 What's up, what's up, what's up? I'm Brandman Sean. And I'm Corey. And we are back with another episode of No Labels Necessary, episode 21. And why do we call it No Labels Necessary? Because today, artists, musician, content creator, entrepreneur, we gotta be all of these things these days. So just remove the labels. They're not necessary. And you can catch us talking about just that on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and anywhere you listen to a podcast every Tuesday and Thursday, where, again, we talk about the intersection of music, culture, and money for content creators and artists. So let's get into today's topic. Oh, but before we do that, please, we're trying to get to 150,000 subscribers. So hit that subscribe button and don't keep the pod to yourself. Share it with your folks. Share it with your folks. But now let's get into topic number one, which brings me to a very important, very, very, very important question. What is one of the worst things that you can do as an artist when you start making money? Rich Homie Kwan has an answer for y'all. Shit, fuck my head up. I blooped the money, went through my head too far, but I'm not gonna admit that now. You know what I'm saying? I got khaki. I stopped caring, like, I felt like I could say anything on the song. I'm singing more than rapping now. I feel like, oh, shit, this is, I ain't even got to try no more. It ain't gonna lie. I got Lost in the Sauce. Straight like that. Lost in the Sauce. Lost in the Sauce, boss, don't do it. The biggest thing out of all that, right, is the music, the impact on the music. That's what I hear, right? I can do whatever now, exactly. That part right there is like, that right there is where you fall off, right? Yeah. Because when you think about it, yeah, you can get khaki and start mistreating people in your life, not saying you should do all that, right? And buying stuff you shouldn't buy, whatever, whatever. But when it affects the music, not the music, man. Like he said, I start singing more than rapping, and for him, that's not his thing. I guess that's the point why he's saying that, right? I mean, come on. The fans are gonna be like, I don't wanna hear this, right, at some point. Or it's just not hitting the way it would. And the fans, a lot of times, you don't quite know. And if it's not like straight trash music, it's hard to articulate why I don't play this 20 times like I play that other track, you get what I'm saying? Yeah. So letting money go to your head to the point that you think you can just do anything on the track, because it wasn't just the money, by the way, like the way he talks around this time, more in this interview with DJ Vlad, it's also the fact that he was in his own, he was catching hit after hit, right? So that also makes you feel like you could do about anything. Yeah, yeah, bro. It's interesting, because it's one of those things that you can sometimes feel as a fan, right? Like, man, something's off here. And it's like, oh, you were starving when you made that last album. Now you're good, you're up, you know what I'm saying? You had a rum in for lunch. And so I do think that that was interesting that that was the first point that he brought up. Like, yo, the music was hit. But also, I do think about that time. At that time, I was a rich, homie coin fan. I personally liked when he started kind of singing a little bit more. Like, I thought he was a cool rapper, but to me, he was better when he kind of merged the two together. Especially at that time, because it wasn't, I think that was when we were starting to get into like the whole melodic rap thing, like really getting out there like that. So it was just cool to see somebody, at least from Atlanta, like, kind of paving that way. Him and Doug were bringing that in a whole another level, right? Doug was going crazy, crazy with it, but he was finding a different groove that was like respectable for someone who didn't want to go to the extreme that Doug was going, because you know what I'm saying? When Doug came, bitch, get the fuck out of my face. And we had Skoolie, Skoolie, Skoolie was on it, yeah. Skoolie, so they were coming with that, yeah. And Kwan found a space that fit his type of rapper, right? So, nah, man, I actually did like to sing in, it was that one track, man, what was the last track that he did? Yes, but that's not the name of it, right? Flix, there you go, Flix. That right there was, I love that song, bro. Now, I fuck with many of his, I don't know if it's my favorite song, but he himself felt like that was a song that wasn't him. Yeah, I think he's a hated song like that, right? Yes, he says something like that, right? Where, so I don't know how it came to his table or whatever, but I thought that shit was dope in terms of the elevation of him. That wasn't a space I would want him to stay in as a fan, like, oh, all your songs all of a sudden are that far in that direction. But, you know, artists that you really rock with, especially in that type of space, you want something that you can kind of like dance to or hit a certain type of club energy and pace to. And he didn't have a track that could play in that way, right? His other ones brought other energy like some type of way, right? That's like a more hard, it actually is literally what it says. Like, Flix is like, I'm flexing, like that's a different energy, some type of way. That was more like, hey, make you feel some type of way. It actually is a different type of Flix when you think about it. Yeah. Yeah. But like, all right. So the whole point is like, I think he fit a different energy with that song. I liked it, but I can see how he felt like shit, even that shit that I hated took off. So that way. Yeah, yeah. And it goes back to kind of a continent credit episode. We had a couple episodes ago where I'm like, if I'm an influencer and I'm so chicken nuggets and socks and, you know what I'm saying? T-shirts like, who are you to tell me what I can't sell? He probably felt the same way, bro. Like every, like I said, even the things I put out there, I maybe didn't believe in it, but I'm up right now. You know what I'm saying? Like who's going to stop me? But I do feel like this is one of the more like wholesome things that we've heard, you know, in terms of our artists like changing after they got money. Like I expected that clip to take a bad turn. So I'm not even a lot of you. I came into a 100% pessimistic, you know what I'm saying? About where he was going with that. So that's pretty tame, but you had to let it touch the art, bro. It's going to touch the art. I think that's a part of it. Whether you want to or not. It's just the fact that he was even thinking, right? Now I'm different in my life and now it's bleeding over. It's just like, no, I'm thinking I could do anything. That's a different space. I mean, you know what I'm saying? When you might, ooh, bro, you move different. Question, did you like Flex? Not at first. It was one of those songs where the internet convinced me to like it. Cause it was like, if you had told me, when that was like 2015 or something like that, you had told me, you know what I'm saying? Years before that, that Rich On Me Coin was going to have one of the most popular dance songs of a year. I would have never believed that. I'm like, what, Rich On Me Coin? Difference is Rich On Me Coin, some type of way. So, but now I hated that song when the verse came out. And like, it was like, I remember that being like the viral dance trend. I don't, I don't remember what platform was lit. I forgot about that. It was like Bonnet or something was lit at the time. Something, bro. I just remember some social media platform won me over. It wasn't the song. The social media platform won me over. Gotcha, got you. For me, the beat, it was so different. Yeah. That thum, thum, thum, thum. Like that just, that shit hit different. And then his voice was an instrument. Him and Thud, when they came the way there, like they actually had these voices that just made song sound different. So, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. Like, it just hit in a way that I was fucking with just from a sonic standpoint. Cause I go off a field first. I know some people go off a lyrics first. Like, what are you hearing? I go off a field first. And I was like, bro, I like the way this shit feels. Oh, what do you mean? Yeah. So, I don't know, man. Like, it's interesting that you can get in that zone where you feel like I can't do anything, but we all find out that we aren't the superheroes that we find, that we so believe. You know what I mean? It's