Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Adeyankinnu.
Hi Steve, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I started my record label in 2013 as a way to stay close to my friends. I wanted a way where we could all hang out together like we did in high school and still make a living. What I discovered in my journey would be bigger than our friendship. While starting my record label I went to school at the local community college. I knew my part in getting the record label together would be behind the scenes and not as an artist. I had to be in the background and play my role well and also know how to do my job in whatever capacity it was in. Now I realize the importance of education and use it to power my career and propel it to different levels. One of the hardest parts of starting my record label was actually getting it started. I didn’t know the first step in starting a company but I couldn’t just wait and let time go by while I did nothing. I had to think of a name for my company. What I knew about music and life in general was that whatever I did, I had to keep it authentically me 100% of the time. Being from the South and raised in Christianity, I decided to call my record label Babylon Records. I’m pretty goofy so it had a double meaning. Babylon was named after the tower of Babylon in the Bible but also it could mean babble on records. Something as simple as the name, I thought about for a couple of months. The name didn’t fit because it was too biblical and I resonated with secular music. I played around with the name a bit and I came up with New Babylon. Then I thought that it had to be tweaked some more to a more modern twist. Then I thought of the word New B for short. It was the perfect name because in the mid 2010’s words like newbie were in style. Then I decided to add another twist to the name and added 2 o’s where the -ew- should have been. Then my record label Noobie Records was made. Im pretty big, and some might say a tough guy, so calling my label Noobie would be surprising because a soft name like that wouldn’t go well with a hardcore image of hip hop. I thought of the song “A Boy Named Sue ” when I came up with the name. My thought process was that with an inoffensive and even self-deprecating name like Noobie, my label and artists could and would have to prove themselves with a tougher style and image just like in the story “A boy Named Sue”. I always thought I would be managing rap artists so that’s why I went that route.
I actually wanted to do all genres of music from rap, to r&b, to pop, country, rock, and everything else in between. What made me focus on rap more was that I had a friend who I met in Rome, Italy. We were both backpacking through Europe. This was around 2014. I told her about my record label and my aspirations of having a flourishing company. She innocently said, “Do you do rap”? I’ve been asked this question many times and I ignored it until this point because it seemed like people wanted to place me in a box of doing just rap. I wanted to get away from rap at the time because it was too violent and I wanted to get away from the self-destruction that was rap. But the way she said it was like that I should focus on rappers and the whole hip-hop movement. Later on, I found out that she actually worked with Dr. Dre in California. I can’t remember what job she did but she was close to him. Now I’m thinking she sees something in me that screams rap. I don’t think the industry fully understands artists because they only understand profit. Whatever is profitable at the time, the industry seems to hop on that artist before they get too big or lose steam. I think I know why an artist gets big and what I see mostly is that because the artists’ city usually likes them and he or she is a good representative for the city. Like the artist who died, MO3 embodied the street life in Dallas. We have big love for everyone in Dallas and Texas in general, but if you cross us things aren’t going to be sunshine and rainbows for you. You have to know the G-code for us to really rock with you. And if you do and you happen to betray it, you’re going to have to pay the price however the streets see fit. Those are just some of the nuances I understand that label executives can’t seem to grasp. They think it’s just senseless violence against innocent people the same way they think their daughters are perfect little angels and aren’t shaking their tail on the Gram for attention. I took what she told me and went back to America to work on my label some more. A couple of years later, I reconnected back with Hiroko Ito in Japan. She used to be an American citizen but renounced it to go back to Japan and get married and have a beautiful family. I went to Japan and she was excited and surprised to see me there. I stayed in Tokyo because that was the only place I really knew and it had everything I needed, including Hiroko’s advice. She took me around like a tour guide. I seriously had no one be this nice to me in my life and she was and still is a great friend and a good person. She took me to a place called Tower Records. She teased me for not knowing what it was. It used to be in America but I don’t think they have it here any more. I went into the store and there were actual people there buying vinyl. There weren’t 1 or 2 people in there, it was at least 30 people on the first floor. This place had multiple floors. This floored me (pun intended). I started getting woozy for some reason and so I sat down. I guess the idea of people actually buying physical vinyl copies of records turned my world upside down. So Hiroko inspired me to focus on rap and to keep going in the music industry.
