Unglossy with Bun B
Unglossy is a raw dive into the cultural forces shaping identity, creativity, and influence today. Hosted by legendary rapper, professor and entrepreneur, Bun B, alongside music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge and brand and marketing guru, Tom Frank, this is a conversation about cultural impact.
Through real stories and unfiltered dialogue, Unglossy explores how artists, entrepreneurs, and visionaries define themselves, move culture, and build legacy beyond the gloss of hype and headlines.
Tune in to "Unglossy" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod and join the conversation.
Unglossy is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios. Let your story take the mic. Learn more at https://wearemerrickstudios.com
Unglossy with Bun B
Greg Street: Culture, Connection, and the Code of the South
Before algorithms and playlists decided what we liked, DJs like Greg Street were the algorithm — breaking artists, building cities, and defining what hip hop felt like. In this episode, Bun B, Jeffrey Sledge, and Tom Frank sit down with the legendary DJ and radio personality whose career runs through every chapter of Southern music history.
From Mississippi to Houston, Dallas to Atlanta, Street unpacks how the South built its own infrastructure, why authenticity always wins, and how community still moves culture more than technology ever could. This one’s a blueprint in conversation form.
"Unglossy with Bun B" is produced and distributed by Merrick Studio and hosted by Bun B, Tom Frank and Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to hear this thought-provoking discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod to join the conversation and check out all our episodes at https://wearemerrickstudios.com/unglossy-pod.
Last week on Unglossy.
SPEAKER_06:There's proximity now for hip hop and RB to not just be. I mean, obviously, this gives them more visit visibility in the space, right? Being a part of this magazine, because the rollout for this is going to be insane. Who gets the first vibe covers? That's gotta be the biggest thing they're talking about.
SPEAKER_02:I'm Tom Frank.
SPEAKER_05:I'm Jeffrey Slicks.
SPEAKER_06:And I'm Bud B. Welcome to Ungloss.
SPEAKER_02:Real stories, unfiltered dialogue, and the voices moving culture behind the gloss of height and headlines.
SPEAKER_06:So buckle up. Let's go ahead and get to it, guys. We're ready to go. Ready to go. I hit record just in case. No worries, no worries. Let's go ahead and jump into it, Thomas. Let's get it started.
SPEAKER_01:All right, fellas. Before algorithms told us what to like, DJs were the algorithm. The ones breaking records, shaping taste, deciding what the culture moved to next. Then Silicon Valley showed up and tried to automate the vibe. Today we're talking about how that shift happened and what we lost when computers replaced curation. We're also diving into how Atlanta didn't just become the capital of hip hop, it was built that way. From radio to strip clubs, mixtape DJs to indie labels, the city engineered a system that turned local hits into global anthems. And there's nobody better to break that all down than Greg Street, legendary DJ, radio personality, and a man who's been at the center of it all. From breaking out cast to helping define the sound of the South, Greg's lived the story from the booth to the boardroom. I'm Tom Frank. That's Jeffrey Sledge. This is Bun B, and welcome to our guest, Greg Street. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_05:Thank you for coming on, Greg. It's an honor. You've done it, man. You've done so much. So much.
SPEAKER_03:Me and Jeff go back way before Atlanta.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was in Texas. Way before that. Yeah, man. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So another guy that can call you one of his long, long, longtime friends.
SPEAKER_06:Every friend of Jeffrey Sledge that I know is a longtime friend. They're not people he met two years ago at All-Star Weekend. Yeah. He's been rocking for a while. Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Hey Thomas, I'm going to make this statement on the podcast. When Bear Wise, whatever he did with Jobs, sold it, whatever he did with the company, and became the chairman and went on that Sony music. Jeffrey Slayer should have walked away with at least five,$10 million. Because he was the man that made everything happen at Job Records for a long time, for some years.
SPEAKER_05:Thank you, Greg. I appreciate that, man. I'm amazing. He should have brought you with him as a partner, too.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, most definitely.
SPEAKER_06:You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_03:Barry Watts, where Don was at?
SPEAKER_06:Greg, let's start with your early days, man, in Mississippi, man. How did you find hip-hop in Mississippi and what drew you to it and made you want to be an active participant in the culture?
SPEAKER_03:Well, like, right at the beginning of the hip-hop, I'm the baby of my family, like, like by a lot of years. I'm the one who like people say, you weren't supposed to be here, you were an accident. So my older sisters, they love music. They bought albums. So I started DJing when I was like 16, 17 years old, 15, 16. And um I bought a realistic mixture. I bought a turntable. One of my sisters had a crazy sound system, her and her husband had a stupid sound system. See, I think my nieces and nephews, most of them, are all like only six years younger than me. So I'm talking about they these they had families. So um I would use one of her turntables, use my turntable. And that before I started DJing, when I was like six, seven years old, I took guitar lessons. So I had a Pv212 classic guitar amp, and I used to connect my turn, my mixer to the guitar amp to DJ. And that's what I used for my first sound system to start DJing parties. And then after I started DJing parties, um I came up with this idea to instead of just being like the other DJs making flyers and making posters. I said, I want to go to the radio station to put my put my parties on the radio. So I started going to the radio station, and after a couple times at the radio station, being in Mississippi, you know, most of those stations in small towns, AM stations are daytime. So in the spring and summer months, they don't go off till like eight, nine o'clock. Right. So they don't have a big staff. So most of the people work there, like whoever the program director is, they might do two shifts. So this guy was like, You're getting pretty popular. You ever decide you ever considered doing radio? His name was Harvey Knight. So I said, yeah. So I started working on the weekends, doing a gospel show, doing a jazz show, doing an RB show. Um, and it just kind of went from there. And after I worked at that station for a while, come to find out the guy who owned the station, Vernon Floyd, who was like the first black man in history in like 1969 to build his own radio station from the from the from the foundation of the concrete all the way to the tower. And he went to school, he went to school with my mom in Mobile, Alabama, at Mobile County Training School. And uh, after I worked at that station for a while, when I graduated from high school, I went to work for a white station called WHSY. Uh like a real white AC station, you know, the arrhythmics and the old Motown and the BGs and those records. And um, it's kind of really just introduced me to a whole nother lane of radio, you know, reading the trade magazines and understanding what really makes radio radio. And that was really some of the chemistry that has granted me longevity, really understanding radio. Like a lot of people listen to the radio and they think it's just about new music and about the DJs. And music is not even what radio is about. And most people don't even realize that radio is not even really about music. It's about people, like you just said. It's the first social media. It's about the connection to the people. Because you have to think about it. You got radio stations now. If you remember a few years ago, there was a big surge where all the urban AC stations were had high ratings.
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Like you remember when BLS in New York was killing everybody in the ratings? They weren't playing on new music. So, but a lot of people have a misconception that radio is about new music, and radio is not about new music, it's really about the connection with the people. But what happened is in cities like New York, they started putting people on the radio who had names from the streets. Like OJ Whitlaw, O.J. Whitlaw is the reason why Funk Flux got on hot in '97. OJ was the one that told Steve Smith, you need to put him on the radio.
SPEAKER_05:I didn't know that. I didn't know OJ did. I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_03:O.J. Whitlaw is responsible for that going down. But after I learned so much on the white side, how formatics work, like we would do stuff like my name on the radio, on the white station was Keith Gregory, 7 to midnight on Total Radio, WHSY. So, but on the white station, it's like the Paul Harvey news news feed will come down and you have to record it. You can't miss it. You got to be ready to record it on time. And then play it back at the time it comes for the playback. In the top of the hour, we played a goal record coming up to the top of the hour. So the goal category was like four or five hundred records deep. Because you got to time it to the clock. Because the news is gonna hit at the 12 at on on the clock is set to where the clock is gonna hit at 12 o'clock. That second hand is gonna hit at the top of the hour, and it's gotta go into the into the news. So you have to back time it. So you got 500 records. So at the end, you're looking at your last record, what time it's gonna end, you gotta look at what records you're gonna need after that, before that last record, the time it's perfect. So with 500 records, you can go back, you know, deep enough to, okay, this record's three minutes, this blah blah blah, and find one that fits. So when you hit the top of the RD, bam, the news is gonna come on. And and how the move and if you listen to my show, I don't talk a lot and the music never stops. And that's the key because on in nighttime radio, when hip-hop first took off, uh consultants like Jerry Clifton and people who really knew the game, they taught some of us these secrets from pop radio. And and pop radio, if you pay attention to pop radio, the music never stops. You got some pop stations now, they don't even talk going into the commercial break. They may say a little something in between the songs, but when they go to commercials, the music just goes from the music straight to the commercial. They don't even talk.