Kevin Hart in the hotel room, smashing, forgetting that, hey, brother, he's still a man. You know what I mean? It is what it is. But like, which, you know, he said so. So, I mean, look, Tahi, artists, I know many of y'all aren't in that position yet, but there's other versions of thing. You can find some type of momentum. Don't let it go to your head. Remember, the music is the thing of all things that you can't allow to be affected. Guard that with your life as an artist. And then, we're gonna just go straight into the second topic. Not even giving a smooth segue. We just getting right into it. Question number two, should indie artists release music on Fridays? Now, where did this question come from? It came from a brand-man network space. I wanna go through these topics or these discussion points because I think people brought up a lot of great points. Shout out to Ryan Leeson for asking this question. For those of y'all who don't know what the brand-man network space is, it's a completely free space. So, if you as an artist wants to join this conversation, a manager or a label owner wants to not only join these conversations and be able to talk with us or our community, you can actually get on calls with our team for free and learn some things, right? We got some knowledge, some courses that really break down our process that we use in our agency to blow up artists that are a lot more specific than these videos even get. All that's free, but let's get back to this question. Indie artists releasing music on Fridays? What's your opinion on an indie artist releasing singles and music videos on Fridays when the major artists do it as well? Do you think that the audience being primed to expect new music outweighs the cost of competing for views with major artists? By the way, it's brand-mannetwork.com. If you wanna hop in this space, you have to apply for an invite, but brand-mannetwork.com. Now, Sean Ward, I think has a great response. I don't think it's relevant for newer artists. Major label artists follow this old guard because charts are tallied Friday to Friday and they are usually just using it to place hire on the charts to push to PR and media. The public as a whole does not put much weight on what day a new song drops. Doesn't even matter to them what day they heard it as long as they liked it when they do. Chikori, what you think about that? 100% agree. Like the notion that things need to hit on Fridays is a complete industry thing. Yeah, I think we kind of touch on a different episode, but it's one of those rules to the game where if you're not at the level where that rule really matters, you really have no real reason to follow it. But I like the fact that we're starting to see more artists kind of break that Friday mode and put... All right, one second, one second. Hey, babe, babe. Yeah? I got you on this podcast. I got a question right quick for you. What day does new music come out on? Tuesday? All right, babe, that's all I needed. Appreciate it. Bye. Bye. There you go from a regular consumer. These fans don't know, bro. They don't know when this music come out, bro. So that answers a lot for you right there. Yeah, bro. Some of the artists need to move off a consumer message, bro. Like, they're coming and said, bro, fans don't care. If I learn about it from a TikTok on Wednesday, as far as I'm concerned, that shit might as well have came out on Wednesday, you know what I'm saying? Actually, I had a friend who kind of saw this recently. Like Sam, when he worked the Curtis Waters project, so they put it out on a Tuesday. He was terrified, you know what I'm saying? He was like, oh, we skipping the whole Friday thing. I remember him breaking down. He was like, well, you know, we're not expecting to possibly chart anyway, so we don't care about that. The only point that he brought up that somebody else actually brings up is New Music Friday, you know what I'm saying? Because it's probably the other reason that artists would think to want to drop on a Friday is if you're an artist that thinks you have a chance to hit New Music Friday. But what I learned from the Curtis Waters campaign that Sam was running is that if you put that shit on on whatever day of the week and they like it, they still going to put you on New Music Friday. Like I said, Curtis Waters released, I can't think of the song. It was like Starman, Star or something. It released on a Tuesday. New Music Friday rolled around. He was on New Music Friday. Everything was good. So that to me was like, oh, so this shit really don't matter. You know what I'm saying? Like if I could still hit that point, this shit really don't matter, bro. So if you're an artist that knows, let's say 94 fat, but you know, you have a 99.9% chance of not charting. There's no reason for you to put this shit on Friday unless you just want to. Hey, Vax, and I love that comment because speaking on the charts, right? Why do they do it for the charts? Well, he said PR. It's not just PR. I say this all the time. These people work in corporations. These labels are corporations. And it's just like any other corporation where people get bonuses. There's all types of incentives for achieving certain metrics. That's why they need to make sure they're measured and they have a full week, right? Because they want to give themselves the maximum amount of time to achieve as good as metrics as they can, right? That first week number really, really matters, right? But many artists who don't have any streams, right? Would love to have 2 million streams over a year just as much as having 2 million streams over a week and not having any streams after that, right? Or 500,000 and slowly getting there. It doesn't matter how you get there as an indie artist. You're just trying to make sure you get it at this point, right? So following all of these industry norms doesn't make sense if you're going an indie route because there's so much in place that we don't question, right? Because that's just what everybody else is doing. But when you realize, oh, this is because they have things that have nothing to do with the fans and the listenership. But I have to do this because of my industry makeup. It completely changes everything. There's this story about this daughter She followed her mom's recipe and she cut the turkey on each side, right? That was the whole thing. We got to cook this turkey and she cuts off both ends of the turkey, right? Thinking like that regular turkey that you buy in the store not with the head and everything, right? So you cut in both head on both sides, right? And her husband asks, like, why do you do that? And she's like, oh, you know, that's what my mom does. And she's like, hey, mom, why don't we cut both sides of the turkey? And she's like, oh, yeah, that's what your grandma does. And go to grandma. Grandma, why do you cut both sides of the turkey? Because mom does that. And now I'm doing it or whatever. My husband asks, why do it? Why do you do that? And she was like, oh, my pan was too small. That's what she did it, right? Makes no sense. And when you project that to the future, you're in different circumstances. And a lot of times that's the analogy for how artists on the inside are operating, trying to follow these industry norms that are normed for reasons that have been established way before this climate even existed, let alone the fact that you're not even in this system in today's climate. So, like, artists, man, like, just think differently about this stuff. But there's so much more in terms of the commentary in this space. Let's read somebody else's. Jamal Harvey said, plain devil's advocate, for a smaller artist, it doesn't have any bearing on the metrics, really. It's more of being in sync with the industry for New Music Fridays. With that being said, platforms, publications, radio, bloggers, et cetera, still hold to that tradition. I release my artist's music on Fridays unless it's a mixtape or cover. Those are on Tuesday. It's a great way to market if you choose to use those said platforms. Now, that's interesting that Tuesday just keeps coming up. They could be any day other than Friday, and literally, it's came up three times, right? Yeah, I think he mentions it. Oh, right here in that comment. Which one? Totally understand her or Jamal? Yeah, right there, Jamal, yeah. All right. So, personal reasons these days, new music used to be released on Tuesday for Billboard metrics. Yeah, it did used to be released on Tuesday. Before the streaming should change everything. You're right. Now, I use it to push freestyles or covers due to less traffic, which can