CREATIVE MIND: Michael J. Payton
COMPTON, CALIFORNIA | MICHAEL J. PAYTON
INTERVIEW TERRELL “REALIFE” BLACK PHOTOGRAPHY @SARAHARNOLDPHOTO
Self-proclaimed “Change Agent” and Oakland, California native Michael J. Payton discusses directing “The Murder Inc Story” docuseries for the BET Network.
The mind of a creative is a stubborn one because your “I’ll make it work” attitude rarely allows you to accept “no” without a struggle. This gift can also be considered a curse but in the case of Oakland, California native Michael J. Payton its worked out in his favor. His work ethic, attention to detail and passion for Hip Hop took him from YouTube to National Television. I recently sat down with the self-proclaimed “Change Agent” to discuss his journey as a creative and his recent major directorial debut with “The Murder Inc Story” docuseries as seen on BET and BET+.
VALIDATED: So to get right to it, being a native of Oakland, California, what’s your earliest memory of film production, Hip Hop; or just the creatives?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Man, I have always just been creative, I started as, really I was a rapper at first and then before that, I was writing poetry. I was writing, I was always big on writing since I can remember, you know, from being 5 or 6 years old, writing and drawing, and just always trying to find ways to be creative. My mom was a writer and she kind of instilled that gift or that passion into me. I would start writing poetry, then I started listening to, you know, Hip Hop at about 10 or 11, really getting into it and that is when I became an artist myself. From being an artist I learned how to write, and produce records and I just became one of those hybrids who did it all, you know, trying to figure it out. I started shooting music videos from an early age inspired by like, Hype Williams and the music videos that he would create, he was my favorite director growing up. And so I would just try to do my videos on these, like little low-budget cameras, and try to make little Hype Williams videos for my raps that I was making. And then that evolved into me making videos for other people that evolved into me making documentaries. And that evolved into me being here doing the Murder Inc. Documentary and so forth. That's just a cliff notes version of it.
VALIDATED: You consider yourself a change agent. Can you elaborate on that a bit?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Yes, I am really hard on like, titles, like, when people say, oh, you are a filmmaker, oh, you are this or you are that. I do not know what to categorize myself as, because there are people out there who study film and they know a film like the back of their hand and that is what their passion is and what they love. I am just a creative person and more of an entrepreneur than I am anything else. I am an entrepreneur first, creative, you know, second, even though it is in my DNA and it is in my blood. But, you know, whether it is music or film or working in politics and trying to create change in that regard, I am always trying to find different ways to just paint and put our lens, our Hip Hop cultural lens on different canvases. So I prefer, entrepreneur, change agent, social entrepreneur, you know, just something broader because I think limiting me to just being a filmmaker, that does not do what I envision for myself, just is.
VALIDATED: And I know you dabble in politics a little bit, how did you get into that?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Well, you know, just going back to my roots in Oakland man, like Oakland is a very, very activist, strong place. And my mom was always very active in making a change in the neighborhood. Just little things like, whether it was taking stop signs down from the places that they did not need to be or gathering kids and taking them on trips to Disneyland and so forth and just trying to show them different things. I have always learned that change starts right there at the community level. As you get older you realize that when you have people at these seats in positions of power, making decisions about your life, your neighborhood, your kids, it makes you like, well wait, man, we got all this power and influence as a culture.
We can make Nike hot, we can make Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga hot, but we can't elect the people at our school board. We can get the mayor, you know, who is going to put the policies that we care about in our city, our region. Forget about just the president and senators and everything at the federal level, that's one thing but focus on the people right there on the ground. We can elect sheriffs, we can elect board members to our city council to make sure that our neighborhood is looking and reflecting the values that we have. So I am just big on using our Hip Hop lens to make sure that we are not just on the commercial level, but we are also in the space of making change, like really making change. So we are not just staying outside the City Hall saying, please change this or change that, we are actually on the inside doing that, because we can do that just like we do everything else so well.
VALIDATED: So you are a product of homeschooling, how do you feel that benefited you and how did you feel it hindered you, if at all?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Oh man, well, it hindered me because you know there was no prom, there was none of that fun stuff. But, I think it benefited me because I was able to just lock in and focus on not only my schoolwork and not be distracted by all the stuff that goes on in the public school, but also just really honing in on my craft as a creative, I mean, all the time I spent studying and working mostly from home, it wasn't homeschooled because I still had classes I would have to go to a couple of times a week. But for the most part, it was a home program and I was able to sit there on a computer for hours and hours after I do my homework, of course, and figure out how to use music-making software, figure out how to use video editing software.
Just kind of learned on my own before I even got out of high school, I was already making music videos and editing music and stuff. And that helped me to, you know, just lock in, whereas if I am gone for 8 hours out of the day, I would not have had time to sit down and just be at my computer all day, just locked in my room trying to make beats and trying to learn. So it just gave me the freedom and the ability to kind of think outside the box. Whereas, you know, sometimes in regular school, you are just not able to get that full one-on-one attention to exploring all your gifts and the things that you are interested in.
VALIDATED: True, and I understand you are also college educated; how do you feel that opened up doors for you?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Well, it sure opened up a whole lot of student debt, but that is another story. But, I feel like it opened doors in a lot of ways just because me coming from being homeschooled, it got me out of; it kind of went from the frying pan into the, not even the fire, it was like the freaking lava, you know? Because you go from just being isolated in your own world, and then you have to go out there and you are dealing with so many different cultures, different people, different backgrounds, different experiences. So it benefited me in that way and I think that kind of having that structure helped me to understand business and understand the structure and having a workflow. And then, you know, again, it also allowed me to create the flexibility to keep exploring my craft and keep exploring my interests as an artist, as an entrepreneur, and ultimately as a filmmaker, a change agent if you will. And, yes, I mean, college was a major; even with all the debt and everything, I would not take it back, because I think it benefited my worldview big time.
VALIDATED: Speaking of college and the debt, you received a scholarship through Jay-Z’s, SHAWN Carter Foundation. How did that opportunity come about?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Well, growing up as a student of Hip Hop, I might have left that out, but I was huge, you know, one of the things I was able to do being locked up in my room, not like that. But, being just, honed in on my craft is I studied everybody in the game. And Jay-Z was one of the people I studied, because I was coming of age at the time when he was really growing into himself as a businessman and moving away from music. And I started studying every magazine article, everything I could read about Jay-Z and his business, and all the things that he had going on. And I remember reading somewhere in a magazine or something that he had among his many businesses and endeavors that he was doing outside of music, that he had a scholarship foundation that he co-founded with his mom.
I might have been 16 or 17 when I read that, but I remember when it was time for me to apply for college and apply for scholarships, the Shawn Carter Foundation was probably one of the first things I looked up and applied for. And low and behold, I got it, they supported me throughout my college education, financially, and as well as called and checked in on me and tried to give, you know, always offered these different opportunities to come and do apprenticeships or internships. And I grew up on the West Coast in the Bay Area, and they are based in New York, so obviously I could not meet every opportunity. But just the fact that they would call and check in and offer not only that financial support but that moral support, you know, Jay-Z's organization is like backing you up and wants to see you succeed.
That meant a lot to me, especially as Jay-Z being my favorite artist and someone I looked up to immensely as not only just an artist but as a businessman as well. That just gave me even more motivation to keep going and keep striving and as you know we will get to it, but that all comes full circle later on in my story. But yes, they definitely played a big role in my education.
VALIDATED: I know you’re a West Coast native, but you do a lot on the East Coast and a lot of the artists that you like are from the East Coast, what is with the transition?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Yes, when I was growing up, remember I was homeschooled, right, so you are inside a lot, everything you are watching on TV at 11, 12 years old is 106 and Park, MTV, TRL, and Times Square, you listen to the radio. And most of the radio artists played on mainstream radio are East Coast rappers, because that is who at the time ran the industry, being New York-centric. I just dove in when I wanted to learn the industry, I was reading Vibe, XXL, and The Source, all of these things are based in New York. And at the time, I'm not aware of the power and the influence that the West Coast has, but you looking at the guys who are controlling the narrative of Hip Hop overall, and it was a lot of stuff coming out of the East Coast.
