 What's up? What's up? What's up? I'm brand man, Sean and I'm Cory and we are back with episode number 26 of No Labels Necessary. You can check us out every Tuesday and Thursday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen to podcasts and they're like talking about music, content creators and the culture of it all. Now, you know, we like to start these episodes with some advice, but this advice, I ain't gonna lie to you, it's a little different. I'm coming from a slightly different angle, but it's a conversation worth having. Uh-oh. Yeah, it's gonna come. It's gonna come. But artists, people don't like working with y'all for a reason. Some of y'all, right? But I think it's fair and I think it's extremely necessary for you to understand the perspective that this producer puts out there. Check it out. Don't ever get caught up in potential. Don't ever get caught up in the nick of potential. That was probably one of my biggest problems back in the day. I had that same shit. You know what I'm saying? What you believe in the niggas more than he believes in himself. Oh, God. Don't never get caught up in that. He got a really, and they got to really eat, breathe and shit this shit. Like, you got to be in him and not, and like, he don't need to be caught up. I had an artist like, I want to be a world star. I want to be a world star, like bro, fuck world star. Like so much. We need to be focused on doing like, like lame shit like that. Like, why don't why? Why ain't verified yet? Like, nigga, fuck that. We don't get there. Like focus on making this good ass music and building up a following. Then I had another nigga who was so caught up in looking like it. But the nigga music was one was this rudimentary. But I believed him. I'm like, bro, you got it. If you just lock in, but he didn't know how to build up a fan base. He didn't know how to, but he wanted to go buy fake jewelry at the mall and where, where, where fake design and look like it and chase hoes, but he wasn't focused on mastering his craft. He caught up in. Hey, man. Cosmos music rudimentary. Yes. The crazy insult. But what did I just say last episode? I told you, man. I told you regular words say genuinely hit different than those common curse word insults. And I'll tell you exactly my point. But he watched, watched episode 25 to know we talk about there. But boy, the things that he is, he's saying great points. This is the stuff that we talk about behind the scenes. Yeah. All right. And know that many artists don't hear unless you're one of the artists that fit the bill that we like to talk about around that we like enough to talk about the other ones around. So you can understand because many artists don't understand that. Yo, man. People can't want it more than you. That's the most common way that you might hear people say, all right. Like, I can't want this morning, but like, look, we just very recently heard people talk about like having a wake artist up or artists not recording music, right. Pretty established artists and not. And it's like, yo, you've been around and you've been popping. You have all this money, but you barely recorded any music and your career isn't solidified. You've popped, but your career isn't solidified yet. And then your project came out and it didn't do all that well. But you also didn't give us that much content to work with. I'm not talking about content like social media content. I'm talking about, hey, you only recorded, you know, 10 songs in an entire year. All right. That type of thing. So, look, people want to believe in artists. People in this music shit. Like we talk about all the time, like people can do other things for more money. Easy, easier. Yeah. Right. If they're in music and they're trying to take it seriously, you know, either they see music as their way out because they got some other things going on in life, keeping them out of the traditional industries or they in it for the passion. One way or another. Either way go. They really want what they're attached to to work. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So if they start to view you in this light, it's because they want it more than you. All right. And that's a troubling place to be. Now, believe in yourself though. Like he talked about, hey, one guy wanting all this validation from platforms like Worldstar and all this type of stuff. And look, he didn't use the term validation, but that's a lot of times what artists are focused on. Yeah. Like they have to see themselves somewhere else that has validation for them to feel good about themselves versus having that mentality like, no, we don't get there. Like we good. We're going to go our path, stick our ground, stand our ground and continue to get better because our shit going to be so good that people are going to want to come to us. People are going to post us for free. Now we might pay for stuff here and there for sure or whatever because we were playing the game at some level, but no, we're going to make more people come to us at the end of the day. Then we're going to go see people out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean that's that was the most interesting part of me, right? He talked about the lack of investment. Well, half of it to me is, you know, artists not wanting to invest in themselves. They were much rather play the character than do the work to be the character. You know what I'm saying? Which is a very real thing. I think we see it more so in like rap, probably then maybe rapping rock, but rapping rock because they have such like dynamic characters that represent those genres that they want to be that character before it like you are the character that makes sense. But I don't know the thing that I kind of got the most is I don't feel like artists ever think about how hard it is for people to believe in them. You know what I'm saying? Like first off, believing in somebody is very emotionally draining, right? Especially when they're not doing all the things that you want them to do or need them to do. I speak about this kind of thing. Like I've seen both sides of like one from a marketing perspective, like us in the agency and then from the management situation that I had, right? And like it's draining when it's like, damn, you've been working 14 hours to get this opt for artist that then fucks up and misses it. You know what I'm saying? Tiring, bro. Or like the