give it further reach. I am also testing metrics to see what genre consumes their music mostly in those said timeframes. Interesting. Jamal, we got to talk to you. I really like the way you're approaching everything and measuring everything. Of course, you had something to say about that? Nah, man. Yeah, I forgot about the Tuesday thing, though. I did. Yeah. I really did forget that music used to be released on Tuesday. But again, that would be equivalent of somebody was still dropping everything on Tuesday. It's like, oh yeah, because it used to be a relevant thing. So, all these things are whenever, whatever, today. Like, you can make your own rules. There are truly no rules. Nenna says, I think even though indie artists don't have to, I do it anyway because I know Thursday and Friday are the days most people expect new music to come out. And now, let's get this other part of the conversation going. Because y'all just saw my girl had no idea when the music came out. And a lot of times, we feel like these norms are something that everybody knows, but they're really just our bubble of the industry. That's why I've always said when industry plant became this common thing or whatever. And I'm like, all right, stop worrying about whether someone or not thinks you're an industry plant or whether somebody else is an industry plant because general fans don't even know that word exists. Never heard of that shit before. So, you're thinking about something that has nothing to do with the fan base or people you're actually trying to sell to. We get caught up in a lot of this industry thing and think it's real and it's not a reflection of the world at large. So, there's that. But the point that somebody said in terms of in comparison to music as a whole, other artists, right? Attention and saturation. No one is listening to you because they're not listening to another artist and no one's not gonna listen to you because they're listening to another artist. I hate that argument. It just doesn't work because there's so much content these days. It's very, very rare and very, very few and far between in terms of the artists that people will literally cut everything off for a bit. And those artists are still relative to your genre. Everybody don't like Drake. A lot of people might go stop and listen to but everybody doesn't like Drake. Everybody don't like Taylor Swift. Everybody don't like 21 Savage. Everybody don't like somebody like whoever you name. Rihanna, whatever. Everybody doesn't like everybody. So you have to also gauge it that way. If there's somebody in your drama maybe that you know is gonna take over and people are gonna hear it in and they might take a good portion of it, maybe it's something to kind of think about, right? But for the most part, people just aren't thinking about it that way from my experience. I agree, bro. I hate that argument so much. It was like, bro, we all have the capacity to your project about 15 minutes. I got time to listen to some other stuff that I want to listen to. So yeah, I just always, personally, hated that argument. Even on top of that, like you touched on like it's really just content. So like consumers, we kind of already gotten our head like I'm bouncing around to a couple of things that you ain't even really competing with just music there. You compete with all the YouTube videos that drop all the streamers that are streaming, right? Like really just like content as a whole. And so like that to me, what I've come to realize is that because of the amount of music being released, the amount of content being released, there's always going to be noise, right? And so the argument that he was making is like, you know, don't do Friday because it's easier to break through the noise. Maybe the music noise, but not the noise. Not the noise in general. Bro, exactly. And you as an indie artist, you're still trying to figure out how to get attention, period. Exactly. Like that's what you need to be thinking about. Not, yeah, who's noise you're trying to break through because are you even good at getting that attention yet, period? Yeah. And it's like, good practice to learn how to break through the noise because you're going to be doing it for a long time. So, you know, it might kind of sound like it fights a little bit harder for the Friday release, but you know, like I said, at this point, there's so many artists dropping music that I'm pretty sure there's music coming out every day. You know what I'm saying? Like if we will to really look into, I'm pretty sure music comes out every day. And like you said, we don't know who consumers are paying attention to. So I might be, you know, we kind of have, I think music artists have this idea of the fan that has been trained by the industry to think of Fridays as the day. But at this point, it's like, okay, I watched this guy drop a song on Monday. I watched this guy drop a song on Tuesday. I seen you drop a song on Thursday, right? So consumers are getting this information from so many different places that to them, they probably just wake up every day and expect some shit, right? It's almost like a roulette. Like I don't know who I'm going to get something from today. I just know something is coming today, right? And that really is how it feels by being a music fan. Like I don't know who I'm going to drop today. Somebody dropping something today. You know what I'm saying? So how many artists that actually have a decent name and you are willing to check out their music whenever it comes out, but you don't catch it the day it comes out. Yeah. And you hear about it a couple of days after and so now you check it out. So like the marketing beyond the actual day is usually what's going to bring people in, right? It's not just to release itself. It's not, oh, I'm just about to go through all my Spotify on Friday and see everything that came out. It's not necessarily that for a lot of people. Now again, the industry kind of moves on a different pace because, oh, we're marketers or we're artists or we're labels. We might go look for stuff that way, but that's not the behavior of the masses. But I will say an argument for dropping when everybody else isn't dropping is the ability to stand out, right? And I know that's what people are thinking in general. So I'll say it like this. But again, I don't think it's completely relevant here because you have to break from everybody, right? You do have to break out from everybody, the content from everybody else, not just the other artists releasing music. But when you do something when other people aren't doing it, you have more of an opportunity to make it unique, right? Like I always say, giving out turkeys during Thanksgiving is something that doesn't really get appreciated that much because everybody's giving out turkeys during Thanksgiving. Post-Covid maybe less, right? But if you do that shit in the middle of the summer and you're doing this homeless drive, people are gonna be like, oh, man, you're doing something special because nobody else is doing that at the time, right? So you get looked at as a more giving artist because you get more attention for that specific thing, but there's an expectation for you to give during the holidays, right? So it doesn't stand out as much. So you want to think about multiple things you do for your brand as a whole, your music as a whole. As that, if you can find those pockets where things are missing and put it out of expectation, then you can get a lot of gains for it. Music itself, because the cycle feels so constant, I think the argument for a day to make it stand out more than the other is probably not as strong. It just isn't. Yeah, I agree. Maybe Sundays. Sunday could be, right? Sunday could be, now if I was an artist too and I had a song that was relevant to Sunday, even when Kanye was doing the Sunday services, right? You drop it on Sunday, it's a part of a theme. Again, it stands out. It feels like something special, right? So, yeah, Sundays though. Yeah, I could definitely see that with Sundays. I see that. Now, how do you get attention to your music as an artist one of the ultimate ways marketing and 50 Cent dropped some interesting information on Jay Z's marketing budget. We're going to play this clip of 50 Cent. Give me all inside information and we think you all are going to enjoy it. So, check this out right here. When you've been an artist that's been prioritized by a major label, you've had marketing dollars around your launches. If you watch Jay, he's not launching without the money. Exactly. He always has some kind of sponsors. He launches, you see 