HUSTLE PERSONIFIED: M80

INTERVIEW KB TINDAL | PHOTOGRAPHY @THEBLADENEWS

Matthew “Almighty M80” Markoff  is one of those guys in Hip Hop that's true to the art form. He’s a lawyer that also exemplifies what it means to be a true A&R. He's an unconditional lover of Hip Hop culture. M80 is a superior dot connector when it comes to working with artists in the Hip Hop space, as well as in the NFT space. He's been a part of more than 10.5 million albums sold, 39 billboard rap top 100 albums. He has 14 Gold and platinum plaques. He's also a Guiness Book world record holder for the longest freestyle ever recorded at nine hours, 15 minutes, and 15 seconds. He's been a part of this culture for a couple of decades now and he continues to give back and uplift others, helping people in the industry win and helping people win in life in general. He is the quintessential hustler. I got a chance to kick it with M80 for Validated Magazine and here is the interview that follows.  

VALIDATED: Let's start at the beginning. Where did you get the name M80 from?

M80: This is a true story. My original rap name was M&M. The initials, the letters M AND M which are my initials, Matthew MarkOFF. This predates “Marshall Mathers”, “Eminem”, and “The Slim Shady LP”. I have an older brother. We lived in Toledo, Ohio, and we moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. At some point, I believe it was like, I don't know, the mid-90s, my brother comes home and he's like, there's another rapper in Detroit named Eminem. I'm like, oh, man, I was just like, freestyling at the time. I didn't have any songs or anything. He said if you actually want to pursue rap as a career you probably should change your name.

It was crazy for my brother to say something like that, where it's just like another guy who for all we know, is maybe just as popular as me, another dude from the Midwest that was getting ready to drop his first stuff. For a couple of mixtapes, I just went by MarkOFF, my last name. Then I did a couple of tapes under the name Sir Slick Sack, which was my pager code 777 for the triple s.  I swam varsity, I played lacrosse, and I played intramural basketball in high school, and I'm coming home with my friend Justin one day from swim practice. He's like, you know what? you should be M 1000 and I'm like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard and we're both cracking up.

We're sitting there thinking I am like M80 though, that could go. Tell me about M80. M80 leaves the impact, leaves a protruding effect. That's me. You meet me, you don't forget it. You feel my business presence, you don't forget it. That is the impact of an M80, of an explosive and that is me. I stuck with M80 ever since. I've never went back and did any more rhymes with Slick Sack or M&M or anything like that. People still have Sir Slick Slack tapes. All throughout high school in my sophomore and junior year, all we did was sell tapes. Senior year, I think the internet was invented when I was a junior in high school like ‘98-‘99.

That's when we started, maybe it was invented before, but that's when we had it in school. In the library, they had computers with CD burners. It wasn't until my senior year that I would take a copy of my CD and go to the library for an hour and make the copies of the CDs and already have the cases. But other than that, every night, I'd be at my parents’ house actually dubbing each cassette tape one by one just to take to school the next day to sell, to repeat the same process.

VALIDATED: What's your absolute earliest memory of Hip Hop culture?

M80: It's one of my earliest memories. It's one of my best memories. I'm in sixth grade. The first half of ‘93, I think. My brother who's seven and a half years older than me was the basketball coach. I went to Central Elementary. He went to Sophomore High School, but he coached Middle School basketball for a school called McCord Junior High, which I ended up going to for seventh grade. But my brother had this red Mercury Tracer and “Doggystyle” came out. This is when you’d go to the store and the CD would be in like the giant security packages. He got “Doggystyle” on CD and cassette. And just listening to “Doggystyle” it's still today one of my favorite albums of all time, fast forward 20 years or 15 plus years I get to work with Snoop Dogg. He is amazing. The first CD I ever bought, I got Kris Kross and I got Dr. Dre, “The Chronic”. There was a copy of “The Chronic” still in like the giant security thing. It was going for like two g’s. That's my earliest memories of Hip Hop. And then I took a lot of my music cues from my brother. When he gives me rides to and from school and sporting events and stuff like that. Half the time we're listening to Alternative Rock like Pearl Jam and Stones Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, stuff like that. A Tribe Called Quest, Cypress Hill, Beastie Boys, Bone Thugs n Harmony. I have a song on the “Glass City” album called “Hip Hop Glory”, and the whole first verse is literally about that storyline. How I fell in love with Hip Hop to this present day.

VALIDATED: What kind of law do you actually practice?

M80: I don't.

VALIDATED: You don't? But you did go to law school, correct?

M80: I went to law school and this like blows a lot of people’s minds because people just assume I'm an attorney. I graduated from law school; I graduated in the top 10% of my class. I never went to law school with the intention of becoming an attorney. I love law. High school I was in the top 10% of my class. College, I graduated Magna Cum Laude, and was the student body president. I was at IUPUI (Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis) for a good year and I graduated Magna Cum Laude from JFK Law School. I went to law school with the intention of mastering the business of music. Everyone takes the same core classes as evidence, property, contracts, corporations, and things like that.