beautiful thing about the marketing agency is that the pavement is the buffer, right? It can be like, hey, you spend his money. If you don't do the work, there ain't no refunds, bro. You know what I'm saying? Like you just ask out, but when you in one of those positions where you're not taking money from the artist like management, you know, whatever other creative services that people may be offering, like this is very emotionally draining. You know what I'm saying? And so I think that like artists need to take this step back to like one, like every artist listening to this needs to text your team members in black, but I appreciate you and I'm about to get to work. You know what I'm saying? They would probably love to hear that y'all watching YouTube video instead of getting to work right now. You know what I'm saying? It's just being real. You know what I'm saying? They listen to the podcast not working, but also just like think about like think about like what the other side like looks like. You know what I'm saying? Like for you as an artist as privileged to have people around you that believe in you more than likely means they're taking work off your hand as you would have to do if they weren't there for you. You know what I'm saying? Like if you didn't have this manager, you'd be the one responding to emails at seven o'clock in the morning. If you didn't have this producer homie, be you scrolling through YouTube looking for beats, right? If you didn't have this engineer homie, maybe you mixing the mastering or all that shit. So I think about like the amount of work that like that they are having to go through to believe in because like you said, but like every person in music that has a valuable skill set in theory could take that skill set somewhere else. It may not necessarily be a different industry, but it could very much so be a different person. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, like it's like going back to the marketing thing. I know that if we get 10 clients and one of them is bullshitting, I'm just going to focus on another now. Like client number one, bro, you ain't meet the bar, but two, three, four, five and six. Hey man, they doing everything we told them to do, right? They doing everything right. They making certain moves that you fighting against and won't even attempt to do. Why am I going to waste my time over here when I could just help make this situation big and we all win? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I think like a lot of ours get caught up in thinking like, you know, especially if you're like, you're a manager, your team's like flagship artists or like only artists or something. Like you get caught up in like they need me. You know what I'm saying? Like I run this shit. They came to see me. Oh this, you know what I'm saying? But any smart business person with any other skills set around music or music artists is one long-term way more valuable than you are as artists. You know what I'm saying? Typically, like last last episode, I was a clip we played where the guy was like, you know, the box, the box of video, right? Where he's talking about like, you know, the boxer might have X amount of years in this shit, but the manager might have 50, 60. Same shit with every other position in music, except for the music artists. You know, so it's like, like I don't know, but I always come out of that, bro. Some might, because some might come in one of my TikTok videos was like, yo, can you believe in me? And I was like, no, I don't know you enough to want to believe in you. And believing in people is a lot of work. It's a wild question. It is a wild question. I was looking at that shit. I was like, believe. Can you believe me? I was going to be nice and say something like encouraging words. And I was like, no, he need to get hit with reality real quick. Let me smack him in the face with it. Bro, believe in yourself. Believe in you, bro. I believe you don't know how to respond about you. Man, I think artists should seriously think about a manager who's only getting 10% means when you make your first hundred K, they only get $10,000. Right. All right. Now that's the agreement. The goal is to make you make way more, but still think about those reference points. Yeah. All right. And what you're making at the time and what that means for them. Maybe it's 20%. Okay. They make it $20,000, but there's a gap there. And for that person to be heavily invested in you, they really have to make you work for them to work. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I don't know, man, I was saying like the belief of the business, people behind the business infrastructure is always going to hit different. I mean, I think about a homie, other than who taught us like he on a handshake agreement with his artist. Yeah. Crazy, bro. It's like, gotta be because he believed him because he wouldn't do it if he didn't believe in the right. Yeah. But one of the artist things about that way, you know what I'm saying? And I mean, how many, you know, conversations have we had with not even just managers, just different people in the industry who's like, yo, I used to work with this artist. Oh, what happened? Oh, they got up and then ran off. And so I don't think the artist understands, bro, belief from a business perspective. Wow. Yes, it is a powerful thing for you as an artist. It motivates you and maybe gives you insight, right? It helps move you along for the people behind the artist. Belief is a very terrifying, emotionally taxing thing, bro. So I understand when certain power plays in the industry make you jump through a thousand hoops, to finally work with them and talk to them. You know what I'm saying? I mean, even like us, bro, like we make more folks go through applications. Like, I don't know. I mean, you gotta put a little work in before I even come in and say, like, okay, I believe in this enough to do a campaign behind it, right? So it's still things that we want to see because most people in music have experienced like some type of burn from an artist. Like the artist getting burned by industry people is a very powerful narrative. Stories, oldest time, but the other way around doesn't get talked about as much, you know what I'm saying? Because it's not as cool, but the fans gonna usually root for the artist, you know what I'm saying? Whether they're in the wrong or in the