 What's up everybody, once again it's Bram and Shawn and this video is brought to you by bramandnetwork.com because I signed myself. Now I have another snippet from my interview with DJ Payman and look this is a great interview obviously because I'm sharing a lot of snippets but the full thing on bramandnetwork.com is still even better. But this thing right here is really worth watching because it's something that everybody needs help with. Everybody needs to take hold of when we are in the music industry and the things that I want to share at the end like trust me we're going to get into it. It's the network. A lot of artists have a bad approach right? So in the same way you kind of alluded to the producers just like spamming emails, are there any like tips that you have that just based off of some things that you've seen like maybe some specific things that you've seen that would be helpful for artists to understand that this isn't just like one person randomly saying oh I don't like this this is my opinion. This is kind of a collective thought of a lot of industry people that I've been around they do not like this type of approach and this doesn't work. I think a broad sweeping statement that I can make to address all that is to tell every single artist out there to stop trying to get approval from industry dudes. And you all was here and like look stop tagging me in the stuff please well you know you should want to help somebody you should you got connections you got this no I don't and I'm just I'm in a studio trying to make music just like you and if I were in A&R for a label I don't give a damn about you man I really don't if I if I'm in that position I'm doing my job as an A&R for a label get some fans nobody cares until you have fans and then by the time you have fans you stop caring about all this other stuff because your fans are the ones providing a livelihood your fans are the ones energizing you your fans are the ones that you owe your success to they're the ones that are going to take you to that next level some A&R is not going to do that some some verified profile on Instagram is not going to do that so stop chasing those people focus on making the best music possible and getting it to the right people you don't make music for everybody there's a very specific community out there that wants your music that likes your music and that likes you as a person and as a brand you just have to tell your story and once you tell your story effectively and you continue to do it in the bill you build your brand around it and you do it over a period of years and you're focusing on people who are actually going to stream your music we're going to show up to your events when you have them who are going to buy your merchandise we're going to tell their friends about you we're going to rep you who are going to interact with you on social media like your post boost you up in the algorithm watching music videos then you're going to see how little a cosine that is then you're going to see how little a radio DJ or a club DJ spinning you once or twice in a year matters because trust me none of it I've been I was a radio DJ I am a club DJ I've been in all those situations I had the same messed up mentality because it's easy to think that way it's easy to think that all you have to do is get radio spins and all of a sudden the label start calling you it's easy to think that you just get a verified check on your Instagram page and reach trust me is that's not true I've done all of that at the end of days just you and your fans if you don't have if you have the fans nothing else matters and you have to pay attention you have to treat them like they matter they can tell if you're not treating them like they matter if you're just focusing on tweeting DJ Khaled your SoundCloud link all damn day you just wasted he's not even reading that you but somebody out there might need your song right now they might be at a place in their life right now where they need to hear your song and they might be at a place in their life right now where they need to feel like you care enough about them to personalize your outreach or to at least tell your story share your story the easiest way humans connect is through commonality so if I go on YouTube right now and say listen to my record now I'm not telling the story mean asshole but if I go on the internet and say look this is what I was going through I was dealing with depression A B and C happened in my life how many people are gonna be able to relate to that thousands hundreds of thousands millions now we have a connection people act like this is we're just selling music no we're humans humanity that's what that's that's the secret you can't buy that you can't package that it has to be authentic people see through that stuff okay of course once again if you want to watch that full-way interview you can watch it at brandmannetwork.com but something that really irks me about this mentality that I'm seeing from people when they're seeking approval is the fact that they're seeking approval in a time period where the approval is not necessary it's less necessary there are a lot of approvals that you need from fans and and things like that that it still exists I'm not gonna act like there are zero gatekeepers although they try to push that there's gatekeepers for specific routes however if you don't want to go a specific route and you're open to just making things happen yourself and doing it without somebody's approval then you can still make it happen and then get it to the point where people come to you because me personally man one of the main reasons that I ended up outside of the particular corporate structure is cuz man I hate job interviews and what do I hate about job interviews I have a hard time sometimes just trying to convince somebody of my work right I'm trying to like tell you a I'm worth it a I'm worth I'm sitting here just trying to sell myself to you that is something that I struggle with a lot of people are really good at that