 Big shit, big shit, big shit, it's a unique hustle nigga, big shit, big shit, big shit, uh, name another podcast like this. Check it, check it, check it, it's a unique hustle, you boy, E.C.O. Hey, and I'm here with official Miss Jamaica, what's going on? Nothing, nothing, you know, my dad will walk around with you. Man, hey man, uh, a lot, you know what I'm saying? Hey man, I've been through so much, you know what I'm saying? 3, 2, 1, is a thing, you know, just, just keeping the, you know, keeping the flavor, you know what I'm saying? Keeping the sauce man, hey man, we got a special guest in here today, man. This guy, listen man, this dude don't really need an introduction cause he be causing a lot of ruckus, you know what I'm saying? You know what it is man. Say man, this guy here got the city on fire, people don't really like a lot of sometimes what he be putting out. Some people agree, some people don't, some people agree to disagree. The boy got this gatekeeper list, it's not only that, this is Big D, the mogul man, mogul media CEO. You know it man, A.K.A. Sugar did the, A.K.A. Dear Heavenly Father, A.K.A. The God of East Texas, you feel me? Cause my daddy from Nacodosius, yeah. That's your daddy, but not you. You know what I'm saying? I told Trill Talk, I said you need to be a Trill. The father son of the Holy Spirit, that's my daddy and me and my son. Hey Trill Talk, you know that man, Dear Heavenly Father, God of East Texas in the door. And so you never know it. You know what I'm saying? Smoothie P. You welcome, I blessed you, my friend, my son. You know God of East Texas, who else out there? Whoa, no, you don't even know who I am. The last time I was there was only two horses. Are you crazy man? I ain't been to play with you today. It was Trill Talk and Smoothie P. And then he moved here, y'all moved here, so now it's only Trill Talk himself. Ah, this dude here man, he's swaying ain't he? Man, he's Texas man, y'all hear him man, stand up man. I want everybody to get in the comments called this nigga Trippin right here. I love you Texas. I want you to bust at him, say hey, hey, hey, hey. I'm from out of East Texas, a lot of town. I'm from out of East Texas. You know what I'm saying? My daddy from Nacodosia, so you know, if it weren't for him, my big mama from Nacodosia. Hey, you ever been to Nacodosia? Nah, you don't know nothing. If I would've known my daddy, you'd say, hey, I would've been there more often. Man, so how you been man? Hey man, I'm good man. You know, bless the Holly favorite, White Jesus is moving. I can't do this man. So man, I gotta ask you about, I seen something. I don't know if it was real or fake man. I seen Sola Lucci walk off the set man, to be honest with you. I didn't know if it was real. I just want to talk about that for a second. He's like, this ain't real. This ain't real man. 100% real. So what happened? So you know what's the end of the interview. Okay. So by this time, you know my great interview, y'all go check that out. My interview with Sola Lucci. Great interview. You know, but my Sola Lucci may do his thing. He had his Hennessy there. He, you know, getting his drink on. And you know, I brought up a, you know, my interview I did here with Charleston. Yes sir. And I was like, you know, I was trying to get another interview with Charleston. And Charleston was like, yeah, nigga, you don't believe in God. Say, say, yeah, nigga, I ain't doing no interview with no nigga, nigga. Now I'm believing God, nigga. You too old to not know what you believe in. So you know, I was telling them that story. And then somehow we end up getting into this God talk. And you know what I'm saying? He said God is bigger than all of that, whatever all of that is. And I just said, I don't know. I just feel like in the world is, I said, I don't know. He said, why not? I said, just too much confusion. A lot of killings has happened in the name of God. And so I don't know. And he said, nigga, you don't believe in God. Nigga, I'm out. I agree with Charleston. Like, nigga, I'm out when you grab the shit and dip. I was surprised. I thought he was playing. He said, nigga, cut my mic off. Well, like, Jordan, don't call me for no shit like this, no more. Wow. I need a shower. He didn't go out. He didn't go out. He didn't go out. He was out. Hey, this shit happened. Man, I love solo lucha, man. It's energy, bro. Bro, this nigga came over here. We had such a good time, nigga. That nigga did a whole concert in his own. He was passionate on that drink, regardless. He was passionate about his God. That nigga was mad. Yeah, like, he walked out the room. I'm like, damn, I can't get no picture. What would Jesus do? Ah, you screwed me up. What would Jesus do? But we took the picture. We was cool. You know, he came back. He's like... But you know, Lucky, you have some people who actually ask that question before they do anything. Because I have friends who, even before they go to a doctor, before they go anywhere, they ask, okay, does this person believe in God? And if they don't, they won't go. Yeah, I think that's crazy. Well, let me say this to you. Let me say this on air. And we're not going to go too deep in, because this is my show. We're not going to go... But I don't think I'm going to say this. I'll say it like this. I'm the type of person. I meet everybody where they at. I don't put nobody in the box. You might feel a certain way right now. That doesn't mean you're going to feel a certain way later on that go for each person. That's fair. So I don't ever count nobody out or tell nobody what they should do or what they shouldn't do as they go through their evolution. That's how I feel about it. So that keeps me in a place where I'm able to communicate and deal with everybody where they're at. And that's 100. That's good. That shows a lot of maturity for you and your faith, because Christians are taught to spread the word of Jesus. And