right. They're like, I don't know. I don't know that motherfucker. Why I care that you finesse them out of five and get your money up, you know what I'm saying? Whoever you are. So, yeah, but belief, belief in the artist is a scary thing, you know what I'm saying? Then you get all emotionally invested and shit and then when they're not doing it right, bro, you just, you angry, you stressed out, don't know why, where you know why, but you just stress is like, no, it's not a good feeling. I saw a clip the other day about the Chicago Bulls and it was all these players commenting on Michael Jordan, right? And yet acknowledged with him that he wasn't the nicest guy all the time, yada, yada, yada, right? But they were like this dude practice hard, like crazy. Like one dude said he came from another team and went to the Bulls practice and he was just like, hell's going on, right? He was like, this is practice? It was all made no sense. And then Jordan put up crazy numbers in the game and then go to practice and go crazy, like try hard playing all out. And what they were saying was in practice, you had to come see Jordan, right? You really did feel like you were going against Jordan and you had to deal with Jordan, but in the game, you were happy that you had Jordan on your side. Right? Now, I'm not telling artists to be hail. You know, I don't know what it is, artist Zilla, like Brian Zilla being artist Zilla and shit like that. But what I am saying is all of that, they had to deal with with Michael Jordan. When they were in the game with Jordan, they were happy to have him on their team. Yeah. They felt good that there was a better chance of success. So if you can have people on your team feel like, oh, shoot, I'm rocking with this artist. The way he believes, the way he moves, the way he works, I know we're going to win at some point, then people will move different. But if they're doubting, they feel like I got to remind you of stuff. I'm not talking about because you work so hard, I got to remind you, oh, you got to meet him at this time. Like I got to remind you that practice is a thing. I got to remind you that, hey, you are an artist and you do need to create music, right? You're not listening. You're not coachable because Michael Jordan was still coachable, right? If you don't possess those things that make people confident to follow you or be a part of your vision, then it's going to be hard to keep people around a value. Yeah, because you're the spark. You know what I'm saying? You're the spark. And so we're all looking at you as the artist is like, man, they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. Why should I feel motivated to do a good job? There are certain professions where if they have integrity, they would do a good job simply because they were paid for us. If there's a client that does things that makes them not believe in them, then it's like, well, we're going to at least do a good job. But it ain't the hardest for out of integrity, right? But you can really feel the spark dying along the way. It might start with us. We kind of like, man, I don't know. Then you'll talk to the manager and you see that same look of death in his eyes. I was like, man, I'm trying to get him to do X, Y, Z, right? You ain't going to get no extra. Yeah, right. But you might even get the bare minimum. I'm just saying. But yeah, you're definitely not going to actually. There's people who get extra just because of how they carry themselves and the belief that people have in them is like, dang, all right, these are the terms of our agreement. But man, yo, I just talked to somebody and they're dope. And they're cool. I'm going to tell them about you. I don't. That's not a part of my job. I'm going to tell them about you. Or I'm going to do an extra 30 minutes on TikTok, scroll and look up our ideas for you because of the way you move or the belief in a project, whatever, whatever. So if you want to get the most out of people, it takes you. It requires you to move a certain way. Yeah, yeah. Period. Now, with that being said, now a little something else to talk about. All right. Got a useful tool for artists and artists. I know y'all are always looking for ways to think about what you need as an artist to build out your structure. Well, there was a useful post in Brandman Network that I want to show y'all now. Again, if y'all don't know about Brandman Network, if you're new to the podcast, first of all, welcome. If you're if you're coming back, welcome back. But Brandman Network is our platform where we take the information we learn in our agency and we have free courses that you can get that game from based on what we learned from the real world. We not know people who are just watching videos and then creating strategies based off of other videos about strategy. This is shit we do in the agency, brandmannetwork.com. And of course, you get to talk to people on our team and other dope people that we accept. Check it out. It's completely free. Now, the will of support for musicians. Taz The Online shared this, appreciates you sharing this, found this on the IG of Art Rev Soul. We just talked about some Art Rev Soul shit two episodes ago. So shout out to Art Rev Soul. Make sure y'all follow Art Rev Soul because they're apparently putting out some good shit. All right. Tell them we sent you. Tell them which yeah, we sent you. Put the add no labels necessary, you know, in the tag or something like that. All right. Now, the will of artist support. Now, at the middle, what do you, what does that look like? That's just a picture. For those fans? Yeah. I was like, those are supposed to be fans. I thought it was an artist, but yeah, no. So these are just fans. That's a picture more for the second picture. But first in the center, they got fans. All right. And then you got to go out. You know how to use these? No. All right. I didn't know that too. It's like some therapy shit, really. Okay. So fans impact the merch and the touring. So if you look at this space right here with the blue and then the line outside of it. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. And then the casual listener playlist SEO. That's how you bring those people in. And of course, the center matters itself as well. So we can just go towards the center and center. You got fans. You got casual listeners. You got the consideration familiar and just aware. All right. So people are just aware when they hear remixes. All right. Or they get impacted by some of your branding. This is how I interpret it. Right. Okay. I'll say it's going clockwise. Uh-huh. Okay. I got to go. And then if they're familiar with you, right. That might come from content. That might come from press. That might come from advertising. All right. Consideration. All right. That means social media. That means press. So that's actually a point in point and SEO. So notice that they have press in two different parts. All right. I think that artists look at press ads, content, all for one function, but there's different versions of each that are meant for different people. Yeah. In different parts of the funnel. Right. Yeah. So that's kind of what that makes me think about. And then we get into the casual listener. All right. Which is play listing. Now they have an overlap with community management. I think that's just an overlap when it shouldn't be there. But casual listeners might come in from play listing. All right. At most. But then when you get to the fans, that's where you can have that community to manage. You have the touring that you can capitalize on and the merch that you can capitalize on. This is the will of artist support that they are presenting. Now, one, based on how we've explained it or just what you see artists or managers, whoever's out there, do y'all have any pushback from what y'all are saying? Or do y'all love it? I think as a general tool, it's solid. I think it could be a little clearer for people who don't know it. So let me see if there is, I'm going to go to the IG page and see if they might have spoke about it in a caption, give it more detail for somebody. Jacory, did you have anything about this that you want to talk about? No, I'm still, I want to see the caption first because like I said, it's called the will of support. I'm trying to understand, is this saying that this is the stage where this level of listener show support or get them, you get their support? Or is it saying that this is how you get this level of listeners support? Like through these memes? Oh, look at them. They got the the plug to get more info. You got to go to artrevso.com. All right. So we weren't able to find any additional description from them. So we'll have to take that at face value. But I think it's an interesting exercise to try to even make something like this happen. And it's not a bad tool. I think it is something that at least can get you to visually begin to put things in some boxes. And as much as you can, especially many artists in the way they learn, if you can visually map things out in a way, it's a great way to learn it. And always have something to refer back to when you build a natural campaigns. Yeah. So like I love to do that myself. But we're not going to harp on that one too long. I want to get to the next topic and talk about how major label deals are negotiated, twisted from the perspective of a black billionaire. Now, here is a post from United Masters. All right. They said a look into how major label deals are negotiated. When you check it out during a conversation that Robert F. Smith had at his alma mater, businessman Robert Smith detailed how private equity firms function. His outline had similarities to how major label deals are constructed in order to most benefit the label monetarily without actually investing time and energy into a lot of the artist's sign. Check this out. Let me tell you what private equity is. Okay. It is typically eight white males sitting around a table arguing about which of their deals is better than the others. They have 15 or 18 deals in their mind and 25 relationships. They think that if they bring it together, they can make money. And then they sit at the table and argue about, well, my deal is better than yours. And I'm going to shoot your idea. It's a very bespoke process. And most people think, oh, by that, the cream will rise to the top. The best returns will manifest out of that process. But go look at the facts. The facts show high volatility. Okay. Some cases do great. Some cases lose everything. Right. And you know, look, I don't call that investing. That's placing bets. All right. Now there's another great video on this same carousel from somebody else. But that alone, when we look at it, if you've paid attention to label infrastructure traditionally enough, you know that artists are looking for one big win. Not labels are looking for one big win to take care of all their losses. All right. So yeah, y'all 500 artists might fail. But man, this one hit, and man, they covered everything. And more, that's where we're getting our profit from. Why are labels so tight with that money? All right. That's a part of why. Because we don't know how we're going to make this work. Right. So, and we know that we don't know how to systematically make something pop. So we have to do our best guess. Provide our system of resources to increase the odds. But then at the end of the day, we just got to see what happens. Gambler. Gambler. Gambler. It's gambler. It's a more strategic gamble, but not so strategic. I don't even want to call it in most cases. No, I don't even want to call it. What's a better way? It's a system built to gamble and lessen the odds of major losses. All right. So I've talked to people. Actually, Wendy Day shot out to her. She was one of the people, the first kind of told me that, look, they have numbers when it comes to these deals that artists make. All right. So the accounting department has it cleared. I can do this number. I can do this number because I have to make a certain amount of money on an investment. They are looking at the odds of this. They're working all the numbers. So when you're thinking that you're in this process of a bidding war, you will have people drop out. Yeah. Why? Because they have numbers that are work based on their system and their infrastructure that they can make an investment in. So a lot of times I think from an ego standpoint, we think we're bidding and getting a maximum value. But really what we're getting is getting the maximum value that they can give us, not what we're worth. And in some cases, probably many cases, your worth is beyond their maximum, but you're happy that you negotiated to a higher point. Even though that higher point is not your true worth, it's just the maximum worth that they