“Every Time I Pick Winners:” Adrian Miller on Managing Great Artists – Rolling Stone

Adrian Miller is full of stories. Throughout our hourlong conversation in Rolling Stone’s midtown office, almost every name mentioned evokes a colorful anecdote of his experience with them. The ‘90s are reductively branded by rap’s so-called East Coast-West Coast beef; It would make casual followers think hip-hop was siloed into bi-coastal industries. But there were people around like the LA-based Miller, an industry veteran who was around for the early chapters of both Wu-Tang and Death Row Records as a radio host and A&R at Loud Records, Immortal Records, and Warner Bros. Records. 

He had a stint at Hits magazine (where he created the Rap Music Chart) before moving to Loud Records, helping Steve Rifkind’s label become a preeminent hip-hop label through his artist advocacy and connections. “Steve’s biggest thing with me was, ‘Do you still have your Rolodex? Do you still have all your contacts?’ When I left Hits magazine,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘Of course, those are my people. I have the relationships.’ He’s like, ‘Okay, you’re hired. I know you can reach everybody, and that helps us in the ploy of bringing on more people.’”

From Loud, he moved on to Immortal Records and Warner Bros. Records, where he extended beyond the rap world and worked on projects for Incubus and Korn. Today, Miller manages Anderson .Paak, Flo-Rida, and rap duo (and rap media legends) Sway & King Tech of The Wake Up Show. His curiosity and love for music also led to him becoming a musical supervisor on movies like Friday, which paved the way for him to become music supervisor for the third season of Wu-Tang Clan: An American Saga, a one-of-a-kind retelling of the clan’s rise from Shaolin to the world stage. 

He worked closely with the show’s writers as well as RZA and Divine to pick the best songs for the show’s final season, orienting us in the early ‘90s not just through select Wu-Tang cuts but others, such as when he chose to put Hurricane G track in the show shortly after her November passing. 

“For me, there is a lot of recording dynamics of producing it, dynamics of clearing it,” he says about musical supervision. “Dynamics of making sure the moment works for the scene, and you have to approve that across the board. It was never like, ‘Oh, this song sticks, boom.’ It was not ever that easy, but it was always easy in the sense that we knew we had to strive for perfection.”

He’s been on that mission throughout his career, where his willingness to take chances and expand his repertoire has served him well. 

“I always had running jokes on people,” he says. “I won’t give names of the artists on this particular one, but people would say I choose dumb artists that are not ever going to be successful. And other executives may say that of me, and I tend to say, ‘We’re going to see.’ And every time I say that, we see. Usually, that artist blows up, and there’s no more words because what do you want from your artist? Success. And every time I pick winners. I’d like to think that it’s about being able to see that je ne sais quoi in artists. That’s what I look for in the artist and in their music, in what they bring.”

Adrian Miller talked to Rolling Stone about his lengthy career, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, and the potentiality of new Anderson .Paak music. 

The Wu-Tang series is unprecedented. Rappers usually have biopics, but this is a whole show, and the story is unconventional. 
If you expect anything, expect the unexpected. You’re going to get a quality performance out of RZA because his mind, he’s like, “Yo, can I afford to do it my way?” And then upon getting the green light of “yes,” he’s all about doing it his way.

You’re going to get state-of-the-art next wave. He was putting these guys to the test of, “give me five years, and then I’ll give you everything you ever thought you wanted and then some.” Nobody could be mad at that. They overindulged themselves to the extent of ODB passing, the division of things, and it’s like how do you hold a troupe of nine people together like that? It’s crazy, and I was there from day one.

It’s a miracle they did it the five years. From my vantage point as an outsider, there were a lot of creative differences.
You get a chance to now understand what was going on [with the show]. Like you said, behind the scenes, this is our perspective. Everything wasn’t true to heart but as close as it could be. And then my favorite episode was in fact episode six of season three, which made me think about Shameik in a whole other way. 

That episode touched me in a way because we didn’t get to see the entire Purple Tape thought process. But now we got to see the inside, the outside, why, all of it as a dreamscape told in an hour. And it’s like, “that’s what he wanted to do? Oh, got it.” 

Like it or not, it’s hard for artists to make money nowadays. Everybody ate off of this show. Whether it was a licensing opportunity, publishing, re-up opportunity, whatever the case was, they all played a role as the crew. And  I don’t think anybody was upset at them being portrayed on television.