SPEAKER_01:So that was the so to be the best at your practice, what you're saying is you would time it so that there was never it was like a perfect transition. It has to be a perfect transition.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:In order for the station to sound professional, it has to have a perfect transition. So learning all the stuff about timing, how things work, and then knowing the importance of being in the community is what was the is the gym. Because, like you said, we are the first social media. You didn't go, you never went nowhere to go see the news anchored from TV. You never went nowhere to go see um the person who did the traffic on TV, but you would go somewhere if a DJ was somewhere doing a live remote, or if they were doing a party, or they was doing something in the community. Yeah. You know, it it kind of evolved the way TV people start trying to get involved in the community, especially social media. Most of them got pages, they're dancing on social media, they doing different things, they're wearing different clothes to get looks and likes. But we are the first social media. We are the we are the algorithm. And and I try to tell people like when they look at my social media, I may not have a million followers, but I can't walk through the city and nobody and I don't see nobody every day, or somebody who's a part of We Need to Read, or the Boys to Men Street Academy, uh Lockins, or uh the fishing day, or pep rallies, or coming to their businesses, or just meeting them in the streets, tailgates, just being out in the community. So, like, if you really do this for real, you don't have to have a million followers to really understand the impact of your what you bring to the table because you see these people every day.
SPEAKER_06:How old are you when you're learning all of this, Greg? Like, like because you're talking about starting radio at like 16 years old.
SPEAKER_03:I was like 19, 20. I got my first, I got my first full-time job. I dropped out of college. I got my first full-time job. I was like 20 at uh at uh 93 BLX in Mobile, Alabama. In Mobile, Alabama was like market size 88.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, BLX. Um so so how old are you when you like you started in Mississippi and you moved to Alabama? You have all this knowledge. And then was it 91? You end up in in Houston? 90.
SPEAKER_03:90. 1990, I went to Magic. So that's like, that was like the industry, like I had I had the I had the highest ratings in radio across the whole country at Mobile, Alabama. And um, that was when Tony Brown, who's our program director, went to Houston, they brought me with them. My name was Gregory KP. Monty Lane, rest in peace, was the guy who actually gave me the name Street. He wanted to call me MC Street, but I was like, Monty, I'm not a rapper, so I don't want to be an MC. So I just used Greg Street. My first contract still still says MC Street. Bombi probably remember those days.
SPEAKER_05:Hey, Greg. Greg, I want to ask you a question. Um how do you feel like, because you your your career has always been in the south, you know, whether it's you know, Texas or Mississippi or Alabama, how do you feel that kind of shaped your your your your your your vision of radio and stuff like that as opposed to somebody in the Midwest or the West Coast or Northeast? What do you think is the difference?
SPEAKER_03:Well, next time we talk about this, I'll pull some paperwork for you. Actually, if you know Mike Love, Mike Love tried to hire me at BLS. Really? Yeah, Mike Love wanted to hire me at WBLS in New York. Um But I was in Dallas at the time. And if you know anything about radio, um Hyman Childs, who owns K-104 in Dallas, was really the person who put black radio on the map when he gave Tom Jordan all that money. That was the first, that was the kickoff of it. And a lot of people don't know you gotta think before it was before the internet. When I went when I left Houston, my whole thing was I gotta, if I want to go to K-104 in Dallas, I gotta find out who Tom Jordan's agent is. Because when James Alexander went there, I sent him a FedEx package every day. He called me, finally called me back after I sent him like six or seven packages. Man, I already got my lineup, blah, blah, blah. So I watched the stage for like six, seven, eight months, and the numbers went in the toilet. So I found a guy named Saul Foos. He was Tom Jordan's agent, a lawyer from Chicago. I wrote him a letter, sent it to him. He hit me back and said, Well, I really don't, I don't, he didn't say, I really don't, he said, I don't represent night jocks because y'all don't make no money. He said, But it's something about you, I think I'll do this. He called Hyman Charles, I flew into Dallas. Um the the brothers, but Bombay's gonna go crazy over this. The brothers that own Starter, the company was based in Mobile, Alabama. Because when I left Houston, I went to Bector Mobile for a few months. The company that owned Starter was based right outside of Pensacola, Florida. So I I called K-104, talked to the lady at the front desk. She's still the front desk receptionist to this day. Wow. Her name is Tony. Her name is Tony. Like that, because that's the kind of loyalty Hyman has to his people that work for him. So I called a call the radio station said, listen, I'm a fan of the radio station. Can you send me a bumper sticker? So she sent me a bumper sticker. I went to the guy that started, got a starter sweatshirt, and had them put the K-104 logo on the sweatshirt. So when I flew to the interview, I get off the plane, I got the sweatshirt on. I'm like, hey, I'm ready to go to work, my boy. Wow.
SPEAKER_06:Greg, you are amazing. Very sharp man, bro. I'm like, hey, man, it all makes sense.
SPEAKER_03:What we doing, my boy. So I'm gonna tell you, so they gave me, they gave me, they gave me$50,000. They gave me$50,000 a year when I went to Houston. Which wasn't bad back then. No, sir. Right. When I was in mobile, I was getting a micro. Yeah. And when I was at mobile, I was in the 90s. When I was at mobile, I was getting 12. I did the midday mix on my equipment. I did the midday mix, the afternoon mix, and the mix on my show. And I did a four-hour mix on Saturday that they played, and I did 610, and I had a hot I had like 20-some and 30-some shares at night. 25, 54, 18, 34, and teens.
SPEAKER_05:So 12 grand a year.
SPEAKER_03:And you had to use your own equipment. So when I go to Houston, when I go to Houston, I got 19. I replaced Hurricane Dave. He was getting like 50.
SPEAKER_06:Hurricane Dave. They brought in better talent for the low. They said so much.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they got me for the low, but I didn't even look, I wasn't even tripping on the money. To me, a lot of people think I'm about money, but it's I'm not even really about money. Like when you look at a lot of stuff on my timeline, most of the stuff I'm out here doing, I'm not even getting paid for it. From clubs to appearances, to all like I did a deal with a Chevrolet dealership. And the guy who I did it for is a friend of mine that I like a lot. And for the first six months, I ain't make a dollar. And I took them to the number one SEA Black Widow Chevy dealership in the country. Well, nope, they got a dealership in Texas and one in Rhode Island, and I was beating their numbers by three times.
SPEAKER_06:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:For free. So it's not really about I knew going to Houston. I'm coming from, I'm coming from Mobile, Alabama, market 88. I'm going to market size seven. It might have been 12. I'm going to, I'm going major market. Like, like this is a blessing. I ain't tripping on the money because I know what I can do in the streets. So I was going to El Campo, Wharton, Texas City, Lamarque, all the way down to Freeport doing parties. I used to take yellow boys to Wharton and Hempstead and all these different places. I found A Town. I found H Town at Fondre Gates Grayscate in Missouri City. Signed them, got Luke to sign them. I changed their name to Ace Town. No money, no finders' fee, no never got a dime out to deal. It was just like, I know what I'm doing. I'm building, I'm building, I'm building, and it's not about the money. The money's gonna come. Because I'm making crazy money in the streets. That's where the street machine was born. I bought the first street machine, the Chevy Astro van, was bought from um Bill Heard Chevrolet in Missouri City in 1990. Because I didn't like going to the radio station to get a truck to go to my appearances because it was like it's too much time. So that was really the birth of the truck. But Jeff Slayer to tell you, like, they would all send me boxes of CDs and source. That's when Dave started source. He would send me boxes of source magazines. I would give them out in the community. I would send source magazines to guys in jail who would call into the radio station, all types of stuff like that. And then um then going on in Dallas, man, that was uh me and Breeding uh created. MC Breed actually first time being on the radio was in Houston on Magic 102. Darren Gates played me MC Bree, Ain't No Future in Front, at that restaurant over by Jamaica, Jamaica, by the freeway, right by 6700. I know exactly. What was that, Benegins or something? Bennegan's. Yep, we was at Benegan. He played that song. I was like, bro, this shit is out of here. When I put this shit on the radio, it's gonna be out of here. Because Leroy McMahon and Swamp Dog, Swamp Dog was from Ohio, Leo, Leroy was living in Atlanta. They didn't have a deal. Darren had the deal. And he was just my boy. I just I just played it. And the rest is history. But that's where it all started at Magic 102. If you see Al Breed, if you see DJ Flash, if you see any of those guys, you see Leroy, they'll tell you. And that right after that blew up, Leroy's wife, Georgette, brought me Spice One. And Spice One started. Spice One started. Yep. You remember Jeff? Chico, yeah. So you broke Spice One. Yep. He made me an intro to the single, and it was it. That was it. But people don't know Leroy, who had Bree and Georgette who had Spice was husband and wife.
