When Ann Arbor rap darling Mayer Hawthorne first moved to LA, he thought his hip hop producing and DJing was going to launch him into stardom. But some honest feedback made him realize that maybe his real strength was waiting in a completely different direction. Mayer used his musical agility to put out several smash hit soul records that didn’t sound like anything else at the time. He dared to disrupt his own sound and the result was magic. Breaking Schemas co-hosts Marcus Collins and John Branch sit down with Mayer to talk about his journey from hip hop to soul, why it’s important to bend to the opportunities that come your way, and staying true to your authentic voice. *Breaking Schemas is a production of the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative at Michigan Ross and is produced by University FM.*
When Ann Arbor rap darling Mayer Hawthorne first moved to LA, he thought his hip hop producing and DJing was going to launch him into stardom. But some honest feedback made him realize that maybe his real strength was waiting in a completely different direction.
Mayer used his musical agility to put out several smash hit soul records that didn’t sound like anything else at the time. He dared to disrupt his own sound and the result was magic.
Breaking Schemas co-hosts Marcus Collins and John Branch sit down with Mayer to talk about his journey from hip hop to soul, why it’s important to bend to the opportunities that come your way, and staying true to your authentic voice.
*Breaking Schemas is a production of the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative at Michigan Ross and is produced by University FM.*
How can you make it in the music or entertainment business?
03:15: My only advice that I usually give to anybody who asks me, like, "How can I make it in the music business or entertainment or whatever?" is, work hard and be different. 'Cause we already got Drake, and we already got Clinton, and we don't need another one. We don't need another Travis Scott. There's already a Travis Scott. So you're never going to be as good at doing Travis Scott as he is. Just do something only you can do and something that you can do better than everybody else. And that is the way to do it.
The power of asking for help
32:24: Find people who know more than you and learn from them. Try to just add, reach out, and say, "Hey, will you teach me how to do this?" It's hard. It's hard because, like, you don't want to admit that you don't know something. But getting over that is one of the craziest lessons in life. When you don't know something, don't just pretend like you know it. Go find someone who knows and be like, "Yo, how do you do this?"
On embracing the fun
14:49: Anytime we had a decision to make, like a big decision about a career thing, like a fork in the road, we always weighed the options and would always go with whatever choice was more fun. And that was a big philosophy. That we had from the very beginning and that we still embrace to this day. You know, we got offers for two different shows; it's whichever one is going to be the most fun. That's the one that we do.
(Transcripts may contain a few typographical errors due to audio quality during the podcast recording.)
[00:00:00] Marcus: Welcome to Breaking Schemas, a podcast that explores the dynamic changes of contemporary business through the lenses of the disruptors who have not only navigated the changes but have also rewritten the rules of the game. We’ll be sitting down with business leaders across a wide spectrum of industries to discuss their victories, their failures, and the biggest lessons they’ve experienced throughout their career to prepare tomorrow’s leaders—that’s you!—for an ever-changing marketplace.
I’m Marcus Collins, marketing professor here at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. I’ll be your host, along with my co-conspirator, Professor John Branch. Now, let’s get into it.
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of Breaking Schemas. And John, we had a special guest. Now, I feel like all of our guests are special, but this one, in particular, is really, really, really special. Now, he's a Michigan man, and an Ann Arborite, mind you. But he is a world-traveling, record-breaking, musician extraordinaire. Mr. Mayer Hawthorne is on the pod. Mayer, what's up, man? That's right, exactly. Man, man, man, man, man, man.
[00:01:18] Mayer: Yeah, right. Where's the Jamaican Air Hornet?
[00:01:21] John: Record-breaking and record-making.
[00:01:24] Marcus: That's right.
[00:01:24] John: Yes, indeed.
[00:01:25] Mayer: Yeah, and record, record-collecting.
[00:01:27] Marcus: There you go. That's what's up.
[00:01:30] John: And a fixture on my Rock 107.1, which I listen to in the garage when I'm out there tinkering away. And I love hearing your voice.
[00:01:39] Mayer: Hell yeah, shout out 107.1 Ann Arbor. Yeah, let's go.