They all had the option to have creative input?
As much as they wanted to step up to the plate, [yes, they did]. And then, as art imitates life and imitates art, who would have thunk that they would have actually done a world tour as Wu-Tang, bringing it all back full circle to the end, the last episode? 

Their last tour that’s current right now is tied into the show. That’s perfect because no matter if you thought you could do something similar, RZA blew you out [of] the water again with maybe you’re in the show as an audience member.

I like to think my job was relatively easy. I had a whole team around me of people. I love the music, I’m a part of the music, being asked to come in and help connect the dots and get everything in order, was a pleasure.

Can you take me back to the older days? What were your first impressions when you met them, and how did the music strike you? What was that period like?
When you think about a West Coast label signing an East Coast artist prior to the real beefing of both sides, there wasn’t a chance for them in New York City because everybody was like, “It has to be done this way. Y’all can’t be from here.”

All I saw was that the record was getting a lot of reactions out of radio, college radio, and [veteran DJ] Wildman Steve sent us the song. My department was tracking radio nationwide, and that was one of the things that made it easier for us to find the record, the record basically found us.

We were like, “Yo, they got a lot of traction. They’re getting a lot of calls, everything is blowing up.” In that era, you could lie, but you’d look stupid if you lied and your integrity was thrown out the window. As a DJ, you didn’t want to be a liar and say, “Hey, this is happening with this group” and it actually wasn’t.

There was a different honor system in that era, and the guy that I had on my East Coast border was Trevor Williams. And Trevor was like, “Yo, this record’s blowing up.” Wildman Steve’s on my neck about it like, “You got to hear it.” And I heard Protect Ya Neck and I was like, “Yo, this shit is crazy. How easy is this? Let’s take it to the boss.”

It’s funny that you said a West Coast label because I always think of them as a East Coast label because of, I guess, their later catalog.
You think about the artists that were Loud: Akon, Three 6 Mafia, Tha Alkaholiks. These are the weird things that Loud has signed, and nobody knew about Twista. Twista was the first. I was the one who was like, “Yo, we need to put him in the Guinness Book. That was because we had marketing ploys to get. Who else was [interested in the] weird things that Loud did? I mean, of course, Mobb Deep, Pun, the major things. Matty C got in at Loud and started doing his thing, and that’s still one of my closest people.  I like to emphasize the fact that we were all so close that if you needed a list, if you needed a helping hand, you could count on me to do it, you could count on Matteo to do it…Brian Samson, everybody communicated and connected.

I don’t know if anybody realizes, but because of our league and understandings at that tier, there were now rap music departments at every major company. Not only did we have a juice card, we had real positioning. And it was starting to be known that if you needed to get something done in hip-hop, you had to talk to somebody responsible for that at that said company.

What was your official capacity at Loud? You were in the radio department, or did you have an official title, but you were doing multiple things, or how did that?
I remember my big brother who was Steve’s partner at the time, Fabian Duvernay, said to me, “We ain’t got titles. You tell me what you want to do, and I need you to do the job we need you to do. You tell us what you want to do, and then we’ll figure it out.”

What was it about being a A&R that enticed you?
I knew that to be an A&R guy, you had to have a company backing your play [to where] you could talk to management, you could talk to artists, and you could help them potentially bring their music to your realm. I knew that I had an appetite for finding the next wave.

I could pick a single. I knew what was going on with records because I knew what radio was looking for, and we wanted to appease radio. It wasn’t “put the record out on the street.” That was obvious, you had to do that no matter what. But then we had this outlet at radio that said if you got your record on the radio multiple times a day, you were going to become a star.

And having that ingenuity, I felt like if we found the artist that already had action on the radio somewhere, it could go everywhere.  For me, that meant being in tune to the promo people, which I was already. Being in tune to the marketing people, which I was [starting to be] through working with Fade and Steve.

And then I felt like I could find them songs. I knew several A&R people and I respected them, and I was being mentored by several people from Orlando Aguillen over at Delicious Vinyl, Kim Buie at Island Records who I signed my first group with. I got a chance to get my group signed and then snatched all in one. I was learning as I bumped my head and moved up the ranks.

Can you take me into the light bulb moment for getting Twista in the Guinness Book of Records?
A lot of people are going to take credit, and I want everybody to have their credit, but my contribution to that credit had to be this: One of my dear friends, top management, was managing Daddy Freddy, who actually had the Guinness Book world record.