SPEAKER_06:I didn't know that myself. Yep. So now you, so now you in Dallas, you know what I'm saying? You're getting more money. You're leveraging that into more exposure, more connection with the community, which is bringing you even more money on the side. What did Atlanta do to pull you away from Dallas?
SPEAKER_01:How'd you get away from Dallas?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, because you was the king. He was the king in Atlanta. He was the king. I'm in Texas. I'm in Houston. I'm touring regularly in Dallas. I'm listening to the radio. You know what I'm saying? 6 o'clock is not new. It just transfer. That's always been his thing. That's always been his thing. Kids calling in. That's always been his thing. How did Atlanta, because you had a good thing in Dallas. Great. How did Atlanta convince you to?
SPEAKER_03:After my first book in Dallas, they told my contract up and gave, after the 50,000, they told my contract and gave me a whole new deal. It was like Easy Street. I'm going to tell y'all this story. Easy Street was on 100.3. Mary Catherine Sneed told me it's out of her own mouth. She was a national PD for Mary Catherine.
SPEAKER_05:I remember her.
SPEAKER_03:She named him Easy Street, just in case I ever tried to go from Houston to Dallas. So when I got the job in Dallas in the meeting, James Alexander was like, well, what we gonna call you? We can't call you Greg Street because we got E Street called Street. I said, listen, show me the out-of-bounds lines. Tell me what I can and can't do. And just give me the ball and don't worry about it. And Easy Street had crazy numbers. Easy Street had double-digit numbers in teens, 1834. He had crazy numbers. I beat him in one book. They told a contract to say, hey, look, whatever you want, write it on this paper. You can be called any street you want to be called.
SPEAKER_05:How are you able to beat him in one book, Greg?
SPEAKER_03:In one book. In one book. I went to Dallas and it was I went to Dallas in the wintertime, like before Christmas. And after that, after that winter book, when we got time for spring book, I had already beat him. And I started with a I started with like a seven share. He had like a 20.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:He walked him down. Wow. But what? We went straight to the bomb factory. We went straight to the venue. I brought in like I used to bring Common for College Night, Scarface. I brought the um the whole cold chilling. Fly Type brought everybody down for me. Everybody. Cool down. There was an explosion of Deep Elm.
SPEAKER_06:The ball and Bomb Factory shows blew up Deep Elm, which is right now the heart and soul of culture in Dallas. The bomb factory was the main venue in the heart of it. And I did the first shows there for black people.
SPEAKER_03:They never had no black shows. But boy Jane was. I got a place we can do a college night. It's gonna be crazy. I started calling people. I brought, I brought, um, I brought, who I'm trying to remember who was, I bought MC8. I brought um I did Ice Cube, but Ice Cube did, I did him at the venue in North Dallas. Um Outcast was the big one. That's the big out, that's the big legendary show. I was playing Outcast in Dallas before they was playing Outcast in Atlanta. If you see that video that Big Gip be posting, like they be saying, when Greg Street played, he was the first DJ to play outcast, we all quit our jobs. I used to talk to Mom Benjamin, Dre's mama, rest in peace, my Sharon Benjamin, and um Mia Red and Ian Burke was actually managing Outcast at the time. I flew Outcast to Dallas out of my pocket on Mark Air. If you remember Mark Air, it was an airline that would that used to cut the, it was a cargo airline, but they started they started flying people. And but you would get on a plane, they'd be like, Oh, y'all over here, y'all got to get on this side. He strapped you in with the cargo. I flew out cash to Dallas on Mark Air.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Mark Air.
SPEAKER_03:I I picked him, I had a 93 Land Cruiser. The first year when the Land Cruiser came out with the bigger engine and the bigger tires. Yeah. I had the big face Pioneer Radio. And Dre fell in love with the Land Cruiser. When he when he got his money from Alcat, he's got his first money. Yo, I saw him with a green land cruiser in Atlanta.
SPEAKER_05:Yep, I saw him with that land cruiser. I saw you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so he still got here. You know, he just parked him in the backyard and go get something else. He still got his first car.
SPEAKER_01:You leave Dallas to go to Atlanta. You are the king of Dallas.
SPEAKER_03:It was like, I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna tell you another back up. Okay, when I went to Houston, I went with Tony Brown, who's a PD of Mobile. Tony only stayed in Houston for like six months because Monty Lane wanted Ron Atkins to be the PD. Ron Atkins. And the GM, the GM was David. He wanted um Tony Brown to be the PD. So they hired both of them. That's kind of bad to hear. They hired both of them to be like both PDs. And um, six months after we got there, Tony got the call that Mike Roberts wanted to step down from programming, because he was he was programming and doing the morning show. Mike wanted to step down from programming just to do the morning show, so they hired Tony. So Tony wanted to bring me to Atlanta then when he left Houston, but Mike Roberts wanted Ryan Cameron, and Tony wanted me. And they weren't paying no money at the time anyway, so Ryan got the job because Ryan was like interning at the station at the time.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. This all sounds like David Letterman, Jay Leno, uh Johnny Carson, shit. Yeah, exactly. Like who gets well I this guy wants it, but now he's not there. But we want you, because we don't want you to leave.
SPEAKER_03:So, so so so years go by. You gotta think back then in 90, in 91, V had no competition. So V was urban AC and everything. They weren't playing no rap music because Mike didn't really like rap music. So when hot when when Mary Catherine and Alfreds announced that they were bringing in a hot, that's when they called me. So they now got you got competition. Now you gotta you gotta have some money. So we we did the deal. Um and I left. Uh they didn't want me to leave. In fact, I never told nobody this. Hyman Charles told me two weeks before I left, he said, if you don't leave, if you don't leave, if you stay and don't leave, I'll give you a$150,000 bonus if 100.3 jam changes formats. He knew something that I didn't know. He was telling me something, but not without telling you it.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Because before I even got in my house, I was still standing in the hotel, 100.3 switch formats, like after about four or five weeks after I moved.
SPEAKER_06:He already knew about the market. He already knew. He was basically giving it. And everything, right? He could already tell that where the where the audience was going.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he was like, No, he just knew the market. He just knew what was going on in the marketplace. And yeah, exactly. Right, because fast forward and learning and getting all the information that I know now, I know these people be knowing things that be moving around and things that be going on with these major companies when they're gonna switch formats or when they're gonna shut this station down or this station for sale. But he told me if you, it was either 100 or 150,000. He said, if you don't leave and they switch formats, I'll give you a bonus, give you this bonus. And I'm I'm in the hotel room, right? I ain't even got my crib yet because I didn't never get an apartment, I bought a house. So I'm in the I'm in the hotel room, about to start crying, like, oh, I just missed out on this breed.
SPEAKER_07:Man, I just missed out on this breed.
SPEAKER_05:So what what was the I'm I mean, I was just what was the reception when you came to Atlanta? Like you, you, you know, new, new, new DJ and DJ.
SPEAKER_03:Bro, let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_05:I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna tell you something.
SPEAKER_03:See, I under I I understand this game. Like I told you, working with Pete Jarrett at K at um WHY, WHSY, Pete Jarrett, the legendary rock and roll DJ from Philly, he was doing nights at the at the rock and roll station right across the hall from me when I was doing on the AM station, doing Seven to Midnight on the Y A C station. So I'm learning so much about this game at an early age. So I'm just it's just processing and processing and processing and going fast. Like the whole idea for the van, that came from a guy at um at the station in Law, one of the DJs in Law had his own van. So that's why I got, you know, you just you just take different pieces and different things you see people doing that's work, that's working that you can have impact with. Like my street machine was the first like rap van and hip-hop. It just had my name on the side, but like that's where it all started. Like uh Steve Rifkin, we're talking about in Dallas. Steve Rifkin bought the whole Wu-Chan clan in Dallas. I had the whole Wu-Chang clan back when they was first coming out, when they was in the van traveling around, they had their own mic pack with mics in it, because you know you go to the club, they only have one mic. They had a mic pack, they would come in the club and plug up with all the mics and a rack mount. So all of them can have their microphones and have their sound right. So, like this, it it it's like God is so amazing if you really pay attention to like what be going on. Like, I was just telling Bomb B the other night at the listening part, like, bro, we are so blessed. Like It's crazy.
SPEAKER_06:It's crazy. The thing from where we started, you know what I'm saying, to where to getting known in such small spaces, and then figuring out what works in that small space, works in a medium space. Then you get in the medium space, you learn a little, uh learn a little bit more about the industry. You learn, you meet different people, you go from the medium space to the large space, you know what I'm saying? But you've earned these spots, you've earned these positions, and you're it's a calculated effort, right? Like you said, it was never about money, it was about figuring out exactly how to make yourself indispensable. Yep. You make yourself so important and so so critical to the bottom line, right? That becomes a whole thing.
SPEAKER_03:You have to learn how to increase your value.
