Hollywood Producer Reveals Hollywood Secrets | David Weintraub Digital Social Hour #81

I remember the start of the Kardashians.

He was just kind of like there.

So how was that transition of making him like come out as Scott?

Like, you know, Scott met Courtney through me and my friend Sean Stewart.

He would come to LA with no clothes, no nothing, no watch, no anything.

And he was living on my couch.

I think Kylie's a million opposed right there.

What?

I've done deals for Kylie.

I mean, you could buy Kylie for $250,000.

You could buy her for a million.

Welcome to the Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly, here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis.

What up, what up?

And our guest today, David Weintraub.

How's it going?

How are you, man?

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

How are you doing?

Great to see y'all.

Can't complain.

I'd love to hear a brief summary of your life.

If you could just briefly send it to me.

Yeah,

I got to do it real brief.

Yeah, you do.

You know,

I am an entertainment executive,

TV show creator, manager, producer.

I was a former agent.

I got my start as a A ⁇ R at Interscope and Death Row Records, working with, you know, the heyday of the dog pound and Snoop and Tupac.

Worked for Eminem for a while.

Was a talent agent at William Morrison UTA.

And I've had my own management company and production company for the last 15 years, made over 2,000 hours of television.

And, you know, we've represented everybody everybody from 50 Cent to Sarah Palin to Ray J.

Scott Disick and the Housewives and Love and Hip Hop Cast and every reality star under the sun.

And now we've segued into the influencer space heavily.

Wow.

So the influencer business is really like a key point of entry now for us in the digital media space.

That's insane.

So you grew up around a lot of celebrities and you found a way to monetize it, basically.

Yeah, you know, growing up at Beverly Hills,

I come from a family of like doctors and lawyers, but everybody that I was surrounded with, they were all like studio chiefs and actors and record company owners and like, you know, billionaires.

And of course, like, I grew up in a great household and I was able to, you know, make some great relationships in the private school system at Beverly Hills.

And I wanted to not be a doctor or lawyer, and I wanted to become, you know, an entertainment mogul.

And

one of my best friends, who was my co-star of my first TV show, Sons of Hollywood, on ANA,

his dad is Aaron Spelling, who is the most prolific television producer of all time.

So I was able to

live, you know, 16 years watching Aaron and his lifestyle and his business and all of the crazy TV shows that he made.

So I wanted to...

be someone that was not only an executive, but somebody that was able to come up with their own content, ideas, and then take them from like a thought in your head to full fruition.

And I've been been blessed to be able to do that in the non-scripted pop culture world, not in the scripted world that he was in, but in our own little segmented world of pop culture.

So speaking of the non-scripted world, you were able to get the biggest deals of all time in that world.

Yeah, I mean, for me, I have like we've hit some record precedent hitting deals for talent in that world with, you know, Ray J.

I mean, a lot of people don't know that, but Ray J is like the highest paid guy in all of non-scripted male-fronted reality TV.

I mean, this is a guy that, you know, makes to close to $200,000 per episode on a TV show.

Wow.

Every episode.

So if they order 20 episodes times 200,000, you know,

that can be done every six months.

Yeah.

That's a bag right there.

I didn't know Ray Jake that much.

I didn't either.

Yeah, I didn't know either.

So him and you said, so Scott Disick is your guy too, right?

Scott Disick was,

you know, Scott likes.

How did that transition go?

Because he, I remember the start of the Kardashians, he was just kind of like there.

Then he just kind of showed up.

So how was that transition of making him like come out as Scott?

You know, Scott met Courtney through me and my friend Sean Stewart when we had our TV show Sons of Hollywood.

Right.

And that was about a year before the Kardashian show was picked up and then came out.

So he was kind of just, you know, moving along, knowing us, and we knew them.

And he, you know, they had, they fell in love.

And then when it came time for him to need a deal, I was the manager.

I was the agent.

I was the guy that knew how to do that.