My specialty courses were advanced civil litigation, advanced contracts, intellectual property, and things like that. In the first year of law school, all you can do is study. I remember, my legal writing professor overheard me saying, I went to a movie the night before and she was like, oh, if you had time to go do anything, but study, you're probably gonna fail. I'm like, oh, damn. I quickly changed from how I would study for say something in college. All I did in law school was administer the practice tests, which they keep in the library. The past 10 years of exams for each course. I would practice those, I'd have students come and meet me on the weekends, and we'd go over these exams. So literally, by my third year, I could go out any day of the week and do whatever I wanted. Because I was doing these exams so frequently, and that was really doing more for me than taking notes in the class and then applying it come exam time. In fact, my last ever law exam was corporations. The night before Wu Tang dropped “Eight Diagrams” RZA was in town, and he had a show and he's like, come through and I'm like, bet so I go to the show. I bought a copy of the CD signed and he's like, you have the very first signed copy of this album. After the show, we went out to this place called Yoshi and we're playing chess, we're drinking the whole time. I went home at like four something in the morning, woke up at like eight the next morning, did the exam and got a B+. By the end of law school I was that good where it's like, I could do whatever. I maintained the A's and B's and the whole nine but during law school, when you had to have X amount of apprenticeship hours is when I started to transition more from M80 the artist because I thought when I went to law school, I was leaving that whole life behind. There was even a write-up about my retirement in the local Midwest paper at the time. But I got into the business side of music and so I worked with RZA, I worked with Freddy Krueger and “Wu Tang Meets the Indie Culture” was the second highest selling independent album of 2005. After that, that's when all the other artists like Redman, Canibus, Keith Murray, Kurupt, Crooked I, Planet Asia, and so on and so forth all started to come into the mix.

VALIDATED: At what point did you decide to yourself and say, this is the industry that I want to get in? What age was that?

M80: 13.

VALIDATED: And what was the initial thought that made you think that's what you wanted to do?

M80: That’s another memory, it's like, ingrained in my head. Like what I wore to elementary school on the first day of fifth grade, I was so excited I laid out my outfit a week in advance. I'm in Fostoria, Ohio, with my dad's side of the family. I had a copy of The Source Magazine, and in The Source was a story from The Lox. It was about their transition from independence to Bad Boy, to going gold and platinum, to the perception of having money, to the reality of not and having this kind of roller coaster of financial progress and brokenness. And yet, it detailed each artist's perspective. Sheek, Jada, Styles, and got their take on things like how do you feel about this? What stuck out to me I think was Styles who was like it's messed up that we’ll sell a million records and we're expected to have millions of dollars. And yet, the people behind the business of music seem to never have this roller coaster. They're always staying on money. That told me right then and there I don't want to give up on being an artist. But I don't want to sell myself short in life and have to potentially struggle and go through all the artist struggles. So let me figure out where I can work my art in. But behind the scenes, executive, A&R, whatever it is, whatever position you're playing, apparently these people always will have money.

VALIDATED: Makes sense. Tell me about your licensing business Holy Toledo Productions and Anno Domini Nation where you purchase these verses from major artists and sell them to independent artists. I know it's more than that but tell me about that and how the process works.

M80: A lot of people think that it's only like buying from major artists and selling to independents. It's literally anyone and everyone. There's an Onyx album. It's not good. It was through some label called X-Ray Records, which is funny because I've done business with this company. But X-Ray Records as an example, they bought a shit ton of verses from me and put three or four of them on an Onyx album. They just needed to fill some space. How it started was my partner Anno Domini invented the production licensing business. Yes, we have customers that will pay say, $5,000 or $10,000 to get an exclusive beat but that's far and few right. We might have hundreds of customers in a month that'll spend say $25, $50, $100 on licensing a beat.

What can they do with this beat? Use it for anything they want. There are parameters, but can I list my song on Spotify? Can I have it on iTunes? Can I put it on CD? The answer is yes all across the board. That's more conducive to the upcoming artist’s budget. Not everyone is just playing with stacks of cash.  Like even when I was an artist, I was still making $100 a day selling my tapes in school. But I've worked, I had a normal job too. Let's just assume the average human has to work a real person's job. They get a check. Anno Production licensing business is what sparked the idea for the reverse licensing business. Now unlike Anno, you can't come to me and get a verse for $25. I can't just take a verse and give it to 100,000 people. But I can buy a verse from an artist and how I acquired the majority of them is when I'm A&R’ing albums, I’m usually some kind of executive as well. This means I have a financial hold on the product, I invested into the record. We're talking records from Wu-Tang members, Crooked I, Kurupt, Asia, Big Twins, Hus Kingpin and Canibus and the list goes on and on and on. 150 something albums and I didn't save the files for every album I've ever worked on. But I think I started too heavily, like around 2008. There's a good four or five year period where I didn't. But I would make sure I had the sign-offs in my name, in my company name. In the paperwork is the right to assign and transfer.

There are two ways to look at this. Some artists are not cool with this side of my business at all. Because they feel like it invalidates the integrity of the art. I did this verse for this song. I did not do it for what you then licensed it for. Maybe I don't know the person, maybe for whatever reason, I tried to vet these people as best as possible. That's the difference between me and my licensing business and say anyone else is like, I got a verse from Gucci Mane you can buy for $300. Like that's a scam. It sounds too good to be true. I might have a Gucci verse, but if you want to license it, it's $5000. Because otherwise, if you want an exclusive from him, that's $50,000 to $100,000 plus, you never know, it depends on who the artist is.