SPEAKER_06:Greg has navigated that expertly.
SPEAKER_03:You have to you have to learn how to increase your value, you have to learn how to how to overdeliver. The key is understanding that everything is about one thing, people. Everything is about people. I don't care what you're doing, I don't care what you're selling, I don't care what kind of service you have, what kind of business you have, even in your personal life, everything is about how you treat people and how you navigate. And it's and and and you can't do it out of expectations. You gotta do it for real. Like, it can't be everything calculated. If I do this for Bum B, he's gonna give me a verse. If I do this for Jeff, he's gonna give me a deal at Job. Like, Jeff has been a rep forever.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:We we it's never been about no money at all. Never. Ever, never. And I man, mystical, too. I was the guy who told Job Records that Beware was not the song. Here I go was the record. The hit is on the B side. It's not Beware, it's Here I Go. If you remember this, Jeff, when y'all brought Mystical to Atlanta for Hot 107, was Hot 975 birthday badge, it was the first or second birthday badge, they booed Mystical off the stage. Um Steve Hegwood told Larry Cunn I would never play another hit song on my radio station. Wow. Wow, yeah. If I'm lying, I'm flying. And but you gotta think, what Steve wasn't thinking about, you got Mystical on a show with all these East Coast artists.
SPEAKER_05:That's true.
SPEAKER_03:So it's like it's not gonna work. You don't realize how big Mystical is in the Southwest. Mystical is huge. He's just not big in Atlanta because the the foundation of Atlanta before Dungeon Family and was boot, it was just booty shake music and um That's true. And you gotta think.
SPEAKER_06:And bass music, booty shaking and bass music.
SPEAKER_03:Eric Sherman and all those guys lived in Atlanta. Red man, those guys used to be there all the time. Yeah, it's a good thing. Atlanta was more on the east, the warehouse and the clubs in Atlanta was more on the East Coast vibe.
SPEAKER_05:Warehouse.
SPEAKER_03:But I know how the South works. So I knew what was gonna happen when I got here. I started going in the streets and bringing all those songs to the radio. Kilo, Raheem the Dream, Pastor Troy, all those records. Archie We Ready started bringing that stuff to the radio station. It's like, and just to make a difference, because when you look at all the other cities, when you look at Houston, Houston is big underground, but when you look at like Miami and Detroit and Chicago and all these other cities, they got Charlie Lowe's, they got Rocco's, they got Futures, they got franchise Boys, they got Travis Porters, they got all these types of artists too, but they don't get no exposure, so they don't never get to blow up. I knew what the city wanted, and I knew what the people wanted and. Tony and the programming department and the general manager, they trusted me to be able to do it and do it with integrity and not just be out here on the bullshit.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Well, see, the thing about you, Greg, is that that and we talked about it off off air, but like um you always been so tapped into the community, man. You said with the people thing, like with the high schools and all, even with with you brought up Travis Porter, who I who I brought over to drive, and I remember that whole circuit of those high school dances, those high school parties, and all those acts that came out of that, and it all came through you again because you're so tapped in to the community and the high schools and the football games and the basketball games. Like to me, that's one of your geniuses that you're always so tapped in to the whatever community that you're you're you're at. You you know everything from the you go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:But if but if you go back to the beginning of my career, that's how it all started. Like when I was in Mississippi, I wasn't just in Hattiesburg, I was in Laurel, I was in Brookhaven, I was in Waynesboro, I was in Gulfport Belux, I was in Wiggins, I was in um Lumberton, I was in Purvis, I was everywhere. I was in Jackson. I I DJed Kaziesco High School, high school prom back then. You you know how far Kaziesco is from Hattiesburg? Yeah. That's what that's where Oprah Winfrey's from. Oh the party was so lit. They tried to get me to come work at their radio station way back there. Like, bro, I'm not doing no Kaziesco. I don't care who from up here.
SPEAKER_06:That's funny. But this all lends itself to what we were talking about, Thomas, about the human aspiration of curation, like under having done so many parties, having DJ'd so on so many stations, having talked to on-air personalities and talked to PDs and talked to owners about these things that where they could trust that Greg understood the best connection. But now we live in a world where the human aspect of it is slowly being taken out of it. You know what I'm saying? And it's almost like because you guys are, as Thomas said, you guys are the original algorithm, right?
SPEAKER_03:You know, but you know what, but they can't take it from us. It it it appears that way to the dick riders, but to the real people, they can't take it from us because you that genuine connection is priceless. Like, I'm gonna give you another big example. My 30th anniversary here in Atlanta View on Three. I got a proclamation, my first one, I got proclamations from East Point, I got proclamations from um Union City, Greg Street Day in Union City, Greg Street Day in East Point, Greg Street Day in Stockbridge, Greg Street Day in the city of Stonecrest, like all the cities. So it's like Greg Street Day in the city of Atlanta, Greg Street there in Fulton County. So what people don't understand is if you out here doing that work, like you because you gotta think about this. The biggest and most influential people, most of them not even on Instagram. Think about that. If you prime example, I'm gonna give you a prime example. The guy Brett, who Rick Ross had to deal with Rick Ross and and and uh Jay-Z had to deal with had to deal with for the champagne. Go see how many followers Brett got. Brett is a billionaire.
SPEAKER_01:So do you think then that the power of kind of new music still is in your hands as a DJ and a radio programmer, or do you think it has shifted?
SPEAKER_03:No, no, that shifted to a certain extent, but now they're starting to realize that the real money for music is putting your music on the radio. Because the streaming money, the labels getting all the money on the back end. That's a good point. Yeah, you know, that's the right reason why the streaming numbers are so low for payout, because the the labels are getting a percentage of the market share that the artists don't even know nothing about.
SPEAKER_06:I try to tell people this. Greg, I swear to God, I've been trying to explain people that is this is why you have to own your music. This is why they want to buy everything, because the larger body of music that they own, the bigger share they get through all these streaming platforms. This is the artist. This is why artists don't get a lot of money because the majority of artists don't own their music. They don't own their own music. I tell people, if you own your music, them numbers are different.
SPEAKER_03:Those numbers are different if you own your music. But the bad part about it is if you own your music and that's the only music you own, that means you don't have a catalog. So you're not gonna have enough market share to really participate in that back-end money. Because whoever has the biggest market share gets the biggest percentage. So the deal is you gotta go into these labels and make a deal with them to make them understand like I can bring you this much market share. That's why Epic gave Rocco so much money for future, because future was one of the biggest streaming artists. We're gonna give you this 10, 15 million. We're gonna give you the bad. We're gonna give you a bad because they're gonna get it back.
SPEAKER_01:Easy. Wait a minute. So back to the radio station, though, part of that. So you're saying that like at the end of the day, music needs to be on the radio. Radio publishing pays way more than streaming.
SPEAKER_06:But how do you deal with that? This is very true.
SPEAKER_01:They're trying to convince us that radio isn't important. So that's what we're doing. No, no, no. I'm not trying to convince you. I'm saying, though, that most listeners, do you think that most listeners now, though, are streaming music rather than listening to it on the radio? Yeah, of course they are. But it doesn't matter. Hold on.
SPEAKER_03:We're about to show y'all some magic on the podcast live.
SPEAKER_06:He does all this stuff seamlessly. Like I used to go and hang out with him at the radio station. He'd just go back and forth. Conversation, and he'd be like, hold on, but he'd say his things and he'd run the commercials and do his live drop. And we'll go right back into it right back into the conversation.
SPEAKER_03:What's up, Brandy? What's up, Monica? Both from the South Side. It's about to be a movie tonight. Ray J may still be in town, too. I saw him fish with Boosie on Monday. So uh, let's get to it. It's time for Brad Street to Rock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 6 o'clock on a Friday. The weather is amazing. Nelly's birthday is tonight. Nelly, I'm turning up again tonight, Nelly.
SPEAKER_06:Nelly's birthday parties are legendary now. Because he does Halloween birthday parties.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, him and JD are like brothers, so I know they're jading on split off.
SPEAKER_06:It's crazy. They do it real big. They do it real. I don't normally go because I don't I don't want to commit on the level that they commit. Because if they look at these celebrity, like I look at Lenny at Lenny's party every year. Lenny at the party last night. Yeah, man.
SPEAKER_05:And they went costume couture, which is crazy. Yeah, they was on some flat shit. Yeah, man.
SPEAKER_01:People who are not watching this and listening, we just went from our show to Greg's show, and now we're back.
SPEAKER_06:So Greg is Greg is one of the hosts tonight for the Brandy and Monica Tour. They're stopping in Atlanta tonight. They're performing at performing at State Farm Arena. So Greg is actually live broadcasting his radio show tonight from State Farm Arena. So it's kind of a two-four. He gets to do his radio show and he's promoting the concert and he's giving Nelly shout outs on the radio. You check all the boxes, OG. You check all the boxes.