Daddy Freddy would always brag about being the fastest artist, but I couldn’t understand him because he was in Patois mode. And my argument was, “well you’re not even saying things in the English vocabulary that we understand.” I could understand Patois to a certain extent, but it was like (singing). I’m like, “That’s not saying the word, how do you get credit for that?” But nobody was arguing that. And then when Twista came along he was rapping in the car one day when we were driving. It was myself, Eric the Wiz, Fade, and we were rolling somewhere, and he started bustin’.

And I was like, “You actually rap fast.” And he was like, “Oh, I can go faster.” And he started going faster. And I was like, “Yo.” It was this light bulb moment that said, “You should battle Daddy Freddy.” And he was like, “I’ll battle anybody, I don’t care.”

We set it up as a battle, but Daddy Freddy had conceded when he heard [Twista] rap. It wasn’t even like somebody was counting line for line, they were trying to figure out how many words he could say in a certain amount of time. And he blew everybody out the room and they gave him the Guinness Book Record. And the point in that was we had to find things that made interesting news. Steve was like, “Figure out something to make him more popular.” When in fact, all we needed to do was chill and let him make a record seemingly because now look at him. It really is about the music ultimately.

I also saw that Daz was the first artist you managed. How did that come about?
When I was in college, I was always doing 50 million things like every college student. I was at TU in Tulsa and on the radio. I was at the college station, and I was at the regular R&B station playing hip-hop illegally because they were like, “Don’t play any rap music.” And after midnight when everybody was asleep, I’d go hard in the paint.

And every kid was up listening to me play music. Daz and his friend Emmanuel used to call me on the radio and be like, “Yo, we want to come up there.” And I’m like, “No, you can’t come up here.” But then one day I let them up there and I became cool with them. And Daz was like, “My cousin’s going to be putting out a record and I want to rap too, and I want to do this, and I want to do that.” I was like, “I got a contest coming up. If you guys can come up and be in the contest, I’ll let you in it.”

And they were in the contest, they were really good, but they came in third place. The guy who won it disappeared. I don’t even know what happened to The Judge and The Jury, but his presentation was dope. It was no question mark about it. The Bermuda Boys came in second place, and they were talented and had it like that, but they weren’t as good as a presentation as The Judge and The Jury. That’s funny, this kid called himself The Judge and The Jury back in that era, which was like ’88. He was dope.

When you said judge at first, I thought you meant the judge of the competition, but that’s his name.
Right. No, his name, the group name was The Judge and The Jury. He was the judge and he turned around and he had this other character. He had on all black on one side and all white on one side. And he was in that, in ’88. He was wild creative and his presentation was theatrical. You could not front. Daz and them couldn’t say he wasn’t dope enough because they came out there looking like street hoodlums but had a Father MC… Daz wasn’t doing Death Row-esque material [yet]. He was doing what he knew best. His guy was more of an R&B producer, and he was making love records like LL, Father MC, Heavy D.

But he was dope, and he could spit, and they were trying to go off of sheer talent. And I was like, “Wait a minute, you are actually pretty dope.” His group was called Genuine, believe it or not. Him and Emmanuel Dean. Emmanuel went on to produce some big records, and he played the keys on “G Thang” because Dre didn’t play keys back in that era, he had people playing with him and he was producing those guys. Emmanuel Dean, God rest his soul. He passed [in 2019]. But Daz and I have known each other since he was 17. I was managing him and he’ll still be like, “Yo, you’re my manager.” And unless you say, “I don’t manage you anymore, I’ll manage you until the end.” That’s my little thing with certain artists that I work with.

Did you have proximity to those heyday Death Row days?
Oh, 100%. And it wasn’t managing that Daz that got me there, it was being around, and I had some of the dopest artists on the West Coast that weren’t signed. My relationship to Daz and Emmanuel, of course, [and my] relationship to Battlecat. I was in the Harry-O business in a major way, and he was giving phone calls from prison like, “Yo, go do this, go do that,” and we would be on point.

Andre Harris and I used to be running buddies before he was murdered. God rest his soul. But I got a chance to really see things cross over from Ruthless to becoming what was Death Row, and not be touched by it because I took two steps back. I was friends with Eric. Eazy-E was like… That was the one where I felt my heart break when he passed. And then to this day, let me ask you this in the middle of an interview. If Dr. Dre is the greatest producer in hip-hop music, who’s the greatest writer?