[00:01:43] Marcus: You know, the interesting part about that description, John, that framing is that I've known Mayer Hawthorne as a hip-hop DJ for long and for him to be a fixture on the rock station, it begs a lot of questions. Oh, what's going on here? So, before we get ahead of ourselves, Mayer Hawthorne, you are a musician, a DJ, a singer, a producer. How do you describe yourself?
[00:02:10] Mayer: I just, kind of, say musician. Sometimes, I'll be saying producer now because I just feel like people know what a producer is but they don't really know what a producer does. And they'll just be like, “Okay, cool. Good.” And that'll be, like, the end of the conversation.
[00:02:28] Marcus: Yeah, but I mean let's keep it true. Like, what you have done, what you have accomplished, the life that you live, man, people dedicate their hopes and dreams to be there. You have realized it, right? Realized it. How did you get here?
[00:02:41] Mayer: I'm still trying to figure it out, man. I wake up every day and I'm still just like, “I cannot believe this is my life. Like, I get to do this for a living and I get to make music for a living.” That's my job. It's crazy.
I can't… I really, I mean, the one thing that I will, like, say is my only advice that I usually give to anybody who asks me, like, you know, how can I make it in the music business or entertainment or whatever, is work hard and be different, you know, because we already got a Drake and we already got a George Clinton, and we don't need another one. Like, we don't need another Travis Scott. There's already a Travis Scott. So, you're never going to be as good at doing Travis Scott as he is. So, just do something only you can do and something that you can do better than everybody else. And that is the way to do it.
[00:03:39] Marcus: Was that a, sort of, philosophy that you've always had? Like, take us on the tour back in time. Let's go back in the DeLorean for a moment. Let's go back in time. Talk us through how we got to this place.
[00:03:50] Mayer: So, when I first started making, like, my own, you know, Mayer Hawthorne music, I was trying to emulate Curtis Mayfield and The Delfonics and the Moments and the Chi-Lites. But then what I realized was those guys were so good at what they did. And I didn't know how they made that music because I wasn't there. I wasn't even alive when they were making that music. So, when I would do it, it would, like, automatically get filtered through this weird lens of Ann Arbor, you know, Melting Pot, and then, Slum Village, and ‘90s hip-hop.
I would be like, “Yeah, I'm making Curtis Mayfield music right now or Barry White or whatever.” And everybody else would listen to it and be like, “This doesn't really sound like that. But it is cool. It's really cool what you're doing.”
So, I think it just, initially, it, kind of, happened by accident. But the thing that made it work was that it just didn't sound like anything else. There was nothing at the time that sounded like that. I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, I still feel like I don't really have any idea what I'm doing, but I know, I know when it sounds cool.
[00:05:07] Marcus: So, when you dropped your first single, Just Ain't Gonna Work Out, right? It sounds very familiar, i.e., you know, the Chi-Lites, Curtis Mayfield, but so unbelievably different because maybe it is this fusion of Slum Village, ‘90s hip-hop infused to this, your version of that. How did you know that it was going to fare well in the market, being so different, being so antithetical to everything that was on the radio at the time?
[00:05:36] Mayer: I was so sure that it was not going to be popular at all, that I was already planning my, like, return to hip-hop producing and DJing. And I, like, had zero plans for having a career as Mayer Hawthorne. I did not, so much so that, like, when that song took off, I was, like, freaked out and I was like, “Oh, my god, what, what do I do?” Like, I don't have a band. People were asking me to do live performances. I only had two songs. And I had never performed live as, like, a singer before. It was really crazy. It was a crazy moment in time. I called all my friends from Funktelligence, and I was like, “Hey, will you guys be my band?”
[00:06:24] Marcus: I mean, what was the intentionality in going into Mayer Hawthorne? Maybe something to explore. So, like, what made you want to try singing? What made you want to try your hand at music that you typically weren't doing, and then have the audacity to put it out in the world feeling like it wasn't going to work out? I mean, it's, it's, it's wild.
[00:06:43] Mayer: So, to make a long story short, I wanted to be a hip-hop DJ and producer. And that was really my goal. And I moved from Ann Arbor, Detroit and moved out to Los Angeles with a couple of my friends. And the goal was to be a hip-hop DJ and producer. And when I got to LA, I went to this party called the Do Over where all the cool music people hung out every Sunday. And I saw Peanut Butter Wolf and I knew Stones Throw Records, because my homie, J Dilla, had come out and signed to Stones Throw. And Guilty Simpson put a record out on there-
[00:07:27] Marcus: Detroit, great!
