Drew “Dru Ha” Friedman‘s passion for hip-hop runs deep. As the cofounder and CEO of Duck Down Music and the CEO of 3D Consulting and Distribution, Dru Ha has been entrenched in the culture for over 30 years. On this episode of XXL’s Inside Track podcast, the White Plains, N.Y. native discusses his early days of managing Smif-N-Wessun with Buckshot, how that led to running a successful independent record label, working with MCs like Young M.A and Joey Bada$$, currently managing comedian Druski and more.
After growing up DJing parties and dabbling in breakdancing, Dru Ha broke into the business via an internship under the late marketing veteran Rob Stone at SBK Records/EMI Publishing while attending Syracuse University. There, Dru worked with early 1990s acts like Arrested Development and Vanilla Ice. He then landed a gig heading up the rap department at Nervous Records. At the same time, he was managing Brooklyn rapper Buckshot and his Black Moon crew as well as Smif-N-Wessun. After the success of Black Moon’s 1993 track “Who Got Da Props,” Buckshot and Dru Ha cofounded the independent record label Duck Down Music in 1995.
From there, Friedman started consulting for Jonny Shipes‘ Cinematic Music Group while working at Cornerstone Marketing as a music director and a liaison for locking down brand deals.
In 2024, being an independent artist is all the rage. In many cases, the level of control an indie rapper has over their career is appealing as opposed to being signed to a major label. However, Dru Ha reflects on a time when being independent meant that artists and labels had to be creative in order to financially compete in a hip-hop landscape dominated by the majors.
“Licensing and finding other avenues of revenue were critical for indie artists because we weren’t going to beat the majors to the punch at radio,” Dru Ha explains in the video below. “We weren’t going to beat them to the punch at MTV or BET, those places were on lockdown. So, we had to find other ways to get the music out. If they weren’t concentrating on licensing, then, hey, maybe we could call 2K up or ESPN or whatever and get our music in here. For a while, we felt like there were different places that we could go that the majors maybe weren’t putting all their time into.”
While Duck Down Music remains as an iconic legacy brand in the hip-hop space, Dru Ha is also the CEO of 3D Consulting and Distribution. Through his relationship with Jonny Shipes, he started managing the career of famed comedian Druski in 2019, which is a sure-fire sign that Drew “Dru Ha” Friedman continues to push the culture forward.
XXL is back with another episode of Inside Track, a biweekly podcast that spends time with some of hip-hop’s most influential industry executives, entrepreneurs and more. Hosted by XXL Editor-in-Chief Vanessa Satten and music executive Courtney “Courtney CL” Lowery, each episode will continue to explore hip-hop through the eyes of people who have lived and breathed the culture.
Watch or listen to the episode of XXL‘s Inside Track podcast below. The podcast can be found on xxlmag.com, XXL’s YouTube page and on most podcast platforms: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and XXL Live.