So I just locked in on that in that space and I mean, as a kid just locked in and learned Def Jam and Interscope and Rockefeller and Murder Inc. And studied Irv and Jay and Puff and all these guys because they were just winning so big, it was so in your face, like you could not get around, especially at 11, 12 years old. And again, we are coming fresh off of, you know, in the early 2,000s, fresh off of the East Coast, West Coast thing.
And so, the mainstream, Hip Hop was very much dominated by New York still at the time. And Atlanta was creeping in there, but the West Coast on the mainstream level was not as strong as it once had been. So, I think I just locked in on that and just really got enamored with the whole way they did their thing. And it just kind of opened my mind up to a whole other way of looking at the industry and the business. And I think ultimately it helped and it gave me a different view that benefited ultimately in the end.
VALIDATED: Your initial Murder Inc. Documentary was unofficial but got a lot of attention when you posted the link on social media. Can you go into that for us?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Yes. So, I started a company or a brand, I should say, after college, C-Suite Music on my app. And one thing I wanted to do was take our stories and take it beyond just music and highlight the stories that were important to me growing up and things I found inspirational and create these little mini documentaries out of it. And so I think I created, the first documentary I did was on Jay-Z and I did one on Will Smith. I have done a few of these things and they were just stories that I found inspiring or entertaining and things I wanted to kind of highlight. And stories that were not being told in a certain kind of way, ultimately I decided; I said, let me do one on Irv Gotti and Murder, Inc.
Because Irv and Murder Inc., and we can get into that too, but one of the reasons I even got into the business in the first place at 11, 12 years old was, you asked me about, you know, why I was so East Coast centric, but the Murder Inc. run and Irv Gotti and that whole era, that was the reason why I even got into wanting to become an artist, wanted to become a businessman along with Jay-Z and everything. But I remember it was the summer of 2002, some 20 years ago now and Ja Rule was on fire, Ashanti was on Fire, and Murder Inc. was, you know, the hot brand at the time. And I remember Irv had an album called…, it was a compilation album.
Irv Gotti presents The Ink, and, you know, Ja being one of his artists who was one of my favorite artists, Ashanti, all these artists he had. And I was like, who is this guy and why is he so important? And I did my research, and oh, he is the boss, oh he is the producer, oh, he runs the label, okay. And that got me into that whole world, like, oh, you can do more than just rap, you still can have your name in lights, so that is what got me there. And so all these years later, I had been following the Murder Inc. story and just keeping up with everything that Irv was doing and everything that the label had done. And, I just wanted to put it down on wax, as they say, and just put it into a documentary and I did it and put it up on YouTube. And 4 to 6 months later, after I put it up, Irv put a post on Instagram saying that he had seen it and asked his Instagram followers to reach out to me and they connected us, and the rest is history.
VALIDATED: So how did that, well, before we get to that, so, you know, a lot of times when people see people starting to progress and come into their shine, I will say, they tend to bypass or overlook the process it took to get there, right. So the timeframe from you starting as an artist, and I think you said you went into producing and then you went into your next thing and your next thing and your next thing. What people don't understand is all of that plays a part in where you are now. How long would you say that process was, from you starting as an artist to where you are now?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Man, it was, you know what, like I said, 11, 12 years old. So I'm 30, and I will be 32 next week. So that is 20 years, about 20 year process of just nonstop, like grinding from the time when the idea first popped into my head to where I'm at now. And I tell you, it is a lot of work that goes in between that, it is a lot of disappointments, it is a lot of failures. And like you were saying, you know, everything that you do, that you go through prepares you for the moment when you ultimately are met with the opportunity. And so I had done just about everything in the business, I mean, from obviously rapping and producing and making videos and I worked in radio, I have been behind the camera, I have been in front of the camera. I have been on stage as a performer, I have been a radio personality, and I have managed the radio station in college. I did promotions, I mean, like every type of thing you can do in this business, event planning, graphic design, engineering, mixing, and mastering. I have done every single thing in this business damn near to the point where when that time came, it was not like, oh man, this moment is too big, it is like, no, everything I did has prepared me for that. I knew a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of, you know, enough of the mechanics to say, okay, I may have never done a TV show before, but if I got through that, I can get through this. If I learned that, then I can learn this. And I am a quick study and I just took all my experiences and put them all into grind mode and ended up producing this and directing this 5 part series. But you are right that everything you do prior prepares you for that moment when, alright, it is time for the rubber to meet the road.