if nobody listened to you, then if the person you talk to don't listen to you, shake the sandals off your feet. So it's kind of like, listen to me if you don't, then you're a bad person. Let me disregard you. I can tell you about Jesus all the time, but if I tell you, hey, I don't really subscribe to the Bible with Jesus, I become an evil person, a person without ethics, a person without morals, and you're taught to throw me inside. If you go look at my comments, it shows you, it gives you a good snapshot of what Christianity teaches people. I mean, good for you walking out. He's evil. And when the devil says such and such and such, you run away. I'm like, I'm just saying the theology that's being taught. That's the way that people that are, you got babes, you got people on different levels. So you came really, just because people say certain things and just because comments come a certain way, doesn't mean that depict what's the truth. I'll say that. Everybody's in their own situation on their own level. And at the end of the day, if those are people that attacked you or whatever, I can't say that. I agree with what's going on with that. So I'm not going to even play that game. I still say that there's levels to this, you know, but they come when they see it. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it's cool. There's levels, man. Like I said, I used to be one of those conservative and evangelical, no Christian type. So I mean, I understand. That's why I kind of walk with that kind of that empathy, because I understand, but she was kind of walking away from it. I feel like the free has ever been in my life. I felt like I walked away from a cult. Well, that's because of probably what you was into. I ain't going to go there with you because I mean, because at the end of the day, like I said, different groups of people do different things to influence different people in different ways. So there are so many different things going on in this world that you, whatever you've gotten into or whatever you circain, you know, came into contact with, we don't know what that is. That's true. I'm just saying drinking the blood. I trip off of the fact of what you went through. Yeah. I'm just saying drinking the blood of a man and eating the body of a dead man and the remembrance of him. Sounded like witchcraft to me. Wow. Wow. You just do this crazy, man. I mean, if you think about it, bro, we always ask Chris to talk about some witchcraft. But at the end of the day, are they actually drinking the blood? It's a remembrance. You don't play together because of ceremony. I'm not. I'm not. But the way he's saying it, it's not that. We always talk about initiations of ceremonies, these things. I'm just saying, when you look at it, when you at church, and then it warns you, like, if you ain't right with God, don't eat this because people who they ate this or drank this and they hard-won right with God got sick and died. You'd be like, wait, what? Well, wait a minute. All I say is first of all, I don't even, I don't subscribe to the church being a building, so I wouldn't even been there eating the blood with you. So you never took communion? I never done none of that. None of the crackers in a little juice? If I did it, it wouldn't. I was fat. I always tried to get extra crack crackers. Just do something else. But a lot of tradition does a lot of things. I just say that. It's just caught on where people at, bro. That's cool. But, you know, you, man, you be interviewing everybody, bro. I love, I'm going to be honest with you. We had destined to catch, we was on these heels. I was looking at my thing, right? I was looking at my subscribers because, you know, everything organic where we had over here. And I'm like, you know what I'm saying? And I got a chance, an opportunity that I'm going to catch this boy, man. Mogul media is, he's there, and I'm here. And all of a sudden you just went, bam! And you took off my dude. I don't know what happened. I don't know. I mean, I know what interview it was too. Yeah. It was a couple of hours actually, bro. How did you come up with the move to, you know, to move away from my numbers like you did? You know what, man? I kind of did the Daniel fast, man. And I said, God, just... See what I mean? Order my stuff. So, you know, the Lord showed up and showed out. You know how you do? Why Jesus always never let me down. That's crazy, man. No. But for sure. I'm serious. And it's like, no, man, I had a cool team that, you know, I thought I had together and, you know, that kind of fell apart. And we brainstormed. And it was some people that I really, you know, King Vaughn, brother and sister, that was interviewed. I've seen that one. We've been wanting to push for a minute. And so, you know, at the assistant that I had at the time, did a great job getting them. And shoot, man, we did that interview. And you hope. You don't know. You don't know. Because a lot of times you sit down, we do these interviews. And you go, oh, this one's going to go crazy. And then you drop it. And it don't go the way that you think. Then you get that interview. You drop sometimes that you don't think do nothing. Or it's not going to do that much. And it's going to go crazy. And this one, I didn't want to get too excited because I didn't know. You know what I'm saying? I felt like, OK, people are going to watch it. They're going to tune in. But that boy went crazy. How many views did you get? Oh, like four million. He went crazy. Something like that. A week. That's how you got away from. Is that your has viewing content since you started? That went that quick. Yes. Yeah, I would say that. Yeah. Because when I did Mama Duck, that one went off too for me. But I went. No. And I went to Chicago. The first time. I want to say I would maybe was that like 12,000 subscribers? And she don't want to kind of that interview kind of help me go from that 12K. To