but me sometimes it just never feels organic feels right for me when I know what I do and I typically rather just go do my thing and then you say oh snap let me bring this guy in because he got something going on and that's the same route that you can go it's work for me I've done it time and time again yes it is a longer route cuz if you can just convince people and play that game and schmooze and move and shake there are some fast tracks attached to that but the other door is always open and the other door has no gates you just got to open that thing and go one of these many routes and once you start popping people will pop up it's just the reality of things so what y'all have to do is stop worrying about being a part of the cool crowd like here's the truth man the truth is everybody is fucking scared right in the music industry everybody is fucking scared they might not say that they might not act like that but if you look at how most people move that is the reality of the situation because this music industry thing is it's so unorganized in a comparison to a lot of these other industries and when you have a billion people all thinking that they're gonna be a boss all thinking that they're gonna run this situation all dealing with all these egos and the subjectivity of what is good creatively and what's not in in trying to stay on trends and then you or incorporate business on top of that and having to take care of families then people get scared they don't know who's gonna be the next person to pop up they don't know who they should be treating right they don't know who's gonna backstab them like there's there's so many factors and people are constantly just trying to figure this thing out everybody's trying to figure out the next thing even the people who are successful where you're like yo man I want to get in their position they're like yo man I'm trying to figure this thing out like because that's the reality of the situation what's gonna be next this thing is moving fast and I don't want to be outdated even though I'm popping now next you know people who don't even know who I am because people are afraid like that's just the reality of things and if you can realize that and keep that in mind then you can settle yourself find peace and going your long route right and then you can move differently and be able to take advantage of the situations that are actually at hand as opposed to having to play this game and get into that loop because the closer you get into that whole cycle right that whole I need approval from this crowd and I need to be a part of the popular crowd for them to validate me my art my ability to work and all that kind of stuff the more you're gonna get soaked into that whole mentality and that mentality can be toxic I'm not saying that that is everybody however that is just something that environment breeds it's a really hard environment to move from just think about it this way how many people do you hear talk about how horrible the music industry is you hear that talked about again and again and again and when you hear everybody saying that then you kind of just think well why don't y'all just start being good people why don't y'all just start treating people right right why don't y'all just stop like doing this thing to artists and whoever else y'all are treating this way well the thing is everybody's scared that's why the having a scarcity mentality being a part of this infrastructure that is kind of dog eat dog it forces you to be that way so instead of everybody solving the problem with everybody start to be cool everybody start to be trustworthy and have a certain amount of integrity it's more like nah man I hate the way this industry is but I can't really just start acting this way because it's gonna leave myself vulnerable and unprotected and with that comes you know a lot of other fears look man all it is to say stop trying to seek approval it doesn't do anything good for yourself esteem you're already an artist probably if you're watching this video and you already have some insecurities when it comes to having fans actually like the stuff that you have there's too much of that going on and only puts you in a position to be taken advantage of at the end of the day right and the same thing goes for business of professionals because less talked about is the fact that yo artist there's no gatekeepers y'all can come up any way if y'all want to there's only gatekeepers for certain situations the same thing goes for business professionals in the music industry you don't have to come up through that tradition or not you don't have to have a label you don't even necessarily have to have an artist there's so many different ways to come into this thing you just have to figure out the life that you want to get and there's a billion ways right there's a million ways to want get it choose one look at that path look at the many paths to get to that path and choose one that's it man that look that's it keep it that simple once you start letting all this other stuff in it's easy to get distracted I'm not perfect at doing this right but every so often I stop and say yo alright what's all the stuff that I added on that needs to be cut off cuz I got to keep this thing simple so I can get to where I want to go and not get distracted playing other people's game versus playing the game that I want to play that's gonna get me to the result that I want versus hey I'm winning over here to you but I'm losing on the inside and in my real life so as always this video is brought to you by brand man network dot com because I signed myself artists who are looking to have accelerated the brand development and get yourself into position where we build a custom marketing strategy and get action for you with ongoing mentorship on top of that you can check us out at brand man network dot com and other than that if you liked this video go ahead and like button if you like it might as well share and if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe button