Hi,
This week’s newsletter is an interview with Azae - a videographer and entrepreneur responsible for building one of hip-hop’s most influential media platforms called 4 Shooters Only.
Azae is actually responsible for creating an entire trend of microphone performance platforms (which many people don’t even realize). Our conversation dove into his beginnings all the way up until building 4 Shooters Only.
This newsletter highlights:
An interview with Zae Williams
Let's dive in ⬇️
For those who may not be familiar, Azae’s real name is Zae Williams - also known as A Zae Production.
Zae got his start in the music industry as a videographer documenting Chicago’s hip-hop scene in the 2010s.
His music videos from that era include Chief Keef, Lil Durk, G Herbo, Vic Mensa, & more artists that had a profound impact on the scene at that time.
Azae hustled like crazy in those early years, often shooting, editing, and releasing 5 videos per week.
Fast forward to 2021 and he would go on to start one of the most culturally relevant content platforms in hip-hop. It’s funny…Azae and I have known each other for years and worked on many From the Blocks episodes together, but all this time I never actually knew how it started.
The birth of a cultural powerhouse
Azae started the platform 4 Shooters Only with its marquee series From The Block in 2021. The idea came one day while driving around with his wife. He had stopped shooting music videos at that time but had a clothing brand called 4 Shooters Only that was designed for videographers.
“I just got bored and came up with the From the Block idea. Me and my wife were driving and came up with it.
And I was just trying to find an artist to do it, to just post it, to say, like, this is what I'm trying to do. So I was hitting up all the artists that were in Atlanta that probably weren’t super booked or super busy.
I'm like, hey, I'm trying to do this little thing where I hang this microphone outside.
A couple people were like, okay, bet, I'm gonna get up with you. Kind of like brushing it off because, like…I have nothing to show you, I'm just telling you an idea.
So I hit up this dude from Illinois - he was like an up-and-coming rapper, like, he had, no songs out type of thing. I'm like, hey, come do this thing for me real quick, so I can show these people what I'm trying to do.
So that's how he ended up being the first one.”
The platform known for its famous hanging mic-style originally filmed on Azae’s friend’s back porch and has since grown to all over the world. People actually didn’t understand the concept at first so Azae had to send people examples of him standing in front of the mic himself.
As it caught on, the same people who originally passed on it started calling him.
“It'd be kind of funny, like, people that I hit up early on, they kind of ignored me and stuff.
Now their label is like yeah, we gotta make you do it From the Block for your rollout. Now they’re looking”.
When I asked how he handled being brushed off at the time, his answer showed no signs of being bothered.
“I don't expect everybody to know your vision.
I mean, hey, it's like…people just don't get it sometimes. It wasn't something that was done before. Just imagine somebody hits you up like, hey, I'm finna hang a microphone outside and do something.
They're like…what is he talking about?
It wasn't a thing, and at that time, platforms weren’t a thing. Like, there were no platforms around, bro. You had your Funk Flexes, and I didn't know about COLORS, for real, because they were only overseas at the time, they weren’t doing American artists. So it was only, like, radio freestyles that people knew about.
So here I go saying, hey, I'm gonna hang a microphone outside, and I want you to rap a song, and it's just kind of like…what is he talking about?”
The format
If you’re familiar with the platform, its growth and impact is pretty fascinating. He literally started an entire movement of hanging microphone / microphone performance platforms. They’ve since become huge in the music industry and an integral part of how artists promote their rollouts.
I was curious why he thought the format worked so well despite being so simple - what was it about the microphone that allowed the format to work?
“It works because it's less distracting. If you watch a music video, it's kinda like…you’re not just listening, you’re watching the video. You didn't stop to say, damn, that car was hard or damn, look at those girls. You didn't even really listen unless you heard the song before.
If I just have a mic, and they’re just standing outside, and the background is blurry, the only thing you can look at and listen is that. There’s nothing to talk about.
And the crazy stuff that they do behind them is only to draw people in to watch it. When people do props, and it's just like, wait, what's this? I'm like, oh, wait, he's spitting and you’re making people stick around.”
Azae shared that not only do the episodes perform well, but some actually perform much better than the song’s music video which is fascinating.
“We got From the Blocks that have 10 times more views than the music videos and the music video came out before the performance.
You're like…how does the performance surpass the music video?
It's less distracting, it's just like, just watch this person rap on the mic.”
It’s pretty fascinating when you think about it - artists spend thousands (or tens of thousands of dollars) on a music video only to shoot a video of them standing outside rapping into a hanging microphone that performs better.
