Key to Finding a Mentor in the Music Business ft. "CEO Kyle" Campbell

Man, my I stand on the shoulders of my mentors. Like they have always um seen something in me that they admire and they put me in a position to win. The One More Time Music Podcast. Genuine conversations with genuine people about music. Hosted by Henry with a three and playback Ben. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the One More Time Podcast. I am your host, Playback Ben. One more time. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the One More Time Podcast. I am your host, playback Ben. One more time. I'm Here with my co-host. Henry with a three. Henry with the knee was already taken, so we made an adjustment. And Henry, who do we have on the podcast today? We have Chris Paul. Woo! Chris! Took time out of his busy schedule in the series Against the Nuggets right now to join us on the One More Time podcast. Yeah, that's dedication.

Thanks, Chris. Yeah, we don't know how to say it. No, this is this is Kyle, uh CEO Kyle. CEO Kyle. Is that is that a name you're going with? Or is that just your Instagram name? It's just my Instagram name, but it's starting to catch on. So it's a little bit more of a mouthful than Kyle, but you know. Sounds more official. Well, yeah, I mean, we'll we'll see if we can integrate it into the uh to the flow here. So yeah, what does Kyle do? Kyle is a producer and artist manager and entrepreneur, and we're very happy to have him on the One More Time podcast today. So what's what's awesome about this is, you know, the first four episodes we had artists. And I'm sorry about the rogue rampages right now. We'll get into that later. That was a technical error. Yeah, technical difficulties. We we've never had any of those on the podcast so far. Not any. None. None. Nope. Not tonight. Not ever. Um, so the the interesting thing about Kyle is that he is our first uh behind the artist, behind the scenes business guest. So we've had artists thus far, but like I said, on the one more time podcast, we want to have genuine conversations with genuine people about music, artists and creatives, and business people want to have them tell their stories of you know where they're where they're from, where they're at, and where they're going.

So we appreciate you coming on, Kyle. Thank you again. So, how far from this studio did you grow up? Um, I grew up in Tucker, so that's the same show. Shout out Tucker, one time. Shout out, Tucker. Did you walk here? Did I walk here? No, I did not know. Not that close. Was it because it was raining? Or because it was too far? It was too far. Tucker's a like a one side of Tucker to the other side of Tucker would take you about 15, 20 minutes. Driving. Driving. So if you were really looking to get your steps in, you could have walked. I used to walk to school from your house. Sometimes I would walk to school, it'd be like a good 30-minute walk. There you go. There you go. So growing up, what kind of music was playing around the household, right? Hmm. So my mom, um, from her a lot of gospel. Um, Sunday mornings. That's what we're listening to. Um, getting in the car. 104.7, the fish is on the oh my gosh. Shout out to Fish.

24-7. That's my mom. Um, and my dad, you know, um, hip hop fan. Um, but also he was into um like yacht rock too. So yacht rock. Yeah, and a lot of the are those artists that growing up I thought were black but were actually white. Such as Steely Dan. Uh wait, he's white, you know, it's a group. Steely Dan. Steely Dan. Wait, it's a group. No, I'm just kidding. Of course, Steely Dan. What's your favorite song off Royal Scam? See, I couldn't just tell you that. Like, I just I don't I didn't, I didn't know, like, back then I was just listening to music. I wasn't like, like, oh damn, this is my favorite song. It's the beats and the feelings. The beats, the feelings. Also, I didn't have an iPod, so my dad had it all on the big brick. There you go. And the CDs. He had a um uh the black album. That was his one of his favorites.

And um, that's one of my favorites too. Jay-Z, we'd love to have you on the podcast. So you definitely know the songs on the black album now, right? Well, what's your favorite song off the black album now? That's one thing. about me. I'm not the best with like song titles. Like Rick Rubin also doesn't know the titles of the people that he's produced. That's crazy. So System of a Down, he did an interview with Serge Tankian from System of a Down, and he completely messed up the title. I think it was literally a song that he produced. Maybe it wasn't one he produced, but it was one that was a huge system of a down song. I'm so solely invested in just the mission of the sonics and how does it sound? He's not focused on anything else. It's a testament to his wisdom and his greatness. Shout out to Rick Rubin. We'd love to have you on the podcast, Rick. For real. I think Lucifer might be one of my Lucifer son of the morning. Yeah. There you go. Yep.

For sure, for sure. So other than um, you know, music, what other extracurriculars were you into kind of growing up? Were you a sports guy, theater, band? What were you into? Um, I did sports. Sports, so I played soccer since I was three. What position? Center mid. I knew he was a midfielder. I don't know why. You had endurance, probably, right? What about him? Center mid, right? back. Gave you midfielder vibes for the endurance. Like, I played forward because I couldn't, I didn't have endurance. How you know I got endurance? Yeah. I was like, what about Kyle? It gives you the it's the mentality in the build. Yeah. Oh, the mental endurance. He keeps Going. It's all of the above. There you go. Yeah. Um that soccer, so I played pretty competitively. Almost went to school for it. Okay. Um, like a couple D3 schools, D2 schools. Um, but um that and then, you know, just I was a science kid, and like my mom's a science teacher, so I I was always at summer camps or you know, in some sort of like program during the summer during the school year. Um what kind of summer science camps were you going to?