[00:07:28] Mayer: … couple people that I knew. I mean, they, yeah, you know, MF Doom was on Stones Throw, and I was like, “Yeah, I know about them. They're cool.”
So, I met Peanut Butter Wolf and I was, like, so stoked to give him my demo of rap beats. And he listened to it. Man, bless him for even listening to it. But he listened to it, and he was like, “Yeah, these beats are whack, dude. They're not good.” But he was like, “What is the music that you're sampling to make the beats? What is that? Because that's good.” And I was like, “Oh, that was, like, just some music I made, like, some soul music I made in my bedroom. But I only made it so that I could sample myself royalty free, so I wouldn't have to pay for the sample clearance.”
[00:08:15] Marcus: Brilliant, by the way, brilliant.
[00:08:18] Mayer: I mean, it was truly just out of necessity because I was broke. I couldn't afford to… because we would sample, like, an Eddie Kendricks song and we would put it out, we press 1,000 records and we, we would sell them, but then Eddie Kendricks would take all the money, because we would have to pay for the sample clearance. And I was like, “Well, it sucks, man. I'm losing all the… I'm giving all the money to Eddie Kendricks.” So, I was like, “Well, why don't I just make my own soul samples and then I can sample myself royalty free?” And Peanut Butter Wolf, shout-out to him, he was like, “You're really good at that. You, you should do that.” And I was like, “Okay, well, I mean, are you going to put it out if I do it?” And he, and he said, “Yeah, I'll put it out. If you make a record of that, I'll put it out.”
So, that was just thinking to work out. And there was a flip side called When I Said Goodbye. And that was the first single. But even then, I really, really truly, like, still thought that I was going to just do this and it was going to be a one off thing and then I was going to go back to making rap beats and DJing. And then I just never, never went back.
[00:09:32] Marcus: I mean, this story is wild. This story is wild.
[00:09:35] Mayer: It’s wild. It’s truly wild.
[00:09:37] Marcus: For context for you, John, Mayer used to be a part of a hip-hop collective in Ann Arbor called Athletic Mic League. And they were massive, massive. Like, everyone knew AML and really, really dope emcees. No, come on, regionally, regionally, Mayer, regional, regional.
[00:09:54] Mayer: Yeah, we would do shows in Chicago and Minneapolis and stuff.
[00:09:57] Marcus: This is how you know he's an international star because he's like, “Yeah, you know, local is regional.” Regional for him is local. So, keep that in mind. But seriously, he's a part of this, like, massive collective. And this guy is just terribly talented. I mean, I think, like, buff one, just, this is really, really talented, really talented, talented guys.
So, I've always known him in the frame of hip-hop, but hearing this story says a lot to me about even my own self, right? Like, for you Mayer, I've always been in advertising and marketing. John was my professor in the MBA program. And he brought me in to do a guest lecture for him and I gave the lecture. And he said, “Man, that wasn't bad. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad.” And he's like, “If you are really interested in this, then you should really invest yourself in it.” And sometimes, it takes people seeing something in us that we don't know that's in us to actually drive us in the direction that's really where we ought to be going.
[00:10:53] Mayer: Man, for sure. Yeah. And if anything, I would say, like, the real lesson there for me was to just be prepared for, like, when that door opens to, like, go all the way through it and just, you know, have faith that you're going to be able to do it. Have confidence in yourself.
[00:11:16] John: Hey, by the way, Marcus, I still see something in you. If you continue to work, you might get there.
[00:11:24] Marcus: Thanks for seeing the potential of you, John. So, once you've got the tractions happening with Mayer Hawthorne, you're pulling together a band, you're figuring out what is your stage show, you're figuring out who you are as an artist, not just as a creator, but a performing artist, what were some of the intentional decisions you made along the way? Because you've been doing this for a while. I think, if my memory serves me well, first thing came out in 2009, right?
[00:11:49] Mayer: 2009, yeah.