can view you as and provide for you, which kind of sucks. You know what I mean? But you're like, oh yeah, I made these folks fight. And then they offered me this number and I went with them. So all this is an illusion in some ways. All right. And being aware of that, we kind of have to work to navigate that and just understand the game for what it is and how we want to flip it for ourselves and know that this might be the most value I might get this time, but then you have to have a long term vision, which is another discussion. But staying with his example of private equity, on one end, look, you understand the idea of a company trying to leverage his resources to minimize the work. That's what everybody's trying to do. So can't feel bad about it or be mad at somebody for doing this shit. That's what everybody's trying to do in their life in one way or another. All right. But of course, you have to be aware that when you're doing that with somebody that might work against you. So I get how if I'm the artist and I hear this, okay, that might be a little bit upsetting. Now, how do you navigate this other than negotiating and trying to get your maximum value? There are some labels that might be more akin to understanding who you are, believing in your vision. You have to start to look for some of those other things. So like, look, business is business. You know, I hate that term maybe in general and just applying to everything, but like in general, business is this, trying to leverage your resources to get a maximum output. So we can't be mad at that and act like that shit is evil. But he said bespoke. It's a bespoke process and I'm not gonna lie. I couldn't remember what that shit meant. So I look it up. So bespoke means made for a particular customer. Okay. All right. So what he's saying is that process might work for some, but it don't work for others either. Don't work for most. That's what he's really saying. So you have to figure out if the label or people that you're going in business with for whatever type of deal doesn't make sense for your system. Because what we experience all the time is people slam. I mean, yeah, man, that other artists, I hear them complaining, but they ain't never said nothing crazy to me or all my money coming. Like I'm good. All right. And that is the reality of it as well. Business models fit some people just like different artists fit some consumers. Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember who we were talking to recently that broken down like sports terminology. Right. It was like some players do better in the different team system than another team. Right. The play style ends up kind of changing or the play style fits them as a player a lot better for whatever reason. But I think like artists looking at it like the labels are gambling. I think that should make a lot of things that they typically despise about labels make a lot of sense. Right. Yes. So, you know, big one is man, why are labels no longer doing arts development? That's expensive. And then I've been developing you for four or five years just for you to quit. You know, worst case scenario, something bad happens to you. What we just learned the shit doesn't hit anymore because the whole music landscape changed. Right. Not doing that. Man, it's harder to make money. So, I don't have that expense. Oh, yeah, to give up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like I'm investing however many tens of care you and you and you and you not making no money back into year four or five. I rather to catch you at year four or five. You know what I'm saying? Like to be real, right? So, they get the the gripe for like, you know, signing viral acts, but it's like the viral act. While yes, there's still a risk, they have a bit more approval concept than you that doesn't. So, in their minds, it's a safer bet, right? Hey, he already got a million followers. You know what I'm saying? He already got a song with 10 million strings on it. He already got a content infrastructure and a team. You know what I'm saying? Like, all right, this feels right. You know what I'm saying? I feel like we can kind of move your hand to our thing. So, yeah, that's it's just interesting because one of those things were like, if you pay enough attention to how labels move, you could kind of like guess it, you know what I'm saying? You could you could see it, but it is nice having somebody that is understanding that say that. But then the other thing too, I think he what he mentioned on is like, the what am I trying to say? I guess the like the human aspect of it, right? The end of the day, these labels, these companies, these whatever people you look up to, they're just headed by a person. And sometimes people make bets not off of like what they think is the best thing or what, you know what I'm saying? They think has the potential to do really well. Sometimes they invest in things because their friend told them about it. And they really want to help their friend, right? How many times have you ever seen an artist that you be like, man, why is this motherfucking so much attention, man? I personally feel like he's trashed. And then you learn that him in the head of somebody or like childhood best friends or like group or something, right? They got like a pact or a bond is deeper than just the business relationship, right? And so I think a lot of people tend to just look at these systems as just businesses, bro. Like, and so you kind of think like, oh, a business is going to do should be doing like what is best for the business or best for the bottom line. But there's a human at the top of this, bro. And sometimes humans do things that are irrational when you compare it to the system they typically hold themselves against rational within that system might be rational within their life as a whole. Exactly. Exactly right. Yo, I'm a label and we typically like to sign, you know, wrappers that come from the streets, but I'm about to take a risk and sign this wrapper from the suburbs. It's like, oh, my God, that's so groundbreaking. You know what I'm saying? Like that's so, so life changing. But like that happens, you know what I'm saying? Like sometimes those decisions get made because of the perspective of the person at the top, you know what I'm saying? And then it trickles down to the rest of the organization. See, that's what I love about this