Um shoot. It's kind of embarrassing. I went to space camp. Man, shout out space camp. Yo, Space camp is one of those things. I mean, no disrespect. I had friends that went to space camp, and I was I was an AP math and science guy. So don't it's not like I'm above the fact that people went to you know these types of camps, but I never did the space camp. And you know, here in Atlanta, we have Huntsville, Alabama. I went to that one one time. I was uh that's the only one, I think, that's close by. I'm assuming that's the one you went to. Mm-hmm. A couple times. Yep. Yep. And so What was space camp like? Bro, it was like little like mini boot camp, like for real. it was mini boot camp. You were being prepared, not boot camp, but like astronaut camp. Like you were being prepared. Simulated missions. Simulated. you would do simulated missions, you could fly a space shuttle, like you had sounds incredible. We did like Oh, it was great. All these experiments, I'm so pissed, that

never went. Gravity and stuff. Yeah, it was it was pretty lit. Like so, outside of you know, engineering, kind of science and math stuff, um, you know, space camp, sports. What else were you into growing up? I was in the band, um, drumline, section leader, all right. Really? Yeah. They even it was a point in time where the high school band needed people, so like the middle school band, like the senior or the eighth graders, not seniors, but we would like march with the high school band. Yeah. So I did that. So you got called up to the big leagues. Calling in the reserves. Yeah, exactly. Something like that. That's awesome. So, what is the big bad musical mean to you? Oh, damn. That's crazy. We had this musical called The Big Bad Musical, and I was the lead. I was the star. Damn. The big bad wolf. The big cheese. You were the wolf. I was the wolf. And basically I was on trial for all the the bad stuff that I had done. Oh my gosh.

So so it sounds like you were kind of dabbling in everything and trying everything, being well-rounded seems to be one of your, you know, core values growing up. What else would you say that you learned, inherited, kind of adopted from your family or your upbringing as far as your core values? I would say just being authentic, being genuine. Genuine. Genuine. we're here to have genuine conversations with genuine people about music. Thank you. Kyle. One more time. One more time. Yeah. That was not planned. No, I'm like the way y'all were so in sync with that, that was crazy. It's our tagline. It's our tagline. It's our mission. I didn't know. Yep. Just being yourself, honestly. Um, my parents always encouraged me to just be myself. And um, what else? You know, just do right by people. Um, that's something I I always see in my parents in the way they move. And I always appreciate that about them.

Maintain the ability to maintain relationships, very important. That's key. Oh, fun fact about that science shit. Um there's this girl in my class named Mariah. Fast forward five years or five, four years later, she's at St. John's singing Mariah the Scientist. That's Mariah the Scientist. Oh God, yeah. She was at school, she was there studying biology. Atlanta is the truth. Tell me. I mean, you do not have these people in your science classes. She was really on her science shit for real. That's just yeah fun fact. No, I mean, now it makes total sense with her brand, but that's incredible. Yeah. Wow. So growing up, at any point was I want to have a career in music coming across your mind. Is that a ever a thought? Mm-mm. I went to BU for biomedical engineering. That program at BU is like the hardest program to get into. So I really didn't have to do that.

But I was just like, okay, this is what I want. This is what I've been doing. Like, shoot, I guess I'll do this. And then got there and quickly realized I did not like that. Like I did not like it. What did you not like about it? It was just hard, bro. Like just so it was that your pride kind of took a little bit of a hit. it was like, damn. I mean, nah. I just realized I'm like, I'm not as good at at as good at math and so at math. It's more so than math. Yeah. Uh that I was in high school. So and engineering is all math. Like, yeah. So 100%. I feel like college is about figuring out what you don't want to do. Yeah, yeah. True. So but now figuring out, yeah. I was gonna say, so figuring out that you wanted to do business and music. How how did that happen? Well, it was a combination of things. I think I I knew naturally that I had business acumen, that I have good people skills, um, and good communication skills. So it was between comm, the school of communications, or the business school.

Yeah. So I did marketing, went to the business school, and I just like considering those things about myself. And also I just I feel like I've always had an entrepreneurial mindset. So did marketing, and then I met my friend Jordan Carter, um, friend and one of the first person people that I started to manage as a rapper or artist. But he went to high school, he went to Mays, actually. Um, and when he was in high school, like MTV Made came and like shot a video of him. Damn, That is uh a blast from the past. Yeah, MTV Made. His thing was like Is that still going? No, they don't do that no more. They don't do music anymore, man. Oh, I'm sorry. music television, does not do music. I'm sorry. He was a rapper. That was his MTV made episode. It never got aired, but he shared this with me because we would just always be chilling and hanging out. We would hang out all the time, and then one day we were just smoking and he was like just freestyling, and I was just like, whoa, I was really taken aback by how talented he really was, and he told me that he was interested in management, so or not interested in management, interested in putting out his music. Yeah.

Um, and I was just like, you know, like bro, like let me let me help you with that. I just moved to the business school, like let me apply at least some of the things that I'm learning, like, um, to help you out. And I also just had a passion for music at the time because really coming off of being at Tucker, um, one of my friends, Rory, he got signed. Like, he was he was Love Renaissance. Shout out Rory. Yeah. Signing the LVRN. Shout out them. Shout out Love Renaissance. Um, Indigo Child, that era. Like, he just to see their first. That was the first artist that they had signed, started working with before Black Drum, Summer Walker, now the Empire Division. that they are now. Shelly. Shelly. Shelly, changed his name. Formerly known as Drum. Formerly known as Drum. But um, yeah, so he was um I saw him like get signed, and just from being around him and um seeing everything that went into him being that guy that was putting on the talent shows at Tucker and putting together the like cyphers, um, being around that energy. It interested me.

So when I started working with Jordan, I was able to exercise that. Like the like the ability to like work on that as a project. And so paint us the picture of what was actually going on in the Boston music scene. Like who were the big question Boston artists? That's a great question. That's a good question. Like what was actually going on in Boston. You know, most people, especially those from Atlanta, they don't think of Boston as the capital of music, capital of hip hop, whatever. Bobby Brown from Boston. There you go. Shout out Bobby Brown. But you know, kind of where you were coming in, what what had been going on? Who were the the acts that were you know popping in Boston? Kind of who you know, who was he? Um Stiz for show. Cousin Stiz is um shout out Tim LaRue. Yeah, shout out Tim LaRue. manages cousin Stiz. He was one of the pioneers of Boston music, I would say, especially Boston hip hop. Yeah, at least in the past, like, yeah. He had a BU connection as well. Yes, he went to BU.

He went to BU as well. He started the BU Hip Hop Club, as well. So Tim was one of the first people to literally take my call. When I was coming into the industry, I was like, shit, who are the managers that I can reach out to? Because I wanted to be a manager, you know, coming into the space. I was like, who are the people that I look up to? You know, kind of who's who, right? I stumbled across Tim's page. I'm not even, I wasn't even the biggest Stiz fan at all, but I just somehow, you know, stumbled across it, and I was like, damn, let me hit up Tim. Shout out to Tim, one of the pioneers, like I said, of the Boston scene, and one of the guys that first took my call. So I mean, really good, really good people. We'd love to have you on the podcast. We would, Tim. They would love that. Um so would Kyle. I would. I would definitely tune in. Um so yeah, it was like Stiz, Christmas, Jefe Repro. Michael Christmas is also another one of Tim's clients. So um he runs Boston. He really does. I mean, him and Jeremy Carell is. OG Swagger Dick. Yeah. OG swagger dick.

OG swagger dick. Yep. Bodega Days. OG Swagger Dick. so yeah, that was like the scene back then, but there was still like this underground scene, like right under that. Like these, even though they were blowing up, you could touch them, you could like see them like in Dorchester or wherever, like, but um, I knew that there was like an underground scene that was kind of bubbling, and so we made an effort to kind of really interject ourselves in that. So Sure. And um, we were able to make some good waves, like for real for real. Awesome. So, when did you get your first internship and what was that like? My first internship was with this company called Star Power Entertainment. Um, it's these two producers that worked at BET, or they still no one of them works at BET. The other one um used to move on to Bleacher Report and just doing great things, but um they would put on shows and concerts and parties in Boston and so they were on hiatus because I think they were focusing on their careers and came back off of hiatus and they had this um kind of like party um where they showcased some of the work that they were doing and like what they were planning on doing moving forward with the production company and I went and afterwards I like made it a point to go up to them, introduce myself, tell them who I was, like some of the things I was working on, and they were like, yo, like let's partner and let's do a show in Atlanta. So we partnered.

I was like became like it was I was like it was somewhere between an intern but on the real like co-producer like kind of role because it would it was just the two of them and it was a very small team. I was like helping out a lot with the vision and kind of what what even from especially with planning the show um like booking the acts and like you know figuring out who we want to be on the lineup, etc. All the logistics in Atlanta as well, because then we f we filmed um promo. So the show was crazy actually. We had um Young Baby Tate on the lineup. Love YBT. shout out Tate Love. YBT. And This is back when this is 2017. Damn. This is like I was like, she is clearly at another level at this point. I think she her her career is finally she's she's getting her flowers, you know, starting recently. So um Tate, Jordan was on the show, um DJ Vaughn, Mulatto's DJ, Shaq Shaq from the Three, he signed the um Dallas Austin. So yeah, we had some like pretty like up and coming, a good group.

Um Did you have any experience putting on shows? Yeah, so um in Boston, we would put on some parties where we called on we called on shows. Oh, like because if if I'm them, yeah. Why the hell? Oh no, am I? What I did was I that's what I did when I met them. I showed them Okay. I literally showed them recaps of the parties that I was throwing in Boston. That's awesome. Oh yeah, yeah. That's that's important. I'm like, I thought you just went up to them like, hey, I'd love to help you with your show in Atlanta. And I'm like, if I'm them, I'm like, fuck off, Kyle, CEO, CEO Kyle. Shout out those marketing classes. Yeah, on God. We have um this thing called Marathon Monday, which is on the day of the Boston Marathon. So the Boston Marathon runs through the campus. Yeah. So no one none of the schools like have class that day. Yeah, they can't. You don't, but the the what you do instead is have a marathon yourself. You get up at 6 a.m. and you just start drinking. Like and it's funny, it's like the best day, bro. Like you just it's just like day parties everywhere, college students everywhere. Um you have an excuse to find to just make it.

To finally do the things that every other student like student can do, but we don't. It's Marathon Monday. And so I wanted to throw a show on Marathon Monday, like partner with one of the houses that threw parties and on Marathon Monday, and like have my guys perform in it. So what we did was I ended up making I had friends that are on the hockey team, and at BU, the hockey team is like that's like the football team down here. Yes. Like we're like the number one, number two hockey team every year. So I had friends on the hockey team. They were throwing a a party at their house, the hockey house. I had my guy perform. Cause at this point, Jordan is like the hottest rapper on BU's campus. Like, oh really? Yeah. Like everyone knew Jordan, like, oh, he's the rapper. Like, like he's that guy. Like, so they were like, Of course we want you to perform. Like, yeah. So he performs. And we're playing. And then I tell my homeboys to come up that make music as well. Bruh, we end up having the whole school at that party. Like, and it was just a lit day.

And that's when I was like, yeah, like I could do this for sure. So we did So showing the recap video from that. It was like Bro, I have a recap somewhere. Yeah, I'll find it. If you find that, will you please? I will show it. I'll show y'all. Yeah, we'll try and put it in the video, or we'll you know, we'll link to it. Maybe we'll put it on YouTube. We'll make it an NFT. Yeah. Sounds incredible. So you basically used that to show that, like, hey, I I know what the fuck I'm doing. That and then I started curating lineups in Boston. We put a twist on it. What we did was we would also have um vendors pull up to sell clothes and like people selling art. It was like a full like art display, which is what we called it the display. So and we end it with the show at the at the end at the end of the night. So like the first display we did was a fucking smash. People were coming through, like just getting clothes, and like we had a DJ running, and it was just like that pop-up kind of experience that you see a lot of now, but back then it was not. We wasn't seeing that in Boston.

Like, especially at least in uh for college students, like that wasn't a thing. Yeah, and then um at night, people and it's great marketing because at night people come and they're like, Oh yeah, we're definitely gonna come back at night. At night, it was a full blown party, bro. Full blown party. You had the stage, lights, everything. Niggas performed, it was lit. And that's when I was like, okay. Between those recap footages, like I present that to them. I was like, I'm from Atlanta, I can help you guys. I know venues in Atlanta, I know up-and-coming artists in Atlanta, I can help you guys put together a show. And we did, we did that. So talk to us about you know some other internships that you've done. I you know, I know you've had a litany of internships, right? But I think you've had some with, you know, BET, Rebels, Blueprint Group. Kind of walk us through a few of those and you know what you've learned from those. So at BET, um, those producers that I was telling you about Star Power Entertainment, they worked at BET at the time. So they alley ooped me.

Um, shout out to them. I mean, not to say I wasn't qualified, but you know how it is. Like, you gotta know somebody sometimes. So they recommended me for an internship at BET, and I worked on the talent relations team. So, from working on the talent relations team, that was my first experience working with A-list, B list, C list, talent for real, for real. And then also pitching talent for certain opportunities, um, shows, live events, etc. So that's what I did at BET. I did that for nine months, and then over the summer, I kind of stepped up and did more of like a production assistant role with the BET Awards. So um, that whole experience, the shows that were put on, booking people for the shows, advancing the shows, um, talent gifting, logistics, yeah, all of that. So um everything from travel to the city. What's some of your best like memories from that? Bro, I I really can't like my best memory might be the BET Awards.

Like, ooh, I saw I literally saw Nipsey slap the dude at the like that famous Oh my gosh. I was standing right there. Like that was 2018 BET Awards. He was performing with YG because they had the song last time that I checked, and the way that we had set up the show. Last time that I checked. The way we had set up the show was on some like okay, YG's gonna come out and perform. No, no, Nipsey's gonna come out and perform. YG's gonna come out after them. They're gonna close a show on last time that I checked. That was the last performance. Second, it was in the last or second to last performance. Cause like the BET Awards, they have the I'm sorry, they have the award show, but then before the award show, they have all these like little mini concerts stages that lead up. It's called the pre-show. Yeah, and then and that's filmed. That's a whole film event. People are like watching it live. So that was like the second or the last pre-show performance before the actual show. So that day, it was I would say, um, was gonna say meeting Donald Glover. Like I I was doing talent check-in.

Shout out childish Gambino. From Stone Mountain, by the way. Stone Mountain right here, baby. DeKalb School of the Arts. Yes, sir. Could he walk to the podcast? Um, no, I don't think he could. Damn. but he That means he's not gonna come. But just like I just really felt like like him, he's like my creative idol. Like he's the man to be from to be from where we're from to do a lot of the same things that we did. He went to he went to Lakeside for like a a little bit. Um I didn't even know that. Yeah, like because I grew up 10 minutes away from Lakeside, five minutes away. Like, to then to go to NYU, I'm I'm a kid that went to BU. Like, they're like Yeah, there's a lot of parallel schools. And then to for him to the show Atlanta, bro. When I say that show, it's really so good. It's spooky because I I feel like Earn, like it was written for you. No, no, I feel like Earn. I feel like Earn, yeah, like literally like the stories he tells as someone as a manager working in the music industry, someone who went to like an Ivy League level school. Like, bro, it's really weird. Yeah. But I met him, but right after I met him, I saw Nipsey Hussle

slap that security guard. Damn, what an experience. And then we had to go grab him so that he could go perform because they tried to hem him up. It was just a lot. So then take us through how you go from that and then you know going back to school after that to interning at the Revels group and tell people what the Revels group is for those that don't know. So the Revels group, they do um management for G-Eazy. They also have a litany of producers. Um and they do Drake's tour management. Okay. So I... So how'd you land that gig and what what were you doing there? So um after I graduated from school, I came back here and started doing some, like continuing to do PA work. And I worked on Life is Good, the music video. Um so that's Drake in Future. Mm-hmm. Was able to put that on my resume. I think that was like definitely like a big thing that like you know caught at least my boy Ben at the revels group. You gotta meet Ben.

Shout out that Ben, shout out Ben Sensley. Yeah, I'm like He's been waiting for a shout out from me. One of these days, Henry will shout me out, Playback Ben, not Ben senseless, but Ben senseless. We'd love to have you on the podcast. Yep. Ben senseless. Um he actually just graduated today, but he Damn. Shout him out. He is um Jamil Davis' like right hand man, and that's Drake's tour manager. He saw my email, immediately hit me back, was like, yo, we got we want to interview guys, interview you. Um, so I interviewed with him, or just like actually he passed me to Matt Geffen, who's the head of AR. Interviewed with him, great conversation. And then next day I talked to Jamil with Matt, and like immediately was like, okay, bet, you're you're on. Like, but then COVID was and so what were you what were you being brought on to do? Um, so I I worked directly under um Geffen, like just helping him as an AR, like sure, um, like helping him put packs together, put in some of our producers' beats on BeatStars, reaching out to artists that I thought like would be good for their like their beat packs, um putting together, doing real like real AR research, like um, you know, kind of tiering together artists that I thought, okay, these are kind of some that we can match with our producers, um, especially a producer at the time um who was like between us and like 4PF.

So we were kind of just like kind of figuring out what um other artists would sound good with his sound. Um four pockets full? Four pockets full. So what would you say your biggest win was doing that, right? Like if you just experience overall the learning. But was there one like I placed a beat for this? Or like is there any really big win that you're proud of, you know, from that time? And I'm sure you did a lot, but I just you know I didn't know if there was something like in particular that really stood out as far as like damn, like that was really great that I was able to do that. Um what was so as I was transitioning from working with the Rebels group to kind of getting past to working with BPG, which I'll explain later. Sure. Um I went out to LA to help sequence G Eazy's album, like the new album. Like decide the order of the songs and bro, like literally, I'm sitting in the room with Giants. Like the Rebels group team. Paint us that picture. Who was in the room?