VALIDATED: So from start to finish, how long would you say the process was to do the Murder Inc. story?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Oh, man, from start to finish, honestly, it was a 3 year process from the time that Irv called me. And we started talking to, you know, when it aired. You know Irv is a lot like me because we come from Hip Hop, once we get an idea, we just start working on it, we are ready to go, we are ready to rock. So shortly after we started talking, and he asked me and told me that he wanted me to be the director of the project and we just went to work. I just went to work and started writing out the script and the treatment for the whole documentary and lining up people I said I wanted to interview.
This whole thing happened in 2019 with Irv reaching out to me and I started interviewing folks for the documentary in 2019. We did not have a budget, we did not have funding, we had no major backing or anything in a studio behind us or anything, we were just going out there kind of doing it. We ended up having a deal on the table with Live Nation and their production company. They were going to be the ones who were going to distribute it and help us produce it. Then the pandemic hit and that shut everything down, shut the whole business down and we kind of went dormant for almost a year, but even in that year, I was still working.
I was still not getting paid, not on nobody's payroll or anything, just off the sheer passion that I had for the project. I was still figuring things out, going shooting little things, adding little things, and putting things together. And ultimately all that work led us to BET who became very interested in the project, and they picked it up at the tail end of 2021. We started shooting in 2022, the very top of 2022 this year and we did not finish filming until about August, right before it aired. It felt like a long process, it felt like sometimes it was never going to happen. It felt like we had a lot of false starts and a lot of just the regular rigmarole of trying to get something going. But we got it done and yes, it was like a 3 and a half year process, man.
VALIDATED: It came out dope though, I will give you that, that is one of the best docuseries I have seen.
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Thank you, appreciate it.
VALIDATED: So you mentioned your company, C-Suite Music, what can you tell us about it?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: C-Suite music is, first of all, people ask about the name all the time, what does that mean? C-Suite is slang for; in a corporate world for like the Chief Executive Officer, the CEO, you know, they call them the C-suites. You know with Hip Hop, we are always taking stuff and repurposing it for our own, like Roc-A-Fella Records was, you know, the real Rockefeller is Murder Inc, that was something else. We always take these things and repurpose them and make them our own, and kind of taking ownership over that. So I'm like, yes, I am going to take that same idea of the big dogs, the higher-ups, the top shelf and I am going to combine that with music.
And for me, it's not just about Hip Hop, but music is culture for us, especially for black people, that is so much of our culture, of our spirit, of our ecosystem, is based around music. And so what I am trying to say is that with C-Suite music is that I am going to, with everything that we do under this brand, we are going to present our culture at the highest level. Our culture, our music, there is enough of the no shade with the Shade Room stuff and the World Star stuff, I mean, that has a place. But sometimes we do not need to show ourselves just doing negative stuff.
Let us elevate our culture, elevate our stories and that is the spirit that I made, the Murder Inc. Doc, the original one under and all the work that we do, it is not even just music as you probably know. We work with politicians, we work with business, we work with brands to try to bring that Hip Hop lens and add that flavor that only we can bring to a product or a situation. But, you know, always doing it with taste and respect and dignity and just showing that our culture can be more than just strip clubs and stuff. Which, you know, we love strip clubs, we love to have fun and party, but we can do more than that. We can influence business, we can influence politics, and we can influence commerce and the arts at the highest levels. So that is the spirit, at least that I have always wanted to carry with C-Suite.