So I put together the team.

So,

you know, he's a

he's a guy who had a big personality and was able to be in the right place at the right time and have a relationship with somebody who exploded in television.

And subsequently, he got to go along for the ride.

Now, I'm not saying that's the trick to the trade for everybody out there, but, you know, a lot of people can fake it till they make it.

Right.

You know, he was living on my couch.

Wow.

You know, he would come to LA with no clothes no nothing no watch no anything and basically be on sean stewart's couch or my couch and trying to be in our shows and through that he you know hit the jackpot yeah it became scotted because he's a rax right now yeah he's a brand no it wasn't rax he's from the hamptons

no he's from i mean he's not from the there's a lot of like i don't want you know that's my bro i like yeah yeah yeah

but like you know like like

i can't give him a rack i mean i mean if you look at all of my tv shows my first tv shows when you see like people in the suits pulling up the way they pull up, everything that he aspired to dress like and be on TV, I was doing, you know, before that.

So you got to like learn from somebody.

You were also the youngest talent manager ever at UTA.

I was a talent agent at that point.

Yeah.

So

I spent two years at William Morris, and then I spent six and a half years at UTA.

And UTA was a motion picture talent agent.

So technically I was supposed to like read scripts and like look for movie deals for, you know, the Jack Blacks and the Owen Wilsons and the Harrison Fords and all these people and like, you know, try to find movies for them.

But I wound up signing a lot of people that were, you know, emerging as pop culture talent, like the Osbornes and like Paris Hilton and, you know, the kids from Laguna Beach and the kids from the hills and this sort of wave of pop culture that was happening.

Those were kids that I knew.

So those were like the influencers before influencing.

And through that, I was able to really move my way up very quickly in the agency world.

So I was like suit and tie guy, you know, black card from the agency, you know, meetings, lunches, you know, breakfast, and going to premieres and every event under the sun and, you know, just being a part of that Hollywood community in a very, you know, front-facing way, which I'm not now.

I'm really more of a, you know,

I don't do all the events and all the, like try to like, you know, I don't feel like that's good for, you know, actually closing deals.

So back then, I was, you know, Mr.

Personality out at everything.

And that's kind of why AE decided to do a television show about my life.

Wow.

But yeah, I was, I was the,

you know, I got promoted to agent at 20,

24 years old.

Wow.

So you didn't even go to college.

No, I did.

I went to USA.

Oh, you did?

Yeah, I went to, yeah, I studied business, entertainment business there.

Wow.

So

my first job was at Interscope Records.

It was an internship when I was 15

to a full-time job

as a junior A ⁇ R.

And then

Interscope owned Death Row.

So I started working at Death Row, and then Death Row let me stay on and work at Death Row while I was in college.

Got it.

And then my buddy discovered Eminem, took Eminem to Dre,

and I wound up leaving Death Row to go work for Eminem.

Can't complain with that move.

What did you move for Eminem?

And let me ask you a question.

How did you not?

Well, I don't know, but how are you not like

up mentally?

You don't know me well enough.

No,

I am.

Well,

I mean, you don't, you don't seem like you just seem like you know, like most cats is like you meet them and it's like, yeah, they got him.

You know, you know, the industry usually gets people.

Well, when you're the deal maker, yeah, you're the guy that like handles the business, right?

You can't really get up.

So the people that get up are the talent

because they don't give a shit and they're out there being talent.

So if your talent,

like you have to, we have to protect our talent.

We have to save them from the alcohol, the drugs, the scammers.

You got to save them from that.

So the business people, you can't up.

If you up, you are not going to make it.

Now, granted, stress, lifestyle, and being in the mix, you can get caught up.

Yeah.

You know?

But even with that, you're dealing with so much like power.

Like, how do you,

how did you stay grounded?

Or did you have to?

Well, I was, I mean, my ego has gone up and down.

You know,

I'm definitely sure about my abilities and like my track record and like goals that I wanted to attain, I attained.

