watch me grow up in this industry as a kid crazy man everybody want to know what it's like to work for diddy uh puff didn't intimidate me i actually thought it was pretty funny but one thing about puff he gonna make you better

yeah yeah yeah i told y'all a lot of knowledge like i said that's one of my big homies man i love young young world my brother um so let's tap into the what i call uh you guys showing us what you got aka roland hashtag at home yes hashtag rolling at home hashtag hashtag let's see what y'all got

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hopefully you guys enjoyed those cool uh pieces of content with the hashtag rolling at home people um hey guys make sure you post the hashtag we want to feature you i want to see what you got i want to see you on my show come on come on people um but you know i want to thank roland live studios i want to thank roland i want to thank my bro joel kitten you see this graphic that's my oh shout out to nelly shout out to kristin brian igor paul team um but thank you guys for tuning in stay tuned for next week's another episode of town hall meeting with who me the mayor eugene man roberts i'm out

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