[Michael Blue Williams Artist Speak and Label Speak]

I tell people sometimes that artists wake up every day and worry about, “What in the world can I do for me today? What can the world do for me?” Because that’s what an artist is. An artist is just trying to get out and do what they want and their main priority is themself.

So when they talk to a manager, it’s like, “Yeo, the label’s not doing this,” or there’s complaints, there’s problems, there’s concerns, however an artist may articulate it. A manager has to hear what his artist is saying, either calm him down, or make him feel better, or let him know that everything’s gonna be all right. Or take what he’s saying, tell him, “Okay, I’m gonna work on fixing those problems,” make the artist feel okay.

But then go to the record label and talk to the label in what I call label speak, which is business. Labels operate on money, numbers, real hard facts, what is, what isn’t. They’re in the business of selling music. And so you have to communicate what your artist may be feeling artistically or creatively and get the label to understand that, and make it cost effective. Your artist may want to do a $2 million video because he has this grand idea. And the label may want to spend $200,000 for the video.

So as a manger, you have to translate that from artist speak into label speak, and then make everyone happy. So you have to be the medium and get your label to say maybe spend a million dollars and your artist to come down off a million dollars and get to a common ground and get it done.

[Michael Blue Williams Advice for Being a Manager]

Yeah, I definitely think to be a good manager, you got to at least if you don’t love their music, you’ve got to like the person or the client. I think being a manager takes so much out of you. It’s like a family member. As a manager, you’re the therapist, you’re the big brother, you’re the sister, you’re the best friend, all those things. It takes a lot of your life out. Artists call you 11:00 in the morning. They call you at 2:00 in the morning. They call you on your vacations, on your honeymoons. So you got to at least sort of like the artist to, I think, really give it your all. Now there are managers out there that it’s strictly a business relationship and they don’t care about them. That’s their lane. For me to do it, I need to at least like them or like their music to even really give it my all.

Yeah, I’m happy that I’ve had the opportunity growing up in the Bronx, New York to – you grow up in New York, you think New York is the center of the world. And the music industry has given me a chance to see the world three or four times over, to meet hundreds of thousands of people, and see things that I never would have thought I’ve seen. I planned to make an impact or be a part of it and sometimes you don’t really recognize until you take a minute and take a deep breath one day. And I think that even being with OutKast and what we’ve done, I don’t know if I still get it all the time what we are, what happened. But just to have had the opportunity to – I’ve had a chance to be an ambassador for hip hop music and take it up a level and to open up the world to our music and see places.

Yeah, I think it’s been a great ride. I’ve totally enjoyed it. I’m 36 years old now. I’ve been doing it forever. I’ve been doing it 15 years now. So I’m curious always to see where the next 15 years of hip hop go, where the next 15 years take me, the next 15 years take my OutKast and the brand. So yeah, I think it’s great and it’s exciting.