[00:11:51] Marcus: So, you've been doing this for a grip, like, you are no longer a rookie at this. What were some of the intentional decisions you made as you started to, like, really craft who you are as a performing artist?
[00:12:04] Mayer: A big thing we always were conscious of was staying on the forefront of any technology, any new technology that was coming out. We always were, like, very good myself and my manager, Jackson Perry, shout out Jackson Perry.
[00:12:19] Marcus: That's my guy.
[00:12:20] Mayer: Yeah. But embracing new technology, we were really early to get on, like, Twitter. And, you know, that was super duper helpful. Like, the dawn of Twitter was, like, very powerful for my career. It was a time when, like, big celebrities would jump on. In the early days, nobody really knew what to do on there yet. So, they would just talk about things that they liked. And, you know, John Mayer and Alicia Keys and Justin Timberlake and Kanye and all these celebs would just talk about things that they like, and they would talked about, “Hey, have you heard this new artist, Mayer Hawthorne? I think he's good.” And nowadays, people would never ever do that unless they were getting paid, or they were getting, like, a percentage of it, you know. But at the time, it was, like, new technology and nobody really know what to do with it yet. And it greatly benefited me.
And, the other thing was, like, anytime we had a decision to make, like, a big decision about a career thing, like, a fork in the road, we always weighed the options and we would always go with whatever choice was more fun. And that was a big philosophy that we had from the very beginning and that we still embrace to this day. Like, you know, we got offers for two different shows or whatever, it's whichever one is going to be the most fun. That's the one that we do. Or there's two concepts for a music video, you know, and this director wants to do this thing and this director wants to do anything. Which one's more fun? That's the one that we go with.
[00:13:56] Marcus: This, I think, is interesting, especially you're the number one that you embraced emerging technology. The irony of this is that the record industry, in many ways, have been disrupted because of emerging technology. Now, I was working at Apple at the time, so I worked in iTunes at the time you came out. And you were a darling on iTunes. I don't know if you knew that, but, like, iTunes loved Mayer Hawthorne, for sure.
[00:14:21] Mayer: And I, like, really appreciated that support, man, for sure. Like, we would notice you guys would give us, like, the single of the week or whatever every time. It was so great, yeah.
[00:14:33] Marcus: And it's interesting that, like, you took advantage of what was seen as a disruption to an industry and used that as a tailwind to, sort of, drive your ascension. And I think that, like, the music industry is facing a new existential crisis when we think about generative AI, right? Do you think of, like, as a content creator, as a producer of music, as an idea generator, how are you thinking about these new disruptions that are happening in music? And how are you bending to them, or how are you approaching them?
[00:15:03] Mayer: AI is one that is really keeping me up at night now. And what I'm trying to figure out is, how to embrace the technology because it's here to stay, like, whether we like it or not? And I'm trying to figure out, like, how to use it in tandem, you know, to use it as a tool, kind of, in the same way that Auto-Tune really transformed the music industry when it came out. And a lot of people saw it as, like, this big enemy of music. And it was, like, yeah, it's taking out all the feeling and it's making everything robotic, but it was the people who took it and, like, used it as an instrument, basically. Those were the people that really had a lot of success with it. And it's just about, like, experimenting with it and finding out what's the cool way to use it, you know, because there's… obviously, there is a super whack, boring way to use it. And it's just, like, you know, figuring out how to not do it that way and use it as an instrument instead of just the regular boring way that it's made to be used.
[00:16:13] Marcus: Now, John, I don't know if you're seeing any parallels here, but as I'm hearing Mayer talk about his experiences, sort of, what he's learned, how he's approaching the world, how he's thinking about the world that is just around the corner, I think a lot about students who are entering the workforce and they're seeing all this disruption around them, right? You see tech companies laying off tons of people. You see, like, a certain requirement of what's asked of them. How do I ever get that? But it sounds to me, as I hear Mayer's story, that a lot of what he was able to do is, it's to not only, sort of, be there when the door is open to be able to walk through it, but also to be able to be agile and to be, sort of, flexible to, sort of, bend to whatever the environment was. Do you feel any parallels there to you?