Are you referring to DOC?
I’m referring to the one that everybody says is the greatest writer in hip-hop. I’m referring to the guy who had the first solo record that made NWA break up because he had a platinum project on Ruthless as a solo artist. And he was not even from LA. A lot of people miss that he’s written for Snoop. He Taught Snoop how to rap, according to Snoop. Em learned all his cadences from listening to and mimicking DOC according to him. And the list goes on and on for people who looked and said, “He went platinum?” Slick Rick, LL, Rakim, everybody did a head nod and bowed down to DOC.

And I encourage him to this day because he’s got a documentary dropping. My encouragement for DOC is your pen never stopped. Your voice may have, but your pen never stopped. And he didn’t get a lot of credit for the stuff that he’s been doing for all the time being right next to Dre, but he’s done a lot. From writing with Jay-Z to…his pen is bananas.

I think the story has to be told a little bit more about how he’s come full circle and how he’s touched many people in hip-hop and why many of the greats pay homage to him. But keep in mind, he is the reason Dre left Ruthless. When he was the solo artist who was like, “Yo, I got to get out of here,” him and Dre was best friends then. It wasn’t because Eazy wasn’t best friends with nobody, Eazy was on his own agenda. They were close, and when Suge started Death Row, remember his partner was DOC. If you look at the story, it’s Suge and DOC together full-time, then Dre got yanked in, and that’s exactly how it happened. I still am in touch and very close with… I have a deal with Dre, obviously, with Anderson [Paak], but my day-to-day who I  rock with, that’s a whole different conversation and it’s definitely DOC. That’s big bro right there.

Can you say a little bit about his documentary?
It’s coming. Everybody I mentioned is in it, you got people speaking the gospel. If you know me, you know I’m a part of things that are not the same old same like this Wu-Tang story. DOC’s story is unexplainable, and you look at it from all the sides, you get all the emotions. You get sad, you get happy, you get excited. You can get like “wow,” there’s a fear factor there. All in told, he reaches around everything, but his humanitarian story IS unlike any other. And it feels like a redemption story like no other too, I’m very excited to see that come full circle for him.

Harry O is this shadowy figure, but what was he like as an executive? Can you speak to his business mind and where you think he could have taken things if he was home all this time?
He is a very intricate person. He’s an extremely difficult character to get close to because he’s Harry-O. When you think about the characters that have played roles in our entertainment business, think about the guy who put Denzel Washington on…Harry-O. When I first spoke to him, he was asking me to help him run his company Godfather Entertainment, which had a [music label division]. It wasn’t Death Row, they were calling the label something else, but [what became] Death Row was the music division of Godfather Entertainment.

I was trying to figure out how he was calling me from prison. I was blown away, but everything he was doing was state-of-the-art in the next wave. And if you knew anything about being in LA, you knew his name, it rang bells. It opened doors before he even went to prison.

The fact that he got a clemency, and he came home…it was wonderful to reconnect with him and see him be reinvolved with Death Row in a different way and how everything has come full circle. And on the other side of it, Dick Griffey, Nate Dogg, just… I can’t even begin to say… Emmanuel Dean, all the figures that were a part of Death Row coming full circle. There was a lot of soil between the air and opportunity, and there was a lot of tragic moments that didn’t have to exist. 

You wear so many hats, doing many different things. How do you balance it all? How do you stay passionate about it all?
Passion is easy because it’s the music. It’s the fact that we have access to IP that we can get excited about from tech to theater to film and TV to publishing, whatever. For me, I find that the granularity of exercising business is important, and there’s not enough to know. I’ve always tried to be a learner. I bother people like Big John about publishing conversations, and they’re like, “Yo, call me later.” But I want to know as much as I can know that I can practice that, and then I can preach that.  I practice what I preach, and I  am a seeker. I call myself a janitor more than I’m anything in the business, and that’s why I can do several things because you got to sweep up everything. And that knowledge is power to me.

Did you anticipate going many directions in those early stages of your career or did the curiosity drive you in different directions?
I think that the driving source is me being curious and the music. Loving the music, the passion for it. I think that that’s super important, but as far as being on many different capacities, I don’t want to do anything for the sake of doing it. I like to do things at its highest level. I try to take my time and build teams around that business moment, for the sake of doing and being a part of Wu-Tang and music supervising the project, a lot of people want to pigeonhole me as this music supervisor. And I love that because then that means that we did something right as a team.