conversation because when you pay attention, you study business and you study people. None of this should be surprising. And you would be messed up to try to assume otherwise. Yeah, you look weird for trying to go against it. You look weird for trying to go against it because you are the person that you're fighting in many ways, right? Human, right? People say stuff about like helping out friends, right? Or giving some advantages to their kids. Wouldn't you do that shit? Yeah, or it's like, yeah, you think you're the only one thinking that? Yeah, why in the fuck would I make all this money to not lessen some of the struggles of my family? We're not talking about like spoiling or putting on a given around, giving shit that maybe they straight up don't deserve. I mean, like you have zero talent and then I'm like, I'm I wouldn't lie to my kid and be like, dang bro, you can sing and you can't sing. You know what I mean? If you don't have good music, you don't have good music, but at least maybe if he wanted to be in that category, I don't want my kids to do to be artists in that way. But like, all right, you might get a studio to record in that nobody else could typically afford or they would have to work to have that themselves. Like advantages come like that's what we all do. We all want to create advantages for people that we care about in ourselves in some form of fashion, right? Now, we're not talking about being unethical or any of that extreme stuff, but like it's just basic human nature. And people tend to help the people they know more. I'm not even talking about best of friend. But like if I don't know who you are, right? This person found out some way to meet me, right? And now we're like in the same circle where we just happen to haphazardly be in the same circle and then we can spark it off. Cool, right? And friends happen to meet friends of their friends. Like that's how all this stuff works. It's so that's why people try to work to get in circles, right? That's why it doesn't make sense to fight or spend too much time thinking and creating this myth of making it bigger than it is. Like there's this rage and get you or, you know, there's this underlying evil element to everything, you know? I mean, you know how y'all get with music. Now let's get back to the business. It's the same shit, right? We look so much about, we look at so many things as artists are raging against the machine, overcoming labels and labels are now giving these better deals because they demand it. It's all just basic business. You alluded to it. Well, look, I'm not making the same amount of money from music. So I'm also not going to give you a deal for as much, right? Or I'm not going to invest in you until you get to a later point down the road. Back in the day, right? There were labels that had like legitimate artists development labels, you know, that had like Motown. They had like coaches for editor kit coaches, right? They'll put you with some songwriters. They had this entire assembly line literally of people to run you through. But that means I had to pay all of these different coaches to coach you, right? And the rest of my artists and have them on my payroll to build this system out. Now I can't afford to do all that because the risk is higher. And I have to cut expenses, right? Because it's hard to make money in music. But what I can do is give you a better deal, but I'm also going to take less risk, right? So why aren't labels doing X, Y and Z? Well, I didn't invest in doing X, Y and Z. You are basing what I should be doing on a perception from yesteryear. Yeah, old business model. The old business model. We ain't in that today. That's why I ain't doing shit for you. Because it don't make sense based on how I run shit. Before at one time to be real labels did do shit. Yeah, a lot of shit. A lot of shit for real, for real. So when you just pay attention to the business model, it's not like we're not here to argue on the behalf of labels. It's arguing on the behalf of basic logic. Because when you face it that way, it's going to make all of your deals better. It's going to help you be less surprised. So it's going to create your planning a lot better. It's going to inspire you to plan better and help you make strategic decisions better because your expectations won't be put in the wrong places. It literally doesn't make sense for this person to do this if you understand what that person does. It literally does make sense for that person to do that. Because it's like, hey, based on your percentage and how things are bused down and the way your business model works, you should be going hard for me right now. And if you're not going hard for me, we're not going to be set up. All of those things become a lot easier to see when you literally pay attention to the business model at hand. And every label don't have the same business model. There's some generalities, but in periods of time, people will be invested in one category more than another because they're trying to find their space in the market and they'll build infrastructure. So you look at some labels, like Atlantic for a period of time was going hard on influencer types. They were probably building more infrastructure and learning around that specifically. So all of this is something to pay attention to, not just the general label idea of what were labels yesterday, what are labels today in terms of general business, but what is this specific label seem to be invested in and how do they go about it? All right, what is this distribution company seem to be invested in and how do they go about it? Why are they able to only take 15% or why do they let me put their shit on the platform for free? Oh, because they're charging me $20 a month or whatever. Cool, but what does that mean too? Oh yeah, there's probably less investment and if my music goes anywhere, because they're not getting the percentage, they're cool as long as I put my shit on their platform. All of that makes a difference. And once you understand what those differences come with, then you can make an educated decision and build your systems around your choices as well. Have your own business model. Yeah, exactly. Or at least look for the business model that makes sense for you. This is what all boys down to, man, because you'll see artists argue against the system. It's like, bro, the system just is not for you. Go