that 20K range up in the 20K. And then that King Vine and I did Mama Duck again. Both of them did crazy numbers. So just combined. You know, saying that helped me get, you know, I think it jumped. I think I did about 15,000 subscribers jump last month or something like that. So. So you look at those two and you see that it's a certain niche that's keep on, you know, pushing you over. Do you ever look at them and be like, okay, I need to go for a certain type of people or a certain interview to be able to get that reaction? Um, yes. And before, no, right? So Sean, Sean always sue me some gyms. And sometimes Sean just like, Hey man, just put your head down. Interview. Get it out. Let the people decide. Don't focus so much on the numbers because you're going to have high months. You're going to have low months. That's just ebbs and flows. That's kind of how it happens in this. But he also put me in game. Like you do have to kind of be selective and understand what your audience do want to see because you can try to force them to watch something. And it's just not going to take. Um, but no. Cause when you look at your numbers, the two that you're talking about is a certain demographic. Like my page love death. Yeah. That's what I'm seeing. This is like, but it's hard to go to Chicago and not for, I hate it. Like going to Chicago, they got some amazing stories. But it's so tragic, like everything. I feel bad for it. And it was almost like it's just normal for them. Um, cause they go through a lot. They go through a lot, man. But that's dangerous also for you to go down there and do that. Isn't it? No, absolutely. Cause you got to know the politics and shout out again to my sister at that time. Um, he understood the politics. So you have to understand what side was on what side. Um, and who you interviewed on this day and making sure this person, because Chicago ain't talking. If you talk about if on site was a place, Chicago is a place is on site. So you mess around and have the wrong people. At the wrong time. At the same time, it is a wrap. It ain't no. Amen. Chill out. Cause nine times out of 10, this person and kill somebody that's close to this person. If it ain't they brother, it ain't no. So you have to know that politics. Yeah. But what you interviewing sometimes ops, um, because I remember Sean even said, or even we've always said it too. That some is like, you, you can't be on both sides. And I know that as media people, like we are, we feel like we're neutral. We should be able to interview anybody and not feel like I'm with this side or I'm with that side, but people don't view it that way. People feel like if you view this, if you interview this person, you're on that side. Gotcha. So how does that work going to Chicago and doing that? I didn't really feel like that. At all. Because most people's stories that I was going to get, I wasn't getting it because of beef. Like, so why you say this about this person? Cause you know, like I said, I interviewed mama duck, which is FBG duck. My interview came from siblings. We know that both of those were King Von and duck were rivals. Right. But it wasn't my questions wasn't geared to what mama duck said this and mama duck. This side said that it was more so you weren't initiating more. No, it just tell me your story. Celebrate their life. Tell me what you been through at that moment. And so that's kind of my approach. My approach ain't really too much to he said. She said, what's your response to that? It wasn't like that. So I think walking away, I was able to stay neutral on that part. Definitely. Well, you know, I'm just upset that you caught me. You know what I'm saying? That you left me. I never caught you. So you just left me. You know, my daddy left me. So at the end of the day, when you leave, somebody like you did us, man. We trying to figure it out now. You left us. I didn't call it combobulated. Hey man, you know what Jay-Z said, man. You got to let your career breathe. And I respect you, man. I call you a lot of time. You pick up the phone for me anytime. Some crazy going on. You talk sanity back into my mind a lot of time. You be like, say, man, amen. And it'd be totally like unbiased ways that you come at it. And you always, you don't never play the favoritism role. So thank you for that. You know what I'm saying? That's for sure. The way you do it, man. Like I said, I know God put you in my life from this side. That's how I feel. And I appreciate you, man, for always giving us the nuggets, man. Ever since we started, man, I got to say, you were one of the main supporters, man. You knew this. You knew way more about it than us then. And you showing to be scaling now. So I think I made the right decision in rocking with you. And you didn't give me no reason not to. So thank you. I appreciate your help. You helped me out a lot too, man. No conversations. Be mutual. Yeah, man. It's just a tough, I mean, you can't, you can't get your feelings that you always tell me that. Like, you can't, you know, you can't take things personal. You know what I mean? It's hard sometimes though. Yeah. But then at first I started off with the positivity and Lord, how mercy that changed so fast. Like as more, as you build content, people do have opinions. I got a video just yesterday clip to me where I said something a year ago with some people and they were like, this year was by controversial to our brand. And I was like, bro, I never thought about it that way. And people feel a certain way and they turn it into something a lot of times. But you need that, right? I had this revelation the other day, because like you said, you coming to this one to be some type of beacon of light, some type of, like I'm going to show that this can happen without having to play in a mud or whatever. Because there's so much negativity out there in the world that you want something. But you need it. And the reason why