By Odeisel. Intro by shelz.

When a spot hosts more people than its recommended capacity there are a few things that are bound to happen. Tolerance becomes short.  Pushing and shoving commences and before you know it, someone is taking an elbow to the chin. The industry of Hip Hop media is no different.  The saturation of talent fighting for a handful of coveted spots can lead to frustration in the participants resulting in messy battles as they vie for their space. Of course, the majority of the attacks are focused on the folks at the top and Julia Beverly, owner of Ozone Magazine, is no stranger to the Hip Hop pot shot. Love her or hate her, believe what you read or not, she is a major player in the industry and has managed to grow and maintain Ozone in a climate that has proven deadly for other publications.

Planet Ill sat down with Miss Beverly to discuss Hip Hop race relations in a post racial America , sexism in a male dominated business and the mud slinging that always seems to emanate from the lower rungs of the ladder of success.  She pulls no punches and rarely bites her tongue.  So read on Planet Ill citizens as we get the unfettered truth through the eyes of a true industry insider.

Planet Ill: You have been getting into a lot of tete a tete’s on Twitter and out in the media about dealings with people.  What do you think is the source of the enmity?

Julia Beverly: I really don’t know.  The one thing about me is that I’m very accessible; a lot more accessible than most magazine editors or publication owners or just people in the media in general. I think it’s important for people to be able to get in touch with me and for me to be in touch with what’s going on. So I think that’s a big part of it. And I’m outspoken when someone does bad with me at a certain point if I feel like I’m being disrespected. I’ll definitely expose things that I think need to be exposed. It is what it is.

People like to come up with like eye catching headlines or say scandalous things, but then when you actually read into it and read the actual details, there is no substance to it whatsoever. But what are you speaking of specifically?

Planet Ill: Well there was an incident with Mistah Fab a few months ago… 

JB: I mean Fab… I’ve never seen a rapper be that much of a bitch before. We were cool whatever and I showed him an incredible amount of love just because I saw he was out working and doing his thing. You know a lot of these artists on the west coast who get comfortable in their area making money in their little region and don’t really push beyond that. So I saw that he was someone trying to push beyond where he was, so I supported that in terms of his movement.

Then he was always I guess coming at me in a certain way that I felt was borderline disrespectful in terms of always trying to holla at me and saying disrespectful type things. It was a joke to a certain point then he just took it too far.  You know I guess his ego was hurt or whatever the case may be but you know the stuff he said, basically he knows it’s not true.  I know it’s not true.  He just got mad and started saying stuff. He was very disrespectful and he’s saying it in a public forum for the whole world to see and at the same time he’s telling our mutual friend that” I’m just joking.  She knows I’m just joking.” 

But these other people who are reading what you are saying don’t know that you’re joking. So, you know, that was my whole issue.  Like I said, he knows what he said was false. It’s hard being a female or being in the music business period, but especially being a female, you always have to make sure you’re presenting yourself as a professional. You know because there are so many, you know there are video models that cross the line between being groupies and being professionals you know just the whole industry there are a lot of groupies who try to get into the industry.

 So you have to be very careful about how you present yourself.  So the fact that I’ve been doing this for 7-8 years and I’ve always made sure to behave myself as a professional and behave myself as a lady and then to have somebody that I supported and that I helped come out and say false things to damage my reputation, that upset me. So yeah, I was vocal about that because it was false.  It’s hard to sit there and have somebody say things that are going to defame your character and not respond.  

He knows he was wrong in that whole situation, but it’s just an ego thing and he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong.  So it was kind of like a joke gone too far and he disrespected me.  I’m actually considering suing him. I have had several conversations with attorneys and what not, so we’ll see.

Planet Ill: Now in a business like this where there is a culture of not dealing with lawyers and police, do you think that using a lawyer would hamper your ability to do business with others?

Julia Beverly: I mean it’s lawsuits in the music industry all the time.  I wouldn’t say that. I think certainly there are better ways to handle the situation. Llike I said, we have mutual friends and I’ve made it known that the only thing I want. I want him to retract what he said that was false.  And if retracts what he said that was false there won’t be a lawsuit, but if he won’t do that without a lawsuit then I have to do what I have to do to take the necessary steps, because you can’t let people walk all over you.  You can’t let artists disrespect you or everyone will think they can do it.

Planet Ill: Now how important is that standing up? As an individual business person and as woman in particular, how important is that respect as far as business dealings and as far as your public persona?

Julia Beverly: It’s very important. It’s definitely very important.  People throw shots at you all day long. People just want attention. People have issues with you because they just want to be in your position or whatever the case may be.  There’s plenty of people that make a little comment or whatever, and if it’s not important or they’re not important you just let it slide. But to have somebody, like I said, that I put a lot behind his career as far as helping him get money, helping him get recognition beyond his area?

 Fab is one artist in particular that Ozone did a lot for in terms of just recognition. So it’s definitely disrespectful, not only to me as a person, but to my company.  That we were supporting you and doing all this stuff for you and you’re going to come and make false and defamatory statements about me?  So yeah, you got to pick and choose your battles. I mean, you can’t be fighting everybody. The closer you get to the top, the more people are going to want to throw stones at you.  So you have to decide what’s important and what’s not important.

Planet Ill: Are you at odds with the blog community as far as the state of the journalism? When that incident broke out on Twitter the other day, a lot of people rushed for the headlines like “Julia Beverly Told Off” and that kind of conjecture…

Julia Beverly: That’s what I was saying earlier, like bloggers just come up with some attention getting headlines to get hits for their blog but when you actually read it, like there’s no substance to it. With that particular incident, I had artists all day from like Paul Wall to DJ Drama texting me like, I don’t understand what are they talking about, scam. I read the whole thing and I don’t see what the scam is. And I’m like you tell me ‘cause I don’t know either. I think that individual just really doesn’t know what’s he talking about and is clearly new to the music business and I guess he misunderstood what was said or whatever.