444, and there's everywhere little buses and all kind of stuff riding around. And you guys said to yourself, when is the last time you've seen someone do that? You haven't even seen it, to be honest. Pop divas like Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, or Jenna Jackson, those different artists at points have marketing campaigns that reach the excess of 20 million dollars. Major director means they're not going to spend that much money on a project, so they got to figure out how to create campaigns that mirror that or the audience doesn't understand. Like, their audience will feel like she was so big. Remember how big she was? What they're saying is she had so much marketing. Remember how big the marketing campaign was? God. 50 Cent is a bar. With more bars. More bars, man. He's at the top for just bars and regular speech outside of music. When it comes to like game in the music industry and stuff, I really rock with that. But one thing that you mentioned from this, because there's so many points that we can break down from this, the first thing I want to talk about is controlling perception. You brought that up, so I want to give you a perspective on how that relates to controlling perception. Yeah, so the last bar being what do you say? Fans would be like, all you remember is artists and how big they were. And what they're really saying is hey, you remember that time we put a lot of money into the marketing. Or the label put a lot of money into the marketing. And so I don't think enough people think about how much of marketing is really just controlling perception by making the artist seem bigger than they are. We do it, right? Like, we do it a lot. You know what I'm saying? I sell artists on that all the time when they talk about campaigns. I'm like, yo, sometimes the goal isn't necessarily to get you popping. It's to make you look more popping than you are so people feel like they're behind. Yep. And they feel like they need to catch up. Man, I've seen you in all these different places that I pay attention to and know about. Like, who are you? I've never heard of you before, right? Yep. A lot of times that can be controlled with marketing dollars, right? And so I like that because, like I said, that's something that we stick on to a lot. It's like a lot of these things that we're about to do for artists during campaigns. The budget is there. The content is there. The narrative is there. It's really just like, yo, we're about to make you, we're about to string this together to make you look more lit than you may be right now. But if it hits right, it's going to click and you will be lit. You know what I'm saying? Like, you will be lit. And it's like so much of that really can't be controlled with just marketing dollars. That controls the platforms you can be on, how many other platforms you can be on, how long your ads run for. You know what I'm saying? Like so many different elements that contribute to that overall just, I guess, power of litness, you know what I'm saying? Or the overall, like, perception of litness. And there's even another, like, concept that we throw out a lot where we always talk to clients about building omnipresence. Right? And so for those who are listening, omnipresence is really just seeming like you're everywhere to a small group of people, right? Or a massive group of people depending on how big you are. But we always explain to small group of people, but let's just say a target audience, right? Like omnipresence is seeming like you're everywhere to this target audience. And so the more that you can make that happen, which is an example could be, like we said, you're posting content. So I'm seeing you because of that. Right? These eight different outlets I follow are posting about you. I see your ads. I get on this playlist. And I see you on this playlist. Right? I turn on the TV. You're on, like, Jay Leno or some shit, right? So you as a consumer start to feel like, like, damn, this person must be lit. I'm literally seeing him or her everywhere, not even thinking about this is a person like me who's strung this shit together exactly like this. Yo, we're going to make sure you hit these accounts five or six different times. We'll have your ads retargeting these people, right? Yo, keep posting so you pop up in the algorithm. Then, you know, your label go get you on Jay Leno or something, right? Because for whatever reason, we feel like your fans have found attention to Jay Leno. But literally all we're trying to do is control perception. And that's it. You know, it's like he that can control perception, you know what I'm saying? Lily controls the way the fans move. Yeah. That perception becomes reality, right? Because, like you said, people begin to feel like there must be some power, some importance to this thing that I continue to see. Right? And everybody feels like this thing is everywhere. Somebody else is saying this is important. It feels like everybody else is saying it's important. When I see it in enough places, then therefore it has to be important. Maybe I should check it out and be a part of it. That is a real thing. So that perception becomes realities. Like it's not a phrase for the sake of it. But the point that I think about hearing all that is the risk of not having the same perception when you're at a certain level, right? He said Jay-Z doesn't release without a certain amount of money. We remember when he did the Samsung deal and it was exclusive on Samsung. Jay-Z's done multiple deals like that, right? Where he navigates and uses some funds and sponsorships or something else beyond the label. Now we know that it's to make sure that the money's there to maintain the perception, right? Not just, oh, this is a cool business move in general, right? No, I can't risk looking like I didn't hit on the same level I hit on before because that might be a big level for an artist lower than me, but for me it's a step or two down, which has an impact. And once you have the perception of going down, that perception can continue and manifest it with me falling all the way off, right? So as you navigate, your battle of perception will change. Once in the beginning you're trying to appear bigger than you are like you said, right? But then over time it's all about maintaining because you might not even get as, you might not be able to get any bigger, right? So you're playing two sides, right? On the way up, I'm trying to get bigger, I get big enough, now I'm trying to get bigger and I look smaller. That's the game I'm playing. I also think too that clip is important because how many artists have you heard say they want to move like certain bigger artists, but they don't really understand what's being put into the market. But like he said, if you're a priority, and this is different times we gotta throw it out there, but I'm assuming that clip was late 2000s. But you know, he said if you're a priority act, they're spending 20 million on you, right? 20 million. And then there'll be an artist, someone that's like, hey, I want to move like that artist, but you don't have 20 million dollars, you know what I'm saying? 20 million is different. So that's an important context. You see them doing things, you sometimes see things stringing together and you just think there's just happening by the graces of the universe. I was like, no, bro, money was spent. I personally have trained myself to assume that any moment I see an artist having was paid for. Even if I'm wrong, it soothes my brain, you know what I'm saying? Because I don't try to start racking myself for the answers that ain't going to be there. Right. And like that was something that just kind of came along as I had like other conversations. I think I told you about it before, but one of my most eye-opening conversations ever was this was maybe a couple of years ago. Yeah, this is like pre-pandemic. And my friend, actually I don't want to say his name. One of my friends is a great guy, a great manager, and he's managing an artist that started popping at the time and he was going to LA to just meet with a bunch of different labels about his artist and he invited me out, you know what I'm saying? So we could split Uber, you know what I'm saying? Be cheap. And I remember we were meeting with this one head of A&R, the label, and she's talking to him and she's like, man, like I marry y'all for really wanting to do the indie route, but do y'all have the money for marketing like you think you do? And then my homie's like, yeah, you know, we got, you know, this investor thinking about, you know, we're pulling this money