I wanted to be an AR at a major record pool.

I did that three times.

I wanted to be a talent agent.

I did that.

I made it.

I was one of 100 that got promoted when I finally made it.

And then I was in the boardroom.

And then I gave that up.

Then I wanted to create a TV show.

I created it.

And I also wanted to star in it.

And I started in it.

So I took ideas that were in my brain and I got people to invest in them.

And when A ⁇ E invested in my first television show, they spent over $17 million on that show.

So like I said, this is my concept.

I know that my world is a show.

My best friend is Randy Spelling.

My other best friend is Sean Stewart, who's Rod Stewart's son.

And we're all in the mix in this reality version of Eourage.

And they bit and they bought it and we went all the way.

And then, you know, the next thing you know, you're on a billboard.

You're on a commercial.

You're everywhere.

But

as much as you expect that to be a hit TV show, sometimes it doesn't always work that way because it turned out that show did well.

You know, we did a lot of episodes of it, but it didn't go for a very long time.

People knew it and it had a huge presence, huge marketing.

But the next show that I was a part of, which was Celebrity Rehab,

that was a monster hit and made millions and millions of dollars for my company.

Wow.

So it was kind of like,

you got to learn one

to kind of fine-tune it to then get to the next one.

And the next one might not work, but then the next one works.

And then the one that you never expect to work,

that's the one you might retire off of.

Wow.

So you got to think about that, man.

You got to think about the all the things that you have in the burner.

You know what I mean?

All the all the coals that you got lit.

Which one's going to pop first?

You know, I got to turn this one over.

I got to turn that one.

I got to adjust that.

Oh, I got to fix the deal on that.

You don't know which one's going to work.

And then when it does work, it can work to the next level.

And I'm in the next phase of that now.

with the new businesses that I'm trying to do and working with influencers like yourselves because you have to adapt to the changes in the industry.

And there's huge changes going on right now.

I mean, everything is based on a metric.

Your entire existence as talent is based on a number, a quantified number that is on an analytic of what your views, likes, counts.

Everything is there.

And basically, a brand is going to look at you and decide how much your value is.

Are you $500 or $500 million?

What do you want to be?

That's the question.

And every day these buyers ask me that.

So I'll put up 10 people, very diverse.

One will have more press than the other.

One will be on a TV show.

One will be the biggest

person one will be the biggest YouTube person and they look at it and they go uh-uh does it check all the boxes okay here's X amount of dollars to do X amount of posts

and you that's where the business has now come wow you know it's not based on anything else so it's kind of simplified it but it's also made it

you can crush somebody's dreams in a second because one person may have talent but the other one's got the metrics exactly yeah and may have zero talent yeah but he's actually more important because

his influence goes further than your talent.

So their art is going to go there because of the reach.

Yeah, there's actors that can't get roles, but if you have 10 million followers, you could probably get that role.

Yeah, I'm not even talking about actors.

I mean, I'm talking about pop culture.

I'm talking about celebrity chefs, hosts, reality stars, influencers,

fans, girl.

You know what I mean?

Like, there's a metric for everybody.

So the game has changed.

And the weirdest thing is, is that there's more money quicker now.

Like the money happens so much quicker.

The influencers that I work with, I have huge name rappers that we manage.

The influencers make five times what they make.

You serious?

Yeah.

Wow.

Quicker.

And they have to do less work.

Oh, rappers make money, but he's spam like faster money in the end.

Faster money.

Faster money.

More deals, quicker.

24-hour a day business.

Rappers, there's like six different entities pulling from one dollar.

The music label, the music label, the producers, the writers, the engineers, the management.

Well, you also have to think about how much work you have to do, okay?

Because, like, the biggest money in being a performer is obviously streams and doing shows.

Okay, so the show money, you got to actually get on a plane, go to a city, you know, it's a whole process.

