How Lyor Cohen Built Def Jam, Reinvented Warner, Launched 300 + Reimagined YouTube Music | Blueprint

all right so I'm gonna jump into it so one of them gonna go backwards okay one of the most profound moments of my education was when I was in Rick Rubin's dorm room and then why you and I saw him painting over the value of the gray against the magenta on the record sleep and I was saying to myself man it just looks good to me one of the most powerful lessons to me is the attention to detail to getting your art right [Music] manager impresario industry steward Lyor Cohen broke the defining artists of our time and then redefined the paradigm of the music business this is his blueprint [Music] what was Leah Cohen like in high school Leora Cohen was a really happy person in the happy family and living in a little sleepy village called Los Feliz my parents were like the epicenter of a lib very liberal hippie potluck dinners poetry readings are chose political rallies all happened in my house where your grades good in school I've always struggled at school my my dad is a psychiatrist and he nominated me for being the first test of Ritalin because I was hyper kid and because they come from Israel I had trouble learning English but I worked hard you know I tried to do the best I could so you graduate from college and you start working for a bank what were you doing I was pushing paper I was you know they called me in like a financial analyst but there was no analysis happening there was nothing for me to really do it was pretty miserable period of my life so I was reading bill Adler's biography of Run DMC from 87 and when he introduces you he mentions that after working in finance you had worked as a crab fisherman was is that true no that's not that's not true so my roommate in college was the grandson of the president of Ecuador and the college that I went to had the best marine biology school they were trying to create shrimp farms in Ecuador was the main experiment so you know one time my roommate went back to college and he says you know my uncle loves shrimp so much he dug a hole in his backyard started growing shrimps and then a year later if that holds like four miles by four miles and it's actually becoming a business so I went to Ecuador and try to check it out and and learn about it so your friends bring you into the music fault the story starts with you throwing a party in LA with the Circle Jerks and ready MC mmm how is it that you're even figuring out who the book or how to get space or how to how any of that stuff works it's not that heavy lifting oh how you do it is you do it by trial and error and you just go get it done I grew up with all the possibilities there was no barrier of anything like my parents taught me that everything you do matters that I'm not small that none of us are small we could affect change whether it's political change cultural change anything so to throw a show to make that happen didn't feel like heavy lifting so you throw that first show you you invest $700 turned into $30,000 yeah your next show though bombed just bombs like bombed what did you learn about sort of the nuance of hip-hop from that what happens to do that invested $700 main 36 what do you think happens spends that money and then bow you catch a brick and then you know whoa you're walking around numb so you went from you know high elation and I'm thinking that you're on the top of the world to really a devastating feeling in fact that feeling still lives inside of me that I could feel right now like right the second I could feel that that that pain that I went through when I recognized Wow it's fragile a lot of people would have walked away at that point but you sort of doubled down and not only continued to the music industry but ended up ruining your entire life and moving to New York mm-hmm how did you sort of rationalize that was that in response to the challenge I did something wrong and I wanted to you know reload and get it right I wanted to understand what was what happened that I got it so horribly wrong so you get to New York and by virtue of having a passport when no one else in the office does yeah you end up going on the road with Run DMC yes what were the most crucial things to the success at rush for you um flexibility preparedness thoughtful execution calm under fire I always talked about the story in London when Ronnie ray left the records in Ireland it was a sold-out show it was a matte name because the British people were scared of rappers it was a hot day the promoter over-promoted you couldn't stick an ace of spades in the audience and we didn't have the records so I thought that this was the quickest way that I was going to lose my job and people were gonna get hurt and then I realized you know the British people are record collectors so there had to have been a bunch of people in the audience that had records so I said you know the reason why we're late performing is because we're signing a lot of autographs and we realized that it's probably unfair and we should prioritize those that brought the record and a bunch of people raised their and then and I gathered up the records and that's what we I said let's go and and we perform have you started on the management side and then eventually working to really become a you know a record man road manager a road manager it's different from a manager I was on the road for three and a half years it's the primary everyday resource that I utilize to win being on the road with an artist going through three and a half years of touching in the tactile way fans radio media just creation of music during that period of the stress of success and be present you know one of you want to know what key to success is to also be present to be actually they're not thinking about the future or the past I was actually present and then from there I became a manager and that was a better manager for having been a road manager in that period in late eighties you you