somewhere else. That's it. Get out of my yard complaining. I'm going to throw a rock out the window. Go down the street because the way this party running, everybody else happy in this bitch. Talk about change the music. Go down the street, right? That's all it is. Don't be that one person, right? But no, seriously, you save yourself a lot of struggle and it's going to help you move a lot smarter because what I hate is the polarization of everything, not just in music, but to media in general today. And when people are going so hard around these topics and making them so emotional, they're actually causing people not to think. Emotions like when the number one way to distract people from basic logic. So always demonizing labels and these infrastructures, these pages that have all these thumbnails and shit and videos about labels being evil and they're doing this, that and the third, I guarantee. All they're doing is monetizing your attention. You're like, oh, those people are screwing me over and they're the person who's educating me on all these people who are scamming me. No, they're playing in to the people's predisposition to react to negativity and they're screwing you over in a way by taking your mind down a rabbit hole where you can no longer be truly productive in a marketplace. Yeah, but they set the flash bomb off over there so they could ride the bank over here. That's exactly what's going down. That's exactly what's going down. So stop watching all that shit too and taking that in. All right, let me stop hearing how shit evil. So now I'm going to be so scared that I can't make a move. Let's just find out how the thing actually works because fear comes from the unknown. When you know that, hey, this man wasn't floating because it was some special effects going on. Oh, it's not as wild. It's not that cool anymore. It's like learning the tricks to the magic. When you understand how things are done, it just becomes a matter of fact thing. So work on that, not this propaganda of fear and demonization that people push all the time. Now with that being said, let's keep it pushing because we now have to talk about something far more important than labels and contracts. We got a contract that's going to change the game. Chikori, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I do know what she's talking about. And I've been waiting for this one. Yeah. I ain't going to lie to you. I ain't going to lie to you. Batman Kevo put his baby mama dime on a contract just in case she blows up after they break up and profits off his name. He said, I'll receive 50% of what she makes. Five. Five. Five, I feel it. If I make you a star or not even a star, let's not even take it there, you know what I'm saying because Batman Kevo has his prolificness, but I don't think he's just like drinking motherfuckers, you know what I'm saying? But if I make you, if I, if me and my face card attached to your face card is the reason why you get a business entity out of your face card, yes, I want a piece of that. Maybe not, maybe not necessarily 50%. 50% depends on the situation, but I'm in there forever in some type of way. I need that in writing. I call bullshit, Brett. What? I think there's a marketing stunt for one. I mean, probably, yeah. But I think it's an interesting conversation. The conversation and the concept though is actually very real today in many ways. Yes. Very real, which is what we're going to talk about because 50%. That's a crazy number. Managers aren't even getting 50% percent. I mean, we found the catalyst man. Workers, you ain't a catalyst. What you mean? Brett, if you, if you, if you popped out with your wife popped after no, I'm saying let's say, let's say you, you, you, you posted your, your wife and thousands of our subscribers rushed to her page and she's like, damn, this shit lit right now. I'm about to drop a course and she dropped a course and that should do an M. You tell me you don't want 500 cat up? I mean, of course I want 500 cat off of that. You wouldn't feel like you deserve. No, crazy. Because they still got to sell the course. That's fair. You're right. That's true. All right. That's true. You got to see the opportunity, cap off with the opportunity. You know what I mean? But if I was a pimp, you know what I mean? That's new pimping. No, 100%. You know what I mean? Now I'm just dating girls. So I can get a percentage. And I'm going to get, I'm having a day for love. We only together. We're paying time. I'm going to get you lit. I'm going to get you lit. One of y'all going to get lit. And I'm not even doing the work. It's just passive y'all out there in the marketplace trying to figure your life up. And shoot, what the hell is blows up? Look, I don't even care about blow up. That's stupid to me. 15 month fashion over contract. No, I fuck that shit. That's stupid, bro. I don't want you to blow up. If I'm going this route, I want whatever you get. You can go be a nurse at Emory and give me 50% of that. No, see, that's what kind of goes wild. If I'm going this route, if I'm going bad, I'm going all the way. If it's anything, I feel like entertainment or business focus. I feel as if she's going to get a job as a nurse, bro. They had nothing to do with your clout. What you mean? Unless the place is like, oh, shit. You been man, careful, girl. Yo, we got a position that opened right up for you. All them views on Instagram, especially, these nurses be having some pages. I don't want to know. You don't want to know? I wouldn't know. Oh, you wouldn't know? Yeah, I'm following the nurses. Not that I know of. Oh, you know. Yeah, you shouldn't know. I mean, I clicked the little three dots in the right corner and say, not interested. Don't show me no more of this. I got to stay focused when I want to ground me. I mean, fucking up my focus and my life. You know, I got a life to uphold. You know what I mean? But the concept is crazy because the way I see people move in reality matches this. And I would not be surprised if this ever happened at some point, whether it upheld contractually. I don't know. Someone would probably settle and get a percentage or whatever. But these kids is dating each other based on their followers. 