Like, bro, it's what did you feel like? I'm in the room. I'm just like kind of nervous because I'm like, dang, do I am I supposed to be here? I went, out there with um checking your own credentials, like IDing yourself. I went out there with Cortez Bryant. Shout out Taz. Shout out Taz, man. Yeah, we'll talk about Taz in a minute. Um went out there with him. He was like, yo, come out, we're gonna sequence G-Eazy's album. Like we have some meetings with possible meetings with other producers and artists that we're thinking about um bringing on for management. We kind of at the time where he was helping um put TI piece together, his his last project. So just like listening to that and you know, just giving like some recommendations about you know what we thought for real for real. And then um we went to the Rebels group office the day, which is in Beverly Hills. Um nice little setup, bro. And they it was G-Eazy. Jamil, Matt, like the whole Rebels group team. It's only like four or five people. Um Ben, Leah, shout out them. Um me and Aisha, Tez, Al Branch from Rocklight. the Al branch, um Gene Nelson, um, you know, the whole BPG team, really.

Um, like people were coming in and out, but yeah, it was just dope to see the like to be in the room with these Giants. Yeah, for real. That's incredible. So is that what led to the official transition to BPG from Rebels? Yeah, that's that's kind of what led to that. It was or it was just like around the same time. Yeah. I think what it was was that With the pandemic going on and like not really there being um uh like a full full opportunity to come out to LA because I was planning to move to LA and I was saving up. Um, but with we didn't know how how the pandemic was gonna go. So it just made more sense for me to start working with Tez because he was also um like starting his own company as well, or he had his own BPG, obviously, the management company for those people that don't know, Blueprint Group, um managed some of the largest acts in the world. But they're such as uh Jill Scott, Brandy, The Roots, G-Eazy. Never heard of him.

Lil Nas X. Um, I've heard of him. Yeah. I'm just kidding. So um it just made more sense to like work with him in Atlanta. Yeah. Um so how important would you say mentors are and have been to you? Man, my I stand on the shoulders of my mentors. Like they have always um seen something in me that they admire and they put me in a position to win. And I just try to do my best to make them proud. Yeah. And so having gotten all this experience, you've since taken the leap of faith into you know, starting your own management company um and starting a nonprofit on the management side. What do you love about management? What drew you to being a manager? I love management because you just touch so many things, like depending on the situation, depending on who the artist is and what they need. But obviously, when you're working with artists that are coming from out the mud, you just have to use you see all sides of the artist experience from creating the music to managing the music to the business side of it to the touring side of it to the marketing side to the promo, like because you have to just be involved in all those aspects, and that's what I really enjoyed was just being a sponge and and still obviously still being a sponge and just being like able to apply to the new things I learned every day.

Do you think that kind of draws back to your being well rounded and trying everything as a kid? It sounds very parallel. I don't know if you ever thought of it, getting your feet dirty. Yeah. Yeah, just kind of being involved, you know, jumping in. Because I mean, management from my perspective definitely is it's like playing soccer, going to space camp, doing bands, listening, you know, doing all these things because there's no there's no one job that is management. There's no one job. No, It's like all the jobs put together. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Um, so what kind of qualities would you say um a successful manager has? Um, relationship skills for sure. You have to be able to build relationships, maintain relationships. Um give them that one. The ability to prioritize that was a gem right there. And we haven't activated the one more time yet this episode. So probably because Henry's been sleeping, but on the one more time podcast, when we feel our guest has dropped a gem, we want them to hear it one more time, tell them again the importance of relationships. Yeah, um everything, it's also just relationships, but because okay, your your job as a manager is you're constantly putting someone else before you.

It's a job of service, and something that always stuck with me. Um, especially like a a quality that I think or quality and like a drive that I think I acquired in college was like servant leadership, like leading by being a servant, like honestly, like putting others before you because it's always gonna reciprocate back, and people will not only appreciate that, but like it just comes from a genuine place. So yeah, adding value to someone's life, it's rare. That's kind of like how I met Ben. Honestly, Ben approached me, and he genuinely just said he was interested in trying to add value to what I was doing. And I was like, wait, you want to see what I'm doing? It was so cool hearing him talk about Jordan and just being like, hey man, how can I help? Yeah, and you were interested in business, and he was dope at rapping, and he was a dope artist. Henry, I met him, he's a dope producer, a dope engineer, a dope person in general, and I was like, hey, how can I help? And kind of taking that, like you said, that that service role and being just so service oriented and customer focused, with you know, Henry in my case being my customer and Jordan at the time being your customer, and now of course, you know, you've you've grown your your management company.

So, what would you say have have made you good at relationships? Like, what qualities? born with it, or did you practice? Um I don't like to burn bridges with people. Yeah, um, I like to keep a like a good network of people that I can rely on, not for selfish reasons, because obviously I want them to rely on me too. Literally, the first day after you talked to him, he like called me immediately after and was like, Yo, this guy Kyle. Yeah, this guy, CEO Kyle, he's no fucking regular Kyle. Yo, CEO Kyle. He's a CEO. I was like, tell me more, man. Like, what's what's up? That's incredible. So um, you're obviously very entrepreneurial, and and you mentioned that you started your management company, um, and you've also co-founded a nonprofit. So before we get into what the nonprofit's all about and you know, your roster of artists, um what made you want to start a business, you know, with someone? How did you know it was the right fit? Because co-founding something, it's like bringing them into your family. I mean, it's a very big deal. What did you see in your co-founders and why did you make the decision to to start a business and then in a in a nonprofit with them?