together, he's making this much. I think we can make it happen. And she's like, you know, I don't know, like, you know, do you know how much Dua Lipa spends on marketing? And my ears perk up. I'm like, how much does Dua Lipa spend on marketing? And she's like, a lot. I'm like, nah, I mean, I assume that, you know what I'm saying? But like, how much is a lot? She doesn't know like a lot. I'm like, no, but like, what is a lot? You know what I'm saying? She's like, how about I say this? It can be anywhere from six to seven figures a month. I was about as crazy, bro. Y'all could be spending anywhere from a couple hundred thousand to a millions of months on Dua Lipa, which I get is Dua Lipa, you know what I'm saying? But that was when shit started turning for me. And I got the argument she was trying to make to him, is like, hey, you telling me about this 150K that you about to get from your investor? That shit cute. That's three weeks of Facebook ads for us. You know what I'm saying? Like in this system. And I think on one hand that could be discouraging for as an artist, right? Because to them, like 150,000 dollars is a lot of money, right? Like you come into that situation and then you kind of hear like, man, this number that I kind of aspire for is like a drop in the bucket compared to where it really could be. But on one hand, I also think it's motivational. No, maybe not motivational, but it kind of brings you to a sense of reality because now I can assume like, okay, they spending at least X amount of money on Dua Lipa, you know what I'm saying? A year, I can go start doing some calculations and be like, man, is this shit really hitting like I think it's hitting? Or is it contextual to the amount of money that was spent? And maybe my 150,000 dollars is on par contextually to what I got from it. You know what I'm saying? Not the same exactly. But you know, maybe her 20 million got her a hundred billion streams or some shit and your 150,000 got you a hundred million. You're like, you know, it's not exactly the same, but contextually it is what it is. But that conversation, like, bro, when I heard that, I'm like, man, Dua Lipa spent that. That type of money, bro? That was just digital, bro. That wasn't even considering like PR, press, all this other stuff. That's when I was like, oh, no, bro. Artists need to hear things like this because they will go into a situation trying to mimic someone who is spending 20 million dollars and like the budget isn't the same or even the work ethic, bro. Like how many times have we heard artists go like, oh, you know, I want to be like Playboy Cardi. Playboy Cardi doesn't post on Instagram. He doesn't post on TikTok. And it's like, yeah, but Playboy Cardi's label is probably spending a couple hundred thousand all the month. You know what I'm saying? You got a couple hundred thousand all the month. So go for it. If not, amen. Get back to that content ground. You know what I'm saying? So I like that there are conversations like this to add context to, you know, not even just marketing, because I think we hear all the time like your marketing is important, right? At this point, I'm assuming anyone that's listening to this channel has had that shit beaten to their brain. But as an artist, one way or another, you come across the conversation of marketing is important. But no one ever gives a number. You know what I'm saying? Like no one ever puts numbers to that shit. It's like, oh, it's important. And then artists are like, hey, so I got a thousand dollars so I could do what, do what Lipa's doing? Like, oh, no, man. You know what I'm saying? Like you can get shit moving. Like no, just be real to, you know what I'm saying? Unless some lucky shit happened. But I think that needs to be out there more. Artists need a point to shoot for, you know what I'm saying? Like a number to shoot for, I think, you know. Now I agree because context is everything, right? Even if it helps you understand that this is why I'm not getting there, but forces you to at least focus on what does my progress look like, right? Or maybe if you can become aware of how much money all these artists are spending on different levels, then you can compare it to the right artists. You know, I'm performing him when I spend my thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah. Right? And that's the beauty of like working with people who do it. Like that's one thing when people ask me, like, what's the value of working with the agency when we work? And I say, look, man, context is one of the biggest beauties of working with an agency, people like us who have seen multiple things because one thing I see a lot of artists mess up on is they will have results and they don't know if these are good results or bad results. Yeah. So I've seen artists stop campaigns early and they were killing it. And it's like, no, bro, keep going, but they don't have the context and know it was good. They just know I haven't hit what I want it to yet. It doesn't feel right. And then I've seen some artists think they were killing it and it's like, nah, bro, you need to slow that down, bro, like, don't waste your money, right? But we have the context from different genres, similar artists, different platforms, different times of the month, different times of the year. We have all this context. So that becomes one of the like superpowers of working with people who've done it in some form of fashion, right? It doesn't have to be an agency. It could be a manager who has multiple artists to label or you could at least just talk to communities. We got our community brand, mannetwork.com is free. Hop in that thing. But like context is so important for getting yourself out of this forest, right? That's what we seek all the time. We go try to have conversations. That was why you kept on saying, hey, yo, but like, what do you mean by a lot of money? We're always searching for context so we can better position ourselves in how we help artists or our expectations for campaigns and some of our other industry aspirations we want to do around artists. So like the industry is in some senses a dark box and we try to help as much as possible, right? And bring light on that box, right? But still, there's so many pieces of information to gain and talk to as many people as you can to figure out what they're doing or people that they know are doing. So like that's definitely one of the biggest takeaways that context aspect of it, the beauty of it. Yeah. Because boy, you know, like when 50 talked about Jay not releasing into unless he had the money to control that reception, but then throwing that 20 million number out there. I was like, man, like that's, that's some cash. But you also look at how the older artists are feeling certain level of pain because they're not getting that 20 anymore. I'm beyond Sam Mariah. I'm not getting that 20 even though I am beyond Sam Mariah. I got to finesse and bring together other deals and things to still mimic a similar level. But yeah, we would love to hear that conversation. We wouldn't want to continue that conversation in different pies and probably have some people on but definitely want to know what y'all think. So like this video and comment on this combo. What do y'all think? What's your perspective on it? But on top of that, all right? Moving on to the next thing. Man, Michael Jackson, the legend himself. This dude, I've been telling people for years, people got to put some respect on buddy name. This guy, he has a clip that is going to send me viral at the moment. And I want to play this clip from Michael Jackson and y'all tell me what y'all think. All right. So he said he generated a lot of money for Sony several billions. And they really think my mind's always just on music. All right. And it usually is, but they never thought that this performer myself would outthink them. No, I'm a free agent. I just owe Sony one more album. It's just a box set really with two new songs, which I've written ages ago. So I'm leaving Sony a free agent owning half of Sony. I own half of Sony's publishing and I'm leaving them and they're very angry at me because of it. But I just did good business, you know, the way. The way he said that, bro. That was kind of like a flex and dig at the same time. I just do a good business, you know. Well, I love that he said they didn't think that I would outthink them a performer. All right. Thinking these artists can't fool us. They're the ones that we fooled. It says a lot about how artists receive and are looked at. But let's let me finish everything that he's saying. So the way they get revenge, the