it's like, if you think how is energy created is created with both a positive and a negative charge. If you only have positive, you have no energy. If you only have negative, you have no energy. You need both the positive and the negative charge to create energy, to create motion. And when that revelation kind of came to me, I understood that you could talk about the controversial things as well as you can highlight the good things. You need both. Because if you too much of one or the other, you won't create no motion. You won't create no energy. So I just started, I stopped looking at stuff as so much as right or wrong. And just look at it as negative and positive. Okay, this is negative. I don't like it. I'm going to learn from it and I'm going to use it. This is positive. I like it. I'm going to get too high on it, but I'm going to use it. And that's how I got to go. I got to ask you about the elephant in the room. There you go. There's a big, gigantic yellow elephant in the room. And it's called the gatekeeper list. And I keep, I'm on this thread where people keep, they talk about this gatekeeper list in a way. And I know that we're blessed today to get it revealed on boss talk 101. What a boss is talk. And I'm just happy to be affiliated with the guy who's, who pretty much has his fingers all in. He is. Hey man, that guy, big deal mogul man. Hey, for sure man. Hey, I never knew this list was going to become as iconic as it's become man. It's been crazy. Definitely the gatekeeper word, of course I created, created, but me and tell you blue shout out to Terry. That was global. I always, always saw it on everyone from say cheese dropper artist list or drop a chop producers list or something like that highlighting those who up front. But I was like, damn, it'd be dope to drop a list to highlight those who people don't know. And the whole goal for it was to give artists a chance to see people who they make and tap into. People always been wondering what's the definition of a gatekeeper. According to this list, a gatekeeper is a person who had a power to platform connection slash influence to help artists get to the next level. It's not the mean that these people can make or break a artist. The only people that can break an artist is the people. People got to like your music. People got to gravitate to it. But if you able to tap in with these people, these people may have either the access to funds or access to people, whether it's platform or more influence connection to help you get to the next level. So that's the for people who ask for the definition of gatekeeper list. That's what it is. Man, I got the 2022 gatekeeper list. And how often do you come out with this? Once a year. Once a year. Every time around in March. Every year. Every year. And I love it because people are so just shook up by it. I love it. And not only your list, all these lists to be coming out. It's always yours because you hold, you don't do what you want. And it's impactful, man. Man, I appreciate it. Even though it be a lot of people threaten to drop their own gatekeeper list. I was wondering how many are the king of it? How many other gatekeeper lists are there? That's the king. That's the only one? Only one. That's the king of it. So let's get to it. All right. So we're going to start from the 17 people on this list. Okay. Why 17 and not 20? Why 16? Go ahead, man. I'm sorry, man. We're sorry, man. Let's get this thing going. All right. So here we go. We got a dark skin. The plug puts dark skin on here. Number 17. He the world star connect. Everybody, you know, pretty much anybody who get on the world star go through dark skin. Okay. Number 16, new to the dark skin is new to the list as well. New to the list. My God be Hobbes. People don't know be Hobbes be Hobbes is in charge of like the talent and the platforms at South by Southwest. So this is somebody in your back corner. You told my be coming official artists at South by Southwest. This is a guy you want to tap in and network with getting your corner. You got my guy big homie P out of San Antonio. You made for it show promoter big guy that does this thing to connect. Shamar Alice, you know, saying he's another guy here big or he I think he just got somebody a deal. And it comes to my mind artist name. They come to my mind, but also another big show promoter bring a lot of action. Okay. Number 13. Lil' Zach, y'all just had him on here. Lil' Zach, definitely a gay keeper hands heavy into like, like you said, Erica Banks bus it had a lot to do with that record. He had the mode three platinum record. You know what I'm saying? Like Lil' Zach, black youngster, he's got his hands in the game. Number 12. I got Kevin from vertical, you know, vertical is one of the biggest DJ platforms out here that bring a bunch of DJs together and let artists come near and promote and connect with all the DJs core DJs. I think I saw Tony Neil there and everything. So number 11. I know this is a cuss word in your store where I got Charleston white on here. Definitely in the last year, whether you hate him or you love him, Charleston white has built a name for himself. We all benefited from his, you know what I'm saying? His aura. He's built platform, helped build platforms. He's built his own platforms. I see him take other people along with him and make connections. So Charleston on there. Number 10. Half point. You know what I'm saying? Half point always still hands in the game. Still Erica Banks that came through them. You know what I mean? I know 15 on one guy there, but that's a hub that allows artists to a launch pad. I would like to say number nine, DJ Bubba, dirty glove bastard. You know, Bubba, man, everybody, anybody is anybody. That's an artist that come in the city. Go straight to Bubba. Can't take no way from him. And more than like more than anything, South by Southwest show was rocking. He had one of the biggest showcases