SPEAKER_03:And I'm going to Trap City.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, man. What do you find the time, Greg? Where do you find the time for all of this?
SPEAKER_03:Hey, man, I got the same 24 hours everybody else got, man.
SPEAKER_02:And we'll be right back.
SPEAKER_06:Welcome to Merrick Studios, where stories take the mic and culture comes alive.
SPEAKER_02:We're not just a network. We're a family. Bringing you smart, soulful, unjected conversations.
SPEAKER_05:And this season, we're bringing the heat with our biggest lineup yet. Whatever you're into, music, sports, business, we got you covered. Merrick Studios, where the conversation starts and keeps going.
SPEAKER_02:Check out our full lineup, including Unglossy with Bun B, Jeffrey Sledge, and myself, Tom Frank. Now streaming at WeRMerrickstudios.com.
SPEAKER_00:Master the art of lyricism with Pendulum Mink, the first school for rap. Learn elite techniques through immersive lessons, real world exercises, and guidance from hip hop icons. This is where MC sharpen their skills and glow boldly on the mic. Ready to level up? Visit pendulummink.com and start your journey today.
SPEAKER_02:And now, back to the show.
SPEAKER_05:Hey Greg, you still involved with, I know you just still got the car show. I know you were also heavily involved with Harley Davidson. You still working with them as well?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. I got a um, we're doing a grand opening for Lucky Peach, Harley Davidson, not the seventh, eighth, and ninth. I told him I'm gonna pop into the dealership because it's against the rules with Harley Davidson corporate, they can't do it. But I love the people there so much because they do so much for me. Like I got I got four bikes at the dealership sitting in the back. They don't charge me no storage fee. Wow. I got one car in store. That's$400 a month. So I told my man, I said, listen, on y'all grand opening, I'm gonna pop into the dealership. Somebody sitting at the table doing a deal, I'm gonna give them$1,000 on their down payment out of my pocket. Like, well, you know, Harley said we can't do that. This ain't got shit to do with Harley. I'm doing it. Just my appreciation of you guys for how y'all look out for me.
SPEAKER_05:Like that little story right there you just told is exactly what I'm talking about. Man, you just know how to you know to touch the people and be part of the community. Like somebody, some whoever wins that$1,000 is never gonna forget that. Never gonna forget him.
SPEAKER_06:Never gonna drag and those will be the people that'll be ready to fight somebody when they hear somebody saying something bad about you. Nah, it's yeah, you better not.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna tell y'all how serious this is. This is this is a classic Dallas story. Because y'all see me post this picture every now and then with me and Michael Jordan. If you pay close attention to that picture, if you really look close at that picture and Bum B, because I took UGK in the same spot. That's the Lexington on Turtle Creek. Alvin and Jane, Alvin Scott, and Jane Price Club.
SPEAKER_07:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_03:I had Sunday nights at the Lexington. So I had the door every Sunday. So I was the promoter, the DJ, the MC. I opened and closed. Brought the records in, started at 9 o'clock. Because you know, the beautiful thing about Dallas that I love, the club closed at 2. So we don't even need no opening DJ. I go in and DJ the whole night. So I think the Mavericks is playing the Chicago Bulls on that Monday. So I get a call on that Sunday. Hey man, um we heard you got the biggest night in the in the city when it comes to the clubs. Uh Jordan wants to come through. Michael Jordan comes to the club. If you look close at that picture, he's in the DJ booth. You can see the turn tape. He's in the booth with me. I'm DJing. I just trying to turn my back, but I'm DJing and hosting the party.
SPEAKER_06:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Michael Jordan in the club.
SPEAKER_06:Did you have Jordan's on?
SPEAKER_03:Of course. Yo, wait, wait, let's get out of here my Jordan day started in Mobile. People be talking about Michael Jordan, this and Michael Jordan that and his stats and how great of a player he was, and we're not taking none of that from him. But I'm gonna tell y'all the gospel truth about them Air Jordans. Okay, Eric Wright, Easy Easy E is the guy who put them Jordans on the map. He put them Jordan threes on that Easy E radio cover, and they went crazy. When the people saw that jump man on that tongue, on that radio cover, and he had the little suit on too. Boy, I might wear my suit. I still got my suit. I might wear it tonight to uh to Nelly War.
SPEAKER_05:Wait, so let's let's get into that. I guess people know about your love of sneakers or sneaker culture. Everybody knows that. Let's talk about let's talk about that, how that started, and we'll tell us about that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we started we started right at Snickers. If you remember, if you remember the first sneaker craze was Dr. J.
SPEAKER_06:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Dr. J don't get his props. For for he like and and the crazy part about Dr. J was if you remember back in the day, the Converse, those shoes weren't sold in the mall. You had to go to the sporting goods stores to get those shoes. Even the regular Chuck Taylors, the clothes, you had to go to the sporting goods store to get those shoes. They weren't in the mall. In the mall, Tom McGain had the NBAs that would look just like the All-Stars with all the colors going around the little round table. I don't know why nobody brought them MBAs back, but Dr. J was the man. But fast forward in the 80s when me and Skip cheated when we was in Mobile, Skip liked the flights. He loved the flight shoes.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:I always liked the Jordans. So when them threes came out from the threes, fours, fives, sixes, every week. Dale, the white boy Dale, who was crazy big at Foot Locker, he was the manager of Foot Locker in Springdale Mall in Mobile, Alabama.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:When I moved to Atlanta, he was the Foot Locker, he was the manager at Foot Locker in South Decal Mall. South Decal Mall was the biggest producing Foot Locker in the country. Really? South to Care Mall Footlocker, my boy Dell was the manager at the Foot Locker in South the Cat Mall. And that was the biggest revenue grossing, the biggest grossing revenue store in the whole Foot Locker chain in the country.
SPEAKER_05:I did not know that.
SPEAKER_03:D boys in Atlanta was so serious about it, they would go to Foot Locker and buy a case of F4s one. Let me get a case for my daughter. Let me get a case for East. A case. White? A case. The white T's, a case. Let me get they were selling that shit out of cases. Wow. Two or three pairs. The cases.
SPEAKER_05:Wow. So to this day, what's your favorite Jordan? The threes, the fours, the fives?
SPEAKER_03:Threes?
SPEAKER_05:Threes, yeah. Threes is gonna threes is unbeatable. The black threes. Yeah. The white threes cool too, but the black is. Not the black. The black black cement joint.
SPEAKER_03:The black threes are the goats. The black cement threes are the goats.
SPEAKER_05:You still collect a lot now?
SPEAKER_03:The four uh, yeah. I just um I just bought that um the 30th anniversary. Um I posted the one pair that they gave me, but I just found somebody who had the whole pack that would sell it. So I just bought the um the rebox 30th anniversary playstation pack. Ah. And he got all three of the shoes in one box. It looked like a PlayStation box.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So how many pairs of shoes do you have in your collection?
SPEAKER_03:Probably about 17, 1800. And uh I have a dude that sold me some shoes, uh, showed me his a few shoes out of his collection, and he insisted that I bought those, and I never really liked Bordo's, but I knew they were one of Bon B's favorite shoes, and we were the same size. So at his in-store, I gave them to him. Dead stock original with the original box. The first Bardo.
SPEAKER_05:Greg, let me ask a question. So, where do you think Atlanta's going now musically?
SPEAKER_03:I mean, Atlanta's always gonna be boom, boom, boom, and music. Yeah, yeah. What people don't understand about there's no really no Atlanta sound. People try to say it is, but when you really think about it, when you sit back and listen, it's not a Atlanta sound. You know what I'm saying? Lotto don't sound like Pluto, uh Pluto, Lotto don't sound like YK Neys, uh, uh, or Brie or Naya, and um Future don't sound like uh J.I.D. I'll tell about the original Bardo story, Bumbi. When you came to Atlanta, I got Bardos out of this collection. I knew Bun were the same size, and I knew Bardo's was his favorite Jordans. They were the OG original ones.
SPEAKER_06:The original Bordos.
SPEAKER_03:That was nobody else.
SPEAKER_06:Every time they retro, something's a little off. You know what I'm saying? Let me tell you, let me tell you my my crazy Greg Street story. Greg was like, hey man, send me your address. I want to send you something. Right? The man sent me UGK promo shirts that were at least 20 years old at the time. Not one, two. Two promo shirts that I don't know if I ever even fucking used.
SPEAKER_07:Rad dirty.
SPEAKER_06:Brand new, brand new crisp, rammed in plastic. Rad dirty dirty from jobs from Job Records.
SPEAKER_05:I don't have none of that stuff, man.