amass you know clientele basically everyone that matters in hip-hop for me they all sold Public Enemy how did you transition from be from this you know putting together this this management consortium to then working on the label side at Def Jam Rick left really early on so rush management was doing great but Rick left so you know we had to continue going forward so you know necessities a that's a fact so it wasn't if it wasn't something that I chose it was something that happened and that's part of being flexible and going with the flow we recognized at that time what an opportunity Def Jam was what Def Jam was was our ability to utilize our influence in the management community so we had an outlet that we didn't have to go to someone else to ask them to listen to our demo were you aware that your skill set was kind of shifting from being the guy that can be on the ground advancing a show doing those kinds of things to all of a sudden you know now you're sort of curating a brand and and a brand identity I didn't want to be the person who up Def Jam you know it was a very scary period and by the way I had a very I also had a very cold period I couldn't sign a good artist and I acted desperately and it was there was a period that I was in deep question about my abilities I was very confused and and didn't have the confidence that I needed to be successful at that point I remember one day I just got quiet and closed the door and I try to understand what is it about me that is losing personal confidence that is making desperate moves and where is the light gonna come from that is going to help guide me and then I realized it was the Def Jam logo and I brought everybody together and I said our light will be the logo it will shine the light on exactly who we sign how we market and promote that artist and that's when Redman appeared and that was a very powerful moment for us because Redman is Def Jam and that was the the moment that things started changing for us after finding his sea legs as an executive Lior began to lead Def Jam and the music industry into an entirely new era I remember Russell came to me and complained and said vibe doesn't want to put me on the cover you know death row and and and and bad boy puffy and and and showed they get covers left and right and center why don't they want to put me on the cover and they said to Russell that we've just decided to take a different Road than them we're the AAMCO of this we get into our blue overalls and we drop transmissions we help artists come in and help them and have them go out we're going to represent the highest service work that an artist or an entrepreneur could tap into it was that decision that allowed Rockefeller to feel comfortable working with Def Jam or Murder Inc or any of the other companies because we weren't trying to steal shine or be the one we'll just wanted to do our job that we could feel proud of that we've contributed to and made the difference he also really sort of developed for the first time since the late eighties a brand identity for Def Jam's there was a club in New York called the Red Parrot do you ever heard of it I've not heard it's a very very critical Club all the gangsters showed up to this club and a lot of the gangsters would always like be very loud like I am that guy but one and that guy used to come full-length mink coat and then sit very quietly in the corner and the fact that he was quiet the whole club will go yo that's fat cat so I realized very early on that I didn't need Def Jam to be on the back of a Rockefeller Record everybody would end up knowing and that yo you know that staff Jam too right it's much more powerful than saying so subtlety I learned from that moment and that's what that era that you're talking about Def Jam Def Jam and the powerful branding actually was the Def Jam in the most subtle phase in in 1998 you guys sold the label to UMG how did you feel about that emotionally I thought it like there was no tomorrow so Russell had already been spending the money and I fought it and didn't want to sell now here is how funny thing about life okay they forced me to sell at the highest month in the history of the music business and if it was up to me I would have read it all the way down how many years since 1999 is it then they're 18 19 years all the way down it's only now starting to bounce crazy right that's you know that's a lot of luck involved in all of this stuff when you take over the Warner system how did you think about that challenge when you stepped into that that chair Warner was the smallest of the three Universal and Sony so I said to myself having analyzed the whole company that they have really lost their way humongous bloated rosters and very poor results so I went through a lot of painstaking focused effort with the A&R staff I want you to find the roster that you want to engage deeply with so the only problem with that is that if you're going to cut the roster and you're going to shorten your release schedule not have so many releases you have to increase your batting average and break more artists but those that break need to yield more and that's where 360 came from a 360 deal just for those that aren't familiar basically that the label assumes a piece of the revenue from all the revenue streams around an artist yep and so we went to work and started cutting our roster being more focused engaging more an artist development not just throwing records at the board and hoping that they would stick having real engaged deeper commitment and you know it took some time and it started working after your time at Warner you went and dabbled in management again working with Kanye for a little bit working with Travis Scott having been on both sides of the fence do you still feel like the 360 makes sense in the new music album 360 absolutely makes sense the the trade-off for an artist is that you don't need to hit on the first record you could develop your career couldn't because we're