VALIDATED: No, that's dope. So you've mentioned that the marriage between creativity and hustle is underestimated, can you expand on that a little bit?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Yes, I mean, creativity and hustle almost, they are not necessarily, sometimes they do not always go together, right? Like, sometimes people have creativity, but they do not have the hustle. Sometimes people have the hustle and they do not have the creativity. So if you can find those 2 things and combine them, that is how you get a Jay-Z. I know the way we feel about him, but like, even Elon Musk who is not necessarily Hip Hop, but the creativity, the genius of innovation, but also has the hustle to know how to tap into a certain, you know what I mean? And that is when you get those real genius folks and opportunities and so for me, that is what Hip Hop represents to me.
Like Hip Hop is not just music, it is not just like a job and I try to tell people this all the time, almost like, you know religiously, like Hip Hop is an ecosystem. It is a way of thinking, it is a way of doing things, it is, you know what I mean? So it has given us opportunities as black people, opportunities that we would have never had in America if we didn't create this thing called Hip Hop. Like, let us be real, we are sitting here now talking about this documentary that I did on Irv Gotti, who is a kid from Queens. He came up in a working-class poor background and was able to turn that into a multimillion-dollar business because of Hip Hop.
He was 13 years old on the turntables, I was 13 years old on my computer, and I have created a life in the ecosystem off of doing videos and stuff on my computer. He was 12, 13 doing records on his friends' turntables or whatever, and mastering that technology and turning that into a business. Like, imagine if somebody had put a motherboard or something in front of Irv instead of a turntable, he could have created Tesla, he could have created Apple, you know what I'm saying? Just because he has the genius already, but it was like Nipsey said, he is a genius, he just cannot explain it, because it left him no platform to explain it, you know? So it is like, if you do not have a platform or the opportunity, then how can you get that genius side?
That is what Hip Hop did and that is why you see, now we are billionaires and we are businessmen. And we have all these things because Hip Hop was the outlet to get us the capital that we needed to then start a venture capital company to start a film company, to start opening up schools here and there like, you know, Puffy is doing and LeBron is doing in his hometown. Hip Hop and that culture gave us that pipeline to do these things, and that is why we got to keep tapping into that same energy, that vibranium if you will. You know, that marriage of hustle and creativity, that is Hip Hop.
VALIDATED: I agree. So the transition from the release of your unofficial Murder Inc. documentary to the release of the official Murder Inc. Story docuseries, what was the timeline for that?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Honestly, the idea first came to me in maybe 2015, 2016, to do a documentary on Murder Inc., because I kind of started dabbling into making these little miniature documentaries and put them on YouTube. And I started doing something and I just kind of put it to the side and never really thought about it again until 2018 when I moved to New York for grad school at NYA. And I was like, you know what, I am going to pick up doing these things again and I need to find these stories that I want to do. And instantly I thought about Murder Inc., and I did it and I think I might have started on in; let me see, I put it up in October of 2018.
So I want to say September is when I started work, like actually really working on it, put it up in October, and from there I mean, it was all she wrote from there. As I said a 3 year process from that time to the actual release of the official documentary, the transition was crazy. The transition from doing a documentary on YouTube to doing a documentary for Network TV, BET, which is a station I looked up to, a channel I looked up to, and had a huge influence on me; I mean, that is why I became a music video director, and probably why I became a rapper watching these videos and watching the culture displayed on TV. So to be able to have the opportunity to do that was just mind-blowing with BET.
And, you know, just from making something on YouTube where it is just you in the room, just you and your little studio working on your laptop or whatever. And you only answer to you now having to answer to a whole network, every little thing you do is super scrutinized. You know, why did you ask this question, or, you know, let us choose this thing. Like, you know, why did you choose that background, like, we have to approve this, we have to approve that. It was kind of a crazy transition because I am such an independent worker and thinker that it was hard to kind of have to answer to like 4 bosses and stuff, or even have a boss. And so that was kind of crazy, but I think I was able to get enough of my creative juices out and marry that with what their vision was for the series and with what my vision was for It. And I think we found a really happy medium and I think I am a better creator now with the experience I had working with them. So that transition was crazy, but I appreciate it now looking back.
