#273: Sophia Chang

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we welcome music executive, marketing maven, artist manager, full-time mother and game-changer in the flesh, Sophia Chang to the Upper West Side! Sophia, whose audio memoir The Baddest Bitch in the Room will be available exclusively on audible.com starting September 26th, discusses being raised in Vancouver, BC, the daughter of a North Korean mother and a South Korean father, the realities of not finding representation in mass media, growing up popular and outgoing and brilliant, yet still being an outsider, the beauty and the quiet of the Pacific Northwest, as well as the energy and vibrations and pull of New York City. Sophia gets into her early days as an assistant for Paul Simon, meeting Joey Ramone, expecting to run into Woody Allen walking the streets, experiencing Manhattan in its dirty era, her love for lyricism as well as baselines, her time at Jive Records, crossing paths with UGK, and befriending fellow industry titan Chris Lighty. We talk about her time with Wu-Tang, taking RZA to China to study with and perform for kung-fu masters, her thoughts on the Of Mics and Men documentary, leaving the music business for a dozen years, later working with artists like Joey Badass and G Herbo, living in and loving the hip-hop culture, and calling out and cutting out those who didn't. All that, plus how motherhood changed everything, how it felt to uplift artists in every aspect of their lives, as well as them uplifting hers, making peace with relationships coming to an end, the bigger mission of raising her children in New York City, whether or not Paul Simon cheats in Scrabble, and much, much more!