#202: Def Jam A&R AE

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we welcome Def Jam A&R, Tyga's consigliere and the Bay Area's native son AE to the Upper West Side! One of the best personalities and most genuine young souls in the music business, AE discusses growing up fast in North Oakland and going to school in East Oakland, sharing a room with his sister, playing basketball with bigger aspirations, skating through high school, doing Costco runs with the principal, his group The A's, winning Battle of the Bay on KMEL, meeting B2K and joining them on tour. We talk about how B2K put the group to work, and how AE set himself apart, the deals that record companies and TV channels offered, how executives were afraid of face tattoos, their popularity all over the world, tensions between group members and management, and why they ultimately broke up. AE gets into meeting Tyga before he was rapping, how Tyga's good energy and his BAPE collection made him stand out, how they reconnected after eight or so years when AE was walking in Hollywood and looked above for a sign. We go in depth about rehabilitating Tyga's career, how trusting their friendship is, how Taste - arguably the song of Summer 2018 - came about, and how that led to Def Jam hiring him as A&R. All that, plus his experiences with Young Thug, YK Osirus, Kanye West, Wyoming, Ryan Coogler, Steven Victor, Valee, Smash Mouth, where he was when the Pusha-Drake beef went off, how he operates as a new music executive, what he's looking for in artists and producers, how he uses emojis in 2018, and much, much more!