The Atlanta Formula
Hosted by Zettler Clay, this show explores the city's rich culture, history and vibrant energy of the people.
The Atlanta Formula
4. Variable Edition - The Talent Gardener: How Rico Wade Harvested Atlanta's Best
Discover the unsung hero of Atlanta's music scene as we honor the indomitable Rico Wade, co-founder of Organized Noize. Wade's mastery in elevating the unheard voices from the SWATs to stardom echoes the strategic insight of business moguls when it comes to identifying and nurturing hidden talent. This episode is a heartfelt celebration of the man whose mentorship birthed icons like OutKast and Future, and the profound impact his guidance has had on shaping not just careers but a cultural movement.
Venture with us into a world where the potential in every individual is not only recognized but unleashed to its fullest. The episode draws striking parallels between the approaches of visionary leaders across industries, from music maestro Rico Wade to tech titans like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. We unravel the art of talent development and the ripple effect of empowering those around us. Join me, Zettler, as we bid a fond farewell to a hometown hero.
His impact on Atlanta culture is singular. Rico Wade gave a group of young men and women faith to be the best version of themselves. He provided a market correction for wasted human talent, giving credence to the notion that individual agency can move mountains. Every single one of his chart-topping pupils were not only outrageously gifted, but they were unique. His efforts to salvage these neglected and marginalized youth in the Swats gave them generational economic mobility, gave society an immeasurable cultural and intellectual boost, delivered to the world innovative music and provisioned the way for Atlanta to enact a complete takeover of the rap industry for the past 20 years and reigning as the hip hop king of the court, showing no signs of giving up the rock anytime soon. I am Zettler, fourth of his name, host of the Atlanta formula, and in preparing for this episode I wrote down a lot of notes and points that did not make the air. Hopefully the essence will still get through, for it is truly difficult to properly honor a generational figure, your police precinct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh. Tales of Atlanta of old. Tell you just how we speak. Where you from. What number is your police precinct? Uh. Tales of Atlanta of old Swats. Tell you just how we speak. Town 4. Where you from. Cozone. What number is your police precinct? Uh, yeah, uh. Tell you just how we speak. Town 4. Town when you from. What number is your police? Priest? Hold on.
Speaker 1:There was a book I purchased about six months ago on the humbug. I started reading it, as is my habit. I put it down in favor of other, more urgent reads. But when news hit April 13th of the death of the legendary Rico Wade, I got to thinking and reflecting and suddenly I was jolted back to this neglected book. Wade, one-third of Organized Noise, along with Ray Murray and Sleepy Brown, didn't write an autobiography, nor did he have any biographies published about him, at least not yet. But if there was a book that distillates his core competency to the world, it is this book simply called Talent, written by Tyler Cohen and Daniel Gross. This tome is about the art and science of talent search and features testimonials and insights from Titan luminaries such as Sam Altman, peter Thiel, mark Andreessen, eric Schmidt, malcolm Gladwell and the like.
Speaker 1:Yet this book draws a straight line to the genius expressed by Rico Wade. Wade's ability as a founder, connector and motor of extraordinary talent was second to none. This is no simple feat and when I reflect on his impact on the spheres of influence, an impact that ripples magnificently outward through Atlanta and to the world beyond, it is remarkable how much his career, his life, reflected many of the book's central tenets on recognizing, building and leveraging talent. There will be other orations and other in-depth perspectives about his approach to music, marketing, his cautionary tales and the like. In this space, however, I'm just going to focus on his prowess as a bridge, a connector, gifting the rhythmic sounds, culture and sentiments of Southwest Atlanta, swatsworthy, initiated to the world and, like the figures mentioned in the above-mentioned book, way's musical footprint is immense. Tlc, with over 65 million record sales, is the highest selling female group of all time. It was a cash cow for many people. They blended pop, hip-hop and R&B, along with some iconic fashion along the way. It was groundbreaking on time and it influenced the sound of future artists and groups. Outkast, who boasts hip-hop's best-selling album and is arguably the best music group ever Grammys galore, awards galore. Outkast, goody Mob, the quartet of Cujo, timo, big Gip and CeeLo, also known as Norris Barkley, who, while not as commercially successful as Kaz, are regarded as critical trailblazers in the Atlanta sound. Killer Mike, who just won three Grammys, who put out arguably the hip-hop's best album last year and whose skills as a gifted orator is regarded second to none by many, future burst upon the scene unheard of some 13, 14 years ago. He is currently, as we speak, enjoying a run of sonic glory with his partner in crime, metro Boomer. And I say crime because, in taking a cue from one of Killer Mike's bars, they left those tracks as corpses yellow taped up, motionless. They killed it with their two albums set. We Don't Trust you and we Still Don't Trust you. I'm not sure if there's an official count printed, but Future has got to be by far the most chartered and hit producing Atlanta rap artist ever and, studying these books over the past few days, I am amazed at how these principles and stories closely paralleling some of the moves Wade made. This provides another confirmation that greatness leaves clues.