An influencer, social media star, you're sitting there doing some shit with your phone, you edit it, pop it off, boom, puts a link, da, da, da, da, da, da.

$10,000.

$10,000.

Like, you know,

you got guys that are getting

$10,000 and $10,000 a minute.

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

$10,000 a minute.

I mean, I'm not kidding you.

I think Kylie's a million opposed, right?

What?

I've done deals for Kylie.

I mean, you know, you can buy, you can get her.

It depends on the brand.

You could buy Kylie for $250,000.

You could buy her for a million.

Depends on what you bought her for.

It depends on if she wants to do it.

So do you see influencers kind of being the new celebrity, modern-day celebrity?

They are, but I don't want to put anyone down.

I mean, it's just a different type type of talent.

You know what I mean?

You'll see a lot of people that are like, oh, you don't sing, you don't rap, you don't do art, you don't know how to cook, you don't own a rest, you're just like funny and you're talking shit.

But like that has become a skill and a talent.

So basically

your point of view is your celebrity.

That is your talent.

You're outspoken.

You're willing to say something.

You're willing to do something.

But that also comes with like a different level of like how fast people become famous.

You know, when you start making millions of dollars at 15 for posting videos by the time you're 24 your is tweaked you have no comprehension of what a real dollar takes to make because you made so much money so young that like you i i mean i know influencers that are that have were making millions and millions of dollars at 15 years old and now they're 25 26 and they have no concept of money that as much money as they make is as much money as they spend not saving they have no credit they have no so it's kind of like it's sad because you got to be smart yeah so it's not really the best thing to make money at a young age, you're saying.

Well, I mean, no matter what, I think making money is the best thing, but you know, you're not gonna be like, No, don't give me the help, no, no, not us, but education behind it, yeah, someone managing you and teaching you along the way so that money is an object, not just

not just the objective.

And that's why you started the Hollywood Handbook to people, yeah.

So, um, so I have my new virtual training program that I'm uh, that I've been working on for three years now, and I'm actually just ready to launch it this summer.

It's called the Hollywood Handbook, and it's a true insider's guide into how to make it in Hollywood, how to become a rapper, an actor, a rock star, a reality star, a social media star, how to do your PR, how to create TV shows, how to meet with brands, how to pitch people like me, how to pitch networks.

Basically, how do you get the entry point into the entertainment business?

The Hollywood Handbook is all of the secret sauce over my 25 years of being in the industry and all of the stars that we've been a part of, hit TV shows, celebrities that came out of nowhere from, you know, the sides of the housewives and the Kardashians and Ray J and Scott and Brody Jenner and Spencer Pratt and the guys from the hills and every other show you could imagine.

You know, how did we take people like that and catapult them?

And that's what you're going to learn in the Hollywood Handbook.

So the Hollywood Handbook has really never been done with kind of an insider's view of what this world is like.

And you're actually also, depending on what level you want to get to, I want to hear your pitch.

I want to see what you're talking about.

I want to be immersed with the audience too, because I need to hear ideas.

And if I believe in them, I'll get behind them.

I'll take you to the meeting.

I'll set it up for you.

I want to see what's really out there and people who can really follow the direction because if you can do that, you can become the next Kim K.

You can be the next Paris.

You can be the next Jake Paul, Ray J.

You can be any any of these guys.

And listen, if you have a lot of talent, show me the talent

because we can set that off for you.

We can get you record deals.

We can put you on TV shows.

We can get you brand deals.

So the Hollywood Handbook is kind of like a meeting point and a mentoring business, but it's also a guidebook.

That's awesome.

Sounds really valuable to me.

It's an insider's point of view.

Yeah.

Kind of giving you the answers to the test.

And it's very pop culture.

So it's guided toward people that, you know.

So it's not biased.

It's for everybody who wants to get in, no matter what race.

But it's pop culture.

So

it's really about

reality, rappers, influencers, social media.

You know what I mean?

