Episode Title: Songwriting, Early Success, & Music Education Feat. Curtis Richardson

In this episode Durell is joined by songwriter, producer, and music publisher Curtis Richardson. Durell and Curtis begin the episode talking about how they got connected and his earliest memories of music. Curtis shares that he got a late start to his music career compared to most people being in his mid to late 20’s. He shared with Durell that he had a whole different career path in corporate america and made the decision right before September 11th to go hard for one more year and if he didn’t have success he would go back to his career in corporate america. Curtis and Durell talked about the opportunity he had to write his number one hit entitled “All I Have” with Jennifer Lopez & LL Cool J. Durell and Curtis talk about when he understood the power of being international and made a conscious pivot to build his international catalog working with foreign superstars in Asia such as Taemin, Kumi Koda & Tohoshinki. Curtis and Durell talk about the business of songwriting and music publishing. Curtis shares that he sees a lot of mistakes that new songwriters make. He shares that so many of them don’t approach their songwriting career as a business and oftentimes put themselves in situations that don’t set them up to achieve success. Durell and Curtis end the episode talking about something that they are both very passionate about and that is educating songwriters and creatives on the business of music. Curtis shares what really got him excited about education and why he thinks it’s so important. For more information on Curtis Richardson, please checkout his social media profile, Instagram @curtisricha