The editing process
This part of the interview kind of shocked me. We spoke abou the team structure and set up. How From the Block is apparently six people:
Zae, Mimi, T, Champagne, Mazi, and Johnny who does graphics.
Out of the six people on the team, four of them shoot. But apparently there’s only 1 editor haha.
“I edit every single one. I'm the editor. Every single From the Block is on my computer. Every single From the Block you've ever seen came from these hands.
There’s no editing team. That's why if we get a group chat with an artist, and we’re like, oh, I'mma check with the editor…it’s actually me. We just say that, but it's me.”
I then asked him why he doesn’t just outsource it to save time:
“I've tried it like once just because somebody was begging me to help. But there's certain stuff that I can see that I wouldn't do, or stuff that I would fix that other people wouldn't see.
Say, for example, somebody is like, oh, can we get a few changes on this?
Now, I gotta tell you what they said, and then you gotta tell me, then I gotta send it back. I'mma just do it myself.”
It makes sense when you think about it. Azae has gotten to a point where he can edit every From the Block episode in 15 minutes. It would probably take longer to have someone else edit and send them notes or directions than for him to just do it.
What’s crazy is the scale - Azae has literally edited all 3,800 videos on the 4 Shooters Only channel but it goes back even further.
“Even with my A Zae Production channel, bro, every Chief Keef video, all that shit, I touched myself. I never hired anybody to edit for me. My short films, everything I ever did, I did that shit myself.”
After being impressed, my next reaction was “isn’t this a bottleneck”? How do you have the time to do all of this and run the brand but according to Azae he doesn’t ever really stop working.
“I just never sleep. I can sleep on an airplane. As far as going to sleep - it's 2 o'clock every day type thing. 2 o'clock, and I'm up no later than 9 o'clock, for sure.”
After hearing about his rigorous schedule, I couldn’t help but ask how it affects his body and ability to rest.
“I was starting to do, like, more workout stuff, but then I had to start going to this treatment for my back from shooting so much, and being at the computer.
My spine is like literally crooked. Just imagine, like, 10 years of doing this. And when I shot music videos, my favorite angle to shoot was the low angle, so I'm literally hunching my back every day. So I'm literally going through, like, little classes where I gotta get in this machine, and it pulls my body apart to let some tissue back in.
I'm not thinking about, like, oh, let me make sure my posture is right… like, I'm just working, bro. I'm not thinking about, if I keep doing this, my back is gonna give out. It's like, this is shit that you're just not thinking about.”
No goals
One of the things that stood out to me the most in how he runs the business is that there are literally no goals. Despite being one of the most important and foundational content platforms in hip-hop, there are no benchmarks or targets.
“When I go into stuff, I never have goals…like okay, my goal is to hit a million subs by next year. I just know that if I'm gonna do it, I'ma just give it 100%, and wherever it goes, it goes.
I don't ever say, like, my goal is to get Jay-Z on here. If Jay-Z hits us up, we gonna do it, but I never set stuff up to where it's like, alright, my goal is to get this. I don't have a board in here with a list of people that I can't wait to get on the platform. It's not like that type of thing.
I'm just building the brand, and if it gets big enough, those people will want to do it.
It's surprising still to people now that people don't know that me, A Zae Production, runs From the Block. There’s still people that don't know that. Because I'm more focused on building the brand versus me. I'm not trying to be in front. You gonna know the logo before you know me. I'll worry about me later.
Some people do it backwards, like, oh, I know him - oh, I didn't know you shoot videos, though. It's like, how do you know me but not know I shoot videos?””
Staying prepared
One of the bigger gems I took away from our conversation was Azae’s emphasis on being prepared. That preparation has helped him seize opportunities throughout his entire career and get him to where he is now.
“When I first started shooting music videos, I was going to all the concerts and recording every rapper that came to Chicago. I'm at the concert, putting the footage up, and sending it to Fake Shore Drive.
I was in Atlanta, years and years ago, before I even moved to Atlanta. I was recording at a club, and I had my camera around my neck, and I walked to the gas station across the street. I see, like, 3 or 4 Maseratis pull up and a bunch of dudes get out. I'm in the gas station and I see that it's Young Dro. He’s like, hey, you shoot videos? I'm like, yeah. He like, alright, you going with us for the night.
So I end up literally being with Young Dro all night, because I was just prepared. Back in the day, you would have never, ever in life caught me without my camera.”
He also told me, striaght up, that he works 365 days a year:
“I work 5 jobs. I'm editing it, uploading it, putting it on TikTok, Instagram, sending a collab. Even if I'm not editing and we got stuff to drop, I'm in Jamaica dropping videos on the Instagram page.”