Like, sure, we're going to take on Shakespeare and actors and help them.

But that's not really what I see people aspiring to be.

People want to be social media stars.

You want to be famous and make as much money as possible in the quickest way possible.

And if you can figure out those solutions to do it, there's a very easy way to do it.

The other thing that we're really, really good at is brand management and PR.

So we have really strategic relationships with many media companies to help get you visibility.

So I'm going to teach you how to go viral, how to create content, and how to basically take your content and make people care about it in the media.

So it's not just being picked up, like, you know, on the main page of Instagram or TikTok heating up your story.

It's about really taking it to the next level and being written about in GQ and Cosmopolitan Magazine and Vogue and big places like that.

You know, you want to be on TMZ?

You want to be on Daily Mail?

I'll show you how to do it.

It's not hard.

There's like a button.

Like every celebrity that you see out there has relationships with media companies.

That's all about is like

relationships.

If you think everybody from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie down to Kim K and Ray J and these

everybody talks to the media.

It's a strategic play.

Having those relationships from day one got you to where you're at right now.

Billion dollar brands are created like this.

So anyone that's like, oh, did it just happen organically?

Yeah, there's an organic process to it, but you got to know how to like make the call.

For sure.

Even with paparazzi, paparazzi are planet there when you're walking out of the bowling alley, when you're walking out of the grocery store.

I mean, you're speaking the truth.

A lot of people want to deny that, but bro, planet, bro.

They call them themselves, right?

Yeah, not them, but they were, they knew what they were doing.

I mean, it depends on who you're saying is them.

Yeah.

Them is a lot of people.

But

we'll teach you how to do it.

We can also intro these relationships to you because

everybody wants to be a part of social media now.

So, you know, I'm really out there talking to y'all out there.

You know what I mean?

Hell yeah.

I want to see the YouTubers.

I want to see the fans girls.

I want to see the rappers.

I want to know about all of them, you know, because the business has changed.

I mean, you, you, you obviously see fans business with that is.

I mean, that is the, there are people that are richer than

anyone could ever imagine

with never having to leave their house because of that platform.

I've seen girls make millions a month.

Yeah.

We have a JV with a company called Unruly Agency.

Oh, there's a Unruly is a wonderful company.

And my partners over there that we have a lot of clients that we share together, you know,

they have a very unique way that they have monetized content and understand the algorithm and how to push it and how to market it.

And with what I do and my side, it's been a great JV between the two of us.

And we've had a lot of success.

And that's a business that's like, you know, you want to see overnight money, you know, it can happen overnight, literally.

And we can plug you in that direction.

So if you really want to make it in that world, too, you have to know how to do every kind of business.

Sure, I can make you a record deal.

I can show you how to make a TV show.

I could show you how to create a fans business.

You got to know how to do all of them.

You know, and that's where the evolution of this game is.

So if you're not staying focused on the big picture of how the evolution of entertainment is happening, you're lost.

And I am at the crux of that with my clients and my company.

That's awesome.

Why do you think a lot of celebrities fall off, especially music artists?

Well, there's a statement in music that you're only as current as your latest hit.

So you're only as current and credible as your latest hit.

Now, you could have monster hits, okay?

And those are going to be timeless classics that no matter what, you're going to make money off of, but you have to keep reinventing.

You know what I mean?

You've got to stay current with the sound.

You've got to stay current with the culture.

It's hard to be a drake it's hard to be a drake not a lot of artists love you're talking about the one percent why there's like a top five yeah consistency to me is my number one when it comes to naming top five artists because they've been around for so long that's true you know you know you know we manage to short who's been a part of my company for 20 years and he's made over 23 albums and uh you know we have a group called mount westmore with snoop and uh ice cube and e40 and we've done a huge arena tours all around the country for the last two years had a big hit album.

But Short is someone that like stays timeless through all the generations.

But how?

How?

Because

he's got his own lane that he's in.

He wasn't this or he wasn't that.