out there. Everybody who was somebody was in that showcase. If they weren't performing, it was just showing up to be there. Jay Money is on there. I'm going to speed up a little bit. No, no, no, no. Keep going on the tempo. You go. I like this. So Jay Money, I'll let Terry kind of, he explained that a little bit. He pushed. I'm not going to say push. Jay Money definitely decided to be on this list. Definitely a gatekeeper in the game. His influence is heavy. He's behind a lot of artists getting signed. So he for sure had to be on this course. Trap boy, Freddie, you know, day near the King of Oak Cliff, he stepped outside, signed a young lady from Memphis doing this thing. Number six, my God, smooth Vega. Smooth Vega is probably, that's my superpower. If you ask me how majority of my interviews fell in my lap, you know what I'm saying? Smooth Vega. Hey, you want this interview for wrestling to whatever it is. Man, you talking about a guy who works behind the scene getting shows, booking in charge of booking some of the most, the major acts that come here. He even called me sometimes like, hey, Def Jam, I'm trying to put this artist here. What you think? Should we book the show with this artist or Def Jam? We got this mixer here. They wanted to interview artists. You want to go here? I'm like, yeah. So Vega is definitely a jewel in his backyard that we want to give our support to. Flowers. Flowers too for sure. Five baby. You know, nothing. Baby been a goat. He connected with everybody in the industry. Anybody that's anybody, you know, baby, he there. And then I love what he's doing with the hub. Wow. And then, you know what I'm saying with him and Radio Raheem got going on over there. I think that's a dope look where it brings a lot of people here. I mean, I've seen Ice World Vezel over there. I've seen, um, what's my, um, it's a lot of people come through there. Give me tripping. Number four just says name Radio Raheem. Shout out. Radio Raheem definitely is a gatekeeper. Probably should have been on here a long time ago. Um, hands and everything. Definitely a boss. His infrastructure is crazy. The hub. What he does over there. Working with artists like, um, J Oliver producer, who got a lot of placements with Rick Ross, Rihanna, et cetera. Man, Radio Raheem really put batteries and people back and make things happen. Of course, my God, Rainwater. Why you saying like that? Rainwater my God, man. You know, people, I know a lot of people again. Look at Rainwater. Rainwater is one of those nefarious characters, man. But Rainwater, if you know, you may have to kind of pay attention to why he's doing what he's doing, but if you're going to do whatever he committed so to, he do it hard and he do it efficiently. And he going to make sure he get done. Now you may have to make sure your ends is covered. But Rainwater going to make sure the job get done. He going to make sure he get paid. So, um, but Rainwater, let's look at some of the things he did. You know what I'm saying? You got three artists on, you know, of course, him. His connection, Bobby Billions did his thing. The outside song is crazy. But if all is true, Rainwater had his hand in getting them signed, uh, Empire. Same with Don Don, number seven. He's done a great job of turning himself up. Uh, Sauce Walker. You know what I'm saying? So what number are we on right now? Two. Two. Number two. Sauce Walker. Sauce Walker. You know what I'm saying? His whole conglomerate, I mean, I even seen him full of artists that he signed out from Japan over here to the States. Kicking it. The guy energy is unmatched. His reach is unmatched. The way he pour into his artist, his empire he built, you can't, can't argue with that. And of course, number one test is the gatekeeper. 2022 definitely get a flowers to his Carl Crawford. Uh, Texas finally got a, a 15 on a record label that a lot of people can kind of look to. That's mainstream. You know what I'm saying? For sure. We put him number one on the list. And I know everybody looking like what happened to say cheese? What happened to Jay Prince? And so what we decided to do this year is go ahead and put them in the gatekeeper hall of fame. It's not even fair to keep putting them on the list. Every year. So you retire them. We retire them. It just, what they've done has been unmatched, unprecedented. They've been pioneers. They created a lane that's unmatched. So it's like, hey, it's not even fair to keep throwing a Prince family and say cheese into this mix. Let's go ahead and honor them and put them in the gatekeeper hall of fame. Hold on, hold on. I got to get that baller out of applause, man. Come on, man. So you created a hall of fame. So I just need to know the criteria for this hall of fame. You have to be on the gatekeeper list for how many years? Well, it's only the third year the gatekeeper list. So three years and then you can cross over. I mean, you know, for as far as the people, it's not necessarily a criteria per se. But when you try to put say cheese and Jay Prince on the list, they're just such a so far in the league of their own. It's not even close. Man. So it's just like that conversation is kind of dead. Why even put them on there? Man, I definitely, man. I just like I said, he just killed it on the interview. Say cheese. Shout out Sean Cotton, man. That boy there, he supported. Boss talk came through, man. Did a great interview. Probably one of the best ones we've had definitely all year. You know what I'm saying? So I don't know. I mean he went off and he basically he I'm not show poised to on just just having an all around good attitude and just knowing how to move man in the city, man. He talked about different things in the music industry, man. That we wouldn't know if it wasn't for him just explaining some of the things that happened behind the scenes, man. So you man. Hey, man, I love the gatekeeper list, man. So what about the peril, man? I'm looking for my t-shirt, man. You say they coming? I think so, man. I'd be worried about doing so much other stuff, man. You know, I might have to get it over to y'all to get it distributed on my back. No, no, no. Do we want to bring someone up to talk about the gatekeeper? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes, you want to ask a question. Do you want a question? We got a question here. You can put up a chair to this mic right here. I'll come talk. You got a question? Just a couple of questions. Come on with it. Okay. Yes, you want to ask your questions. I got to ask them. Just come over a little bit. This should be right beside you. Okay, you're good, right? You got to on the camera there. Yes, she on the camera. Okay, yeah. Let's, let's, let's, let's... April? That would be April McColl. April McColl? I can't hate the Plood Goddess. Okay. Okay. And, and, and you just heard the astounding list. So what, what, what, what did you, I thought it was a great list to be honest with you, man. The choices, the people, man, I, like I said, I was definitely into it. Get that. And man, that's just, just a dope look, man. So April McColl, what, what do you think? Well, first of all... Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you for having me on the mic this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Having me on the mic this time. Um, you know, I think it is an awesome list because I do, I do hear some improvements. Oh. And that's super dope. However, I wonder why there's only been one female gatekeeper on the list. And this would be the third year. And when I think about it, because I understand this from a publicist standpoint. And for people that don't, don't know who I am, I am the CEO of Nicole Paradigm LLC and Nicole Paradigm Media. I've been publicist to very, um, a lot of different individuals that are on this gatekeepers list. And I also understand that, you know, not trying to have a feminist movement or anything, but it's a lot of, a lot of gatekeepers on this list that really are who they are because of who we are, who we are to them. So there are so many females in the Dallas Metroplex beyond that can pick up the phone, they get these calls when these artists come into town. And we are really the ones that are making these things happen. Now, do these gatekeepers say, oh, you know, it's really so-and-so is really making the moves? Absolutely not. But we're the ones making the moves. I do want to give a shout out to Radio Rahim because I am never satisfied now. So, um, and I'm grateful to see that because as humblest he is, he's not, you know, he's not loud. He's not boisterous. And I'm, I'm grateful to be, you know, representing a brand that's like super dope, super humble and super about, you know, promoting artists, promoting not just artists. Um, we got Lordy B signed, you know, we have other artists from different genres. So I'm definitely in a, in a great place. But, you know, I even want to give a shout out to Shamar because Shamar is how I got my start. I would not be where I was if it was not for Shamar. Um, he looked at me one day many, many years ago and he was like, you know, you're a publicist. I'm like, I'm doing all this writing. But, you know, we have a lot of individuals and the list is really cut, you know, I just want to ask though, what is, what is the issue with the list? Just that it doesn't have females on it? There has not been much female presence since DJ Duff. I want to give him a chance to speak to that. No, I think that's correct. Um, it hasn't been. I've done my due diligence because I did want to put a female on here just for the sake of putting one on here. Right. I want to be able to put a female on here that when you see a Carl Crawford, you see her name in the evenings out. Um, I think women in this game is definitely starting to make their head like shout out to DTX Nova. She doing her thing for sure. Where I definitely considered that. Um, let's see who else. Um, it was a few that we considered but like the way that we kind of voted it was just one of those things that like women are hip hop for so long has been male dominated. Women are coming up right now, but right now we just didn't see that person that was that female that was literally on that level and we try like it's a lot of women doing their thing. It's a lot of men that got on this list that got great women behind them. That's no one does anything alone. Right. Nobody is always a team. I would say right now is y'all keep doing your thing. I feel like more is coming. Um, So you're saying that they need to be more upfront. I think so. And that's what guys do. Guys get out there and if you unfortunately win the world, if you ain't seen, you ain't heard. If you not seen, you not heard. And it's unfair because sometimes that means longest I'm the loudest. That means I convince people I'm the best. That's not always the case, but that is kind of the game right now. Um, I try to do my best. And of course, educate me like who did we miss because that's the other great thing about the gatekeeper list. As you see these people on the list, but you see the people in the comments to say, Hey, but you forgot about this person. And it adds that person. And what that does is reveal other people. I was about to say, do you take that into consideration? That's how I found about some more tomorrow. When on the first list. Okay. And I was in the comments spamming him, spamming him, spamming him because I know his contribution. I'm, I'm all for Dallas. I'm all for Dallas culture. And you know, I'm not by any means, I'm not even putting myself on the gatekeeper list. Cause I'm really trying to change the narrative. Not necessarily speaking about myself, but he said one DTX Nova Nova is doing her thing. Like she's doing her thing. Um, and she's probably done more things than you would know about because we