VALIDATED: So what has been the response to the docuseries so far?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: I have only, and maybe it is because, when you get people talking to you, they just want to say good things, but so far it has only been a positive response. Even I was kind of trolling the internet while I was like playing in real-time, so I was looking at my Twitter timeline, not mine, but just looking at Twitter in general and looking at the hashtag and honestly, I mean, obviously there was a lot of controversy around Irv Gotti and Ashanti and things that he had said on Drink Champs. So there was some negative pushback on Twitter for that, but people would be like, “Yo, Irv's a jerk for saying that. But the documentary is amazing,” almost universally that was the response, everyone was, you know, people were mad, they were hating, they were hating on Irv, but they were not hating on the overall documentary.
And you know, I think Irv enjoys that, being in that space, because you know, he is controversial, he likes to make people talk and stuff. So that did not bother us all that much about whatever little negativity that people had, but the overall response felt to be like, “Wow, I did not know that. I didn't know that he…” I was surprised at how many people did not know that the influence in the; I guess the cross convergence that Irv and Jay-Z had, and between Rock-A-Fella and Murder Inc. And what he did with DMX and how he played a role in reviving Def Jam and it was like all these little nuggets that people just didn't know. And I was surprised, I thought it was just common knowledge, but I think people got to see a different side of this piece of history that had not been exposed to a lot of people. So I think the public generally seems to appreciate that.
I mean, even Ashanti, you know, I heard Ashanti speak as favorably as she possibly could about at least episode one and how we went back and told Irv’s story and the origins of Murder Inc. And how he met Ja and Jay and X and even Ashanti who was not our best friend during this process, even she had to kind of give it up and like yes it was interesting. So I think we did our job, man, we got to tell a piece of Hip Hop history that will live on forever and I am grateful for that.
VALIDATED: Nice. So what was something that you learned from doing the docuseries that you did not know initially about the Murder Inc. story?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: I think it is hard to say because I feel like I knew so much about the story before even meeting Irv and meeting the team and interviewing everybody, that it was very few things that I did not know. And the things I did find out were things I probably could not even put on the doc and things I probably would not talk about. But for the most part, I feel like I knew because again, this was a 3 year process, and over time you start to hear every single story possible. But, I think if I could say one thing I did not know or did not fully appreciate until after I did the doc, was just how rare and special that moment was in time, that early 2000s, Def Jam era when you had Murder Inc, you had Roc-A-Fella…
VALIDATED: We will probably never see that again.
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: No, we will never see it again. That was just a special moment in time, and the people were giving so much money to these young black guys from the hood and all this power and not knowing what to do with them. And you see where Irv story ultimately ended up being at such a young age and gained so much and then lost so much at the same time. But that whole era was just so special, man, I mean, just in the music business alone, we will never see that, for Hip Hop or anything else, probably never see that kind of money again. Because, at the time, what was the hot thing, CDs and a CD cost about 5 cents to make and then they are selling for $10, $20 a pop.
VALIDATED: Yes.
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: All this money, you know what I mean? And it was just, people were selling 2, 3 million albums at a time, and it was like Sodom Gamora and it was just all this money and stuff. And people are getting money now for sure, like, you got folks getting money and people are still successful, but it is so rare, far few in between now. And that time was just special and I think you learn that watching the Murder Inc. doc, just how special that time was, and like you said, we will never probably see it again.
VALIDATED: No, true. So you mentioned Jay-Z, DMX, and Ja Rule, so the Murder Inc album never happened featuring Ja Rule, DMX, and Jay-Z, but if it had happened what do you think that album would have meant to Hip Hop?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Oh, man, I mean, I think it probably would have changed the trajectory of Hip Hop, honestly. Because you got to think that was a time when people were not doing; I mean, now it is like every other week you got like, you know, Future and this other person or, you know Drake and 21 Savage, or somebody is always doing collab albums and it is like the norm now, right? But now; I mean, back then it was like, you did not see collab albums with guys of that caliber. Well, you know, Ja was not quite who he was going to become ultimately, but even just knowing who he would have become, yeah. And looking at the power of Jay and the power of X and having all that, man, it would have been explosive, it would have been huge. But it is also probably why you did not see the album, because, you know, I think Jay said it in the documentaries.
