KORY JEFFREY: Welcome, everybody.
We're at Founder World in San Francisco.
I'm joined in the studio by Jermaine Dupri.
He is a Grammy Award winning songwriter, producer, author,
DJ, CEO of GLOBAL 14.
Great to have you.
JERMAINE DUPRI: Thank you.
KORY JEFFREY: So let's start with maybe one
of the more obvious question.
Why is Jermaine Dupri at a tech event in San Francisco?
JERMAINE DUPRI: I don't know if that should be obvious.
I mean tech has disrupted my music business.
It has completely disrupted almost every business.
So any smart person that's still making music or in the realms
of this, you should be here.
You should go to more things like this just
to find out what's going on, if you
have an idea of where people should be moving to
or everything.
So one of the main reasons that I've been doing things
like this is that I've created my own social network, GLOBAL
14.
And I created it basically as the new version
of what I would call the website for myself
or for a person like myself.
Information that you have nowadays is a lot more.
There's a lot more information now that you can feed your fans
than what used to be when we had musical fans sites, or fan
page, or whatever you want to call it.
And just letting people see more of the inside of Jermaine Dupri
then out, what's on the media, what
you don't allow people to get.
So everything that you've-- everything that's true,
and everything that's real, and everything that's going
on in my life is on GLOBAL 14.
What I like is on GLOBAL 14.
What I believe people that like Jermaine Dupri like
is on GLOBAL 14.
So it's just-- it's like a big like button for-- that's
what I look at it as.
KORY JEFFREY: For everything in your life.
And so you see a lot of other artists coming onto GLOBAL 14?
JERMAINE DUPRI: Huh?
KORY JEFFREY: Is it common thing for other artists
to come onto GLOBAL 14.
JERMAINE DUPRI: Oh, yeah, 100%.
If you want to-- It's an open forum for you
to post all your music.
Put you've music up there.
SoundCloud, YouTube, where ever you want to post it.
People ask me all the time, how can they get music to me?
It's the best way, put your music up on GLOBAL 14
and I'll see.
I'll see it.
And if you have the wits to really move round on the site
and talk to the other members on the site--
because that's another thing.
I try to push the community part of it,
because I think that we've gotten
lost in these big-- saying, oh, you've got all of this,
you've got all these followers, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
That's cool, but you don't actually talk to these people.
Nobody's talking to 500,000 people.
You know what I've been saying.
So it's like that knit community of people that you talk to.
That's what I try to build GLOBAL 14 to make sure
that the community talks to each other.
THE engagement is really, really my push on GLOBAL 14.
KORY JEFFREY: So you've also created an app.
JERMAINE DUPRI: Yeah, my first app
came out like about-- I'm going to say five months ago.
It was called 4 Lanes.
And is basically a take on my song "Money Ain't A Thang."
It's a card game for-- it's a two thumb car game.
And you've got to move the cars and stay away from the police,
and get the money.
And the sound track of the game is "Money Ain't A Thang."
KORY JEFFREY: That's really cool.
So I mean you're obviously an entrepreneur
in a whole bunch of rights, music and now with tech.
Have you found a difference in any of it
at all on how you approach it?
JERMAINE DUPRI: Yeah, I mean the tech world is a lot more open.
It's a lot more sharing going on here.
Like my friend Cory, who I met one time
I was speaking in San Francisco, and he just came out of no
where, signed up to GLOBAL 14.
He was like, yo, I want to take you round Frisco,
and show you, let you meet people.
I'm like what, where's the why?
Why do you want to do this?
Right?
And I'm thinking he wanted something.
He was like, I don't want anything.
That's just the life of-- where the tech world is.
Our mentality is I want to introduce you
to one my friends.
If something happens, happens and dah, dah, dah.
Coming from the business that's a-- it's not like that.
You know what I mean.
So it's a big difference with that.
A lot of the shell things in the business, and they
keep a lot of things to themselves and not
open to people.
I don't know if it's because it's
more plentiful on this side.
But this is a different attitude.
The light is different.
I mean it just feels like someone has opened up
the top of this roof as opposed to the door when you're
around this type of situation.
KORY JEFFREY: So then, we touched on it a little bit
before, but what attracted you to Founder World
specifically, like this event?
