Los Angeles born Leo Black is a producer, actor, and musician. His successful collaboration with Grammy award-winning artist Jay Rock on “West Coast’ cemented his credentials in the music industry. Leo has found his unique sound, merging Hip-Hop into the electronic dance music realm, influenced when touring with fellow Angelino Mustard across North America, where he rapidly picked up DJing and featured on records with Joe Moses. We had the opportunity to talk to Leo about his music, acting, and his successful YouTube chat show.
Hi Leo, thank you for granting the interview. Congratulations on the success so far. Firstly, how did you get involved in the entertainment industry?
I got involved in the entertainment industry from having a close friend of the family work for Epic records as an A&R. At the time I just wanted to play sports. Me and my big bro were on the peewee football team for the city, this is when So So Def had just done a distribution deal with Epic records so he was gassing us up saying he just had signed Lil Bow Wow and we should start rapping. By the way, this is when Lil Bow Wow was the biggest thing ever coming off a number 1 record featuring Snoop Dogg, so my bro and I started writing our raps and recorded them on a karaoke machine and played it for him the next day. Good news and bad news, Bad news is that we didn’t become the next Lil Bow Wow, but the good news was our mom kept taking us to auditions after that and I landed a few commercials, one was rapping for Welch’s grape juice, which was pretty big at the time.
Your major television debut was on NBC’s Jay Leno show. Please share your experience on the show and how it impacted your career.
The Jay Leno show actually came out the blue, really I was just in the right place at the right time. Melrose and Fairfax were two of my favorite shopping districts in Los Angeles, it’s a must every time I’m in the city. So one night I was with the squad shopping on Melrose and decided to stop and grab a bite at Johnny Rockets. Little did we know Jay Leno was filming right on the corner where we were eating and I don’t know if it was my look or what but as I’m eating my burger sipping a milkshake some producers walked up to the window and start pointing at me and as we were walking out they called me over, complimenting me on my charisma, then asked if I wanted to be in an episode on the Jay Leno show. At the time I honestly didn’t even know who Jay Leno was you talking to a kid who grew up on Martin and 106&park, I had no idea. I agreed to do it and they guided me straight to the trailer and put a blonde wig on me with a Christmas sweater and said you’re playing as Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, it was a parody for the movie. After filming for hours in front of a green screen on Melrose, we finally wrapped it up and they invited me back to the studios to finish. It took about three days of filming to finish the spoof but totally worth it on top of me getting paid. I got to take my mom to the premiere in Burbank, on the set of the Jay Leno Show.
You enrolled in the Los Angeles Film & Recording School in Hollywood. How far did this refine your artistry and prepare you for your future endeavors?
Being enrolled in the Los Angeles Film and Recording School was the best thing that ever happened to me. It kept me out of trouble. At the time I was involved in a lot of gang activity in LA, guilty by affiliation. I had close friends and family getting incarcerated, dying to gun violence, and police brutality. Observing what’s happened to George Floyd was devastating but it’s even harder when it’s your own family. I’m tapped in and aware of what’s happening right now and still learning how to react to it publicly. One of my biggest role models is Dave Chappell and he said it best in his new special “Dave Chappelle 8:46”, nobody wants to hear what a public figure has to say when a tragedy like this happens, the streets will speak for themselves. I truly took heed to that and would refer anyone to check 8:46 on youtube. Sorry for going on a rant but back to film school, it was a very rigorous program. The first two months we just set in a classroom and they taught us how to network and use social media because, in today’s industry, those are key elements. Three months in, they gave us MacBooks with recording and editing programs to learn how to use and we also had tons of camera equipment and our disposal. The school really let us hit the streets of Hollywood and film/record whatever we wanted as long as we were willing to work in groups and share it with the class. That boosted my creativity and belief that teamwork makes the dream work. I’m respectful and know what it means to work as a team. Someone once told me if you go by yourself you’ll get there faster, but if you go as a team you’ll go further. When I move disruptively there are always people behind the scenes acting as my machine. My classmates help me build accolades like the best student short film award, best feature film award, and best student producer award. That freedom really helped me in the long run, there are things that I am still applying at work that I learned from the Los Angeles Film School.
After you graduated, you had a brief period working as a videographer on ABC’s The Fosters, followed by working on the set of the Ellen Show and The Big Bang Theory. Which event has been the most satisfying and why?