You know, actually, you're like the second or third person that recently told me that. Like I wasn't, I didn't I didn't think of it like that. Like I should have. Not saying that I should have, but I was just like, man, let me get this LLC. Like, these are my homies, like, let's make this official. And it worked out perfectly. It worked out, but I I wasn't like, oh, this is an intimate thing, but I should have been thinking of it that way. Cause I my um my older bro Kobe, um, who shoot, this it's so crazy just how we met. Um, and we'll get into that later. But he told me that he was like, Yeah, man, you know, you shouldn't just start businesses with people like, yeah, that sounds like okay. It's kind of a big commitment. Yeah, and that was decent idea. I'll try it. With these people. I genuinely trusted these people. Um yeah, who are some of the artists you're working with now? So some of the artists I'm working with now, um, working with now, um, continuing working with Rome. Um and and and Lil Grody.

Shout out Grody and Rose. Shout out Lil Grody. Um Grody's been known to be in this studio. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um more recently I picked up um an artist from Spain. His name is Colm Heslip. Colm Heslip. He was on the voice in Spain. Um he has like a Justin Bieber Shawn Mendes look for real. almost like half a million followers on Instagram. Damn. Wow. And the kid can sing his ass off like pop star for real. Um started managing him. Um, Swavy, my boy Swavy. That's S-W-A-V-I-E, Swavy. he is a super talented RB artist. Um you like Bryson Tiller, you will really love him. Um has a look, the whole nine, like really just working on his demo right now. Um what's his uh latest record? Dear You. Yes, let's play a little snippet from that. Stream Dear You wanna play it right now? Yeah, let's play it. They always told me it wouldn't be this way.

got nothing left to say. Except Do you. Do you. Love. me. Love me. There's a letter that I wrote. There's a letter that I wrote. Do you Love me. If not, I love me. For the both of us That's a dope record. Swavy. Thank you, thank you. I'm about to have Colm and Swavy, like we about to put them through a little hard artist boot camp. Nah, no, no, no, but just like really about to just bring them down here to Atlanta this summer. Is it gonna be anything like the space camp boot camp? It's gonna be fun. There you go. Yeah. So was that though, right? So is that but it's just like just really honing in on their sound, getting their demo together, and um getting hella content here in the city of Atlanta um for us to just go crazy with in the fall. Yeah, who else do you have on your roster? Uh recently started managing this producer, Mike Major. Shout out Mike Major. Shout out Mike.

Yeah, he's dope. Super dope. And all he's here in Atlanta, right? 2 Chainz. huh? Mike's here in Atlanta, right? Yep, he's here in Atlanta. Okay, awesome. Um and then, oh, and then recently for the past four months, been day-to-day managing for Nebuchadnezzar. Yeah, yeah, I was like, there was there was one I thought you were missing. Nebuchadnezzar. That's the shorty, you said it. Yeah, 40. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So you got the management company and your nonprofit. Mm-hmm. Tell us about the nonprofit. What's it called? What's it all about? What inspired it? Okay. So the nonprofit project go dark, that's what it's called. Um, it was really inspired by the energy that came from, you know, the lack of resources, the lack of a pipeline, it seemed like during COVID and during the protest, everything that was happening last summer, that energy kind of propelled me to come up with um, because I was I was in rooms with people, like top-level executives that were trying to figure out like, okay, like this is going on in the world right now. How can we change what we can touch?

How can we change the music industry to make it better? And these people, um, shout out to the Black Music Action Coalition. So then I thought of this program called uh it's like it's just the music industry pipeline. We haven't come up with the official official name yet, but um it's basically a 10-week summer program where we take HBCU students and um and they they will apply for the program, but we take 10 of the brightest HBCU students that we can find, and for eight weeks we match them with an internship in the city of Atlanta, a black owned ecosystem that will match the things that they want to do in the industry on that executive management side. And then for the first two weeks, it'll be like orientation, somewhat um like a course that the students take that's similar to like everything you need to know in the music industry, that book. Yeah. Um shout out Donald Passman. Shout out Donald Passman. How many versions of that book? Dude, he's on like version a thousand.

Yeah. He's gonna write them until he dies. But it'll be a course that the students can take. And actually, the Cortez, um, he teaches a course at Jackson State that's very similar. Okay, cool. Um, he even like had Drake come and like speak one night. That's huge. I've heard of him. And then our Operations Manager Nina. I haven't. She, Nina Packer, shout out her. She has the same course at Famu. So it just made sense. Like, okay, let's implement this course. Students can take it, and then we immediately place them in an internship, so they get stamped and approved. Like these are the next class of um music industry execs, you know. Um so it's like a bottom-up approach to getting more people that look like me into the industry because America's number one cultural cultural export is black culture, like we can't sit here and cap. Yeah. Sure. so, but oftentimes I'm a customer.

Yeah, oftentimes the people that are put in positions to curate our culture and to push our culture look like me. Exactly. No, it's true. You're admitting it. So it's like there we I want to create a pipeline to get more people, and this is something that I didn't go to HBCU. I wish I did sometimes. Um oftentimes I do. Now, if I go back from my master's, I'm really thinking about going to one. But but some of your co-founders did, right? Like Ayesha went to Ayesha went to FAMU. Shout out, Ayesha. Shout out Ayesha. Love you, girl. Aubrey went to Tennessee State. Okay. Nina went to Fam, Tez went to Jackson State. Um definitely have a solid representation there. But when I went to um LA when I was in LA for nine months working at BET, the interns on my floor on the BET floor, because all the basically in the Viacom building, the floors are separated by the channels. So BET, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central. So the black floor was the BET floor.

Jesus. I was like, I hope he's not going there. Yes, that was. It was like all the black people on the same floor. Yep. Yep. they are. Not the gunshots. Yeah, exactly. Maybe that was the wrong sound. That was the wrong sound. Poor choice of sound effect, Henry. I'm dead. But um, yeah, so that was but my co-interns were part of this program called HBCU in LA, which was very similar. Like, that's pretty much kind of where I got the concept. Okay. Shout out to them. Um, but it was similar, but it was for film and TV. It wasn't for music. Like, basically, they chose students from across the country, these different HBCUs. They brought them out, they housed them, they got stipends. Um, and they had a speaker series as well, which we're gonna have in our program. Um speaker series, and so the students would after work, they'd like, yo, come back to campus, which was it was on Sunset Boulevard, that's where the Viacom office is, and Emerson's campus was where it was housed that building on Sunset. So it's literally walking distance.