Like the egos and everyone, people are; you know, they were young, they did not understand the power of what they had in their hands at that time. So you, you know, now I think we are in a different space, not that people do not have egos now in Hip Hop, but it is a lot more comradery and a lot more; it is a lot less competitive in that regard than it used to be. Because when you got on that mic, you had to deliver, there was no mumbling, those guys were rapping, and all three of them guys can rap. Like, don't get it twisted, Ja made the great commercial radio records, but that dude can rap really, really good. He gets busy, I told Ja, you are one of my favorite artists, and you don't get the credit that you deserve, but your pen is ridiculous, not just writing his song, but you can write raps. And you know what Jay can do, you know what energy X brings, or brung and you know, you put all that together on an album, you get 10 or 12 of those tracks, man, yes it would have changed the whole game, I think.
VALIDATED: I agree, that would have been hard to follow up. So do you have any other projects that you are working on that you can tell us about?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Yes, so I am working on a few documentaries, and some we are just getting into pre-production and trying to get started. I am doing a documentary based, and this is kind of; I have not talked about this publicly too much, it just happened. But there was this black-owned network in Oakland, California where I grew up called Soul Beat and it was owned by a guy named Chuck Johnson, who was an entrepreneur. And in the '70s he started this, I think even before BET, started this black-owned channel based in Oakland, California. And in the ‘90s, it became this hot hub for Hip Hop and Hip Hop culture, and it is kind of a hidden gem.
A lot of people don't know about it, but everybody came through from Jay-Z to LL Cool J to, you know, Eazy E, Tupac, like all these folks who are our legends now had to come through this little black-owned TV channel in Oakland. And I think a lot of people do not know about this and as we are coming up on the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop, I think it is important to tell those kinds of hidden stories. And it is special to me, it is a part of my heritage as being from Oakland, so we are incubating that and getting that ready. We do not have a network or anything for it yet, but this is a passion project of mine that I am helping to push forward and hopefully, we will get it into a network soon.
But, other than that, working on some stuff with Rock Nation and the Shawn Carter Foundation who put me through school. Those projects are keeping me busy, I got a couple of other things, but I won't speak on them too much before the ink drives and stuff, but a lot of exciting things, man. Very, very appreciative of, you know, all the opportunities that opened up to me after The Murder Inc Story.
VALIDATED: So how can people support you in everything that you do?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Well, my CashApp is, no, I am just playing though, you can follow me on Instagram @CSuiteMusic. I am active on Instagram, trying to get back active on Twitter until Elon kicks me off. But you know, @CSuiteMusic_ tap in with me on my website, CSuiteMusic.com. I am always looking to help the next generation come up and give advice and help to guide giving any kind of advice I can. So I tell people I am always an open book when it comes to reaching out if you can reach me. Sometimes I am busy and I cannot respond to everybody, but ultimately, I love to pay it forward because, I know how it is, being on the other side and trying to get your name out there, trying to get your product and your creativity out there. It is not easy, but I love to tap in with the folks who are doing the work and give them some encouragement. So please, by all means tap in and let us chat.
VALIDATED: Do you have any last words for the people?
MICHAEL J. PAYTON: Follow your dreams, and stay at it. Keep at it, do not give up. There are going to be a lot of forks in the road, there are going to be a lot of false starts and things that are going to happen that you may not see where the future is gonna lead you to. But if you stay at it and you believe over and beyond, over whatever anybody else is saying or telling you, or even that doubt in your head is telling you sometimes, just stay at it. And I am telling you, it may take some time, but you can achieve your dreams if you stay at it. I just want to leave the people with those words of encouragement.