My music team consists of myself, King Tech, Ms. Carol, DeMonica, Ty, Kiera. It was a big team of us that created the music for Wu-Tang. Not to mention you had to get all that approved by RZA and Divine. And this is on our side of the fence, let alone Disney’s own coordinating sides. We’re living and we’re learning, but I’m hopeful that people say that this isn’t about putting Wu-Tang music into a Wu-Tang show. This is about showing the members of Wu-Tang’s preferences. If they had a beef with somebody, that music had to be played during that era to show that part “why, if this guy’s music is being played on the radio?” And I’ll let people dig deeper into the show to understand what that means.

As a music supervisor, how much does your job coalesce with that of the scriptwriter? How much does the need to play certain songs that are integral to the Wu-Tang legacy intersect with scriptwriters’ job?
Please believe while Alex and RZA were coming up with the script for the shows they had certain things in their minds and their hearts, but not all things are clearable. Not all things you want are going to happen in the long run. You have to have plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D, plan E, and plan F, until you actually hit the secret code that says, “Okay, we can use this one, we can use that one.”

And fortunately, it was all Brotherhood Records being used, Razor Sharp, or Wu-Tang, or Loud, or et cetera, on and forth. It was always an easier reach, but sometimes when we would reach out to people, believe it or not, they may not be affordable because they get more money for their license. And it’s like, “Oh, we have to figure out what works.”

I think following the guys of the writing, and hats off to Alex and RZA for coming up with the best methodology for doing this. But it was sought out and done long before I got involved. I was blessed to be a part of it and then asked to perform.

 It’s ongoing. Music supervision, as fun as it is, it’s ala lot of work. It’s a lot of intricate details. It’s a lot of asking. It’s a lot of staying on top of one thing to get it done 20 times the right way. A lot of people don’t see that part. I’m cool with that because it’s more of what I’ve learned in the business of music to manage the expectation of it. In that sense, I’m still doing music management.

How did you become a music supervisor on the Wu-Tang show? I know you said you’ve had a relationship with them for a long time. Were you involved with the previous two seasons in any capacity?
Well, I’ve always represented King Tech, and he was involved from day one. They always wanted to bring Tech on to do the thing, and Tech is an institution in hip-hop. When you think of King Tech, you have to say Sway and King Tech. You can’t say one without the other.

And that’s because the Wake Up Show existed, and I’ve been working closely with the Wake Up Show forever. those are my friends. I’ve always been the guy who raised my hand in a room, and been like, “Hey, I’ll show up for free. This is not about me being paid.” Eventually, someone sees that, and they see your energy and they see that you aren’t there for a check.

And you get asked to do more, and once upon a time, like I said, Tech was like, “I’m not going to be able to do it. Would you be interested?” And that’s how I was able to raise my hand in the room and get approved by Alex and RZA. I was already around working with and for King Tech.

What distinguished this experience from your musical supervisor previous projects?
This was my first time working in television and dealing with many executive places and that realm.  I learned a lot in that regard. Usually, it’s films that I work on, which you have a different autonomy. Do what you need to do to get over the hump when the movie comes out. Everything’s said and done. But with TV, it’s a little bit different of an exchange.

People want to put you in one thing because they look at you and say, “Oh, you’re hip-hop.” But I can go into any realm, whether it’s country western, folk, soul, R&B, any realm, dixie. I can do anything because I listen to everything. I think it all starts with knowing, “Oh, here’s some zydeco music. Oh, here’s some African Zik, here’s some…” It’s different things. I might have a sitar player out of Egypt.

It’s any value prop that I could bring to the table. I’m trying to use my expertise to do more and be involved with more ask. If people feel like, “Yo, we need somebody who wants to get hands deep in,” then I’ll raise my hand in a room.

How does being exposed to so much music as a music professional change how you listen to music? Does it ever feel like it’s not leisurely?
Oh, it’s work, and more often than not, you find those moments, and you go, “Wow, I really enjoy my work.” But then most of the time, it’s like, “Yo, this is work.” We recently did a thing with Sway in the Morning where we had a challenge, and over 10,000 people submitted their entries, and we had to listen to all that. It was redundancies and tactical, but it eventually had some moments where you could say, “Okay, cool. I understand why I do this.” But as far as records that may come to me or artists that may come to me with songs and say, “Hey, we want you to be a part of our thing,” before I even do that, I have to love what that person stands for and how that person’s music is.

When it’s purely about the song and maybe referencing clearing a record or something for a project, I will look at the song and say, “You know what? This fits the scene. It doesn’t speak to me. It’s not necessarily my cup of tea, but I’ll make the decision to make what fits best for that moment fit best for that moment,” if that makes sense. 