SPEAKER_06:See, here's the thing that people don't know. I've had the pleasure to actually be invited to Greg's house. Greg doesn't keep a lot of company at his house. I was invited over to Greg's house. Greg is not just a great sneaker collector, he's a great collector. He got all of it. He has all of the 90s radio promo when everybody was sending out something with an artist to get those things spun, whether it was a little doll or some lighters or whatever it was, a magic book, whatever it was. Greg kept them all. Most of them.
SPEAKER_03:One thing I hate I lost that I had, and I know exactly when I lost it when I moved from Houston, when I moved from Mobile to Houston. I had the jazz bike hat from when him and Jay-Z did Hawaiian Sophie. That was a psycho hat that they had.
SPEAKER_06:It was like flip that flip up, right?
SPEAKER_03:I had one and I lost it.
SPEAKER_06:Damn.
SPEAKER_03:You lost it? But I still got the masterpiece cassette with the phone message on it. Um the Biz Marquis toilet stool. I remember that. The um the Halle Hansen raincoat from Live Records, the original Wu-Tang Dunks, the Def Jam uh S-Doc Carters. Um I'm about to put I'm about to do a book. All the No Limit t-shirts. Every project that Master P put out, he had a t-shirt. He would send me a box of the shirts. Every project. Snoop Dogg, Mean Green, Young Bleed, Silk the Shaka, Sea Murder, Mia and Young Bleed, too. Every record had a promo t-shirt. And he would send me a whole box of them.
SPEAKER_06:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Master P dolls, all that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I remember them dolls of the I remember making them say undolls. I remember the whole thing.
SPEAKER_03:I posted mine yesterday for Throwback Thursday. Mine still talked. I got two, but one of them still talked.
SPEAKER_06:Wow. Greg, in this space, in this space, in this radio space, you seem almost singular. Is there anybody that you've met in radio that thought progressively like you did? That you understood it was about the community and the youth and not about building, you know, making sure you was cool with this rapper or that singer. Is there anybody that moves relatively similar to how you move in this game?
SPEAKER_03:Probably Bebe. Who else? There's some guys like this locally in their communities. Um, Brian Dawson was up in Roddish, North Carolina. He got off the radio. He had some health issues and he just decided to get off the radio. But um, there are a few, there are a few of us out here, maybe not as intense as I am, because I don't have them other bad habits.
SPEAKER_06:Right.
SPEAKER_03:I'm the guy who never says no. I'm gonna figure out a way to make it work. If you need me to do something for you, like guy hit me today from the real estate company, they going up they doing a uh a trick-or-treat today. And I just have one of my homegirls that do primary because she had me go to his something they had at the shop one day at the real estate office. I just went by there just to because she asked me to go. I went by there and me and the guy just started kicking it.
SPEAKER_06:Wow. I think Bebe is a great example though of somebody that built themselves up directly through the community. You know what I'm saying? Came from a small basically replaced you and that. I ain't gonna say replaced, but filled the void that you left. But build it with a similar mentality.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:He went there to do weekends first, and then it it elevated him getting the afternoon show.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:But I could see Bebe is taking a lot of um inspiration from you. Absolutely. I could see, I mean, he's his own man. He doesn't he's great, but I can see like he's taking a lot of lessons from watching you do your thing.
SPEAKER_06:I can see that. Bebe's his own person, he's got he's a personality for sure. He's a great personality, but he's it's been very strategic. You know what I'm saying? That makes sense. That would make a lot of sense watching you. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05:So what's next, Greg? What's next for you?
SPEAKER_03:Hey, Brandon Monica's breast cancer awareness. I'm doing a free breast cancer checks. I got a few more hours. You know what I'm saying? This year we call it Plan Chess. You know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_05:Yes. I like that.
SPEAKER_03:After the day I'm going on vacation for a week, I had a vacation this year. I'm gonna take a week off. I get another week in December, maybe another two weeks in December, but I still got four weeks. So uh hold on one second.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. One more drop. Because he's always while he's talking to us, he's aware of what he's got to do there. Yep. But even while he's doing what he's doing there, there's an awareness. Exactly. There's a whole other show going on. Yeah, it's not like we're frozen out.
SPEAKER_05:We like watching a show.
SPEAKER_03:335. 340 is your next chance to get that 103 hours in gas or groceries and qualify for the$5,000 on your gas or groceries. The grand prize winners this Monday.
SPEAKER_06:I could use$5,000 a grand in gas and groceries for this holiday for sure.
SPEAKER_03:We don't know what's going on with it. I'm gonna give you my just my whole little overview with the whole food stamp issue. I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen with this food stamp.
SPEAKER_05:It's incredible that he can he does this with no script.
SPEAKER_03:What's gonna happen with these food stamps is a lot of people are gonna finally realize that a lot of the stuff that they're eating, they don't need to be eating anyway. They don't need to be eating anyway. All that red meat, all that extra stuff, all that sugar. I'll give me a can of black beans, some, some, some Danes killer bread.
SPEAKER_06:I'm saying he's clean. That's why I say he's got he's been able to maneuver a lot further in this culture than most people, because he's a super clean guy. Yeah. So he remembers that he's one of those guys that remembers everybody, mad, remembers names, all of that type of stuff. And that's stuff, that stuff gets you very far. It definitely does. Like he's built a he's built a skill set that that primarily worked for what he's doing as a living. But it the way he moves and operates and thinks, I think a lot of people could learn a lot from Greg Speed. I don't think people give I don't think people give someone that works in radio the idea of being as smart and and and and culturally conscious at the same time. You know what I'm saying? And to know his value and to be in that room of all these popular people who everybody wants to be in favor with, who everybody wants to be connected to, right? And it's just like, yeah, but I need to stay focused on this. But then because he stays focused on the community, the artist that everyone wants to be cool with, they reach out to Greg because you know Greg is touching the people.
SPEAKER_01:So the money comes back anyway.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's the whole thing. There's not a lot of Greg streets though anymore.
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_01:You think that less and less? And again, this gets us back to the original thought here is it's just different. The radio business is very different today. He somehow has still made it work and has has come up in it, and has I just don't know if there are other people like Greg Street anymore, or not as many of them.
SPEAKER_06:I don't even know if I don't know if the rate the way radio operates today lends itself to the creation of another Greg Street. I'd love to hear that. Greg, I'm right back on time. The the climate in radio and the way that radio is structured right now, does it allow an entry space for the next Greg Streets to come in and operate? Like, is there room for a young DJ that thinks like you to be successful in that climate right now? In radio. Where it's all built around playlists and all that type of stuff. Because you still seem to operate and and and you know, excel and exceed in the space in spite of it, right?
SPEAKER_03:Well, what it is, what you have to understand is less is more so the least amount of freedom that you have, and nobody else has any freedom, it increases your value even more. Because, first of all, for me, I'm never playing a record because somebody wants me to play the record. I'm gonna play the record because I know the people want to hear the record. Because what people don't understand is one DJ can't really play a record enough times to break a record. You know what I'm saying? If if we if the DJs were really breaking records the way people use that phrase, we'd be quadruple millionaires. If I if you could just bring me a record and I could break your record, what is that actually worth? But people, the the mind, our mindset is so caught up, it's like if you if you took a gallon of gas and poured it on something and you ain't got no fire to put on it, it ain't gonna spark. So you gotta put the gas on something that has something going on with it that's gonna explode. It's not just the DJ. So I can go find a record from TikTok. My intro to my show at three o'clock now is the miles yachts when I walk through Greg Street. When I walk, that was the biggest song on TikTok two years ago. I knew it. I hit him up. Hey man, call me up. Come to find out. He was right in Atlanta. Like, look, this is what I want to do. Beat me at Stank on here. We're gonna we're gonna put it together. Put it together, boom. No other radio station in the country playing the song. But if he would have had a label to get behind this record and put this record out, if you go on insta, if you go on on TikTok or Instagram right now and put in walkthrough and look at how many streams, how much money he'd have made off that record. But if that record would have gone to radio and went top ten, it'd be like, you're saying. It never did. Because most of these young guys are caught up into this whole Jay-Z mentality that they done put out here, that I want to own my masters, I want to own all my publishers. It ain't worth shit if you ain't got the money to invest in.
SPEAKER_05:You own 100% of nothing.
SPEAKER_03:You got 100% of nothing. But if I say, hey, Barry Wise, hey, Jimmy Iveen, hey, LA Reed, hey, whoever, Mike Karen, whoever, hey, I got this record, my shit jumping. I understand the game on how the streaming works and how the radio works. Let's do a deal. I'll give you a percentage of the publishing, I'll give you a percentage of the ownership of the master. So you can eat and I can eat because you're gonna spend the bag on the record. I don't have the bag. But we think it's a trick. So what's going on now is labels are signing some of these streaming records, but they're not investing no money in it. They're just making their little money that they're gonna make from the streams.