aligned in the long-term it's a long-term success so and that's the signature that I wanted to to leave at the Warner Music Group while you set up 300 the concept of 300 happened because first of all I'm prepared to eat myself and reinvent myself and 300 was a contrarian bet they were everybody in the industry was laughing at me like hyenas was like who does he what what is he doing hasn't he seen all the charts recorded music falling off a map eighteen years of decline the nerve of people to think that the music business was not going to survive music is an essential element there's a lot of water out there but the water industry still works and my belief is we're entering the Golden Age era of the music industry but it will never get activated until the impresario comes back and Pesaro czar the unemployable but have such a unique point of view of pop culture we've got an industry right now that's littered with career employees and we have industry that is set to explode because of streaming and advertising I'm hoping that 300 the reason why 300 was one is because I saw the explosion about to happen and two is I wanted to ring the bell for capital to team up with the impresario and to build the the new version of Island Records the new version of Atlantic Records the new version of Amon and to ring the ballot that empresarial it's time Leora's compass led him back to the label business but it wouldn't last long where others saw a job he saw a higher calling you've put a lot of emphasis on the long term development of artists yes in particularly in the last 10 years but it seems like as an industry there's sort of a schism in the thinking or the philosophy and you have some labels signing people like to catch me outside girl or cardi B who may haven't more than one hit or may not but then you also have these people like chance where people are trying to build a very long stable career mmm-hmm do you think that both roads will end in the same sort of promised land you know I don't think there's one size that fits all I think that labels and in the creative community has the ability to buckle down take the long road develop a career or take the very fast fuse it I don't want to be arrogant that there's only one path there's numerous paths and that's what's such a so interesting about the opportunity here that that the digital revolution is offered and you refer to the impresarios as the unemployable yet you currently work at YouTube music as an employee of this very unusual choice yes had how does it then for other people for both of us perhaps listen um this is how I want to explain it I had no interest in this job but I do have an interest in being helpful to our industry and this is one of the most prestigious and powerful companies in the world that have had I think a fundamental misunderstanding with the creative industry that I think that by virtue of me being there can help Shepherd one a basis of understanding into a basis of building a business together with the creative community that we could all be proud of you've had to lead a lot of teams over the course of your career sure and fairly large ones mm-hmm when you're sitting with someone interviewing them how do you know when they're the right fit for your organization I like people who want to win because it's in their DNA to win that they actually want to win and they want to win with others they don't want to win in isolation the other thing that's been critical and the most important thing throughout my career is hiring and surrounding myself with people that are significantly better than myself and being ok with it and giving them the rock and letting them make their own mistakes and being there for them when they're going through their moments of reflection to post-mortem and and walk them through it you know over the course of the years you've dealt with a lot of artists with a whole sort of vast variety of personality sure some introverts some extroverts yeah some people who are self-destructive some people who were very maniacally focused yes what is the key to coaching the best out of an artist truthfulness like when I see an artist with a cup of our via Slean I'm truthful I said that's liquid heroin you've physically addicted to that you know so I'm not a yes person I'm very direct you know it comes back to I believe that my voice and my influence and I could impact the world a tough philosophy because I'm all in I'm not kind of sort of I'm not guarded I don't protect myself my only protection is when I get hurt I always blame the persona not the person Rico is a beautiful person that Flavor Flav didn't show up to that show Rico is more responsible he would have been there because of the struggles of being popular or being an artist and everything like that and the pressures that they go through some can handle it well and some don't handle it very well and so I blame the persona not the person you know you talked about that that feeling in the pit of your stomach from the failure of the Houdini show I still feel it have there been other moments of yes what what are the most notable ones that that still sort of haunt you well when I when Def Jam was in its darkest days was that feeling reactivated it was reactivated as a reminder on many instances you know the good news is as I felt it but I was able to continue going on so I recognize it's it's not about the failure but what I've learned from the series of failures you know I wake up every day the first thing that I think about is maybe today's the day I jump into my my shoes maybe today is a day I'm gonna bump into someone and it's gonna change the creative landscape that's my first thought every day for over 30 years today could be the day that I bump into who that's going to change the whole thing [Music]

Channel: Complex Hustle

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Id: TCs1-KwGuZY

Length: 28min 42sec (1722 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 30 2017