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erving as both Rick Ross’s manager/business partner and the CEO of Poe Boy Records, Eric “E-Class” Prince (shown at right with Ross after a show in Gainesville, FL) is a staple in the Miami music scene and has approached the game with his unique and effective brand of street marketing. First off, describe your job. What do you do? I develop artists. I break records. I market records. I own my own promotional and marketing company. Poe Boy is a management company to. I can’t really describe what I do because it’s so much. What one nigga does at a record label – what he gets paid a whole lot of money for – I do that, plus four other jobs. I ain’t the average CEO. I’ll put up my own posters. Why did you name your company Poe Boy? One of my homeboys, God bless the dead, Kenin Bailey died in 1999. That was our vision, to start a record company. I named it after him and I’ve been holding it down solo ever since. My first release was POD, a song with Rick Ross and Trick Daddy. Then I had Cognito. I put a bunch of money into him. Niggas don’t understand – I put like $400,000 into POD and another $700,000 into Cognito. We shot two videos on Cognito and never put it out. It might come out next year, you never know. Me and Cognito went our separate ways. Then shorty [Jacki-O] came along, so we did what we had to do with shorty. She had a hit record, I worked it. Did you team up with Sobe Entertainment to put out Jacki-O? We teamed up with Cecil Barker. There wasn’t no Sobe at the time. He wanted to start his own label. That’s my best business partner ever. We had our differences, but it wasn’t me and him. It was people he had working for him. He’s a great dude. We’re still good friends, so it’s all good. Were you satisfied with the results of Jacki-O’s album, or did you feel like it should’ve sold more with all the money and effort that was put into it? I put a whole lot into that project. That was in God’s hands. Her talent wasn’t the problem. Her production wasn’t the problem. A&R wasn’t the problem. Marketing wasn’t the problem. I just figured it was God’s move. What did you learn from that project that you’ve been able to apply with the Rick Ross situation? Just to keep going. I’m all the way in, so I’m not gonna stop. This Flo-Rida shit is on another page. Get ready for Rick Ross’s [group] Triple C, trust me, it’s gonna be a serious problem. Brisco, I just did his deal with Cash Money. Me and Birdman finna do some major things with that. Flo-Rida’s got a smash hit record. It ain’t who’s the strongest, it’s who lasts the longest. Me and Ross been together for years. We came up together. We did an interview with Rick Ross a few years ago where he voiced his displeasure with Slip-N-Slide and was trying to go back to Poe Boy. I had a gang of artists. I don’t sell no dreams or hold no nigga back, but I’ll ride with you. If I feel like I can’t do it for you and somebody else got money for you, handle your business. If you ain’t got no real love for your artists or it’s just a business to you or you’re not gonna put your all into it, it ain’t gonna work the same. Out of 10 CEOs, only 2 of them are gonna go extra hard to make sure your shit is a success. I’ve been fighting for this shit since 1999. [Rick] was on POD and Cognito’s shit. He’s been there from day one, from the beginning. Him and Jacki-O wrote her “Nookie” record together. I felt like it was time to put everything behind him. What else did Rick Ross write besides Jacki-O’s “Nookie”? He wrote a bunch of records. He wrote like three records on her album, “Gangsta Bitch,” and a few other records. But she’s a great writer too. Why did you and Jacki-O fall out? Things happen, man. It just didn’t work out. In our last interview with her, she said that she felt you were blackballing her new records from getting played. I ain’t gonna comment on that. I ain’t got no reason to hate on nobody. I’m just a smalltime businessman but I do work hard for my artists. On a Bigga Rankin mixtape, he says he was scuba diving and saw a Rick Ross poster, which pretty much summarizes your promotional efforts. I got some new shit, this waterproof material that I do boards with. The whole industry stole my game. They saw the big ten foot cut outs and started to emulate the greats, so it’s all good. I should get a check for that. Everybody’s doing it now. I made labels step their marketing budgets up.
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If you want a board like that, get ready to spend $250 on each one. Rick Ross has 500 of them everywhere we go. We spend our own money and we go hard, so with the [Def Jam] machine behind us, it’s too easy. Where did you come up with such an aggressive marketing strategy? Just watching elections and campaigns, trying to come up with different ideas. Shit niggas ain’t doing. I don’t like poster boards and all that shit. To me, that’s vandalism. I just like to be strategic and do shit differently. We wrap buildings, buses, balloons. I like to do it big. Aside from the music, why do you think Rick Ross is a successful artist? I ain’t gonna lie, he had to do a lot of changing. He was real aggressive. We had to have a lot of talks. I told him to just chill. We gotta calm down and stay focused when we want to go hard on these industry people. Coming from the streets yourself, what do you think was the key to making a transition from the streets to this business, changing your hustle? To be honest, I think it’s really pretty much the same thing. You just gotta apply your business differently. You gotta adapt to this industry cause this shit is super gay. It’s full of fuck niggas. Half the niggas in power don’t need to be in power, and niggas who really work hard and do the right shit ain’t in the right positions. So you’ve gotta play the humble role. You see what they did to Suge. You’ve gotta do shit silently. Kill them with silence. It’s just like the streets, man. You got niggas in positions who can shut you out, so you gotta play your cards right, and when you’re on top it’s your time to shine. We’re doing alright, but we’re far from the top. We got a few deals on the table. We just came off an international tour with Jay-Z, so we’re seeing a bigger vision. You were upset when we printed some negative things about Poe Boy a while back. Do you want to respond to that? I never worried about the little things. That’s why I got two probations and three assault charges. As long as a nigga don’t get personally disrespectful, it’s cool. I got love for OZONE. You work real hard. I’ve seen you grind like I grind, from day one. You’re a hustler. I can’t hate on that. Speaking of catching assault charges, you had a little altercation your former partner Mr. Charlie at TJ’s DJ’s. What was that about? Yeah, he did some super homo shit. You can talk all you want, but don’t go to a newspaper and talk about a nigga’s criminal activities in the past. That’s something you just don’t do. So that’s where I draw the line. I can’t give nobody no shine, though. It’s all about Triple C, Poe Boy, Brisco, the movement. OZONE looking real big too, everywhere I go. I seen one on the shelves at the airport the other day. You’re getting a lot of money on the low. At every show niggas are snapping pictures for OZONE. The Miami movement seems to be going well. The Super Bowl is coming to Miami and we’re the champions. It’s a new movement. I like to stunt, too. When they come through Miami they’re gonna know what time it is. Rick Ross been hot, it ain’t nothing new. It’s about timing. I learned to be more patient and humble and discipline myself. Shout out to Cool & Dre, DJ Khaled, Big D, all the producers, everybody who’s doing their thing. Look out for that Live From 305 executive produced by Rick Ross and E-Class, we’re bringing all the hot Miami artists to the forefront: Dirtbag, T-Double, Pitbull, Smitty. Any last words? Don’t ever think this industry loves you. Some niggas sign a deal and think it’s all gravy, but as soon as you don’t do good, my brother, that love is out the window. Don’t fall short for the glory. I leave it all in God’s hands. - Julia Beverly (Photo: Malik Abdul)