way they get revenge is to try and destroy my album. So yeah, man. I think like many people have heard that Michael has owned like half of Sony at one point. But what I didn't know, because Michael was talking about it like that. Yeah, same. I thought it was something we learned like after his death. Yeah. I ain't nobody was out here like just speaking on the on the stage in front of people. I mean, I imagine that didn't make people feel any better about it, right? And there's a couple other clips though. We want to talk about the genius of not only Michael, but the genius that artists have the ability to tap into when it comes to the industry as a whole, entrepreneurship as a whole, because one thing we're big on is like the money outside music or beyond just the streams itself, right? Whether that's merch, whether that shows and different types of experience. We want to keep pushing that because a lot of artists aren't talking about that enough or people aren't talking about that or encouraging artists to do that enough. So even as we grow, we'll have like more content creator entrepreneurs, artist entrepreneurs are figuring out people are getting that money because I'm interested myself. But man, I want to share a couple of things with Michael. It's why we're on this topic because I mean, brother was really doing it, right? As a matter of fact, I'm not going to even play this one clip. I'm going to find this other clip and you'll be like, man, this guy, Michael was something different. But the clip I was going to play was just did Gregory having people read off some of the artists that Michael on like the Beatles, Eminem, Beyonce, have a Sony man just pick a name, right? But it's another clip I'm about to pull up. Check this out. Many of y'all will not believe that very few people have heard this that I know. All right, here's a clip of Piers Morgan, Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson is being interviewed, listening up for the people who are just listening and check this out for the people who are actually viewing on YouTube. D, don't be bringing you in here because you were a business manager for Michael for a very long time. You brought some fascinating tapes. These are audio tapes. I want to just go through some of this because I once interviewed Michael in the late 90s and I was struck that there was another Michael Jackson here, the businessman, and I want to play a tape before I come to you. This is him discussing with you, I think, about a plan to buy Marvel, the comic business, back in 2001 or two, I think it was. Listen to this. We're really going to Universal and buy, we would own Jaws, ET, Close Encounters, you know, all the classics from Universal on all that stuff that will allow us to do a Universal, I mean, a channel, part of the Marvel channel can be not only the Marvel characters, but Marvel films like the catalog. We could do anything we want from restaurants to retail, theme parks. Now you actually got the financing in place, I believe, for this deal. Then came the scandal court cases and it all got put on the back burner. Disney ended up buying Marvel and doing exactly what Michael had predicted and making a fortune out it. Tell me about this. That was the second part of his life. Alright, I'm going to leave it right there. We'll put the link in the description for y'all to find or something like that. But Cory, I want to get your first reaction on that clip, because I've seen it before. I want to know what you think. Yeah, I mean, I was really about to say what he said. I was like, damn, something exactly with Disney there, bro. He was coming up with the MCU before they were coming up with the MCU. But nah, man, this is, it's interesting because I personally thought that the whole conversation of buying IP and how lucrative IP buying was, I thought that was a relatively new conversation. Like maybe last 10 years or so. And maybe it is. Maybe it is still a relatively new mass conversation. But the other fact that he was thinking about that back then, like y'all want to buy Sony, you know, one of the largest, you know, that has one of the largest publishing catalogs, but I haven't met the biggest artists out. I want to buy Marvel, you know what I'm saying? One of the largest IPs ever created, right? And just literally just a limitless supply of money because of all the characters that they have and the worlds we can build into. And I know, like, it's maybe been about three or four years or so of me personally even knowing, like, how lucrative catalog buying is on the music side. Right. I kind of got put on to that through my homie David who works for a publishing company. He's one of the, which is like, bro, like, you think, like for those of you, bro, they be thinking like rappers make money, bro, go look up Hypnosis. You know what I'm saying? Like, go look up Hypnosis and just the type of money they spend on catalog. But I didn't even think about, like, movie IP, right? Like, you know what I'm saying? Just, you know, what could kind of come from that? So, but he literally was like, are you four years ahead of his time with that shit? Bro, it's, it's ridiculous, man. Like the way he, he saw the game. And like you said, understood IP. And I, I compare the artists today to superheroes, right? That's the image. All right. So it's seeing those worlds combine and collide. There's no one who really did that part. Then Michael Jackson. Yeah. Cause if you look at Michael Jackson, he had a video game on a second. Yeah. I remember playing that off the wall game. He has a little light suit walking around or whatever. He had a movie that had like his big old statue in it. You know what I mean? Like he, I mean, he had like, in that movie, I think that was that same movie. It was like the little kid dressed up as him in the bad video. Like he had all these different variations and imaginations of himself and did these different worlds and characters. So he understood the IP just from his own career probably. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because nobody else really did it to that extent themselves. But you know what? When I think about it too, Walt Disney was always like his North Star. He mentioned Walt Disney, like Disney so much in studying that world and creating that to the point. He, you know, he created his own theme park, Neverland. Yeah. Right? So I guess when I go through it that way, it makes sense that he understands IP because of what he's done himself looking up to Disney. Oh, oh, wow. Like Disney are the ones who went ahead and bought that. It makes sense. But like, I think many artists can take from that. Not only the value of their own catalog or the value of like buying some other IP, but just their own IP and creating something that's of that type of value, having a character. Because you could just be an artist, but every artist doesn't have the like character and point of view that comes with building an IP value, like having a TV show, cartoon, whatever that looks like. Like we know Andre D. Thousand did his TV show. Right? And that actually kind of, I feel like help codify what Andre 3000 is as a character. He was that in rap, but when you saw it in as a cartoon, it made sense and gave you a stronger understanding of who Andre is, right? Snoop Dogg, I think is the clearest example today of someone who has IP in like 50 directions. Like you can, you can just see so many things. They just came out with not Snoop Loops because they got sued for using that. All right. They can't use, they can't use that term. Snoop Loops. So he call him Snoop, something else now. It's something serious. Snoop O's maybe. Something like that. That's crazy. Snoop Loops is wild. And he just throwing shit out there. But I think it might have been Snoop O's, but he's getting sued for it, but Snoop like the character, you know, right? Snoop, it wouldn't be surprising to see him have a cartoon if he hasn't had one already. Right? But you can see it. It's there. There's so many iterations. Snoop in the metaverse. Like what the all that feels like. We know what the Wii brand extensions all look like because his character is so strong. His image is so strong. And maybe everybody won't be able to do it to Snoop's extent. But man, like, there's so many variations of that. And everything doesn't have to be the typical cartoon movie. But everything is there. Every time you see a character in a book, right? Every time, like anywhere you see characters, IP, right? On your cereal box, right? On your candy, on your the toys, action figures, all of that, right? Our streams of