I can attest to his work ethic first-hand. A few years ago, Azae and I coordinated a From the Block shoot with an artist in Texas. For the sake of time and his schedule, Azae flew in and out of Texas the same day. Flight in the morning and flight home at night.
What’s funny is I reminded Azae of that shoot during our interview and asked if he remembered the mishap that almost happened. Essentially, the Houston area has 2 main airports - George Bush and William P. Hobby. While booking his travel, I didn’t realize that I booked his flight to Texas from one airport and flight home from another. I thought it was the same airport haha.
So when he headed to the airport that night to fly home, he was a few minutes away when he realized I booked his flight home from the other airport. He rushed to call an Uber and made it to the airport just in time.
What’s crazy is that his wife was pregnant at the time and I believe due any day. We joked that if she had the baby and he missed it because I messed up his flight he would’ve never forgiven me (thankfully that didn’t happen lol)
Backing everything up
Near the end of our conversation, he mentioned how he literally never deletes anything he films. I watched as he opened a cabinet drawer and showed me tons of backup hard drives.
“Something crazy is that I never delete footage of anything I ever shot. These are 5TB hard drives. All of them numbered - so if this say AZP09, like, this some old shit on here. This a 2013, 2014 hard drive. This is a bunch of Chief Keef and Lil Durk. I ain't never deleted nothing I ever shot ever in my life.”
To prove the point of how old some of the footage is, he pulled out a hard drive and proceeded to pull up never before seen footage from the Chief Keef “I Don't Like” music video shoot.
“It was supposed to be a collab video. Keef was like, oh, I want to shoot a music video. And remember, we never went to film school, we just tried stuff, we don't know how to do this. So it was like, y'all both can shoot it. He was shooting footage on his camera, I was shooting footage on my camera, but I'm still just getting behind-the-scenes stuff. But his footage looked different than mine, because our settings was different. So he just edited the video with his footage and put it out.
So I was stuck with all the behind-the-scenes footage. But it worked out for me in the long run. Everything happens for a reason, because I could have used this footage in a music video, and I wouldn't have been able to do nothing with it now.”
It was kind of crazy actually…he casually pulled up never before seen footage from arguably one of the biggest hip-hop music videos / songs ever. It was so casual it was almost as if he was showing me something on Google lol.
Azae is actually working on a documentary where he plans on using a lot of the never before seen footage.
“I feel like it was all part of the plan - God just knew, like, eventually. It's not gonna make sense now, because I had no reason to keep all this shit. But now, with the documentary, it was like, damn, that's why I kept all this shit. People used to just shoot some shit, delete the footage after they drop. Videographers don't keep footage.
I'm the only person that could do this documentary. First off, they don't have this footage. And second, nobody was with me. I shot everything by myself. So it's basically just me telling my side of the story, how everything happened from my point of view because nobody else could tell it.”
Rapid fire
We ended our conversation with a few rapid-fire questions.
Craziest From the Block story?
“It don't be nothing too crazy. I think the most crazy shit we doing is waiting on somebody for hours. That's probably the craziest shit. Just waiting.”
Last book you read?
“I just read Bible scriptures, I don't even read books. I just got my phone and read Bible scriptures. I don't even have the time to read books, bro. I'd rather read a Bible scripture a day and be done.
The book I probably read was something I read to my kids - my daughter just had a LeBron James book not too long ago. But me going to buy a book to read? I wouldn't even have the time. I got 4 kids and try to run the company. I don't even have time to sit down. As you see, I gotta edit.”
Favorite music video you've ever shot?
“Probably 21 Savage, ‘No Heart.' That was when I first transitioned into, like, run-and-gun director me, and then it went up. And we kind of recreated the movie.”
Who hasn't done From the Block that you want?
“Lil Wayne, Drake, and Young Jeezy. I would want Wayne to do, like, some classic, like, mixtape Wayne, Steady Mobbin' Wayne.”
One piece of advice for up-and-coming artists?
“Be yourself and be different. Use something that you see, and create your own version of it. Don't try to, like, oh, he hung a mic, I'm gonna go buy the same mic and hang it.
Cadillac Chronicles came out and killed it because it was something different. He didn't try to hang a mic - he's like, oh, I'm gonna get in the car, I'mma drive around and have the artist rap. And it works.”
What's the end goal?
“My end goal is to shoot movies. The music industry..I'm in it, but I'm not trying to be a music exec or get my own label. So if it gets to the point where I'm ready to transition to doing movies, then I'll just sell it. But I would hate to, because I know that they're not gonna do it how I did it.”
One thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
“That I edit all of the From the Blocks.”
Hopefully this was helpful on your journey.
Thanks for reading, until next time.