So, the first licensing business as I would go from album to album, I would stock up on the admin paperwork. It's not just big in the rap community. My licensing business is very big in the EDM world and they're the easiest and best to deal with. Because these are people that are producers, DJs, so on and so forth and it's just cool for them to have a song say featuring Little Wayne. They're playing in the club. The club goers they're not like I think I heard that verse 2009. They're not doing that. They're having a good time. The DJs and various producers do remixes. I give them derivative rights and so they can remix, do whatever they want. There are things you can't do with the licenses. I'm not going to sell the same person a Lil’ Wayne and Birdman verse and that was a highly sought-after thing while they were beefing. No, not going to happen for any amount of money.

I wouldn't sell someone a Lil’ Wayne and Pusha T verse. It's been a nice part of my business for several years, and I’ve recently partnered with a company in Amsterdam, or the Netherlands, that's getting me out to a broader base. My partner Anno, who was originally from Germany, and we met when he lived in the United Kingdom, he lives in America now. It's great to have someone that's overseas because Anno is now more in tune with American politics of the business than international. I've done licensing deals with cryptocurrency companies, and so on and so forth and there's so much to do with it. Now, here's the interesting thing, a lot of people are like, can I buy this verse and NFT it? I tell them, no, and they’re like, why not?

Because when I got these contracts, NFT was not a thing, it wasn’t in the paperwork that has NFTs as a consideration, and it really pisses people off. That's a whole other topic for maybe another time, but like, I don't get like why people that can't sell a single for $0.99 think all of a sudden, they're gonna NFT their song and get a million bucks. It’s crazy.

VALIDATED: As an insider in this industry. We see a lot of artists just go down the wrong path for whatever reason. Recently, we got this Young Thug and Gunna situation that's going on with the indictments and stuff, and then we got Casanova copping out and taking his plea. What’s your take on all of this?

M80: I worked on that last Snoop and Casanova video; we did the product placement. If you go back and check that I think it's called “211.” But that's crazy. Because when we were making that video, we didn't know this would be the last days of Casanova's freedom. We even put a disclaimer at the beginning of the video.

VALIDATED: As an insider, what do you attribute that to? Why do you think artists get to a certain point, they got all this money in the world, they got all this prestige, and all this stature, and then they still get caught up in something that just doesn't make any sense.

M80: It’s because it's cool to feed the streets. It's cool to be responsible and feed your people. As a white Jewish guy, it's cool. It'd be like mom and dad, I can buy you a house if you want, or your dream car or like whatever, that gives us a sense of pride. Imagine someone like Young Thug or Gunna having 50 people who have employment, because of the success and progress in my career. Granted, you can't make everyone leave the street life and even if you're out of it, you kind of always have one foot in it, and sometimes it's really about the definition and gravity of how deep is that one foot in. It's so much easier said than done to be like, you're on. You got money. You don't need to live like this.

When like you're trying to get you know, no pun intended, validated, that's where your character is and that’s your persona to the public. An interesting thing is when I was rapping, this kind of relates off topic, but my brother was always like you're funny, you should be funnier in your raps and I'm like no because my influences were Wu-Tang and Snoop, and you know A Tribe Called Quest and there was nothing “funny about it,” it was bars, and it’s street and then enter Little Dickie he ran that lane and it worked for him. He can get his people jobs and they were never part of the street period. But even when you think you're out you're still in it.

I pray for them. I pray. I wasn't there. I can't comment on any of the most severe crimes when it’s like the legal system looks at like a group of blacks as a gang regardless. You can be hanging out on the stoop having a conversation fresh out of school and that's gang. When TI was recently like how come the KKK has never been brought up on Rico charges. It goes one of two ways. One, you got KKK members that are lobbyists, that are in office, that are police, that are high ranking officials. Then you can look at it from like, I am just trying to be funny but no, I'm being serious. These dudes outside of the lynching here and there, don't do things. They go burn crosses in yards and do rallies and have threats that they don't see through. It's how I view the KKK. Yes, I'm well aware of the history. The whole nine, discrimination, racism, at its finest. But when's the last time you maybe once or twice in the past, say five years heard there was a lynching and it was the KKK? The KKK is pussy. 

VALIDATED: I can agree with that. That doesn't happen on a regular basis or anything like that. I completely understand where TI is coming from. But like you said, a lot of these people are in prestigious positions that they don't want to jeopardize. So they're doing this behind closed doors and hiding that and that they're not on front street with it per se.

M80: You wouldn't know if your local senator is a member of the Ku Klux Klan, versus the dude that's like I'm outside. I’m Outchea! You can drive by and be like, I see him. He's definitely outside.

VALIDATED: What artists are you checking for right now? Like who's getting the most play in your ride when you move around?

M80: 38 Spesh, Hus Kingpin, Big Twins… Brand new dudes out of Indianapolis, Indiana Abe Linx and Tully Cicero. Fresh Does It, Producer and MC out of Indianapolis. Benny, consistently. Not new at all, but I love the new Pusha T and I love the new Method Man album. I can't wait to hear Kendrick tonight. You know other than that, I'm usually playing, like, favorite Rock, and favorite Rap classics on a streaming service or I'm tuned into like Shade 45. Shade 45 and Hip-Hop Nation are really the only times I get to like…, you might just come across something you didn't know existed. Otherwise, I'm gonna go in and listen to what I know. You know, there's a good solid period of months where I could not listen to anything, but like Nipsey and DMX. And it was both around the times of their passing. When Prodigy passed, I don't think I listen to anything but Mobb Deep for like at least a month.

VALIDATED: I go through those phases too when we lose an artist. Early on in your career what kind of sacrifices did you have to make or things that you had to go without because you were so invested in pursuing a career in this industry?