And he made enough hits and worked with enough people that those hits are so memorable.

And, you know, when you're like the pimp rapper and you got your own little niche, that stays timeless.

Yeah.

Yeah, because I don't remember him having a bunch of hits.

I've never even heard of it.

How old are you?

34.

34?

Yeah.

Where are you from?

L.A.

Are you from L.A.?

Well, you know, Short's from L.A., too.

I mean, he's from Oakland, but I never heard.

No, he's from L.A., but he grew up in Oakland.

Okay, so I mean, I know his lingo, but I never, you don't really hear.

Oh, bro,

I'm shocked to hear you say it, but

literally

record after record.

Yeah, he's definitely a pioneer, but I just, as far as from like him being, you know, I mean, he's not main mainstream.

I see where he's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's not like Ice Cube or yeah.

Well, I mean, he is someone who has

stayed in the game a long time.

A very long time.

And with the right team, you continue to stay in the game.

And with the right music, you can stay in the game forever.

And if you have an archive of hits, you can always perform.

Gotcha.

You know, we do three shows a week, every week, for the last 20 years.

Wow.

That's too short.

That's insane.

Too short.

Yeah.

Sheesh.

That's consistency right there.

You know?

Not all of that.

He just did every arena there is with Snoop and Cube and E40 with Mount Westmore.

You know what I'm saying?

What were your favorite shows to make?

I know you did one with Wires Only.

Yes.

So,

you know, my boy RD, Wires Only, the one and only, the true plug, you know, the planes, the jets, the boats, the guy.

You know, I wanted to learn the car game when I got into cars pretty heavy about 10 years ago.

And I was really buying a lot of cars and trading a lot of of cars and customizing a lot of.

And he wanted to get in the TV game.

Were you getting Scott his cars?

He got Scott a couple cars.

He got, I mean, Scott.

RD got cars for you, RD's gotten cars for everybody, you know, straight up.

You know, he

wanted to learn how to get in TV, and I want to learn how to buy cars at dealer prices.

So we kind of like exchanged the formulas.

And it's all played out very well.

And, you know, he's

his show, Million Dollar Wheels.

You know,

they had a big run on

TNT, a big run on Discovery Plus.

And, you know, who else can you watch buy, sell, and trade those kind of interesting cars?

But that didn't happen overnight.

RD's show took five years to make.

Wow.

So you think it's like, oh, let's make it happen right now?

You know,

it's a lot going on.

It's a lot.

Five years?

Five years.

Yeah.

So you were the only white person working at Death Row Records.

White person?

White person.

I was not the only white person working there.

That's very racist.

No, I'm just kidding.

No,

I was the white boy.

So, so it's a big difference.

White person than a white boy.

Okay, so it's a weird thing.

All right.

So I'm working at Inner Scope Records.

So Inner Scope is this big conglomerate mega record label, and then they own, they co-own Death Row and do the distribution.

So, Dr.

Dre own Interscope?

No.

Okay.

No, Jimmy Ive owns it.

Jimmy Ive owned.

Okay, gotcha.

Okay.

So, so we're all in the same building.

All right.

So, Death Row is kind of like its own area, and then Interscope, but everything is all connected.

Now, I worked in the rap department of Interscope, so all we did was deal with Death Row products.

And basically, I'd gotten into USC.

I was going to go study in the entertainment business program, which I got my degree in.

And I didn't want to stop working.

And I was kind of like, I had talked to Jimmy and I talked to the guys at Interscope, and they were like, Either, why don't we, why don't you stay on full-time?

Jimmy, I mean with USC, right?

He has a school there.

He has a school there.

He didn't go there.

And

either stay on full-time or come back.

You can't do both.

And Suge said to me, Well, you can do both.

So I'm 18 years old.

I'm making $60,000 a year, which was a lot in 1996.

And he goes, you're going to come and you can go to school three days a week and you're going to work at death row the rest of the time.