Speaker 1:There are a few points I want to emphasize in our short time together, because his life leaves food for us to grow, and I could not sit this one out. Anyone who knows anything about me knows how much I am inspired by the Dungeon family. To me they represent brotherhood, mentorship, making something out of nothing. Enrico Wade symbolized the connector giving of himself to build his brother. You can't do anything but respect that.
Speaker 1:So my first point is this we all have an imperative to build our own talent and recognize it in others. There's this notion, prevalent among us, that developing an eye for talent is reserved for a specific domain of people. This is rubbish of the absolute degree. Anybody can and should avail themselves to talent spotting and cultivation, because just about everyone is on a quest to find talent in others or to show off their own. Many of you are entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial-minded, so this episode is especially pertinent to you. Identifying underrated talent is a complete net positive. There are no downsides to this behavior. Discovering diamonds in the rough is, as Cohen and Gross puts it, one of the most potent ways to give yourself a personal or organizational edge. They continue. Talent search is a fundamentally optimistic endeavor based on the premise that there is always more value to be found in our world. But finding this talent is itself a creative skill, akin to music or art appreciation. It cannot be done by boilerplate interviews, groupthink algorithms, studying PowerPoints or simple formulas.
Speaker 1:When you look at the most effective innovators, initiators, creators in history, they went through significant pains to bring in the best talent to work alongside or for them. There is no outsourcing this task. Talent to work alongside or for them there is no outsourcing this task. The best recruits often come from networking and direct connections rather than through agencies or unengaged third parties. Elon Musk is said to have interviewed no fewer than 3,000 people for SpaceX.
Speaker 1:I was talking with one of the broskis recently and you know who has built a multimillion dollar company. I don't say that to brag, I'm just bringing home a point. He shared that he has been successful in bringing in A players by emphasizing to them the allure of being a key player of a purpose driven team, rather than a mere call in somebody else's operation, which is consistent with the best practices of the best founders. Enrico's Dungeon, similar to Y Combinators and the homie just mentioned, and other successful startups, talented individuals were surrounded constantly by like-minded peers and by like-minded. They were misfits, nonconformists and rebels, but that's okay because time after time, this has shown to greatly improve worker productivity and satisfaction being there. Peter Till speaks of how starting a great company is a conspiracy to change the world. He writes that he studies how well the founders know and work together as much as the technical abilities and complementary skill sets of them. Steve Jobs stated in a speech to Stanford students in 1987 that recruiting is the honcho's most important job and should never be sacrificed at the altar of anything.
Speaker 1:Rico Wade shined in this area, with him and fellow organized noise founders Ray Murray and Sleepy Brown being aligned, complementarily and trustingly in their mission. Ray was the hip hop head, sleepy was the soul singer and Rico was the visionary. They knew their roles and were cool with it. This is key. So Pete Rico Wade was not a musician per se, yet he had a hand in crafting some of the most iconic hits. We have ever heard how Rico was energetic, fast talking and seemed to have read Dale Carnegie's how to Win Friends and Influence People cover to cover at least 10 times.
Speaker 1:That doesn't necessarily translate to musicianship. So this is where one leverages their core talent to build up another talent. And this is the second point where you are deficient in an area, don't languish. Lean into your God strength to build up your other attributes. When you hear people describe him, hustler comes up often. Hustler is synonymous with high agency. When it came to putting the Dungeon family on, rico was high agency all the way.
Speaker 1:So he did what other great founders do to close any talent gaps he applied his brain to the task of learning technology, to the task of learning the technology of his product, which is music. In doing research for this session, I came across many origin story interviews with him and in almost all of them he speaks of his relentless application towards learning the production tools crate digging, understanding drum patterns. He spent endless seconds copying the admired works of his New York contemporaries. This is a common growth tactic throughout founder culture. There is no better way to learn how something works than trying to reproduce it. Great writers do it all the time.
Speaker 1:Kobe, rest in peace, with no shame, openly admitted to stealing other players' moves. As a teacher, I steal from other educators all the time Repetition, repetition, repetition. It's boring, but I promise you the results aren't. Edwin Land, the creator of Polaroid, said of the ability to concentrate over and over again my whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out in people resources they didn't know they had. In this modern world. It is full of infinite distractions. Everything we interact with is trying to get us not to concentrate. The late Charlie Munger takes a step further, saying he schedules time just to think. Most people schedule themselves like a dentist. It's so easy to get so busy that you no longer have time to think and you pay a huge price for that.
Speaker 1:Venture capitalist Bill Gurley has an equally stanch take on this. He says be obsessive about learning in your field. Hone your craft Constantly. Understand everything you possibly can about your craft. Consider it an obligation. Hold yourself accountable. Keep learning over time. Study the history. Know the pioneers. Strive to know more than anybody else about your particular craft. You should be the most knowledgeable person. It is possible to gather more information than someone else.