We would go, they'd have food sometimes, um, speakers would come in, and it was just like a great program. I was like, damn, like why don't we have something like this for the music industry? Damn. So it was like, well, then here's an opportunity to do that. That's what's so cool about about entrepreneurs is that they don't take this like unique novel idea, but they apply it in a different way. That's what's so cool. It's context. You saw this thing, you're like, shit, this does exist already, but it's for this. Specific purpose. Why don't we do it for this? Right. And I feel like there's so many great ideas, and I'm obviously blanking as far as like other really prime examples. But I mean, there's and you know, shout out to um key. Shout out to Key Opens Doors. Oh, Key Shout out Key. Shout out Key, man. Key is my dog. Good People. Good people. Key Key really opens doors, bro. She does. She puts on so many people. But Key has his thing. She's awesome. That's how we met. That is how we met.

since the 80s. Yeah, the 40/40. Yeah. So it's like all these like flashes of like, okay, like these experiences that I've had for even from just space camp. Like that, those all those things like put into one was like, okay, we could really make like a program. Yeah. Um to, you know, push new students into or new new new people that look like me into the industry that are there to, you know, protect and preserve our culture. So the goal is to start in Atlanta because this is a like I said, a black-owned ecosystem. The only thing separating Atlanta from being LA in New York is we don't have media outlets out here, but like it's we know what it is. Yeah, like, but then it's expanding to New York and LA where those bigger record labels are, um, so that the students can intern there and intern there. So when's the first uh class supposed to start?

So we um received funding from Spotify for the program. Awesome. They funded the first year, um, and we're currently just waiting for the money to drop, honestly, to for us to decide if we're gonna do the program in the fall or do it in the spring. Okay, as soon as we find it. Spotify. Spotify, drop the bag. Drop that money, drop the fucking bag. Drop the bag. But they already pledged it, they put out a whole um memo on it. Um but and then press releases will be coming soon. Cool. Application will be out, and yeah, we'll it we it'll either be in the fall or spring. That's great. Yeah. So to wrap up this segment, if you could give one piece of advice to future managers, like if if I'm a manager out there that you know is aspiring to be someone in the music business, you know, what kind of advice would you give them? Um, like I said, you gotta be willing to wake up every day and put somebody before you. Say that one more time. Not to laugh,

but one more time. And I won't say every day because you're you'll have time to take for yourself, but like that has to be the mindset if you want to break an artist, honestly. And that's ultimately what I want to do is break, build, break, and continue to put out records. Like and I'm transitioning more from like management to the AR side, um, the facilitator side, the connecting the dot side um on a larger scale. But um that and I would say um make sure you network laterally. Let networking laterally was so important because I was able to do that and make these just so many connections. So I didn't go to school in Atlanta, I went to school in Massachusetts. So coming back here, I really had to make an effort to keep up with the students that you would say, oh, this person reminds me of this person, this person reminds me of you. But they were here in Atlanta and they had that network because they went to Clark or Spelman or Morehouse, whatever. So I made an effort to connect with my peers, and now we're just doing so much dope shit together.

Like it's just so many people in this like team that we put together, and we've just been making sure that we we stay connected. And now it's like I see these people everywhere. Like just moving, and it's just like you like it feels like damn, there's a class of us, like, and that camaraderie is cool, and it's we're just there to help each other out. So yeah. That's dope. Well, we definitely think that you are ushering in a new wave of you know, young music industry executives. We appreciate you coming on. I know Henry has a final segment that he likes to do here on the One More Time podcast. Shout out vibe sessions, shout out Shout out Vibe Sessions. Final section of the One More Time podcast is called the Rapid Fire Rampage. Okay. And no, it's not a working title anymore. We're sticking with it. It's still working. We might change it. It's a word, but um it's gonna be a three-part little series of questions, short answers, and then a this or that, and then a word association where I give you a word, you just give me a word back. The idea here is to see like what's in your subconscious, you know, just the first thing you think of.

Okay, say it again. I'm slow, I'm sorry. I'll go, I'll break each one down as we get there. So first section is just yeah, short answer. I'm just gonna hit you with some quick questions. I feel like I'm on hot ones. You are this is a hot ones variant for sure, but it's the rapid fire version rampage. So non-working title. Working, non-working permanent title, permanent title. Let's go with it. So popping off the short answer. Give us your favorite wings in Atlanta. JR crickets. Shout out JR Crickets. JR crickets. With the blue cheese. Of course. Give us your favorite sports team. Man, Atlanta United, but definitely the Hawks right now. Didn't see United coming. I love that. I mean big soccer guy. That's right. That's true. Uh, and City. And the Falcons. Yeah. Okay. That's a love-hate. It's Manchester City. That's probably a love-hate relationship. Yeah, Falcon. Oh, both the city and Falcons. yeah.

Okay. If miss if music disappeared tomorrow, where would you focus your energy? Cryptocurrency. Give us a genre of music you secretly like. Bedroom pop. Ooh. good one. Tomorrow, Joe Biden exiles you from America. Where do you go live? Damn, what'd I do? It's not relevant to the question, Kyle. Where'd I go live? England. England. Shout out Manchester City. Actually, I take that back. I was like, that's where you go. Where do I live? But I'm thinking like it gotta be somewhere warm, though. I don't think London's that. Yeah, It's moderate, but I'm trying to think of the best warm countries to live in. This is where you're gonna live. This is where you're exiled. Exiled. You can't come back to Atlanta. I'll go to Australia.