Wow.

And that's what I did.

And it was wild.

So I was at USC.

I had the death row chain.

I had, you know, the cars with the rims and all the crazy shit.

And I was like this

white Jewish kid from Beverly Hills.

who works at death row records.

You were the guy.

And people could not, people were

dumbfounded.

because i got because i got to do stuff that people don't get to do right you know i got to so when shuge was in jail basically michelle had all the checks so like like no she had the stamp to the check so how it would work is shuge would call in from jail and from prison rather and he would say okay well we got to do we got to pay everybody got to pay artists got to pay everybody and we'd have a handful of checks the accountant would print it up i would take the checks and then i would go to michelle's house.

And then Michelle A would have the checks.

Suge would call Michelle A.

She'd come out with the stamp and she would do boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

So, like the payroll at death row, like I was the guy that had to execute the payroll.

Wow.

You know what I mean?

Like, I got to do stuff that nobody got to do.

I was the guy who would move all the reels, like the original reels of Tupac's voice for all the albums.

They couldn't trust a lot of people to carry that stuff.

And I was somebody that wasn't a target.

So, like, we'll have him do it.

Have him do it.

He can go to the bank.

He can move around around in a different way because you know it was a

erasing

but it was safety they trusted you people think it was like a very like it was like a gang operate it was a real functioning mega record label but it was a little gangster you know they signed gangsters that's what it was so yeah it wasn't so much that they signed gangsters it's just that was the nature of the business and the nature of the world but it wasn't that crazy.

Looking back on it now, it was crazy.

Yes, it's

crazy, but I didn't think about it like that.

I was just so happy to be a part of it, to have the plaques and to have the clothes and the chain and to be doing something that, like,

wow, like I look up to these artists.

That was history, though.

Yeah.

Yeah, you were part of like history.

Being in that atmosphere with, you know, with those pioneers, I mean, Sug had a stable.

yeah I mean music now today is a mere reflection of what death roll records was like yeah a lot of these cats is mimicking that lifestyle of course bro every everything is it's just in a different form but bro that's snoop that's dr.

Drew that's nuts well you also have to remember

Harlow wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Imini you have to remember it too is that

this is in the age of physical albums physical albums had much more value than streams of digital music That was an actual thing that had to be manufactured.

So the money and the margins were much bigger.

So if you sold 10 million records

at $17.95 a record, I want you to think about those numbers.

And they had to go buy the records.

You had to go buy the records.

So the money is

three times what the money was in.

So to be an independent African-American man that owned his own masters, had his own record label, had the biggest artist in the world.

He made hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

Suge did.

Yeah, hundreds.

Brother, wow.

But the toys, and like when he went in, you know, because I was like trying to really grasp what had happened because my transition out of Inner Scope into death row really happened right after Pac died.

And

Pac was shot on my birthday, my 18th birthday.

And

then he died like five days.

You know, it was very shocking because that whole summer was just the summer of, you know, all eyes on me and just, you know, being a part of that culture.

And, you know,

I got to see, Suge went to jail very quickly after that.

And then I was like really in the trenches at death row.

So to see all of the accumulation of the Ferraris and the Rolls-Royces and, you know, refrigerators full of Crystal and jewelry and houses and private planes and helicopters and boats and everything that they accumulated with that much money at that time.

It was absolutely remarkable.

You were in a prime all this time.

Bro, I used to go to his, like, you know, to his warehouse where he had all, while he's in there, and they would have like 20 refrigerators stacked 75 bottles high of cold crystal.

Wow.

Just sitting there, like, waiting.

It's like, why'd you buy that much?

I also had to do weird stuff.

Like, Suge had a piranha tank in his office.

I would have to feed the piranhas.

What'd you feed it?

Goldfish every week.

You have to go to to the gold, you have to go to the pet store, get a bunch of goldfish, go in there, feed that.