have. Yeah. You say we got to do our things. We got to be more upfront. We've been doing it. Nicole paradigm is a 10. I've been in this game 10 years, but guess what I had to do as a woman? I had to leave Dallas. I stayed in Dallas. Guess why I had to go get clients. LA Atlanta. I don't have a OG in Dallas. My OG is in Los Angeles. Shats out to freeway Rick Ross. When I make a call. That's who I make a call to. I think about another other people that on that list, when I call who I call when people come in town, or if I need to get in contact with Jay Prince, I pick up the phone. I call Larry from real hair. That's who I make calls to. I have individuals that I make calls to that I have these relationships with. And a lot of them are not on the list. I don't even know if you consider the real hair Larry. I know he's just now getting into the concert game, but literally anybody that I want to talk to in the game. I'm picking up the phone and I'm calling him. If I can't reach them. I pick up the phone. I call someone if I can. So let me make this clear. Just because you're not on this list does not make you. That doesn't disqualify you or say you're not a gatekeeper. I know people have been. Can I use the word traumatized or people have been conditioned that when a list drops like this is the best and this is the only. And so when you see this list, this list isn't coming to say this is the best. This is the only. But in 2022, this is like, hey, these are the ones we want to be able to recognize and love on and give their roses for the work that they're doing. Sure, it's a lot of other people out there. It doesn't mean that they're not gatekeepers. I just don't want to make a fucking list. That's 200 people long. I just kind of feel like the word gatekeeper. You gave the definition and you said these are individuals that artists, they're able to have a power platform connection or influence. And it's a lot of people that have it. There are a lot of using it. They don't have to. That's theirs to use or not. So they have the platform yet they may not be using it, but they qualify as a gatekeeper. What I'm saying is the people on the list are using it. Now this is what you have to say is this though, because this is the problem. This is when subjectivity comes into play. I may say they're doing a great job. Your ideal of a great job may be they're doing a terrible job. And so it's hard for me to say I'm going to create something that's objective that everyone is going to agree with. It's not. It's impossible. Even in me and you sat down and we vetted every person to the T and tried to come up with the most perfect list. Somebody is going to tell us this list is bullshit because it's subjective of what help is when somebody is like, oh, they not helping. But he like, how do you help? And then I hear your definition of help. I hear this artist definition to help everybody got different ideals of what help is. And so therefore on this list is just like, hey, to not be on this list is not to say you don't qualify on this right now. It's just like, let's give a chance to get these people their roses. Why they here for what they're doing. Anybody else that's not on this list. Drop the comments or who should be on this list. I love all these people because what people want to do is then try to discredit these people so that these people down here can fit. That's getting at it. You don't have to do that. It's enough room for everyone because the goal of the list is that for artists to know what's in a backyards. So if even when you see this list, you don't see who you rock with on this list. I don't know everybody. Texas is what the second largest state in the country. How the fuck I'm going to know everybody. It's impossible. That's why it's important for them to put in a comment. And that's why the list is important because it creates a dialogue that you and I are having. What about this person? What about this person? If there's no list, then people just float. Right. Like it. Love it. Love the answer. April Nicole, man, I hope that. Hey, man, I hope Big D the mogul gave you the answers that you needed. I mean, definitely the list is going to be coming out annually and every year. Every year. Every year. And it's going to go down, man, just like this every time. And I love the friction and the way that it brings people to awareness. Yeah, yeah. The awareness, like, wow, you know. I wasn't negative. No, no, no, he's talking about it. He's talking about jig. What I mean by negative is this. You got to have both. That's all he said. Negative, not about bad or wrong. It's just about you need the both sides to create a narrative and the narrative is energy. Absolutely. And that's it. That's all. Wow. I do want to say this. I do want to commend you because by you starting this list, there have been many other lists created by bloggers. You know, um, shouts out to RealToon. Shouts out to, you know. That was global. Yeah. That's global. All of the guys. Trio, talk. Stop playing. Don't do that. Don't do that. I'm just, you know, I'm the top of my head. I want to give a shout out to these individuals because during the pandemic, most of these blocks started during the pandemic. Nothing wrong with that. It's a great thing. A lot of them capitalized off of depth, you know, but it's a narrative. It's a narrative. I don't have any negative thing to say about that. But what I do have to say is that I'm April McCull. I'm a Dallas native. I've been in this game for a while. I am definitely going to be the forefront of pushing the feminine narrative in 2022. No. Because, and I love our men. I love black men. I'm definitely not a basher. I'm definitely not a feminist. But what I am here for is to make sure that we get our flowers. It has been a long time. We have supported a lot. And we could, you know, we could go, um, and a lot of these women that I've been speaking with, you