Australia's a good one. We've had another guest say that. So it's a popular exile. place. They used to send slaves there. Yeah, British slaves, so yeah. So now we're sending American exiles from the music industry. Give us one artist or producer you would love to manage. Oh. If they lost their management tomorrow or didn't have it. Metro booming. Yeah. Give us- If you're looking for new management metro. We'd love to have you on the podcast though. One more time. We would. Give us one of the dumbest things you've ever done. I had a squeaky belt on my car and it kept squeaking and I didn't know why. And I lift the hood and the car's still running. And I'm like trying to like use a a towel to clean off the belt while it's running. Why would you do that? Exactly.

Because it's the stupidest thing. Because I'm thinking, like, okay, I can clean off the belt while it's like if it's not moving, but if it's moving, I can clean it faster. Bro, my dumbass literally puts the tries to clean the belt with the towel. That shit got like snatched in there and my finger got caught. And luckily, uh I lost all the You still have 10, right? Yeah, but I almost know. I lost all the skin on my finger, like from like this digit up. Damn. I could have easily lost my finger that day. Easily. Easily. That was the dumb that was the dumbest thing I ever done. Anyway, let's flip that around into one of the best decisions you ever made. I had to decide whether I was going to retake the semester, and that would push my timeline off. It wouldn't push my time line off for graduation, but it it wouldn't allow me to participate in this internship program that brought me out to LA. I could save my GPA and retake the semester just so that my GPA could be higher, which in the real world means nothing.

Nothing. But in college, you think that means everything. Or I could just say, like, really buckle down, stop doing what I was doing. And as long as I like passed two of the classes, like passed two of the finals, I would pass two of the classes, which would then allow me to go to LA based on my credits and participate in the program. I would have my grades were in the dumpster, but I still was able to so I had it was like literally a a moment in time where I had to decide like what do I do? Like, do I say the semester's a wrap and retake it withdraw? Or do I just shoot my shot? So you took the internship. Well, I didn't take the internship. I didn't even oh I had the internship already, but I wouldn't be able to participate in it if I had to stay in school because Kept the internship. Yeah. So I was like, I took my shot, I just took the test. I passed two of the classes, got to LA was because my I was able to move on to the next semester. And I was able to take that semester in LA.

And that's when this whole journey kind of like really started taking off. Great decision. There it is. Great decision, yeah. I know you discussed a couple management tips, tricks, strategies, but what's one you think is really slept on that a lot of managers aren't doing that should be doing more of sleeping. Boom. Love that one. Boom. That's great. he did mention he was tired earlier. So I'm not sure if he's sleeping on it. or not. Ironically. Yeah. Not literally, ironically. Yeah. Give us one bucket list entry. Skydive. Boom. There it is. That's the first part of our rapid fire rampage. Oh, man. That was a good one. Yeah, yeah. We got into it. Buckle up, Kyle. CEO. It's gonna get even more rapid y fire. Okay. Rapidy. Rapidy. It's not a word. Rapid E rap, rap, rap. This is gonna be uh a this or that. I'm just gonna give you two choices. Okay. Pick the one that appeals to you the most without thinking about it. Don't try and pretend rapid was a word. Rapid. We'll hit up. What did. What did. What did Nav say? He said rapid, rapidies, and rapidity stuff. He said rapidity rap, rap, rap something.

If Nav said it, it's a word. God damn it, Nav. Okay. This or that. Here we go. Tell us. CEO Kyle. Mm-hmm. Mountains or beaches. Beaches. Day or night? Day. Beer or liquor? Liquor. Sports cars or SUVs? Sports cars. Going out to eat or cooking? Going out to eat. Cats or dogs. Dogs. Mainstream or underground? Underground. Managing artists, managing producers. Managing producers. Did we just fire shots at all the artists? No, there's a reason for that. Swavy and Nebuchadnezzar are all looking for new management. Managing If you're looking for new management. Managing producers is just a different grind. Like, but it's like, I won't say you kind of get jaded by managing artists, but like you learn a lot, bro.

Like man, bruh, people don't sometimes people don't appreciate you. Like, that's just realistic. Like, but with managing producers, also that and just like you're you really get involved in these people's lives. Sometimes it's like it's sometimes in an unhealthy way. Managing producers is less hands-on. Like you know. For me, my goal with managing producers is sending out packs and getting them in the room. Really getting them in the room because that's like the next step to landing anything. But um, yeah, but I also probably say that more because I've just been thinking about it more, like, and doing it more. Um, but both are I love both. I love both. That's a good answer. Good answer. Sushi or barbecue. Barbecue. Boom. Part two and the bones. Final part of the rapid fire rampage. Word association. I'm gonna give you one word. Give me the first word that comes to mind. Okay. The littler you think you think the better.

The better. Littler has become a word on this podcast now for whatever. It's our go to word. stupid reason. I'm going to close my eyes. Yeah, that actually might help. Go ahead. We should require that of our guests. Okay. Caffeine. Coffee. Money. Power. Goat. Cheese. Oh man. The studio. Astro. Children. Safe. Mask. Off. Pizza. Wings. Anxiety. Attack. Base. Ball. Sorry. This is a common thread here. B-A-S-S. Yeah, the wrong thing. The first non-artist here's bass. Yeah. And doesn't think boom boom. Oh. Bass. that's a correct answer. Like, that's the correct answer.

Bass ball. He didn't spell it. Um politics. Sticky. Drake. Shut up. The goat. Cheese. The goat. Cheese. That's all for today's episode, folks. What a rampage. Kyle coming on. This is Kyle Campbell at CEO. Kyle Campbell. Kyle Campbell. Campbell like the soup. Kyle Campbell. That's right. At CEO Kyle. He's an artist and producer, manager, and entrepreneur, rising star, executive in the music industry. We appreciate you coming on as our first guest that is not an artist to really set the stage for you know future guests that we come on, come on come on that are behind the scenes. Please like, subscribe, follow, tell a friend, tell your mom, tell your wife, tell your girlfriend, tell your brother. This is the One More Time Podcast. Thank you so much, Kyle. Until next week, we are out. Peace. Peace. Peace.