M80: Countless amounts of girlfriends came and went. I had a fiancé that came and went because that was kind of shitty. That's not boyfriend girlfriend makeup to breakup, we were to eventually be married. I remember one night she came home and she's like, “this isn't working, I'm leaving you.” I didn't fight it. There's no fight left in me. It was like “okay, if you think that's what's best for you,” and it was the best blessing in disguise ever. Because my family lives in Indianapolis, like my mom and dad and my brother lives there now too. The rest of my family lives throughout Ohio. But when me and my fiancé split, that was the only thing holding me to Indianapolis. I have got several artists, countless record deals, etc. I built up clothing brands. I brought millions of dollars of live concerts to the city like Drake, 2 Chainz, TI, Slaughterhouse, members of Wu Tang, Black Sheep, Canibus, Jeezy, Childish Gambino. From bar shows, to Amphitheater shows. I had nothing left to prove to the city of Indianapolis. I said I'm moving to LA. I came here and literally from the day I got here, money. When I moved here, I never thought it would necessarily be greater financially than what I was used to in the Midwest. I just thought it'd be easier for me to make money because I'd have more access. Example, I had a client in Germany that wanted to get a song done with Kurupt and Snoop. They're both in LA, I'm in Indy, sends the bread I hop on a plane, boom… go straight to Kurupt. Kurupt lays down his verse. Later that night Snoop does his shit, done. Hang out the next day, go see a concert, fly back to Indy. That was pretty normal for me. I was traveling like 15 days a month, from Indy, to New York to LA to wherever I needed to be. I paid more to live here. Because you know, the cost of living is greater in Los Angeles, California, than Indianapolis, Indiana, but I'm traveling less, just hop in the car. And if I got bread for Snoop, I'm going to the compound. If Method Man is in town and there's work, we go get it. The majority of my client base now is here. And the beautiful thing about the Golden Era of Rap in the early 2000s, all the record labels were in New York. They opened sister companies or offices here in LA. Well guess what, the more and more those people were coming to LA they're like, damn, I love it here. I don’t want to go back to New York. New York's my favorite place in the world. I just loved visiting LA but then it grows on you, the money, the weather, the weed, women, all that… Beautiful. Then I didn't have to go to New York as much. It's all here. There are only a few executives, like Steve Rifkind is probably one of the best examples that goes to LA and New York every week.  Otherwise, you got an office here. You got Zoom, you got whatever it is, we get the job done. There are studios here, studios there, it's all the same thing. I appreciate going to the East Coast more now because it's so infrequent.

VALIDATED: How selective are you with the artists that you choose to work with, when it comes to like a newer artist, not legendary artists that you've been dealing with for a while, but newer artists?

M80: I'm an independent A&R. 90% of the time, artists hire me, I have a service packet, it's like my working resume. I update it a couple of times a year with various accolades and stuff. There's a retainer fee just like a lawyer. There are about 12 different services I offer when I’m fully A&R’ing a record. A&R construction, A&R administration, label and distribution shopping. Then once the album is done, the deal is in place, then there's a million more things like PR coordination, radio coordination, play listing coordination, tour booking, tour management, ad buys, marketing, so on and so forth. It's vast. There’re artists that I do a few things for, there are artists that I do the whole plethora of services for. Outside of whether or not you have the money to hire me. Since 2004, my batting average is 1000. I have never taken on an artist who I did not deliver what they hired me for. And that's why I can charge for my consultations. That's why you're gonna pay me what I asked you to pay me because I will deliver what it is you're paying for. Outside of the money you have to be super talented. I have to believe that you can go places. Now, if you want to pay me 10 times my asking fee. I might put my morals to the side. I've literally had a couple people agree, I had to teach them how to rap and some people are like that's hilarious you aren’t the world’s best rapper. I'm not saying like just me teaching them how to rap, like Redman has a bar “give me 50gs, let me write your songs.” If you're paying me well enough, I’m like hey, critique, teach, I'll do that with all the best spitters I’m around, Kurupt, Asia, if that's what it's going to take to make you better because I could sit there all day and tell you this is how you need to chop this bar. You need to take these words out to make it fit X, Y, and Z, like it’s easier said than done. Some people that want to rap like double time like tech nine, they have the hardest time with adhering to that kind of advice. They just want to fit every word under the sun into a box. It doesn't work like that.

The talent is quintessential, my latest Abe Linx & Tully Cicero, I A&R’ed one of their records called “Runaway Diamonds.” We got Benny on the album, Hus, Jay Worthy. These dudes were from Indy, and I never knew about it. And I'm like, that's crazy and I was like yelling. I'm like, you're insane for knowing what I do for a living with these dudes as dope as they are and nobody like Rosewood and Hus Kingpin told me those dudes don’t live in Indy. They’re Cali dudes now that came from like Hempstead, New York. For someone in New York to tell me about some people that were in my own backyard was crazy. I just finished their newest record. 