And, you know, you're in there, and it's like,

you know,

you got a movement of culture, and then all of a sudden, like,

you're in there doing

the mundane stuff that's just so crazy and bizarre.

So it's

they respected you, though.

Like, they never like

with you.

Absolutely not.

My nickname at Death Row, I had a name.

That's what they knew me as.

And I was known as Super Dave.

Super Dave.

Super Dave.

Super Dave was this, like, cartoon guy

that,

like, people knew in the 80s.

You guys probably don't know who that is, but I'm sure this guy does.

Anyway, so like, it was a spin on that.

It was, like, the urban play on that for the white Jewish boy from Beverly Hills.

They called him Super Dave.

So all, like, my Death Row clothes and shit had, you know, everyone had their nickname.

Wow.

So that's what they called me.

Why do you think Death Row failed?

Because at its peak, it's worth over a billion dollars.

Death Row didn't fail.

nobody failed people got caught up and parts of the businesses all failed death row as a whole is a groundbreaking company that snoop dog bought it

snoop dog has has the rights to it you know what i mean like there's people there's

i i don't want to speak out of turn but like It's hard to say who really owns what and what and how you're going to exploit licenses and exploit masters and whatever those things are.

But there is a business there.

So I wouldn't call it a failure.

It was just mismanaged.

It was a trendsetting business.

People should follow what not to do, but also take the inspiration from this story and be able to take it to the next level.

Obviously, like the Drakes of the world and the cash monies and a lot of these other businesses that have spawned that, it wouldn't have happened without the story of death row.

And to own your own masters, like that's it.

What do people want today?

They want to own their masters.

What do we want to own?

We want to own our IP.

We want to own our TV shows.

We want to own our companies.

We don't want to just be a person that got paid to do a post.

You want to own the company, own the distribution.

So, like, at that time, that was semi-unheard of for somebody like that to get that from a place like Interscope.

So, you got to follow in those footsteps.

You know, this goes back to the Hollywood handbook because the Hollywood Handbook is really like an insider's inside look into like what to do and what not to do and what might be the easiest way to success and to make money and to monetize your situation.

Because I've already lived through the highs and lows of it.

I'm going to teach you what to do and what not to do.

And what do you think about modern-day music labels?

Because you see a lot of controversy on social media about artists not really liking them as much.

Well, I mean, it depends on what level artist you are, and it depends on who your team is and

what your deal looks like.

You know?

Excuse me.

A 360 deal, which is like

a record company company is kind of like your manager and your record company.

Terrible deal.

That's not a good deal because you don't like your show money is what you, if you, if you make, let's say you made two hits, okay?

You're a two-hit wonder.

All right.

You made your two hits.

You should be able to live off of those two hits for a good amount of time, maybe five to 10 years, doing shows where you could make $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 a week if you had the right level radio song and you had the right promo, and your two songs could last that long.

So it all depends on what caliber of artist are you?

Are you a career artist?

Are you future or are you rich the kid?

Like, who are you?

You know what I mean?

Are you little pump?

Are you Antwell?

Who are, you know, who are you?

Yeah.

You know, are you too short?

Like, too short survived all these years.

E40 survived all these years.

You know what I mean?

So you got to think about how many years can you stay relevant in the game?

And did you have the right deal?

And at this point, like I said, you got your movie studio and your social media blaster in your hand where you can cut content and show the world.

You have the same thing with music.

Same quality of function.

Yeah.

Wow, I've learned a lot, David.

It's been an honor having you here.

Thank you, man.

Any closing thoughts?

No, man.

I appreciate you guys having me, and I'm excited to be here.

And, you know, whatever I can do to ever help you, help you, I'm happy to do so.

Go get the Hollywood handbook and,

you know, check us out.

We'll put an affiliate link in the description.

That would be amazing.

Sir, Wayne, make sure you guys follow me on Instagram at the Creator.

Sean Kelly here, digital social hour.

Thanks for tuning in.

See you guys next time.