Is there anything in particular that--
JERMAINE DUPRI: Well, I mean, It's
like I said I've been on the trail of speaking
at different events like this.
And I just wanted-- they told me it's the biggest one.
And I was like, I got to be there.
And I'm always interested to see exactly how people interact,
and if it's the same.
And, like I said, I'm sure I learned something that.
You can always learn something at these events.
KORY JEFFREY: So you're speaking obviously later.
What's the message you want to get across to people?
JERMAINE DUPRI: I'm really just trying
to let people know about how I feel about community.
And the way I feel that people look at celebrities as opposed
to how-- and they believe that-- they think that celebrities
drive the engagement in a certain type of way that we
don't.
And I think that just teaching people that.
And letting them understand that I believe
that I've created a place that gives you
the best of both worlds, of just like the celebrity side
as well as-- I don't know, if you want to say,
regular side of people.
Where they can mess with each other
and it not become a blown out fairytale world I think.
I get pissed off when people have
my fake names on these sites.
You know I'm a person that people know.
How could you allow someone to creative a fake Jermaine Dupri
page.
In these big corporations, that have like a zillion dollars,
is that it clearly just shows me that they're not really
paying attention to that type of stuff.
And that type of stuff doesn't really matter to them.
So I for one wanted to create a place
where my peers could come hang out as well as their fans could
come hang out.
And the information wouldn't be just thrown
to the side that way.
So that's one thing I'm trying to mention to people.
And then just entrepreneurship.
I think I started in this business
when I was-- I mean I made my first million dollars when
I was 19.
So if I could be an inspiration to anybody,
I mean, I think that's something too.
KORY JEFFREY: So if you walk around today,
you're going to see all sorts of different technologies.
There's a whole row here on virtual reality.
There's 3 print.
There's everything you can think of.
Is there any certain technology that
excites you as you kind of get into the tech space?
JERMAINE DUPRI: Yeah.
I want my Google glasses.
I need them.
I've been waiting on them.
I need them.
I can't wait until I can just look in the glass,
and check my messages, and all this.
I need that.
KORY JEFFREY: Nice.
OK.
That's cool.
And then, do you have a favorite Google technology?
JERMAINE DUPRI: That's it.
KORY JEFFREY: Glasses.
JERMAINE DUPRI: I answered the question for you.
You got to it.
That's it.
I believe-- I mean I never had a pair.
But I saw them.
And I was like, I definitely want to get this.
But I wanted to wait until all the kinks are out.
But I definitely-- to me that's the best thing going.
KORY JEFFREY: So what's next for you?
JERMAINE DUPRI: The next thing-- well, actually I
just flew in today coming from the set of-- I'm
actually filming my-- I got two TV shows coming on next year.
My first TV show that I'm filming right now
is on Lifetime.
It's called "The Rap Game."
And it's about these five kids that move to Atlanta
and go to the Jermaine Dupri boot camp with the mindset
to become rappers.
One of them-- and at the end of the show, one of them
I'm going to sign.
It's very interesting because it actually ties into this world.
Because it's like, artists now, when I find them
they have followings, and they have videos on YouTube,
and they have twitter pages, and all this other stuff.
In the early-- I'll yeah, the '90s
or going into the early 2000s, artists
didn't have this component with them.
So you find and artist, it was just an artist.
And then you had to build that.
So these artists have a little bit of fan base before hand.
They just-- now I have to help them build the artistry.
So it's an interesting twist, because they
come in-- in the internet world or in the online world you
could say they'll make you believe that you're somebody
that you're actually not.
Or you might be on that platform, but in this platform
it's different.
So just finding which one of these guys are actually ready--
there's three girls and two guys.
And they're all kids.
They're like from 12 to 16 years old.
So that's all Lifetime.
And another show is called "Moguls."
It's with me, Snoop Dogg, Dam Dash, and Birdman
from "Cash Money."
And that shows just follows us around.
It actually should be following me right now,
so they could see this World.
But it's my-- like I said, my thing
is to introduce people to things that they probably won't get
a chance to see such as this.
KORY JEFFREY: Very cool.
Thank you very much for joining us.
JERMAINE DUPRI: All right.
KORY JEFFREY: And thank you guys for joining us.
We are in San Francisco at Founder World.
My name is Kory.