SPEAKER_05:Keep it in the movie.
SPEAKER_03:Because they know these people, they mind ain't right. They know they don't understand the business. You wanna beat the music business, but you don't understand the business. You gotta understand this game to the fullest if you're gonna be able to maximize it. Like, I learned this whole game about radio. You know, cost per point, shares, how how Q works, how time spent listening works. You have to learn everything it is that you do about your business to really maximize the business. Because the people that you're dealing with on the other side of the table, they know the business. They know it. But if they know you're an idiot, they're not gonna even try to present it to you because you think they're trying to get over on you. They're not trying to get over on you, they're trying to do a fair deal. If you go to any major label, all these people in this building, where you think their money comes from? You think this is a nonprofit organization? It's two, three hundred people working in here. You know what I'm saying? You can't hear me?
SPEAKER_01:Bun, we can't hear you, Bun.
SPEAKER_06:We can't hear you, Bon. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I was saying it it only takes about five questions to figure out you don't know nothing. No. Exactly. Right. So and answers to those five questions determine everything you get out of that situation from that point on. They already know that, okay, he don't know nothing. He don't know.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna give you a gem that you probably never heard. Me and DJ Clark can't rest in peace, my brother. We used to talk about this all the time. Less than four percent of artists that are signed to major labels before social media. Less than four percent of the artist, Jeff, you probably never thought about this and you was at job. You saw it. Less than four percent of the artists that y'all signed made it. They got a check, they got a budget, they made some records, they got drugs.
SPEAKER_06:They made a little bread. They got a little bread. I won't say made, they got a little bread.
SPEAKER_03:They got a little bread, but all them other artists that's making the money, Tribe Call Quest and Too Short and Sierra and all them, they paying. That's why they're gonna be. They're paying for everything for everything. They paying for it's a portfolio. This stock gonna hit, this stock gonna hit, this stock gonna hit, this stock gonna fail. These other 80% of the stocks are gonna fail. So I gotta make all my money. Everybody working in this building getting paid off the ones that's winning. Off that 4%.
SPEAKER_05:Calculated losses. That's real, though.
SPEAKER_03:Most people don't understand the game. That's and and they don't try to explain it to them because they're not gonna really, they're not not gonna really understand. That's why they came up with the point system. They don't come in and tell you, wait, we're gonna we're gonna give you a 10-point deal. We're gonna give you, they don't come and say we're gonna give you 10%. That's really what it is. The point system makes it sound better to an idiot. I got what I got 12 points. But they don't know. If you get 20, if you just say if you get 20 points on the deal, right? If you get 20 points on the deal, you really 50-50 partner if they're paying the bills.
SPEAKER_05:That's real.
SPEAKER_03:I tell I I I I was talking to Fly from TIG the other day. I told Rocco and a bunch of other independent label artists guys this listen, bro, when you sign an artist and you're making all that bread after the first couple projects, give them half of that shit back and extend your contract. Because once they get some money, they're gonna try you. Because in their mind now, I did this on my own. Yeah, they're gonna try you. I witnessed it firsthand when I watched the shit go down between Leroy, Swamp Dog, John Abbey, and MC Breed. John Abbey basically took MC Breed from them because they was fighting. Y'all fighting, all this money can be made, but while y'all fighting at the label itch, we don't have time for this. So they just start dealing directly with Breed.
SPEAKER_05:Directly.
SPEAKER_03:But if you say, look, okay, Bree, this is what we're gonna do. Just say we got 40%. We're gonna give you 20% back and get your mama 10, your baby mama 10. Whoever you want the manager 10. We gonna get now. All I gotta do is just walk to the mailbox and my furry house shoes and get my check. Cause now you you you done met Jazzy Faye, you done met DOC, you done met Tupac, you're doing all the work now. I don't have to do no work.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Just say, just send me my cut. You set him up. You set him up. Yeah, now you good. Putting them in power, putting them in position.
SPEAKER_03:We we so greedy and we don't understand that uh a small percentage of something big is bigger than a uh a big percentage of something small.
SPEAKER_05:That's real, that's real, Greg. Me and Tom actually have that had that conversation earlier to say. Yeah we're like you and you're 100% correct. So you it'd rather be a uh an okay fish in a big pond and make some money, we want to be a big fish or a small pond and you ain't really nothing there for you to eat.
SPEAKER_01:Because in in a lot of ways, you're validating exactly what we're doing with podcasting. Because it's it's not that far off from the music industry. It's not. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You're making percentage of the money from your streams.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And if you're smart, you get your podcast popped, you know what your people want. You sell the product. We got cock cups, we got, we got whatever you like. We got Stanley Cups, we got t-shirts, we got hoodies, whatever it is you like, you know, from from our popular for what we're doing, because we so tied into the culture of what we like to do. Okay, Supreme Bombi, let's do a collab with the podcast.
SPEAKER_07:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, undefeated, okay, whoever, let's do it. Like, it's the shit is so easy. Like, we make it hard.
SPEAKER_05:I might eat to get you on a network with a podcast, Greg. You gotta write a book or something, Greg. You got a lot of information.
SPEAKER_03:You said you were in the midst of writing a book, right? Yeah, I I I actually did a kid's book some years ago. I didn't put it out there. I did a kid's book like in 2000 and 20 in 2005. I met this homeless guy, Brother Hashin. Brother Hasheen introduced me to this homeless guy, bud, in the West End. That was an artist named Carter, an artist named Carter J. Dude was crazy. So I I said, you know what? I'm gonna make a kid's book. So he did all the illustrations. And he took them to the library and had them digitized. And um and that's the book. He um I paid him, got him a cell phone because he had no cell phone so we could communicate. And um I created this book. But my I I I it got kind of discouraging because somebody tried to do some slick. I ain't gonna really talk about it, but somebody tried to do something slick. And um I never did put it out. But I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and put it out pretty soon. Good. Um see if I can find this shit. That's actually the book. I got them printed. It's ready to go. I got them printed and everything.
SPEAKER_05:It's ready to go. You got the book.
SPEAKER_03:You just never put it out yet. The whole idea was to get like with Walmart or somebody and have a section. So it'd be like Lil Bun, I love to read, Jeff Sledge I love to read, Thomas Frank, I love to read. So when you walk into the section, you got Barack Obama, Monica, Brandy, T.I. Jeezy, whoever, and you can get their books. And I'll pull up a page so you can see the illustration. Hold on, hold on one second.
SPEAKER_05:Wow. That's such a good idea. The dude's full is full of good ideas. That's such a good ass idea. Because you can say you walk in and say, oh, this is the books that Michelle Obama loves to read, or whoever, or whoever, you know what I'm saying? There's power in that.
SPEAKER_06:For people that do, that are interested in reading. And they can read the books that the people they look up to, you know what I'm saying, read while they were young or whatever. I read a lot of people who study it like that.
SPEAKER_05:His uh book list every year. It's power in that. Like people say, Well, you well, you've been reading and you know, you get to look and see, pick. Yeah, that's a really that's actually a really good idea.
SPEAKER_06:I think everything he's been saying on this podcast, to be fair, has been a really good idea.
SPEAKER_01:We need to get into Atlanta to end this thing, though. Like I'm I am curious because people say, and I I'm curious about what you guys have to think about this too. Atlanta has become the capital of hip-hop. When did that happen? How did that happen? Was he a part of that happening? Was he there before or after that happened?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, definitely, definitely. You definitely part of it from from from scratch. So, Greg, we were just saying, so uh to wrap it up, let's talk a little bit about a little bit about Atlanta, how Atlanta has become such the um the hub for for hip hip hop. You know, yeah, you know, obviously you got the West Coast, you got New York, but like Atlanta's really been on fire. And and and talk about how that happened, because I know you were intric intricately involved in in making that happen.
SPEAKER_03:Man, Atlanta is a special place. Um it's a special, special place. And we look at it for hip hop, but you we we we forgot we forget about Millie Jackson and and and um people like Curtis Mayfield, James Brown from right down the street in in Augusta. Um so many people here from music, Bo Hannon, the legendary Bo Hannon that lived here in Atlanta is from Atlanta. So like it's so much that's a part of the foundation, but for most of us in hip hop, we don't know the we don't know the history. We we we we can't go, we can't go. You got kids right now who don't know who Alcaz is.
SPEAKER_05:That's real. That's true.
