Rebel Radio

Soren Baker is a good listener. We get him talking about what he's learned in thousands of interviews for outlets including The Source, Hip Hop DX, the LA Times, in addition to his own Unique Access Entertainment channel. Not to mention the books he's written with and about Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Tech N9ne, The Game, and his latest — The Gucci Mane Guide to Greatness. As you'd expect, Soren learned a...

Kash Johns is a powerhouse of positive energy. It's no wonder his Atlanta-based company — Winners Circle Publishing & Management — is turning into a real hit factory, with 3 Grammy awards and over 30 #1 hits so far. Kash is guiding the careers of 24 producers including cats like Smash David, Go Grizz, Turn Me Up Josh, London Jae, Poohbeats, DJ Shawdy P. They're turning out hits for artists like Ke...

TheDrop.com is a streetwear and sneaker marketplace featuring hundreds of brands. You can imagine how quickly the business must be growing this year. Matt Falcinelli is the founder and CEO after learning the ins and outs of ecommerce at Backcountry and Skullcandy. He's putting what he learned towards bulding a company that changes the game for brands and shoppers. We dig into why storytelling is s...

Stormi Maya knows how to get shit done. Almost a dozen music releases this year + a movie in the works + keeping up a YouTube, OnlyFans, Instagram. She may be best known for her appearances in the 2019 movie Hustlers, starring Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu or the Spike Lee series She's Gotta Have It, but Stormi is on a daily grind of creating content and building her fan base. In our interview t...

Jazerai Allen-Lord says that sneakers are at the center of modern culture. We believe her. She's been writing about sneakers for over a decade, designed her own sneaker for Reebok, and is helping many of the major sneaker brands incorporate diverse voices into the conversation. She knows her shit. In today's episode, Jazerai puts us up on how sneaker brands are continuing to adapt to reflect a cha...

Shawn Prez was building an incredible career at Bad Boy Entertainment, playing a key role in turning Puffy's company into a powerhouse of hitmaking and brand building. Then, one day, he quit. "I had to answer a greater call," he tell us. Because of the good work he had been doing, Puffy backed Shawn on his new venture Power Moves Inc., which now does urban marketing and promotions and is also the...

This week we connect with producer / composer Adrian Young for a masterclass in focus and discipline. Adrian is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Ali Shaheed Muhammad on the music for Marvel's Luke Cage as well as the Jazz Is Dead series featuring Jazz greats including Roy Ayres. But his list of credits is long and diverse, including film scores (Black Dynamite) and collaborators incl...

Check out Arabian Prince's latest venture at https://covitech.us. He's doing important work to help small businesses respond to COVID-19. He was one of the founders of NWA. As he tells it, he left the group early on over business differences, but you'll also hear that the group's move into gangsta rap didn't really fit what he was about creatively. Since then, Arabian has been on a journey to blen...

Today's episode opens with a story David was telling as we were setting up to record. It's so good that we kept it in the show. The beginning is cut off, but the setup is that he went to Ultra Music Festival one year with no ticket and no expectations whether he would get in or what kind of experience he would have if he did. His only rule: Don't ask for anything, just give. I won't spoil the end...

This week we are dropping a taste of another great podcast into our feed. Check out a snippet of The Passion Economy, hosted by journalist Adam Davidson. Each week Adam talks to entrepreneurs who are thriving by building businesses around their passions. Sound familiar? The episode we're featuring is with Coss Marte, a former New York drug dealer who got fit in prison and then launched a fitness c...

Once in a while I like to practice giving up control. This week I hand over the mic (Not literally, we both had mics otherwise you'd only hear one person which wouldn't be great unless we were doing a one-person podcast, which we aren't. So glad we cleared that up.) to my collaborator Ethan Baer. Ethan is an entrepreneur whose hustle I respect a lot, and he had some questions for me about leadersh...

Legendary rave promoter Disco Donnie is our guest this week. He was perhaps the only promoter to be prosecuted under the draconian "crack house statutes" that were invoked to try to bring down dance music in the late 90s. Even that couldn't stop him. Today, his operation is stronger than ever. Donnie recently bought back the company that bears his name and is producing some of the most popular rav...