I learned a lot from working on each show, it was the timing for me. Being seasoned for a year plus at a film school and then being granted to work at Warner Brothers studios seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime. I was able to take full advantage of the experience I had. You don’t just wake up and be like, OK, that’s how it’s gonna go. You gotta live in the moment, for a minute. You have to observe and sit back and you calculate every step, but at the same time, you just never get lost in who you are. Just make sure you stay yourself at all times. And doing that, you always find out a different purpose or a different way to seize the moment and make things work to your advantage. Even when things are going wrong, you try and make things work to your advantage. I feel like The Fosters set the tone for me because it was the first show I had worked on and had more leisure considering I was coming in as an intern. The film crew was more open-minded and let me be creative. The Ellen show is being blackballed by the industry right now, but what I can say is there is politics on every set you work on.
We know you’re as passionate about music as you are about film and television. Please share with us how your collaboration with Grammy Award-winning artists Jay Rock came about.
Jay Rock and I are both studio rats, that’s our comfort zone. We constantly are building off each other’s ideas and feeding each other new ideas. Our collaboration just came from being connected through the streets of Los Angeles. I got some close friends that Jay Rock grew up in his section. When you are part of a team it’s like if one makes it we all make it so everybody puts together resources and that was a move that helped further my career. The song did what it did but it was the power move behind it that made people pay attention to who I was and listen. Jay Rock had just got off tour with Kendrick Lamar performing “Money Trees” all over the world. I remember him telling me don’t let up in that studio session, like have patience and your time will come. Fast forward today and he is a Grammy award-winning artist and I couldn’t be more proud of him.
You have a proven level of professional success but what has been your greatest challenge and how have you overcome it?
Even when things are going wrong, you try and make things work to your advantage. Shedding a positive light, that’s what it’s really all about. I released a song called “Have a Great Day” and when I saw the sales come back I was like damn, I guess I’m not the only one who’s wanting some positive vibes. At the same time if you watch the video, it’s transparent to who I am, humor, and all, it showed a shift in my career as a successful artist. People want to see that growth as an artist, especially being active social media fans are going to see you for who you are so you might as well be transparent as an artist. As I grow as a person, my dreams and art will evolve with it. I like to call it the Jay-Z effect. More money, more problems, but speaking metaphorically it’s peanuts to an elephant considering I didn’t grow up getting fed with a silver spoon.
You were invited to Youtube Space LA as a creator, taking a series of courses, and making brand content. How important is branding, particularly for independent artists and what advice can you give other artists on this subject?
Branding and ownership are key, now it’s cool to be an independent artist but I chose to be independent when it was lame. I could have signed a deal but I believed in myself enough to take the stairs and trust the process, that way I could hold myself accountable. I wanted to emulate career-wise, like JAY-Z, Murder Inc, and Ruff Ryders, who were in charge of the labels that they signed to. It’s about understanding the business advantages that those individuals had based on their business arrangements. I bought equipment, built studios, and bought infrastructure. It might have been time to buy cars and jewelry for the age I was and the mindset of that age but it’s about believing in what you’re doing to the point that you invest in it. YouTube Space LA, home to the visionary Howard Hughes, played a stupendous part contributing to my skills by attending workshops they hosted weekly with in the field instructors who had an abundance of knowledge in film & television. Collaborating with like-minded creatives made me a team player fundamentally. I managed a crew of 6 and produced videos in the HQ stages, utilizing the RED Ranger with Monstro 8k.
You’re currently on your second season of The Leo Black Show, produced by Dame Dash Studios. Please tell us more about the show and what audiences can expect?
As my team grew larger at in scale we managed to diversify and challenge ourselves with new content, by that time it was a bidding war, we managed to land a few meetings with several big television studios in Hollywood/Burbank area to expand our budget for new projects, we decided to go with Dame Dash studios for our first venture deal, producing television shows at scale. We recently just finished “The Leo Black Show” Season 2. I have a couple of unreleased projects I’m looking forward to debuting. I think the pandemic put the entertainment industry on pause as a whole but I just look at it as a minor setback for a major comeback.
Interviewing other creatives inspires and motivates. Having interviewed many artists, are you working on new collaborative projects you care to talk about?
Yes, right now I’m working on the first season of a show series and producing the soundtrack. Music and Film are my main focus right now.
Where will we find out more information about you?
Website: https://www.youtube.com/leoblxk
Photos : Steven Nye & Location Youtube SpaceLA.
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