know, we could go in the direction of like a super head and do a tell all, but we don't want to do that. All we are saying is when, when people roll in town, our phones ring too. For sure. You know, we also making sure artists are taken care of down to they need IV strips. They need diabetic. We do a lot for sure. And when I run, there's a lot of us are bosses because I'm definitely a boss. Not a worker, but a boss. I'm a servant as well. But what I do is I take care of everyone that's attached to me and I make sure that the individuals that are my clients that I'm working with, whoever they bring in town, they are going to be taken care of. And that's one of the reasons they want to continue. Um, they want to start a relationship. But I want to, I just want to, I want everyone to know April Nicole, those that don't know me, I should, but I have been in the background on some occasions, but I'm definitely going to be in the forefront. I'm definitely going to be coming for the list. You know, I like him. I appreciate it. I appreciate his effort. I would never down what he's doing. Um, it's not, it's not about my opinion on the list. Shout out. I'm really excited. The radio Raheem is on the list because I was getting ready to, you know, That's what it's all about. Absolutely not. Okay. There's so many people on that list that I've worked with. You know what I'm saying? All three of the leads. I just wanted, I just want Dallas to understand we need a culture and that culture is going to be built on male energy and female energy and togetherness. We have artists. We have a list. How many of these lists? How many of these individuals have a signed artist chefs after Shamar? He got suji cash signed. We code a black and I'm not getting ready to shot everybody out. Yeah. But we're talking about gatekeepers and I want to see these next list with these artists who sign in them. Who's getting them deals? We need a record label in Dallas. We got to come together. Okay. It's time. Man, thank you so much, man. Thank you for having me. Appreciate you. Did you want to say something before she left? Just to get out of here. I still got to talk to you some more. Okay. I just want to say this. Um, the gatekeeper listen to my opinion. It ain't about just breaking the artists because the only person only people that can break the artist is the fans. I don't care if you get signed and code code that black. I don't care if you signed a Drake. If the people won't gravitate to the music, it doesn't matter who you attach yourself to. And so when you look at these gatekeepers, don't go to them as far as them breaking you as an artist. Approach the gatekeepers understand what their superpower is. And use that to your leverage to get you in front of more people because it is the people who break the artists. Man. That's it. Thank you so much, man. Big D. Thank you. April Nicole. Thank you so much. We wanted to question Erica. The gatekeeper list is hot. And I ain't gonna lie. I love it. And when it dropped, it's coming out. So it's going to really be crazy. But that's why I wanted to set this up. I thank God for you guys, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Man, thank you so much. You coming back, right? You know what we're coming back at. We got something real serious. We got to get into. We knew him really, really. Because he don't, you know, he. You got to take my number down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She will. But yeah. Yeah. What me and her gonna do, you would. I would love you. It would really be crazy. I might wear ski mains. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Oh man. So that was great. Now, what we and you gonna talk about now and we gonna get back into this interview about just being one of the guys, man, who started out like you did in the business, man. Do you feel like, you know, you do you feel like you were you supposed to be in this time and moment and in more in the work that you put in? I feel like, yeah. I mean, I can't be nowhere else but in this moment. So I've learned to just enjoy the moment and make the best of this moment. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, the, you know, as the Bible, it's still the Bible say some real stuff. Here we go. Yeah. Get in now. You know, yesterday is gone. I didn't worry about yesterday. It's gone. And tomorrow got enough problems of his own. So I always say, I said that wrong. I just worry about today. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So I am where I supposed to be. And my goal is just to be better today than I was yesterday. No. That's how I move. So, so man, what give us the insight on the big interview just coming, man. I know, you know, I know you have some issues where your cameras came a little bit up. You know, shout out to my nigga New York, man. I'm over here. If you got them, if you got it, man, bring it to me, baby. Hey, I'm buying everything hot off the streets. Hey, man, shout out to, man, that's wild. Hey, one day y'all going to get that story there and I'll end it up in the crack house and stop down and start touring the world. He told me, man. That's a dope story, man. And looking for a crackhead named New York and stole my cameras and my truck. But damn, no, I forgot what was the question. No, I was just talking about it, man. But thank you, man. No. Man, if it's anything that, did we leave anything out? I mean, we turned everything over. No, actually, man. You gave a great interview, as always, man. I'm going to say, man, I'm going to be messing with you at all times when it comes down to when this, like I said, this is coming out on the same day. Yeah. I'm going to be ready and I'm going to be locked and loaded, baby. That's going to be wild, man. Gatekeeper less 2022, man. The cold is less ever. Hey, man, thank you so much for coming on Boss Talk. One on one, one on Boss Talk. Peace out. Hey, man.