Independent artists are tempted to narrate their own history generously, and the internet lets them. This is an attempt at the opposite: a timeline of the Code Black era of the Daj' catalog built only from artifacts that still exist and can be opened, with every claim framed at the strength its evidence supports. The three Film School Productions videos exist and carry their credits. The single directed by Cordell Broadus is still live on YouTube. The Kong Wraps brand deal produced two videos that can be watched today. The freestyle shot in Snoop Dogg's studio room exists in two cuts. What none of these artifacts prove is an endorsement by anyone, and this piece does not claim one. The editorial rule for this catalog, applied here and on every related page, is documented, not a cosign.
Why a Receipts-Only Standard
Music biography is unusually vulnerable to drift. A studio session becomes a collaboration in the retelling; a brand deal brokered through a relationship becomes a friendship; a famous building becomes a famous person. None of that is lying, exactly, but all of it is inflation, and inflation compounds every time a page is rewritten. The standard here is borrowed from documentary practice and from how archives work: a claim is admitted only when a primary artifact supports it, the artifact is cited so a reader can check it, and the claim is phrased no stronger than the artifact allows. Where the only source is the artist's own account, the piece says so and leaves it at that.
The artifacts used are the catalog's own video manifest, which lists 150 entries with slugs, titles, durations and credited directors; the public YouTube uploads where they still exist; and the documented photographs in the catalog's gallery, each of which carries a sidecar marking it as a real photograph rather than a generated image.
2019: Code Black x Film School Productions
Three videos in the manifest carry the credit Code Black x Film School Productions, with Film School Productions listed as director: City Lights (3 minutes 16 seconds), I Been (4 minutes 22 seconds) and Real Talk (1 minute 52 seconds). Code Black is the Las Vegas athletics and intellectual-property company behind the Daj' catalog, established in 2012. Film School Productions is the production company credited on all three. The manifest's own timeline note describes the arrangement as Film School Productions working with the Boss Lady Entertainment orbit in that period.
What the artifacts support: three finished, professionally produced music videos in 2019 under a shared production credit. What they do not support: any claim about budget, distribution deals or who paid for what. Those facts are not in the record and are not asserted here.
2019: I'M THAT GUY, Directed by Cordell Broadus
The single I'M THAT GUY is credited in its YouTube title to three directors: Cordell Broadus, Anthony Hayward and Matt Carrillo. The upload is still live on the @DAJ' YouTube channel under the video ID lL1_GuVds6E, re-verified by download on July 16, 2026, and mirrored in the catalog's own video archive at 4 minutes 20 seconds. The manifest lists a second entry for the same video crediting Cordell Broadus as director.
Cordell Broadus is a filmmaker and a son of Snoop Dogg. That sentence is a fact about a director's biography, not about the artist's relationships, and it is the only sense in which this video connects to a famous family. The artifact proves a directing credit. It does not prove a friendship, a mentorship or an endorsement, and the page for this video is framed accordingly.
2019: The Kong Wraps Brand Partnership
Two videos survive from the Kong Wraps deal: How To Roll A Kong Hemp Blunt ft. SuperCoolDaj, a 4 minute 46 second branded tutorial, and KONG WRAPS Presents: How To Roll A Kong, a 1 minute 58 second short cut. A third artifact is a short clip, archived from a social post, of a Kong Wraps representative visiting the studio. The gallery also holds a documented photograph of the product in hand, with the packaging text legible.
The catalog's timeline describes the deal as brokered through the Broadus family relationship and labels it, in its own words, operator framing, not a cosign. That label is the editorial rule in one line. A brand paid for or supplied product for two tutorial videos featuring the artist; the introduction came through a relationship that is documented elsewhere in this timeline. Nobody famous appears in the videos. Nobody famous endorsed anything. The deal is real; the implication some readers will want to draw from it is not supported and is not drawn here.
The 10 Bands Freestyle, Shot in Snoop Dogg's Studio Room
The freestyle exists in two cuts in the manifest: a 3 minute 16 second archival cut titled 10 Bands Freestyle, shot in Snoop Dogg's Studio Room, and a 3 minute 16 second YouTube upload under the ID 0IDnDYsYK34 titled the same way, plus a 2 minute 39 second version titled 10 Bands Freestyle (Missed Calls) under the ID BKGcDYdCL4U. The title says where it was filmed. It does not say, and the artifact does not show, that the room's owner was present, involved or aware. Studios are rented and borrowed constantly; a room is a location, not a relationship.