But the whole transaction was very straightforward.  You know it’s basically two different things. You can purchase an artist doing a feature and you can pay them cash and you can use that verse however you want, on a mixtape or independent album or what not. But if it gets to a certain point, if the song starts to pick up and become big and radio stations are playing your song, if it features a major label artist but you don’t have the major label clearance, then eventually when the song starts getting really big the radio stations are going to get a cease and desist to stop playing the record if it’s not cleared. 

But its two separate things; you have to pay the artist and then you may have to pay the label for clearance or you have to submit the song to have it be considered for clearance. It’s something that happens like every day. Artists do features. The game is a hustle. I had some guy say it’s illegal. And I’m like this has been going on and it’s not illegal. It’s just, you know, a hustle.

Planet Ill: Just the way the game goes.

Julia Beverly: Yeah that’s just the way the game goes. So Boosie had contacted me through his…well his management contacted me, who I deal with all the time on Boosie’s shows. I’ve had a booking agency for two years. We’ve booked Boosie for features before. Some cleared, some not cleared. Well actually I don’t even know if they were cleared or not so I won’t say that. But I know we have booked Boosie for features before and whatever paperwork was handled, I wasn’t involved with the paperwork on that.

So they contacted me and said hey we got these pre-recorded verses. Now Boosie normally charges you know X amount of dollars but because he’s getting ready to go away for a while, so of course, you know supply and demand and simple economics, he’s going to be willing to negotiate a little more.  So I just put the word out on Twitter. It’s not like I do business on Twitter. I don’t have extensive business conversations but it’s a good way to get the word out. So I said hey you know if anyone’s interested in Boosie features, email me.

I got probably 30-something responses and I told everyone the exact same thing. I said this is the price. 7-8 thousand dollars for a Boosie verse is a steal and anybody who has booked him or done business with him before knows that.  He’s a hot rapper. It’s not like you’re getting a wack verse. You know he always puts his all into it.  So $7000 for anybody who knows anything about buying features, that’s a great deal for a Boosie verse. I also included the statement that with that price, being that it’s a heavily discounted price, it does not guarantee that your record will be cleared ‘cause I have nothing to do with that. That’s all through the label. So, you know I made everything clear up front, and certain bloggers are trying to make it sound like you know this is my money. That’s not my money.  If I’m brokering a deal it’s just like any other booking agent or any other manager. I get a percentage.  So regardless of whether this person pays extra for a clearance or not, that’s not my money. That’s Boosie’s money and all I’m doing is being the middle man.

It’s not my job to explain to him how clearances work or how the music business works or give him advice on his career. All I’m telling him is look you can buy this verse and it’s not going to be cleared and here is the price.  So I’m giving you all the information up front for you to make your decision. I never told him to send money. We never agreed on a price. Like I said, you have these conversations all day long and out of those 40 conversations maybe two of them go through. So it’s just a simple negotiation. 

So he comes back and says he’s going to spend a lot of money promoting it to radio and so he doesn’t want his record to get shut down, and this is after the label told me they’re not doing clearances right now, or the management tells me the label is not doing clearances right now. So I’m literally copying what this guy sends me in his emails and pasting it in a text to the manager and then copying her response and pasting it back to him. So I’m literally a middle man. I mean it’s a negotiation, a very typical negotiation. So as far as how they twisted it into me scamming anybody when I didn’t get a dime and never even told them to send money. After they said they weren’t cleared and everything, he came back saying, “Well I really need it to be cleared.” 

So okay the client really needs… this is important for the client to happen or the deal isn’t going to happen. So like any good agent or broker would do, you go back to the other person and figure out if we can make this happen. I mean, for any amount of money, anything can happen. My next question to him was what is it worth to you?  What are you willing to pay? Apparently he took that to mean that somehow I don’t know, somehow I was trying to get over on him by asking that question when all I’m trying to do is see am I’m wasting my time by even having this conversation. How serious is this guy and what is he willing to pay?

If he says okay I’m willing to pay x amount of dollars then I go to the label and say hey you know he doesn’t want to do it unless it gets cleared.  For this amount is it going to get cleared?  Yes or no? So it’s very simple. I feel like whoever put this out there obviously has some other kind of issue with me because even after he put the blog out, Boosie’s manager contacted him, called him and he didn’t answer the phone. He emailed him a complete statement saying everything Julia did was straight up. She always been reputable and we’ve never had any problems dealing with her and he didn’t post it or amend his story. 

If you are an objective blogger or journalist; if you’re going say this person is scamming this artist, you would thing you would at least make some kind of attempt to contact the artist to see if indeed you are scamming the artist. He didn’t amend his story or anything like that. He was probably mad I unsubscribed from his email blast. Or something like that. People get mad over just dumb s**t. I really don’t know what the problem was.

I wasn’t ashamed that he put the email thread out there cause there was nothing that I said in there that was wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong.  You all can interpret it how you want but anybody with half a brain who knows how the music business works can read that and say what is the problem. It’s just crazy cause there so many people in the music industry who are really scammers. And really scam people out of thousands of dollars and hundreds of thousands of dollars and I’m as far from that as you can get. So for someone to put that title on me is crazy. If you want a real scammer I’m working on a story about a real scammer who is pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars and has the FBI investigating and as you know has a significant amount of lawsuits. So there’s scammers out there, so put that kind of title on me when all I’m doing is just doing my job and being 100% upfront about everything is crazy.

READ PART 2!

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