SPEAKER_03:You got you got kids right now who will tell you, um I like JID better than Jay Z. I don't even know Jay-Z. Like that. Yeah. You got kids who will tell no, they ain't gonna sit like that. Don't know him, don't know who you're talking about. So it's like we don't really know the history of the city. Like this city, the fabric of this city is so crazy. It's like Houston. When you look at Houston, people might look at Houston as it is not growing, but when you look at the new underground artists in Houston that's going crazy, it's still the same blueprint. It's just in this day and time. You know what I'm saying? It's in it's in the streaming world, it's in the social media content, it's it's in that space. So and rap has diversified so much that we don't pay attention. Like little girl Bonabee from Atlanta from from Thomasville, she's huge. Huge, super big. She can say she's doing a show tomorrow and it's gonna be sold out. It's four o'clock on Friday. She can say, I'm doing a show tomorrow, center stage, it's gonna be sold out completely.
SPEAKER_05:Now, why do you think Atlanta has that type of power to grow artists like this?
SPEAKER_03:And how did Atlanta get that power? It's a lot of cities like that. New Orleans like that, Memphis is like that, Houston is like that. Dallas was on track, and now it's getting back on track, but it's a lot of cities like LA is like that. You don't think Kendrick, uh even one of the underground artists from LA can say, hey, look, I'm doing a show tomorrow, 5,000 people, they're gonna show up. I think what it is is we like to argue and debate so much we don't pay attention to the facts. Because the the gem in this whole thing that people don't understand is perception is reality. I don't care how stupid you are, perception is your reality.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:What you think, it ain't about right and wrong, it's what you think and how you think. Because most of us can't be told shit. Especially the ones who on some of these platforms talking who don't know what they're talking about, and they just talking because they got a lot of followers and a lot of people listening to them, but most of them don't know what they're talking about. And it's sad, but for Atlanta, you'd have to really live here to understand, like in one day, in one day, I can go from a listening party with Bum B and Corey Mo around the corner, less than five minutes away, and go in the studio with Mike Will, in less than three minutes away, go in the studio with Big Boy, in less than 30 seconds away, go in the studio with TI. You know what I'm saying? And on and on and on, every day. This stuff going on every day. Every day. So Atlanta, as far as the music is concerned, it's it's it's never gonna fall off. Like people don't even know. What's the kid's name from uh I just talked to um damn what's his name? He was the I did the thing with Dwight Howard at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. I didn't even know the dude. He graduated like 2009. He wrote four or five of Beyoncé's biggest songs. He signed The Rock Nation. What's his name? Damn, it's on the tip of my tongue. He wrote Folded for Kalani. Like, you got people like people, like most people watching your podcast don't know this. Kane Brown is signed to Polo the Dunn. Yes. Polo put him out independent. He was gonna take him somewhere else, but he couldn't take him because he already had a first right deal with LA Reed at Epic. Kane Brown is signed to Polo the Dunn. I had no idea. Blanco Brown with the biggest line, biggest country and western line dance, not no boots on the ground, country and western, the get up. It's from Bankhead Courts.
SPEAKER_06:Wow. Well, I mean, even with back in the day, with what you call it, uh, cool ace writing a song, Grammy nominated song for Curtis Maysfield.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:That's what I'm saying. There's a lot of there's a lot of places. Because Cool Ace and Carlos Glover was real tight. Carlos Glover was Curtis Mayfield's right-hand man. Carlos Glover was Carlos Carlos Glover is the same guy that signed Lil John to Itchy Bond. If it wasn't for Too Short, Lil John would have still been stuck in the deal. Too short bought him out of the deal. Jeff Sledge. Too short took Lil John to Jive and Jive said they didn't get it. Yeah, and we passed. They passed on it.
SPEAKER_05:Short brought Lil John to Jive and said, I want him to produce my whole album. And we we said no. Jive said no? He said no. Because John John was new. We didn't know. Short knew.
SPEAKER_03:No, Short, Short wanted to. If you go back and they did a compilation, there couldn't be a better player song on it. Yep. That was supposed to be the catalyst to make it to make Jive want to do the deal. Carlos owned Lil John's name and everything. When he put out the Who You Wit Get Crunk and I Like Them Girls. In hopes of taking him to Jive.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Jive said no. But what happened in the midst of that was blow the whistle. Yeah. Which is probably after being in music 20 years, Lil John gives you your biggest record. So God don't make no mistakes.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And see, we said no, and then and then I think first record they did was uh dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dungeon. That yeah, yeah, we did then and then it kept going and they said they then they got to blow the whistle, and that record still plays today like it's that record is it that record that record feels today like it felt then.
SPEAKER_06:Exactly. And if it if it played in the club tonight, it'll turn up. Well, if you play that at Sandy and Monica, it's gonna turn up. Over.
SPEAKER_05:I just made a bun and that's just players' anthem, same thing. That's gonna go crazy too.
SPEAKER_06:This is fair. That's that's fair. I remember when we made that record, I remember Everlast called me. Everlast is a good friend of mine. Everlast was like, you know, you got another one now, because he's like, Big Pimper's gonna play forever. Like, there's no way around it. That record's gonna play forever. But that's not your record, but it's you if you're on it. But now you got one. Because jump around is gonna play forever. We'll all be gone. We'll all be gone to jump around and still be playing at football and basketball games and shit. Yes, it will. Great, man. We don't want to keep you too long. We know your your uh presence is needed. You'd have been sharing the screen here. You've been, you know, uh promoting this show on the air there and getting ready to talk to an arena full of people and guide them through this amazing concert. But we we are so glad and thankful that you took the time out of your literally watching and listening to your busy schedule. Give us some some real wisdom, bro. Some real wisdom.
SPEAKER_03:If they call me and say Bombay needs your left arm, but you still gonna live. You're gonna be all right. Cut it off.
SPEAKER_06:So far, so good. So so you're good for a while.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, we'll end it like this technology might have changed how we find music, but you will never be able to replace people like Greg who make it matter. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_07:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:The whole technology space, you gotta understand everything that we do is about people. It all goes back to people. Technology is just only a tool. You just gotta know how to use it. Technology is not gonna do the work for you.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You're right. That's a great point. You gotta do the work. You gotta understand how to use technology to benefit you and your and and what you what your goal is. How can I use this? How can I use this to make my situation better? Because I'm still tripping on these cars driving around by themselves.
SPEAKER_05:Like I'm scared of them. I'm scaring them way most, Greg. I'm scared of Wayne.
SPEAKER_03:I drive up beside. I'm gonna I'm gonna post a video today too. The other night when I left the one music fest going to Lula's birthday, I'm coming down 14th Street by Patchwork Bond. And that little that little uh block where that little look like a lighting supply company is by the by the um by the church.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:On that whole block was them little them little carts that feed that they put the food in to deliver.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, to take it.
SPEAKER_03:It was about all.
SPEAKER_06:I watched it the whole week in Atlanta. I watched them little thing, I mean a bunch of them. Yeah. Everywhere. I seen one had Uber on it, one had uh DoorDash or something on it. It was crazy.
SPEAKER_03:I got them on, I got a video of it from last Saturday. I'm like, like this, this is this is nuts. But it's like, you got to understand, like, that's the whole, that's the whole new wave of what's going on in our country. Like when we went from civil rights and back in the 1600s, Bacon's Rebellion to slavery to civil rights to um schools getting integrated, and all it's just it's the new, it's the new wave, you know, the stock market and all this stuff. It's just it's this is the new whole transition, everything that's going on. This this is that book, bud. Your boy did all these illustrations. And I I actually have the original pictures. Wow. Wow.
SPEAKER_05:You gotta use some with that, man. You gotta use some with that. That's incredible. Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I hope we'll get a chance to do this again. Y'all let me know. Yes. Queen, I see you in the background, Queen. What's up, girl? Queen, Queen, I need Queen. I need them them Trailburger hats.
SPEAKER_06:That's funny. That's funny. She said she got you, but she don't work at Trailburgers. That's a fair end.
SPEAKER_03:She's the CFO of Freeman Incorporated.
SPEAKER_05:Well, you better know it.
SPEAKER_03:All things Freeman.
SPEAKER_05:That's dope, man. Thank you, Greg. Really appreciate it, man. Really do, man.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, all our listeners. We got we got to learn a lesson from him. Thank you, the listeners. Be involved. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Mama B, L O G, November 7th, the new album on the way. Way too true. Corey Mo. Y'all scream that thing and turn it up. Mumbo.
SPEAKER_06:Promoting my album more than me on my podcast. I love it. I love it. That's the beauty of Greg Street. That is the beauty.
SPEAKER_01:Until next week, leave us a comment on Instagram at Unglossy Pod or YouTube at Merrick Studios. Tell your friends about the show. I'm Tom Frank.
SPEAKER_05:I'm Jeffrey Split, and I'm Bundy.
SPEAKER_02:Unglossy is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
Mixed and Mastered
Merrick Studios
Our Love, Hate Relationship with Comic Culture
Pete Rock, Mickey Factz, Tat Wza
Pitch Lab
Thomas Frank, Classic