[00:17:04] John: I love this, but first I got to say, I've got this share-do-you-believe-in-love earworm going on right now because I think she was one of the first to embrace Auto-Tune. And that… it was a massive hit. I love that word, “agility.” And I think you're, you've nailed something here, Marcus, agility as an ability to embrace these changes, not just… maybe embrace them and respond to them, take advantage of them.
I like your attitude, Mayer, that AI is here. And it's not going to take over the world, let's hope, right? We're not going to have HAL 2000, but it is a tool. And to give you a parallel, I'm, I'm a little bit older than both of you, folks, but I remember when calculators first became popular in my elementary school. And, you know, we thought the sky was falling that people would not know how to do math anymore. And then we have the same kind of thing when PCs came out in the ‘80s, right? These are just that tools. They are tools. And embracing them and learning how to exploit them, I think, is something which you have done brilliantly.
[00:18:15] Mayer: Yeah, you nailed it. It's just, it's the same thing. It's happened over and over and over again. And everybody always freaks out and is like, “Oh, no, the world's ending.” But then, you know, we figure out how to use it in the right way, and it's like, “Yeah, I don't know.” AI, I'm not going to lie, though, is definitely terrifying. That's, that's… it's a really powerful one, man. But we'll see. I mean, I just think, like, creativity is always going to be cool and is always going to win.
[00:18:45] Marcus: I mean, if you liken it to music, you mentioned J Dilla, the GOAT, rest in peace, it's, like, you know, he didn't rely on the quantizer of the MPC, right? He had his own swing to it, right? Like, if you use the quantizer, it feels very mechanical, right? It makes sure that it's right on the beat. And even you can, like, you can manipulate so it's a little behind the beat, like, you know, it's a 16th behind the beat, but even that feels mechanical, right? But he would actually, like, play it live. He would play the drums live. So, it felt human. I think that that's really, kind of, the crux of these technologies.
There's a theorist, a philosopher named Marshall McLuhan, and he had this saying. He said, the technology are merely extensions of human behavior. Like, the will extensions of the foot, glasses, extensions of the eyes, clothes, extensions of the skin, that these things just extend us, they're still bound by humanity. And when we use these things to extend humanity but still feel human, it feels right, right? And when you hear a J Dilla beat, you go, “Oh, man, it just sticks to the bones because it feels like it has soul to it.”
[00:19:49] Mayer: Yeah, it does have so.
[00:19:51] John: You remind me of my younger days, my Roland TR707 drum machine. You're exactly right, Marcus. It just felt too robotic. Even though, as an engineer and as a, you know, kind of, a digital aficionado at the time, it was so cool to be able to replace my drummer with a little box. But it didn't, it didn't have soul.
[00:20:13] Marcus: Yeah. So, Mayer, this idea of, like, agility as a disruptor, I think that we're onto something there. Just to… what we're trying to do is to steal some of these stories, some of these insights that you have acquired over your time so that the listener can walk away with something. And I like this idea of agility, that, you know, the opportunity presented itself and you've been to it. And you have, sort of, the wherewithal to take all of your transformative skills and move them over into a new content. Here's a hip-hop guy who's now singing in falsetto. And, like, what are you talking about? Like, that doesn't even sound like… doesn't even seem like it's a real thing. But yet, you have carved out a way to be yourself, to be different, but not, like, intentionally different, just being who you are and actually having enough bravery to be who you are in a place where everyone's trying to bend to be something else.
What have been some of the biggest disappointments that you've had in the world of Mayer Hawthorne, navigating these changes and all its agility, sort of, trying to bend to the opportunity, what were some of the disappointments, the downfalls?
[00:21:14] Mayer: So, after the first record, there was a lot of attention from all the, the major labels, the big three major labels. They were all, kind of, courting me, trying to sign me. And I held off for a long time until Republic Records, their pitch felt right to me, where they would just try to, like, amplify what I was doing already and they were not interested in trying to, like, change me into a different type of artist.
What ended up happening was I signed with Republic Records. And I already had my second record done in this record, called How Do You Do. It was, it was finished already. And I basically turned it in them. And we put that record out. And they amplified it. They used all their big machine juggernaut power to amplify it. And it worked. And it was still the most successful record that I've released. It just went gold, actually, after, what, 15 years or something like that? So, years later or something, it went gold, which is amazing. It's my only gold record of my own, which is very, very cool.