It's called “Worldwide La Familia Forever.” We don't have a release date yet, but it's done. We turned it in. We signed a deal with Fat Beats, so salute to those dudes because I brokered several record deals for several different artists from Indiana. And to my benefit, like patting myself on the back shit, I think it's like seven different artists with seven different labels. I brokered a deal for artists with Sony and I think Babygrande and RBC and Fat Beats. That's the best part about being me and working with new artists and the legends with the exception of maybe one or two projects in total out of the 100 plus I've A&R’ed, all my accounts at every record label is in the green, they call it the black, I call it the green because green means you're making money. If I have somebody that I believe in, and I worked on this record, I made the record, I can call every label distributor I've ever worked with and they will look on my account, because of all of this, if I vouch for this, they're gonna sign it. If Holy Toledo is involved with it the accounting is going to get something. If I vouch for this, and it loses, oh shit, I might be financially on the hook. And that’s the best part about having successful records. There's labels who burn their bridge with me, I don't think I've ever burned a bridge. Like I did the Ghostface deal, which was like, I'm gonna write a book about this one day, because it's so amazing. I did like five deals for one album. And everyone's like what the fuck, it’s unheard of. I gave certain rights to the project to certain labels. Like X Ray Records, Cleopatra Records had the derivative rights for the remixes and physicals then DAUPE Media had the physical rights for the original version of the album with Big Ghost and Ghostface. I did the deluxe edition with the instrumentals with Fat Beats. I used to just call and talk these deal points out that label to and to their credit, even though they don't like me, and I could give two fucks about them, they're the ones who got me to put everything in email.  

I offered this company like, for an extra $12,000 you can have like the digital rights to the original version of the album. They didn't respond to me, so they didn't get it. I kept it and instead of getting their $12,000, I made like $90,000. Beautiful stuff like that. I get the rights back to that record in October 2023.  I'll probably NFT that motherfucker. There's so much out there and that's the benefit of owning a master versus having a licensing deal on a record, it will make money forever. That's important for people to know. Even if it's $10, $50 bucks a month, whatever. Well, guess what I’ll take $50 times 12 times 100 of years. My family after me will be happy. Babygrande was the first label to ever burn their bridge with me. Because I put it like this, people at home if you're gonna pay attention, pay attention to this right here. Labels don't expect you to be anything more than the artist. So as far as they're concerned, they would be 100% content if all you knew was how to fucking make music. Nothing more. In come someone like me. Oh, hi, I'm M-80 and I rap and you're gonna sign this project and I went to law school, and I specialize in contracts. For the Ghostface album they gave me the contract, I redlined it, here's everything you're gonna change. They kept sending it back with just correcting little pieces of what I told them to do. I had to have them resend it 13 fucking times and they’re like you're a headache and I'm like, no, you're trying to get over and I'm so on my shit It's not gonna happen.

These men were the first label where it's like we do the deal and then we're sending the check and then like a month would go by and we don’t have the check yet, so my attorney calls oh, you don't have to have your attorney call guy we'll send it tomorrow. They just assume that none of these rappers have attorney money and here comes someone who does and oh. That was it, after that anytime Babygrande be slow on the money, I’m like you know we can walk from the deal right? Like Bronze Nazareth, they didn't give us a check for one of his records and I literally went and brokered another deal for The Bronze Album, The Wisemen album, and the Almighty album together. All these records that were signed to Babygrande like we're taking elsewhere, we had a press release come out in Hip Hop DX and All Hip Hop and Babygrande the next day was like whoa, whoa, whoa, how much money do we owe you? Don't play with me.

Being resourceful and intelligent is the biggest fear to record labels, so labels like Babygrande and Cleopatra, and X Ray records are like we don't fuck with M80 because you can't mess with me, you are not going to get over. People like RBC records, like Fat Beats, those are two great examples. I'll do business with them for a lifetime, because they do licensing deals for one. I've never had to ask for a check. My accounting statements just appear in my email. It's like, we owe you X amount of money, that’s sweet. Babygrande probably owes me six figures from 2008. I haven't seen an accounting statement from some of our records dating back to 2005. That's just nuts. Labels who their whole intention is just to get over on you, if you're smart, you're a headache. They won't mess with you. They'll make it seem like you're the bad guy, which no you're not. The labels that want to have career longevity and have great reputations they're in it for the love of the culture. Of course, it's a business, they want to turn a profit, but it's not like on some let me get over on you. When I started working with RBC records, they hired me as VP of A&R. After I had probably sold half a million records between all the Babygrande shit. The first record we did was the “Melatonin Magik”, Canibus album with RBC. I showed them all my original accounting statements. An accounting statement, again, you're only supposed to know you're a rapper. You're not supposed to understand anything that's on this piece of paper. We got billed $8,000 for an MTV commercial. Now, to their credit, I actually witnessed this MTV commercial, I was watching MTV one day and I saw it I'm like, oh, that's me.

That was the greatest thing ever. But Ryan Shafton and the president of RBC records is like, what they billed you eight grand for really cost less than $2000. But what are you gonna do? You're gonna call MTV and be like, “Hi, I'm a rapper, can you tell me how much was paid?” It's not going to happen, they're not for you. And you're not even going to have the access to make the call in the first place. That opened my eyes up to okay, this is the stuff Tribe (ATCQ) is talking about, industry shady rules and the whole nine that you as the artist can never even fathom. A record label that's intention is to get over can put any fucking number they want on that account statement.

When I do records like the HRSMN album, we all share this website and everyone has the logins, anytime you want to log into the site and see how much we make you can do it. Because the last thing I'm gonna put up with as an executive is when you guys tell me that I beat you for $100 while I'm driving around in a Maybach. You get access, you get access. And when we do the records with the labels it’s the same thing. I'm getting mailed the same statement you are, there's no like, let me get it first.

VALIDATED: Makes sense. Kind of brings me to my next question. What do you love most about this industry and what do you hate the most about it?

M80: I love quality music from quality people and building quality relationships. I'm at the stage of success in my career where it's like, the money is always going to come. I want to get money and work with people that are my friends without having to question loyalty, work ethic, dedication. I have 200 clients. I've worked with 200 artists consistently year in and year out. I got three of these people in my will. That’s pretty fucking crazy. Ideally, we'd be in such of this haven of quality human beings, where you think I'd want to look out for everyone that ever helped me get on or make $1. The fact of the matter is even some of the people closest to me, that are partially responsible for me being in a position I'm in, took advantage. You don't have to finesse good people, good people like myself with a good heart. Like, all you can do is finesse yourself out of is access to me. I appreciate quality people, quality music, quality relationships. The worst part is like me knowing I'm a good person, doing everything I can to help people win and then, knowing that they view me as a stepping stone. So because I know you view me as a stepping stone, once I start to feel like that's how you're treating our relationship or dynamic, let me get everything I'm gonna get out of it. As an artist, they say you got to have thick skin. Imagine how much thick skin you have to have in my position. I have to balance my emotion with that of hundreds of others, and everyone's different. And it's really shitty, because there was a Notorious B.I.G. interview that's really famous, where he's like, I thought when I got in Hip Hop, it was just gonna be like this haven of respect, because you're in Hip Hop, and I'm in Hip Hop. And we're Hip Hop. I learned I might have a day where I'm like, man, I did so great today in business, I got so and so this deal and we made blank amount of money. But guess what the reality is like, the person I'm talking to, even though I might get them money the day before, or the week before or the month before, I didn't get it for him today, so they don’t want to hear about it.

But I'm like, damn, I want to, like to celebrate my successes with the next man that's on my team. I don’t want you to be like good, then fuck him. If I had to tell my clients, yo, this client of mine was like today ungodly. There was a point in time I remember this. I'll never forget it. Crooked I, Chino, XL, Planet Asia, Kurupt… These are four good examples of like, if any of those four had something bad to say, I would sincerely be hurt. I would tell people if they had something bad to say believe it. But if it's any one other than those four they're mad because of some shit I wouldn't do for them, or they tried to pull some funny snake shit and I found out about it and diverted the snake shit. My top one was always Killah Priest. Priest was my guy, brought me in, introduced me to Wu-Tang, the whole nine. I've worked several Killah Priest records. But after about 18 years, he pulled some funny stuff and I'm like, dude, you know my family. We've been all over the world together. If you didn’t have it, I made sure I gave it to you kind of stuff. He fucked me over on something that didn't need to be like that. He didn't gain anything by fucking me over. So never again. I'm not interested in making amends. There are bridges, where I feel like you know maybe we both had a hand in burning this. If I feel like that, I'll try to make it right, but there's certain instances like the Priest scenario. Now okay, let me get that back. Let me modify this real quick.

VALIDATED: That's the type of shit that really hurts. Up until this point in your career, what's been your most memorable moment?

M80: As an artist, breaking the Guinness World Freestyle record in ‘09, doing it for charity to fund a secondary school in the Boto River States in Nigeria. That's my fondest memory.

VALIDATED: How did you feel after rapping that long?

M80: I was like, let's get burritos. I was starving. Initially I'm like, I'm gonna break the record. I'm gonna go clubbing and in my head, I'm like, bitches are gonna be all over me. I broke the Guinness World Record. Then we walked outside, and it was snowing and I'm like going, Oh man. I pictured it, I'm gonna go party and get messed up and drive home and die. And then they're gonna be like, look, I broke a Guinness World Record yesterday, where I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna go to this Mexican restaurant, get a burrito and I'm going home. That's what I did, played it safe. I practiced that for so long, I almost blew it in the first 20 minutes. Based off the BPM of the track would determine when I would like to spray a little water in my mouth pause, take a little bite to eat.

The 19-minute mark, I spray this water and I start coughing and I am like I'm about to go in a coughing mode. I was coughing for 10 seconds and through my coughing I'm like “I ain't dead yet, I made a triple threat” it was like genius stuff. The whole thing was captured on 10 one-hour DVDs. So that's the only time I've ever brought that DVD up just to watch that part. That was my fondest moment as an artist, my fondest moment as an A&R was being the executive producer of the Ghostface album “Big Ghost.” The reason that is, because other than my very first experience as an A&R, which was “Wu Tang, Meets The Indie Culture” in ‘05 and like I said before, went on to be the second highest selling, not rap album, just album across all genres of the year, the only album that was greater than that sales wise, was MF Doom and Danger Mouse, and they had insane amounts of television promo through Adult Swim.

Plus, the album's great, not taking anything away from it. But the Ghostface album, I personally funded it. This is a six-figure record and it was very difficult. Like I had a lot of hurdles, and I overcame every single obstacle that was thrown at me whether it was from Ghostsfaces’ internal camp, the labels, trying to get all the adequate sign offs, for producers, features, the whole nine. And when I pitched Ghost, the idea, I said, I have this idea, and I believe it's gonna make X amount of money and this is how I'm going to do it, Ghost wasn't interested in that. I don't blame him, because a lot of artists just want to know, okay, what do I need to do and how much money. You have to really be a partner with someone to be like, here's my business idea and we're gonna do this, and then we're gonna see it through and it's gonna take X amount of months.