income, which is why these things are so valuable. But it's hard to monetize them if you don't know how to monetize them. You don't have the team set in place. But boy, if you do, that number is crazy. Yeah, it makes me wonder, too. I wonder if Michael's thought process was hey, I could continue building out my IP and figuring out these directions that I can shoot off in. Or I can just go buy some shit that's already shot off in directions that maybe I don't feel like I can go in, but there's definitely money to be made there. But he's talking about buying Jaws and ET. The doors that would have opened for him would have been doors that he probably would have touched through his own IP, right? And his own artistry. And so I give him kudos for that, bro. Even just thinking that far ahead because it's so wild, bro. If he had gotten that Marvel deal, bro, with the Sony thing, bro, I mean, you know, he's gonna conspiracy theory is true. I can understand, you know what I'm saying? No, we gotta get this motherfucker out of here. He's gonna bring too much hope to the future, bro. I know. Especially now normal Marvel went today, bro. That's wild to think. That's crazy to think about, bro. Right. Yeah. To be out here thinking like that, that's pretty scary for the industry. Yeah, bro. Terrifying. To be the artist performer, and you know why it's even more terrifying, actually? Because it's not just an owner. Owners are scary in themselves. This person owns the majority or something, right? And depending on who you are, right, that might be scary if you don't like that person or it's coming from the outside, so they're not a party or a group, you didn't let them in the room, right? That can be scary. Then you talk about owning half of that company of all these various artists, and then a Marvel situation, right? But when you combine that owner being one of the biggest fucking artists ever, and what are the biggest, yes, the platform, the biggest artist ever can has a platform to touch the people directly. So you can control the people, and you have the top. I feel like, did we just talk about this? Right, having the bottom and the top. No, I was watching a podcast, and they were talking about Andrew Tate. His problem is he doesn't really have a whole bunch of allies at the top yet. He just went to jail or something like that, right? But he has so many people that are his fans and follow him. So that platform is why he's so dangerous to so many of these people at the top, right? You get some allies, then you're solidified on both sides, right? Well, you have this guy who can control so many people, you got people passing out, like one of the biggest platforms, megaphones ever, and then you have ownership at the top on this side. It's, I mean, look, bro, that's, that's something different. Yeah, bro. I mean, I don't think we've seen it. I mean, yeah, we haven't seen that. Yeah, I don't think, I can't even think of anyone that's gotten even remotely close, yeah. Remotely close. Yeah, bro, that's crazy. Because he would have definitely been on stage when we were walking in an ET shirt, bro. He got this shirt. So emerged, bro. Yeah, 100% bro. Why not? Like all proceeds basically come back to me one way or another. I do it. Yeah. You know? If I had ET right, bro, if I owned ET, we'd be wearing ET shirts on every podcast. Oh, man. Oh, man. Like, yeah. We could go like into that conversation on a whole another level, we're just going to stop it here because there's another topic to tackle. And we want to get y'all out of here. So DDG saying that his rap money isn't where he gets most of his money. Okay. Okay. DDG says where he gets most of his money is not his rap money. So where does he get most of his money from? Well, he says YouTube, right? Not going to lie, YouTubers and streamers make more money than rappers. And it's not even close. Now, I think a many of us might assume YouTubers make more money than most rappers. I think we would assume. Well, you don't think that... I don't think so, man. Maybe people don't know enough. I think I'm so, you know, ingrained in this and they've seen so much of both sides. That's just natural for me. I'm in that bubble now. But yeah, it's not even close. And the money comes so much faster for so much less. I only want to say effort, but investment. Yeah. Right? I don't have to... Once I have my equipment, I'm good. I'm not thinking about touring. I'm not thinking about marketing in so many ways for many of these people. They're just posting on a platform and growing. Right? I'm not paying for an advertising campaign, an influencer campaign, none of that stuff. Right? And then I'm just... So not only do I spend less money, I still get more money. And, man. So we talk about sponsorships, right? We talk about YouTube advertising dollars. Somebody like DDG is probably making probably $100K a month at least. Yeah, I would guess at least $1 to $1.50. Yeah. Off of YouTube video views. YouTube video views. We're not even talking about sponsorships. That's just the start. On the floor. Yes. It's ridiculous that what some of these content creators are seeing. Right? So everybody's obviously not on that level, but even on your way up, right? You're seeing more and more advertising dollars. So it's not surprising, again, for me, that rap money that comes different. Right? And different when you have to tour. So you have to put in that work and you're not going to have video views continue to trickle in. It's not surprising to me that he's making more money. And the game is different, bro. I like that he kept it to rap, right? And we talk a lot about rap has its issue sometimes with falling victim to the image that consumers have of rappers, right? Consumers tend to think of rappers as these larger than life people who have a lot of money. That's the common perception of rappers. Right. Versus a YouTuber, bro. You could be the brokest motherfucker. You know what I'm saying? We're shooting your videos off of your iPhone 6. Yep. And the audience is going to be cool with that. You know what I'm saying? They're going to be like, oh, we get it. You're growing. You're starting out. We're going to watch you grow along the way. And you making money along that path, versus ours a lot of times, especially rappers, but I don't think of that same, like Grace. You know what I'm saying? They don't get that same thing for that. I was like, oh, you are a rapper and you do not look lit. Oh, no, bro. We're not fucking with you. Because if you were lit, you would look like it, right? Yeah. And so YouTubers get so much Grace, or content creators in general get so much Grace that the typical music artist doesn't get, which allows them, I think, to build a lot more cheaply. Right? We talk a lot of times about how they have a different mentality in the artist, which is why I always kind of dig his flowers. I mean, he came into music with a YouTuber mentality, right? And the YouTuber mentality is like, bro, I'm just going to keep post, post, post. You know what I'm saying? Like this shit going to hit. In a time where, you know, other artists, or at least when he was coming up, I think that the content conversation was really just getting started around the time like these, you start breaking through. Yeah. And so, yeah, like that's why I trust his opinion, but he's seen both sides of it. Yeah, I got, you know what I'm saying? This YouTube money, I've made rap money. He's probably looking at both sides like, the reason he ain't stopped making his YouTube videos, you know what I'm saying? Oh, I think that was the point when he did stop making it and he came back. He did. Yeah, he came back, bro. And now, bro, like, I think we're moving into a point where probably in the next like two to three years, I would say, bro, like YouTubers and streamers, I think are going to start to overtake rappers in terms of public persona. We got Mr. Beast out there. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? We got people like Aiden Ross, people like Kastanat, Speed, you know what I'm saying? Like all these streamer personalities who were starting to move really close to pop culture personalities. And all it takes is one to break the door down. You know what I'm saying? Once one breaks through, you know, it opens up the doors for the rest of them. And I think that like these types of creators are a little bit more relatable than the average rapper, which is going to be what allows like a lot more than the flourish. You know what I'm saying? Like I can just be a relatable person with my iPhone and you know what I'm saying? Some free time. And there's a possibility that I could make just as much money if not more money than these artists who it takes hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to invest and to get them to the same level that I get to, you know? Like if I was in an investor today, I honestly might put my money into a Twitch personality before I put into a rapper. No, I can see that. Because overhead cost is a lot lower. Yeah, 100%. I can see that. And I think artists have that edge from a standpoint of connecting with people through music, which is still a very unique connection. But in terms of the inspiration of, I want to be like this when I grow up. They're losing a lot of that cultural cloud. Like, yeah, I want to be a Twitch streamer. I want to be a YouTuber. That's what the number one answer I've heard from many kids. Right? So yeah, they are losing that allure that comes with that. And it's just another form of competition that artists have. Like, yeah, you're competing with artists. We always say that, but you're also competing with everyone else. And if the pedestal that artists are being put on has dropped a bit, I wonder what that's going to look like financially or just the other aftershocks of that happening. We don't quite see that. And I haven't spent too much time trying to project and estimate what that could look like. But it's definitely going to be interesting to see the artist's place in society, the pop culture artist's place in society not have as much impact as it has before because these other forms of competition just didn't exist. You had actors and artists, basically. That was it. You know, comedians, but a lot of them to rise up, especially in old days, used acting as a part of like a way to expand even larger and hit a base. So, yeah, now the game is damn near everybody. Your fans are your competition. Yeah, bro. And it's like, we know it can happen. I was watching this YouTube video a couple of days ago about Tower Banks. I asked me why. I was watching this YouTube doc about Tower Banks. And I remember at one point in the doc, they mentioned how in the early 90s, supermodels used to rival movie stars in terms of popularity. Yes, they did. I remember. Yes. I was like, wow, think about that. I don't think supermodels even come close now. Who's a supermodel now? Who is a supermodel now? Exactly. So it's like, so we have examples in history of these larger-than-life professions kind of fall into the wayside. So it's not impossible for us to wake up five years from there. And like I said, kids are going to be like, be a rapper so I can have my life at risk. You know what I'm saying? Everywhere I go and get stuck in these deals, I'm going to be a Twitch streamer. I'm going to be a YouTuber. I'm going to be a TikToker. And you can't fault them for that because I feel them, bro. Like I said, I think that if more people were helped to just how much money a lot of these content creators make, I do think there'll be a lot more people who say, hey, I want to be a Twitch streamer than, hey, I want to be a music artist. Because some of y'all like to hide it behind creativity and passion and shit. But a lot of y'all really just try and make money. You know what I'm saying? We've been completely honest. And usually just through a creative mean. How many music artists do we know that do other creative things? And I feel like if the other creative thing popped before the music did, they would chase it. And we actually have examples of that. How many actors in Hollywood or motherfuckers that were trying to rap and sing first, you know what I'm saying? But acting clicked better for them. And even vice versa. I'm sure there are artists that probably try to be in Hollywood, but music was better for them, right? So a lot of them were just people with this creative desire and looking for a way to make money off of it. So it's like, I think we're going to get to that, bro. There's way too many examples out there that feel more relatable, more accessible than the typical music artists. And those people are going to be a part of the reason why the narrative changes. I think that's very, very possible, right? The way disco didn't last. It just died down there overnight. Supermodels, they died in front of people's face and people missed it. I think people in the industry probably are more aware of it. And there's still a supermodel in terms of the top tier. But one, there's fewer of them, right? And the awareness of them is far less. You knew Giselle and Tyra. There's a couple others with Heidi Klum, right? And I don't follow the shit, you know what I mean? But that's how big of an impact it had. You don't even have to really know to know. And they were able to use... And what makes them supermodels, right? Is the rest of culture beyond the trade knew about them, right? Superstars in terms of artists, the rest of culture beyond the industry and their primary fan base is aware of them, right? So if you lose that allure, that's when it's becoming a thing just like Mr. Beast. A lot of people know Mr. Beast. They know of this Mr. Beast by the... I've never seen a video, but this Mr. Beast guy, they would know he's some kind of YouTuber, right? Yeah, and no rapper flexed like Mr. Beast been flexing. So, you know, the kids that are attracted to flexing, they 100% want to take the Mr. Beast rock, bro. For real, it's $20 million for a video. And when you talk about doing it for the money, just to create... Look, at least get enough money to then make whatever creative decisions you want, period. Whether it's going to be rap or more videos and all and things like that. I was always hard on many artists that I saw to be multiple in their creativity, but it would be like, I just want to do this music thing. Like I'm going to avoid my other talents that could at least get me out of this job I hate, right? Like because I don't want to be stuck in a YouTuber box, but you could get out of that job you hate, right? And then be working independently, making plenty of money there and then figuring it out. But, you know, I think people are still in that space where they didn't understand that you actually can break that box. It's not... Oftentimes, because they know you as YouTube, it's because your music isn't as good as your YouTube videos. Your music just isn't good. So why, as an upcoming kid, why would I not go into this box where I see people making way more money? Let alone the fact, even though it's hard to avoid any kind of screwing in any industry, I get screwed at a higher level. Or let's put it this way, I get screwed after I've made more money versus I haven't even made a dime yet and I'm getting screwed. That's what artists are facing. It's like, bro, I ain't seen no money and y'all are already screwing me on these contracts. These YouTubers could be making a million plus off of YouTube alone before anybody does any kind of business with me. And then, you know, I might find some troubles. That's a different game. It's not that you want to be screwed at all, but if I can make a million before I even have that risk, why not? Because we only share horror stories about music and what it's like to be an artist. So we're not even doing a good job in marketing. Wanted to be an artist. It's not a good marketing campaign. We want to be an artist these days. That's a good point. I didn't think about that. Whoever's behind the job PR is on a terrible job. And to bear the entry is so much lower, bro. It's like, I don't know a kid today that doesn't have a cell phone. So it's like, in theory, they all decide to be streamers right now and make it possible. They decide to be rappers. That's the whole process. I got to find a studio, right? I got to figure out all the other things it takes to get online. It costs money to put the music out, but you're going to upload a YouTube video for free. I got to learn how to rhyme words. Put them together, make them sound good. People got to like it. I could just job a video and reiterate, which is crazy. It's like, yeah, it is so much easier to put out music, but it's still not as easy as just creating a YouTube video, giving some tips. I could just talk about being in 12th grade and what it's like being in 12th grade and go viral. You're like, it's crazy. It really is. But you have any last statements on this topic? Man, I feel like we said a lot. Shout out to DDG. Shout out to DDG. Been watching you for a while. And I said it, he would be one of the best to do it in terms of make that transition. And so far, he's proven that right. This is No Labels Necessary. I'm Brayman Sean. I'm Kobe. And we out. Peace.