The gallery holds documented photographs from the same period, including one of four people posed with Snoop Dogg and one of a seven-person crew with product boxes, each stored with a sidecar stating it is a real photograph. A photograph proves presence in a room on a day. The pages that display these photographs say exactly that and no more.
Boss Lady Entertainment and the TMZ Claim
Boss Lady Entertainment is the company of Shante Broadus, who has managed Snoop Dogg's business since 2021 and was profiled by Forbes that year. The catalog's timeline places Film School Productions in that orbit during the 2019 video era, and the manifest credits support the production relationship.
There is one claim in this history that rests on a single source: that a TMZ-connected machine in that orbit placed the Code Black videos on its own channel. The only source is the artist's own account. There is no artifact, no screenshot, no archived page and no mention anywhere else in the catalog's records. Under the receipts standard that claim is reported as what it is, a first-person recollection, and is not stated as fact on any page of this site.
2024 to 2026: The Record on Record
The later period is easier because it lives on the stores. Too Dark (2024) and Dark (2024) are released albums; Flight to Vegas 2 followed in 2025; DARK I: Outwitting the Devil was released on April 7, 2026 as a ten-track album with mastering credited to Solana Conejo. Those are catalog facts with store listings behind them and need no framing beyond the dates.
Method and Limitations
Every claim above traces to one of three artifact classes: the video manifest at videos.dajai.io (titles, durations, director credits, archive URLs), live YouTube uploads identified by video ID, or documented photographs in the catalog gallery with sidecars marking them as unaltered. Durations are the manifest's own measurements, rounded to the second. Years are taken from the manifest timeline and the upload records. The limitation is the obvious one: a receipts standard can only confirm what was recorded, so an absence of evidence here is not evidence that nothing more happened. It is a decision to say less than might be true rather than more.
What This Means
For the catalog, the practical effect is a set of page rules. Every Broadus-connected asset carries the documented, not a cosign framing. Evidence pages use real photographs only; generated images are set-dressing and are marked as generated. Over-claims are corrected downward when found, never left to stand because they flatter. For other independent artists the lesson is cheaper than it sounds: keep the manifest. Write down the director, the date, the duration and the URL the day a thing is finished, and the history writes itself in a form that survives scrutiny. The story told here is smaller than the version that would get more clicks. It has the advantage of being checkable.
Sources
- Daj' video manifest, 150 entries with titles, durations, director credits and archive URLs, https://videos.dajai.io/ (entries city_lights, i_been, real_talk, im_that_guy, yt_lL1_GuVds6E, kong_wraps_how_to_roll_ft_dajai, kong_wraps_how_to_roll_a_kong, tweet_brodie_kongwraps_studio, ten_bands_snoop_studio, yt_0IDnDYsYK34, yt_BKGcDYdCL4U). Accessed 2026-11-05.
- DAJ' - I'M THAT GUY (Directed By Cordell Broadus, Anthony Hayward, & Matt Carrillo), YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL1_GuVds6E (live; re-verified 2026-07-16).
- Daj' - 10 Bands Freestyle (Shot in Snoop Dogg's Studio Room), YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IDnDYsYK34; 10 Bands Freestyle (Missed Calls), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKGcDYdCL4U
- Code Black timeline and receipts pages, https://dajai.io/cba (timeline, receipts and discography views; documented-photo sidecars with ai_generated false).
- Forbes, profile of Shante Broadus and Boss Lady Entertainment (2021). https://www.forbes.com/
- DARK I: Outwitting the Devil, released 2026-04-07, ten tracks; store listings on Apple Music (artist ID 141720605) and Spotify (artist ID 5cKcbJFuArX3O0nBFmxJ6D).
- Earlier receipts pieces on this site (2026-07-16): /blog/boss-lady-entertainment-film-school-code-black-video-era, /blog/kong-wraps-partnership-how-the-deal-happened, /blog/ten-bands-freestyle-snoop-studio-documented-receipts.