Speaker 1:One major point that this book Talent puts forth is the importance of exposing yourself to the highest levels of talent in your area as early as possible. There is immense value in having a very talented tutor or mentor. Rico constantly found a way to put himself in front of more talented producers and music technicians, and he greatly benefited from this. And for the last point, the denouement of this presentation and this is the part that actually got me this is the reason that I am structuring this episode like this, because this part hit me this much Raise the aspirations of the people around you. Raising the aspirations of other people is one of the most beneficial things you can do with your time. This was a point made in the last chapter of Talent, and I mean it's. You know, it's intuitive right. The more that you hold other people around you to a higher way of thinking about their life, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:We can't underestimate how little people may think of themselves. We can't underestimate how little people may think of themselves. There is an ongoing crisis of confidence in many human beings, even in the best of times. Me, as an educator, I'm constantly telling my students to strive to believe that they are smarter than they think they are. My own children. Right, try to be a yardstick for quality and just. You know we can't assume that our best friends, our best workers, co-workers, actually know what they're capable of, because very often we do not. Sometimes we need nudging in the right direction to realize our full potential.
Speaker 1:And the thing is and this is where I quote Cohen and Gross when you raise the aspirations of an individual, in essence you are bending up with the curve of that person's achievement for the rest of their life. Wow, let me repeat that You're bending upward the curve of that person's achievement for the rest of their life. I mean, I think back to just being around my grandparents and me, being exposed to their scholarship and being around them, around their colleagues and their co-workers, and see how people treated them, and I've benefited immensely from that. That's what Rico Wade did for everybody around him. You know, to me that means a lot. That says a lot about an individual.
Speaker 1:You know it's one thing for you to seek, you know, your material gain, glory, pleasure and fun without the, you know, win-win aspect of helping others. But it's another to tie your fate to those around you, those who are younger than you, looking up to you. And there was no guarantee that it would happen. I mean, it had not happened for anybody prior to he's breaking new ground. That's a lot of weight. That's a lot of weight, jack Connector. Figures can't be distilled into a formula, because these people arise due to a need. There are a confluence of factors that determine organizational success, luck being one of them, and Rico's life placed him uniquely suited to hone the abilities of those around him. He recognized such and embraced his role like he was born for it. He made a choice to build himself, by lifting others, a true founder's mentality from a place where music opportunities were so scarce or nonexistent really, he had Miami Bass.
Speaker 2:He had Dallas, austin he had.
Speaker 1:Jermaine Dupri, but their music was not swats per se. You know what I mean. How Rico Wade was able to ably raise aspirations of those around cannot fully be explained in any book. Connective figures can't be distilled into a recipe, mainly because these people are context dependent or, stated another way they arise due to a need. There are confluence of factors that determines any organizational success, luck being one of them. Sure, he was fortunate to have Kaz Killer, mike Big Rude, future CeeLo and TLC in his orbit, but those cats are just as lucky to have him, if not more orbit, but those cats are just as lucky to have him, if not more. Ceelo is right, he is Professor X, the telepathic Shifu in X-Men. Like Professor X, with his school of young mutants, rico Wade provided a safe haven and hope to abandon misfits and castoffs and launch a dynasty. There's this book called Multipliers how the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, by Liz Wiseman. It's a bestseller and endorsed by a bunch of people with prefixes in front of their names. Despite the pump around it, though, I find it to be very informative. Wiseman has a chapter in there entitled Talent Magnets, and I want to end this episode with a passage from there.
Speaker 1:In any organization. There are talent magnets people who attract the best talent, utilize it to its fullest and ready it for the next stage. These are leaders who have a reputation not only for delivering results but for creating a place where young, talented people can grow. They are accelerators to other people's careers. Grow they are accelerators to other people's careers. The cycle of attraction begins with the leader possessing the confidence and magnetism to surround him or herself with top talent or A players, sheer raw talent and the right mix of intelligence needed for the challenge. Under the leadership of the talent magnet, the genius of these players gets discovered and utilized to the fullest. Having been stretched, these players become smarter and more capable. A players become A-plus players who are positioned in the spotlight and get kudos and recognition for their hard work. They attract attention and their value increases in the talent marketplace, internally or externally. A-plus players get offered even bigger opportunities and they seize them with the full support of the talent magnet. In their quest to assemble the finest talent, they are blind to organizational boundaries. They see multiple forms of intelligence everywhere. Talent magnets live in a world without walls and without hierarchical or lateral restrictions. Instead, they see talent networks.
Speaker 1:Wiseman goes on to categorize talent magnets by four major qualities. They look for talent everywhere. There's one. They find people's native genius. They utilize people at their fullest. They remove the blockers. They remove the blockers.
Speaker 1:It's a 30 page chapter and it reads like a strength finders or personality analysis of one Rico Wade. Perhaps in another life, in another place. He spearheads the growth of a Fortune 100 company, leads shareholder meetings and becomes the darling of New Yorker think pieces as the innovative maverick executive. But then we wouldn't be able to experience any of the hundreds of songs and cultural shifts that has shaped our lives over the past generation. And here's where I'll close Rico Wade, ultimate hustler, talent magnet and multiplier, an endless optimist that made better career paths more vivid and more attainable to those around him through the force of his personality and being A big dog from the clay of Southwest Atlanta with a real founder's mentality. Rest in power, rico Wade. Of the Dungeon family, your legacy reigns. Shout out to the production team Maydale Ray and Wynn on the track. Shout out to the production team maydale ray and win on the track. Shout out to coach collector for the brand vision. It's been real being back with y'all until next time. This is the atlanta formula. Thank you, bye.