How’d you meet Anderson Paak?
It was a song that crossed over from TiRon & Ayomari, who introduced me to him. I was managing TiRon & Ayomari with Dominique Trenier, D’Angelo’s manager. It comes full circle. You know how people say, “Oh, we’re looking for the next Prince, Michael Jackson.” I’m like, let’s figure out the next D’Angelo. Wondering if he was going to come with new music, and this was before he came with Black Messiah and The Vanguard.

We were looking for that, and Anderson was giving me vibes, and I’m like, “Yo, what is this?” And TiRon & Ayomari like, “Oh, that’s our drummer. He sang on the hook.” I was like, “Where is he at? Prove it. Prove that he exists.” And they brought him around and I met him at their listening party for their record. And they winded up firing me, and I was bummed out about it, but I met him, and he wound up some months later bringing me on board to work with him. And I feel like people go, “Oh, you got fired from being the manager of Anderson or TiRon or this person or that…” but I got hired. There was once upon a time I was hired for a reason and a cause, and I didn’t get fired because I didn’t do the job or I wasn’t trustworthy. They also just see what they want to see and what you’re supposed to do. Their level of expectation becomes something else.

And if you look at what I could do with Anderson, I would say a lot of that came from him having said talent. But there was a lot of that said talent that went undiscovered until we could put him in the right position, and that was all in tactical discovery and synergy and the strategy. And he and I came up with that together, so we still do the label Out of Body Experience together.

Is there anything you could say about new Anderson .Paak music?
Yep. [Smiles] Definitely some new music. There’s definitely some new music. New NxWorries is coming. That’s Project Everything. DJ Pee Wee is on the loose. Good luck trying to book him. And I can say that he’s definitely going to have another Anderson .Paak album coming soon. Anything else above and beyond that, you got to see because there will be an opportunity to reach back to the vaults on some things. We’re getting ready to do another release in Venice. People are going to be getting another barrage of things. We’ll let his management figure that out.

You referenced that you’re the music supervisor, but there are other people you collaborate with to make certain decisions. Can you speak to some of the moments where there was particular back and forth about the proper song for any particular moment?
When they were writing the screenplay, there were moments that they felt needed to stick, and they didn’t see anything past that. And that’s the producers, the writers, et cetera, on forth. Because Alex is the writer and executive producer with RZA. I wanted to give them that vision, regurgitate it back in the best way, and if we could process clearing it fast enough or working with a replay, we had to get involved. Shout out to all the people who came to the production and replayed from The New Hippies over to King Tech. 

Obviously, the guy who plays RZA is not a producer. He doesn’t know how to operate an SP-1200 or DJ, for that matter, and all of that is tricks of the trade of understanding how to put that in perspective. And watching King Tech actually become RZA is an amazing behind-the-scenes moment in and of itself. Ashton Saunders got a chance to be RZA by way of King Tech. RZA didn’t have time to direct, write, and show him how to do it all. He had to have hands on deck down to the recreation of people in the studio doing their moments becoming the artist.

If you listen to the lyrics, this is them. These aren’t the records. There is not one part where the [original] rappers come on, and it’s the record. That’s got to tell you that these guys sound like Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, Ghost, and Meth. That’s them, Dave and Shameik. These guys actually came through with it, and it made me go… I had to applaud them for their moments of finding that.

The actors’ recording is one of the show’s most distinct aspects. That’s them rapping some of the greatest lyrical exhibitions of all time.
And they’re spot on. I’m playing a game called Shazam, and the song pops up. Talk about crazy karaoke. Because ultimately, Shazam is on an algorithm based on the actual sound and the songs. That’s how they find it. But it has to have an authentic sound, and that’s the reality. It’s like RZA remade all those songs all over again. Hats off to the guys who did all the hard work and heavy lifting to get there. And hats off to the guys who did all the hard work and heavy lifting to get there.

Was that RZA’s idea to have the actors rhyming?
That was his. That was RZA’s idea. He didn’t want to do anything. The casting had to be with people who could pull it off.

If you got the chance to do music supervision in a similar show, what are some acts in other genres that you would love to do that for?
I would love to do Incubus. , because those are my boys, and I was there from day one. OutKast would be a dream come true to watch that. If they ever needed help making anything for U2, I’m your guy—The Cure. Blink 182, come on down, holler at your boy. I’m here for it.