I don't fault the 99%. They're like, talk money to me, get to the bag. I respect that because I flipped that on people sometimes too. I got to know; you know you for you to be able to have a business proposal for me. Other than that, here's my fees. So that record, after a year from its release, ended up doing the numbers I thought it would do. I got to reap the majority of the benefits. Now, would I ever do that again, I don't think I could ever make a record again, that would play out the same way, where the labels would give me the freedom to embark in multiple deals. Like I said, it's only for masters like that you could possibly do that. When you're doing like a licensing deal with a label, typically, they want exclusivity. License you on your master, but for three years, five years, seven years, one year, whatever it is, whatever your term is, we're doing all your digital, we're doing all your physical. The beauty is a lot of bigger labels, now, they only focus on the digital side of it. It's great that they let the artists maintain the fiscal rights and still profit. Another example without saying the artists name, we did a deal for a digital license one time, the advance was $50,000, and that's all they wanted, like cool. They let us keep the physical, I have the system, I mean, it's not new, but dropping the pre-orders, having a release date set up, boom, and if we can make an equivalent $50,000 or more on the physical side, then the totality of the deal is worthwhile. You're gonna give us accounting statements every month or every quarter, whatever is the digital side, and we can always update the physical. Let's go sell out tapes and CDs. Three months later, let's go issue a vinyl or whatever. That's new and consumers are now more susceptible to bind the physical price then literally they ever were. I mean, all my records from like, ‘08, to like 2012, 2013 had no vinyl component to them. But everything like when Griselda started popping I was introduced to the system, like this non-traditional system from Hus Kingpin. I'm used to like A&R’ing records, and it's like, you got to sell in the 10s of 1000s of units, or it's a flop, depending on your financial level of investment. He was the one who taught me not everything has to be a home run.

If you make an album for say, $10,000, and you're going to do a limited release. What is a limited release, we’re only pressing 1000 on vinyl, when we can press a 1000 CDs or 200 tapes. When that sells out it’s gone, you move on to the next thing. That’s unheard of to me. We always work records where we're going to ship 50,000, we're gonna ship 25,000, move on, another IO. Keep it moving. When these people start doing that, I see the genius in it, because it’s a lot cooler to be oh my new album sold out versus, I got 50,000 copies in my garage. During the pandemic hit, I started doing things like that just on a smaller scale. For like Priests and Crooked I, let's reissue a product, autograph it, number it whatever, 150 CDs, 200 discs and it worked out. Because making an extra $4,000 or $5,000 a month, not being able to leave the house still covers the bills.

VALIDATED: I heard you say a while back on Instagram, you said that you had stopped drinking? What was the reason behind that?

M80: Me and my wife, I've been married now for it'll be six years in June. We've been pregnant a few times. I hope she doesn't mind me like putting this out there. But it's like, we have no children. Because of my drug use, and my frequency of drinking. I always assumed that played a role in it. She wasn't an angel either. We've partied together and we partied hard. I was like, I'm gonna get sober. I can make a baby. Thank God, my wife is pregnant. We're due in August. (Update: Baby Girl Valentina, born June 9, 2022) In my opinion, it fulfilled what I needed to accomplish. People were like I never knew you had a drinking problem or drug problem. I never looked at it like that because I still got all my work done. I'm always of the opinion, do whatever you want, as long as you get the job done. If it doesn’t interfere with others. It started to bother me, when people close to me would comment on like my drinking or drug use. That's when it really hit home for me because again, I'm the kind of person where it's like, if I care about you, your words mean something to me. If I don't, go to hell. But the people that I care about were telling me this. And I'm like, oh, okay. Let me take a step back. My wife's pregnant, we're due in August, right around the corner. She's starting to get big.

VALIDATED: Congratulations.

M80: Salute to those on their sobriety path. My parents were told I had a drinking and drug problem when I was in high school, and I'm like, how can I be an alcoholic, I go to school every day and sleep in your house. I did AA and NA for four years. I was sober from when I was 18 to when I was almost 23. I was in prison, not jail. I was in prison when I was 20. I turned 21 in prison. I had a Little Debbie cake and a cigarette, celebrating my 21st birthday. But this time around, like I said, my intention was I just want to make sure my wife is pregnant. I want to have a child. So one day, it's like I'm celebrating a year sobriety today and then two days later was April Fool's and I'm in Vegas for Grammy weekend. I'm like I'm gonna get trashed all weekend and they said haha April Fool's and I said no seriously, I am going to get lit. I had a $7,000 bar tab. Which was great. 

I made like $18,000 that weekend betting and like I had Snoop work and I won $5000 on the North Carolina versus Duke game and a $1,000 on a Laker game. People like you just said you had a year like two days ago. I did and now but so now you just ruined your year and I'm like, I mean, it's cool I'll start over again. But I think I've had a drink maybe a glass of wine since then. Like I said, the point was, I want a child. My wife is pregnant, we’re having a baby. Now I'm more conditioned to understand, executives like Travis O’Guin, from Strange Music, sober. And his whole point was like, I'm not my best version of me. Getting every crumb on the table, making all the money possible when I'm under the influence or drinking or whatever your vice may be. Trust me that year of sobriety, through now… unparalleled! Three years ago, was my best year in business. Then two years ago I beat that. Then last year was my best year in business and we're five months into this year, and I'm like, damn, almost beat last year's. Crazy. So that's the whole point, understandably, if half my time was spent in an inebriated state I would be getting to the bag.