[00:22:28] Marcus: But that's huge, though. It’s huge.
[00:22:29] Mayer: Yeah, it's huge. It was a very cool thing. So, after that, for the third record, they decided, “We're going to try to make him into something that he's not.” And they brought in all these outside producers and songwriters. And it was a really cool experience, but it wasn't my natural thing. I mean, I got to work with all these amazing producers. It was really, really cool, but we spent so much money on that record as a result. And it ended up being not exactly the record that I wanted to put out, but it was the record that they wanted me to put out. And it didn't work as well. And that was a disappointment, for sure. And then what ended up happening was a lot of the people that were really excited about me at that label when I signed, they left and took other jobs at other labels. So, having those cheerleaders on your team with you is, like, really, really important, man, super-duper important.
[00:23:37] Marcus: Like, in the world of business, we always talk about those people who are going to be sponsors for you. They're going to talk about you when you're not in the room. They're going to find those opportunities for you. And when we think about this idea of being agile, when the opportunity comes, being able to work in it, to bend in it, you got to bend, but still be yourself.
[00:23:54] Mayer: I think that's fair, yeah. I mean, and then after that, We parted ways. And they were actually cool enough to just let me out of my deal, which I still owed them two more albums, which was, like, very cool on their part. And we, kind of, just mutually split ways. And I went and released my third record through BMG, which was, like, a much more independent feeling thing. And I think we sold the almost the same number of records, but we spent, like, an absolute fraction the price, you know. And I went back to producing the whole album myself and writing all the songs and playing all the instruments. And we did just as well, but made a lot more money.
[00:24:35] John: I like this idea of agility, Marcus, but it reminds me of something which you and I teach here in marketing, which is empowerment, so, how we empower our employees. And the thing about empowerment is you give your employees authority, but if they are not motivated to exploit that authority, then nothing happens.
And it seems to me that agility is good, but it's got to be agility plus motivation or agility plus self-awareness, or there's got to be something in you to allow you to take advantage of these opportunities. And it seems to me that you have done that. You are agile and you are also motivated. So, for example, when somebody said, whoever the producer was, Peanut Butter, said to you that, you know, “This is not great hip-hop,” but the underlying samples are great. Do more of that. Not only were you agile, but you were motivated to take that advice and then lean into it. And that, perhaps, was an inflection point in your career.
[00:25:39] Mayer: Oh, without a doubt, yeah. I knew a little bit about how the record industry worked, you know, at its core and, like, you know, who owned the masters and I knew a little bit about publishing. Publishing is also incredibly complex. It's a whole nother podcast. But I knew, enough. To when I signed that first deal, I knew not to sign my publishing away. And that was really crucial, also. Like, you got to, be motivated and willing to walk through the door when the opportunity comes, but you also got to know your shit like, you read some books.
[00:26:24] Marcus: Yeah. You know, you sit down to the negotiating table, you know, what you're talking about, you know what you’re talking check somebody who's trying to take advantage of you. That's really crucial, too.
So, Mayer, I want to be respectful of your time. I know you're a busy man, busy, busy man. I got two more questions for you here.
[00:26:45] Mayer: Yeah, sure.
[00:26:45] Marcus: So, imagine you're back, you're back here in Ann Arbor. You're DJ haircut, you're playing at blind pig, what advice would you give that guy, knowing what you know now?
[00:27:00] Mayer: I think what I would have tried to do a little more was seek out guys that knew more than me and that were, like, better at it than me and try to, like, learn as much as I could from them. Try to find those people who are willing to teach you, those mentors, which I really did not have.
And we may consequently… we made so many mistakes because we were just, like, figuring it out as we went along. And a lot of those mistakes could have been easily avoided if I would have just, like, found my amp fiddler and been, like, “How do you do this? What's the right way to do this?”
Well, I could have just avoided so many of those pitfalls, like, I remember we, we, made, like, for Athletic Mic League for, you know, this was our, my very first record deal as part of the rap group, my high school rap group, we thought, the way to be successful was to be on the radio. So, we went to WJLB in Detroit, and we said, you know, how much does it cost to have a commercial on, on the radio? And it was, like, five grand or something. Which was an insane amount of money for us at the time. I mean, we were broke high school. We're high school kids
[00:28:25] Mayer: and we borrowed money from people and, like, scraped up everything we could put together and we made this commercial. And it did. It ran on WJLB and it did absolutely nothing for, like, nobody cared. It ran, like, you know, for a week on WJLB for five grand. And we basically just wasted that money completely. Tthen we had to spend the next year of our lives, like, paying that money back and that was like a step that could, if somebody would have just been, like, yo, don't do that.
That's a waste of money. You'll be way better off, like, doing this instead. We could have saved a lot of that headaches.
So, to just add, you know, reach out and say, “like, Hey, will you teach me how to do this?” It's hard. It's hard because it's, like, you don't want to admit that you don't know something. But getting over that is one of the craziest lessons in life, is, like, when you don't know something, don't just pretend like you know it. Go find someone who knows and be like, “How do you do this?”
[00:29:36] Marcus: Yeah. The, the funny part about that is that I'll even tell some big brands don't run radio ads, don't run television ads. This is not going to help you.
[00:29:45] Mayer: Yeah, well, you know, for certain businesses and models, that is a great form of advertising but for an independent rap group in Ann Arbor, that's not that's not a good good use of your money. There's way better ways to use your money.
[00:30:01] Marcus: So, here's the last one for you. As you think about this idea of agility, of bending to the opportunities as they come to you, what are you most excited for next?
[00:30:13] Mayer: Right now, I've been doing a lot of writing and producing for upcoming artists who are younger than me and just have that, like, youthful enthusiasm. You know, they're so creative and doing such cool things. It is so inspiring for me. It's been so much fun to, like, kind of, be that, like, mentor in the room and to, like, be the guy that has the references of all, you know, and know a little bit more. You know, I don't know at all, but, like, I know a little bit more and to be able to share that and to, like, help some of these young, cool artists, it's really inspiring, man.
Working with 19-year-olds is, like, amazing. It's crazy. They just see things in a totally different way. And then it, it makes me see it in that way. And it just keeps me young. it's a really cool thing, man. And a way that I can be a part of, I can play a small part in something like a Doja Cat record that is so much bigger than me. And, you know, it's, kind of, like, the only way that I can, like, be a part of something like that and make something that Is totally out of my wheelhouse, but I can contribute this, like, small piece to that huge juggernaut. You know, it's very cool.
[00:31:39] Marcus: That's amazing. John, if you would, please, wrap us up here. Put this in a frame for us. So, the listening audience here, what’s the takeaway?
[00:31:47] John: I love your idea of agility as the disruptor, but I got to tell you, the most inspirational thing which you said for me today, Mayer, was this idea of authentic voice. And the story which you told is literally your authentic voice, right? Not this, not this, kind of, figurative, authentic voice, which we talk about in business school. But you… that was a big step in your development, to realize that somebody else overengineering you and trying to make you sound like somebody different than you. I think that was for me incredibly inspirational. And perhaps, the lesson for our listeners is having the self awareness to know what that authentic voice is and being able to say no when a “producer...” a producer is trying to take you in a different direction.
So, for me, that was great. And again, every time your voice comes on the radio here in Ann Arbor, I smile listening to your songs. And it's just been such a great pleasure to, to speak with you today.
And, hopefully, we'll see you back home in Ann Arbor one of these days. It's not that far from LA, you know, all roads lead to Ann Arbor.
[00:32:58] Mayer: Yeah, I'm actually playing the Majestic Theater in Detroit. I mean, I know that's not Ann Arbor, but that's as close as we're getting on this tour, unfortunately. But that's coming.
00:33:11] John: And, you know, anybody who could get us some tickets?
[00:33:13] Mayer: Yeah, I do. I do.
[00:33:16] Marcus: Awesome Mayer. Thank you so much, man. We're so grateful for you. super proud of you, man. Another leader in best. Thanks for the time. We appreciate it.
[00:33:23] Mayer: Man, go blue. Marcus, John, thank you guys so much. Peace and love. Peace and love, guys.
[00:33:28] Marcus: Breaking Schemas is a Michigan Ross podcast, powered by the Yaffe Digital Media Initiative and produced by University FM. Go, Blue!