So after I established my company name I tried to do everything I could to get my record label off the ground. I started going to local shows where rappers would perform in a crowd of 5-20 people. I went to these “rock the mic” events almost weekly. I went in hopes of finding up-and-coming talent and hopefully signing them. There was one problem I hadn’t thought of. How would I get the money to sign them and manage them properly? I hadn’t thought that far until my friend Richard Jordan asked that question. Richard Jordan was a big punk rock artist in Dallas in the 90’s. I met him when I was with a friend at the W Hotel bar. Richard had a mohawk and seemed unapproachable to everyone else but I thought he was a cool guy based off the energy he gave off. I started talking to him and we hit it off. Unbeknownst to me, Richard doesn’t like everyone. He keeps to himself and his choice of clothing would be that of someone in the movie Mad Max. Richard Jordan is highly intelligent and scored a perfect 1600 on his SATs. The school didn’t believe him so he had to take it again with their supervision and received another perfect score. So being highly intelligent, Richard was the type who hated ignorance but he has an amazingly big heart. I could talk about him for days but what he taught me was what does the music industry need that I can fulfill? He was a producer himself and made original punk rock instrumentals which he allowed me to hear. We would talk for hours some nights because he had so much knowledge about the music industry. I think he saw that I was serious about music because he told me to watch a movie called Who the F**k is Arthur Fogel. What this movie was about is a touring manager who was behind the scenes and helped groups like U2, Madonna, and Lady Gaga. What I got out of this was that Arthur found a need in the industry and filled it; and so must I. Another thing that Richard told me was that in the music industry, you either have to be born with money or make money to continue in the game. So since I wasn’t born with money that wasn’t even an option. I had to make money for my record label to be profitable which sounds easier than it really is. I thought of ways to make money with music. Having a direct route would be difficult, like booking shows with venues, because literally everybody and their mothers were doing that. Rap is an oversaturated genre that everybody can do but only a chosen few can succeed in. I decided to take an easier route and pivot. I started to think of ways to make money doing music. So the first thing I thought of was doing event venues and hiring bands to play at weddings, graduations, and special events. I did one graduation and although I liked it, I knew there had to be an easier way to make money; and there was. I stumbled upon church musicians needing a church to play for and vice versa. I knew I could be the middleman and bring the two together. I did that for almost 2 years and I was moderately successful but school kept getting in the way because I had no time to concentrate on work. I made so many connections on the LinkedIn website finding church musicians, I think that’s where I found Morgan Matthews. Morgan Matthews is the one who introduced me to the editor of this paper so I could do this interview. Morgan produced songs for many musicians including Alicia Keys, Aaron Carter, Gunna, Young Thug, Bubba Sparxx and a long list of artists. Another way I could have connected with Morgan was when my sales teacher at the University of Texas at Dallas gave us an assignment to contact people in your industry to do an interview using LinkedIn. She also told us to have at least 200 connections in LinkedIn to get an A in her class. So that’s another possible way we could have met. How me and Morgan reconnected was when he put out a post on LinkedIn that said he needed a booking agent for Aaron Carter. Some people may have taken it as a joke but it stood out so much and the fact that LinkedIn is a pretty professional and serious social media presence, I took him seriously. I contacted him through LinkedIn messenger and he gave me his number to talk to him. I talked to him for about 2 hours on our first call. The rest is history. I booked a few shows for Aaron Carter and Morgan brought me back on to help his other artist 3D Friends who is a Texas native. 3D Friends is currently having a song drop on November 11 with Lil Uzi and another collaboration on the way with Kodak Black. Hopefully I proved myself and my worth for this team because I like the energy and like-mindedness even though we come from different backgrounds and ethnicities.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The major obstacle and challenge I have been changing myself. I think you should work hard in life to get where you want to be. Then, when you get there or even close, you should work smart. I added another aspect after smart in that you should work differently. Working differently means being authentically you. Entry-level workers work hard. They work the hardest out of anybody.
Then the smart ones are the managers and higher-ups and entrepreneurs. But to work differently is to stay in your lane and know what works for you. This is what I mean to work differently. Not everyone who follows you is going to go where you go. Being authentically yourself is something no one can mimic fully. It might work for them for a while but learning who you are is most important. This is the journey I’m on today.
I’m learning to change my paradigms from childhood, I’ve sought counseling, and I got my Masters’s degree. I hear people say that school isn’t for everybody. Well, it is for me! I learn better from structure rather than the word of mouth or opinions. Education has been the single-most life-changing obstacle in my life. It structured my mind from the chaos it once was and separated me mentally from my competitors and people trying to harm me, intentionally or otherwise.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m an entrepreneur that has been in the music industry since around 2012. I have a passion for bridging the gap between the music industry and the black community. They need to know our world instead of what they see on tv. Right now I’m a booking agent but my ultimate goal would be to manage multiple artists and groom them into international superstars.
What matters most to you?
What matters the most to me right now is to get my life on track and juggle many jobs. I wear a lot of hats and when I’m not working on music I sell vending machines. All these jobs seem easier than they are but it’s difficult. I care about my future so I take care of my present. I want to be financially independent so I can be an asset to the world.
I can’t be on the clock in a 9-5 job because that will drain me. But to help the world, I must be able to help myself first and that’s what matters to me. I’ve always been a giving person but in this chapter in my life, I must be selfish and think about myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.noobierecords.com
- Instagram: @Noobie_bookings
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noobierecords