VALIDATED: That’s work being done. What are you currently working on in the NFT space right now that people should be checking for?

M80: Nothing we can announce yet. But I had a call today that I think will close in the next like 15-20 days for the Outlawz and the Tupac Estate. That's one I'm working with a company called Drawstring, shout out to Kenny and shout out to Aghazi. I hope they're tuned in because I want my checks. They're running a NFT company called Drawstring. We're tapping into Wu Tang and we're tapping in with Rick Ross and Wale and people like that. It's not easy. Like I said earlier, jokingly people think oh I got an unreleased song or project, and a label won't give me $10,000 but I'm gonna NFT it for a $1,000,000. They keep going back to the fact that Wu Tang’s one of a kind album sold for $2,000,000 and was sold to someone in that space for $4,000,000. Guess what? You're not Wu Tang Clan.

VALIDATED: That was the whole Martin Shkreli thing right?

M80: Yes, and you never going to build up the hype like that. I can't replicate the success of that Ghostface album. You can't replicate what Wu Tang and Shkreli experienced making that album and the press. Millions of dollars of press. There's a show, I forgot to watch it. I think that came out a few days ago on TNT Wu Tang, Shkreli and there was a special on Netflix and Wu Tang went to do their shows and docu series and stuff like that. I'm really looking forward to the Outlawz, shout out to E.D.I. Mean, shout out to Todd Moore with the Lifted Elephant Group. I want to give an, actually a shout out to my guy Ak from Black Soprano Family and all that I know they're on the road right now. Stay safe out there, man one love. But I'm looking forward to more and more of that. Because like Snoop, fully embraced it and he's doing very well with it. And it'd be great to get pointers on what works for him, or what doesn't. This is interesting and that's why I don't care about people shitting on the license side of my business, Snoop literally just took a mixtape, released it like one or two songs at a time and you could buy the whole song. You could buy the instrumental, you could buy the acapella, like three or four different options at different price points. You own it and can do what you want with it. Now, that's crazy. If I want to take this verse and put it on my song and release it, can I? The short answer is yes. Because you “own it”. That's what it says in the terms of NFT. The fact of the matter is like aggregators, like TuneCore, CD baby, record labels, whatever it is, require paperwork.

You can't just be like, here's my receipt for the NFT, there's nothing in there about you taking these new vocals and putting your song out. That's where my business differs. I own it. I have the original purchase agreements, you know, and then we license it. You get a contract from me for the lawful transfer and if need be, from the aggregator. I have the original files and usually nine times out of 10 they'll ask for it and I'll upload it. Boom, song is approved and it's out. So even if you couldn't take your song with a Snoop verse you just bought as NFT and put it out for the whole world to hear commercially, for like Spotify and stuff. Guess what? It's cool enough just to upload it to YouTube and have your friends check it out. You can still make a name off that. 

VALIDATED: Last question, what does Hip Hop mean to you?

M80: Hip Hop for me meant freedom. It was an escape, it was revolutionary. It's different. It's against the status quo. It was life changing for me. Like I said, I always was good in school. I was the kid who was equally street smart and book smart. Being book smart did not land me in prison. Being not as street smart as I thought I was landed me in prison. I've never thought to myself, okay, let me readjust. That's what the mentality is. I remember the officer; “I don't ever want to see you back in here again.” I'm like, you're not going to. Because when I left prison, I knew it was, let me evaluate what I did wrong, what got me hemmed up and adjust. I'm gonna really put my 100% into the book smarts of it. I work with Bloods; I work with Crips, I work with  all across the board. They don't need me to be the shooter. They don't need me to be the muscle. They need me to be on call 24 hours a day to ensure that they're getting the most of theirs. So that being said, Hip Hop paved the way for me to build my empire. So Hip Hop, I'm eternally grateful and it's respect. I am really choked up right now. That's what got me. Everyone at home call 911. I'll tell you this my friend. I was in Arizona one time. I had meetings all morning. I'm beat. I'm about to lay down. Like what hotel you're staying at? I told him I literally checked in my room. I lay down and take all my clothes off, big ass king bed. 15 minutes later. I am passed out. This dude banging on my door comes in “Mr. Markoff, you okay”, I'm like, sleeping, “Who are you?” “We are doing a thing call humanity check. We got a call that you might be trying to harm yourself.” My friend playing a prank on the front desk. I call that dude. I was like, “I'm never hanging out with you again.” I honestly think we've not talked since, I was under the covers, I'm naked, like get out of here. Every time I went downstairs afterwards, the dude at the front desk tried not to make eye contact.

VALIDATED: Tell us where everybody can follow you on social media and then anything that maybe we didn't talk about that you might want to let people know about projects or merch or anything like that.

M80: Instagram, @AlmightyM80.  I'm great on responses if you DM me, I even checked that like third folder in the way back. I tell you what, I never wanted to stop using MySpace because I used to run MySpace accounts for like tons of artists. On average we're getting like $30,000-$40,000 a week in between all these different artists and features and shows. I'm like MySpace is the greatest thing ever. Went on Facebook and then didn't check MySpace for a long time. I went back one time and check the inbox. It was six figures of bread we missed out on. I check all the folders. On Facebook, Matthew Markoff, new Rakim album coming in 2022.

VALIDATED: Say no more mic drop on that one. M80 thank you; I appreciate you coming through.