Jerry Wonda's discography reads like the Billboard chart: Since co-producing the Fugee's mega-hit album The Score, he's worked with artists including Carlos Santana, Mary J. Blige, Busta Rhymes, Miguel, Lupe Fiasco, Migos, Melissa Etheridge, DJ Khaled, Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys, Michael Jackson, and many more. Oh, he also prooduced Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie," which is the biggest-selling record...

Blake Coppelson turned his Proximity YouTube channel into a record label and is now building the company into a lifestyle brand. Want to learn how? First, he built the channel up to 8 million subscribers by posting the hottest EDM tracks each week. Listen to the interview to hear the rest, and where he's planning to take it next, and what he's learning along the way. Then check out some new music...

I love this one because we're highlighting two entrepreneurs building something in the middle of a pandemic. They aren't waiting for things to get back to normal. They know they don't have it all figured out. They're just executing. They're passionate about the cause, and they're using what they have to create value, to be a beacon for other people, and to build a community of people who care abou...

I caught up with Felix over FaceTime at his home in Berlin. At only 25, he's already had a #1 hit in over 55 countries (2014 remix of Omi's Cheerleader), and been through the ups and downs of mental health challenges that often ride alonog with success. Just before quarantine, Felix visited the Plum Village Buddhist Monastery in France (is that like a new age Slum Village?) to get his head right....

This is a special episode. Raymond Roker has been more of a mentor to me than probably anyone else. He gave me my first job out of college and he helped me start a career in marketing when we launched an agency together over 20 years ago. Even though it's been more than a decade since we've worked together, I still hear his voice in my head sometimes when I'm considering big decisions. He's also t...

Could Bunny Kitty become the next Snoopy? Persue is gonna find out. Today, graf artist Persue gives us a masterclass in branding. After getting his start as a designer for DC Shoes, he went on to build a career painting walls and doing brand work, and then developed Bunny Kitty, an anime-inspired character that has turned into its own brand including clothing and accessories, plush toys, and a chi...

On this episode we introduce a new co-host: Ethan Baer. Ethan is SVP and head of electronic music at Create Music Group and was previously co-founder of EDM.com. Ethan is a talented entrepreneur and was a guest on a the show in 2018. This time he helps me interview British trance god Gareth Emery. Gareth has won the prestigious A State of Trance Tune of the Year award three times and has ranked as...

"We're all human and we're all going to have some days where it feels like the walls are crashing in around us. But most of the time, I think if you can focus on the tasks at hand rather than the big picture, that's going to keep you kind of occupied." Wise words on staying focused during these trying times from Adam “Shmeeans” Smirnoff, guitar player for Lettuce, one of the funkiest live bands ou...

Bear Grillz is in a category with Marshmello, Deadmau5, Daft Punk — he DJs in costume, in his case a giant bear head. Despite that light-hearted approach to stage presence, he takes his business seriously. He started out promoting clubs and then booking tours before getting behind the decks himself. What a great way to learn the business! Now, he's begun exploring his identity without the costume,...

One of the amazing things about music is how people come to it as a career. Some start out as kids and never stop down that path. Others pick it up late and just jump right in. Ryden shows us that maybe the path matters. She studied classical music as a kid, then became an athlete and martial artist, a pre-med student in college, a TV host doing interviews on red carpets, and then finally started...

** This episode is part of our long-running Art x Rebels series in partnership with Guerilla One and co-hosted by Eddie Donaldson. To stay up on graffiti and street art, follow Eddie at https://www.instagram.com/guerillaone/ ** David Flores has painted murals all around the world. His art hangs in museums and galleries and covers skate decks. He does private commissions and brand collaborations. I...

C-Minus has been at the center of LA's hip hop scene for many years, from multiple mixshows on POWER106 to behind the wheels at Motown on Mondays to holding it down at BReal. TV. He also played an important role in the rap-rock explosion in the late 90s, DJing on tour with Korn and Foo Fighters and bringing a rock show to hip hop radio. We dig into a lot of music in this episode, and talk about th...

This week we bring you a short episode introducing the AMP Music Summit, a virtual music industry conference we're creating in collaboration with Simon Rust Lamb and Seth Combs featuring thought leaders from all areas of the music industry as well as finance, technology, HR, business culture, and more. The event is Wednesday, May 6th and registration is FREE at www.ampmusicsummit.com. Talks will b...