100%. Popularity used to be an understood concept socially. And popularity was something that did drive somebody to be more attractive, right? And it was less tangible. But now, bro, we got literal numbers right here. I've seen how many followers you got before she decides to move forward. You know what I mean? I've seen it. I know that's not a representation of all women out there. Let me make it clear. But I've seen it with my own eyes in real life, not even on the gram or like YouTube. No, I've experienced this. And also, oh, everything changes. You know what I mean? So people are literally dating for this, getting their followers up and then flipping. And then sometimes they're doing like PR shit, just like legitimate celebrities would be doing back in the day where they're dating and then they're making their breakup a thing for the benefit of both of them. Yeah. If we're going to do this shit, we might as well. I'm going to make a little video about it. I'm going to do a little song. You know what I mean? Which you got respect, but it's almost like three steps away from the augmented reality world where we got glasses and I could just walk around and see how many followers everybody got and make my decisions like that in the room. That's damn near where it is, right? So it is really interesting that people are moving like the concept because people are truly moving on this behavior. And we know that people have flip relationships again and again and again. You can look at the Amber Rose. You can look at Jim flipping her Paris Hilton relationship, right? Oh, yeah. Like flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. And the whole celebrity culture has been built that way anyway, though that was literally how PR shit was ran. A lot of these movies, they will let you think that they're dating because it brings attention to the movie. It makes it more believable. All these different types of things. This has been a thing. The getting percentage. Man. So I'm saying, bro, that's the extra. That's the spa, bro. Like the business models it creates. Like when I saw this, I was like, man, this makes so much sense. Because to your point, if the other person is already up, well, yeah, no, you can't touch that, right? So I think of like a, what's her name? Like little baby in like his baby mom situation. Like she was up before she was dating little baby, I think. I'm not sure I could be wrong on that. No, she was, what did you say? She was up before she met little baby, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, she was. Yeah, sometimes so. So that I would get, but he'd be wild to ask her for 50% or whatever. But if you, if I'm, if I was little baby and I started dating, you know what I'm saying? This girl, she works at Starbucks. She got 600 followers on Instagram. And then I post you in it within a matter of months. You got 1.2 million. You getting invited to fashion shows. You got fashion over deals. All kinds of crazy brand flips. I want my at least 30 to 50%. So that's, I feel like that's fair. I mean, it's like I invested in you. You got to improve her life, man. That would be improving her life. What do you mean, bro? Oh, no, man, Starbucks is pretty competitive, bro. They pay for college. No, that's McDonald's. No, Starbucks pay for college, bro. McDonald's, they probably do too. Yeah, McDonald's pay for college. I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't believe in McDonald's shit, man. I feel like there'll be some untruth there. You got to jump over some hoops that will Starbucks is nice into their place. But which, who do we just talk about? Oh, no, I think that was last night when I was talking to Tuko. He was like, hey, they, McDonald's did go ahead and up that minimum wage. And then next thing you know what they do, they drop their first 100% automated restaurant on the other. And they raise the prices, bro. You know, McDonald's, I got a dollar, man. You know what I mean? Hey, bro, that's your credit. I didn't have a dollar for a minute, man. The value, man, you all said what? Exactly. Value to live off that dollar, man. You like, yo, hey, man, everybody can think today's better. They want to for their own nostalgia, but I don't know, man. You ain't had no legit dollar means. I was gonna say, bro, I wouldn't go out to McDonald's. That shit came out like 369, like 369, bro. I thought I was gonna be like, I had like $2,15 since change on me. I'm like, I'm like, never mind. I don't want to take about going home and cooking something healthy. I can't lose my money in my life. Exactly, bro. Too much, too much, too many risks, bro. The risk was worth it because it was cheap. Once it ain't cheap, then it's like, no, I should do better. I should go home and cook something healthy. But I just say, humanity and basic business, right? You wait at cost. That's all it is we are all doing at all times. So don't be surprised when somebody else do it. It would be inhumane for you to presume you not to be human. But, yeah, man, I think this is crazy. It's a really interesting concept. And it will be funny if they act. I don't know what funny, but it'll be very interesting if they actually did this shit. I don't know how they do it, bro. It's probably just capping on here. At Lorde Harvey, you can make niggas sign NDAs. Bandman, Kevlar can make his big mall sign. Whatever type of deal it is. Weirdest. I'm trying to draw the line. There's a lot of people in NDAs. Shit, if I was Lorde Harvey, I'd do it. It's a typical celebrity culture. If I was Lorde Harvey, I'd do it, bro. I started dating random niggas and popping them off. If I was any celebrity, really, I'd do it. But could I say, bro, this is a crazy business model, bro. See, but you didn't have to become good at talent management. Nah, you get some of your harassment for that. You get an agent or something. Somebody going business with you. Not talent management, my bad. Like brand partnership person? No, A&Ring. Recognizing talent. Let's recognize A&Ring, bro. Regular dating is A&Ring, bro. It is. It is. But you got A&R for that extra variable. Yeah, that's true. You know what I mean? That's true. Yeah. You know what I mean? But, hey, talk about fuckboys. Hey, but maybe the fuckboy, he knows good for the pocket. So, you know, I'm going to still keep some of my boxes for this podcast. You know, I'm not going to go all the way, Sean. But I get with this halfway, halfway. Drop in the comments, which I would do, man. Usually, artists, girl or guy, both sides. For sure. Like I said, because I have my thoughts there. I honestly think a girl artist could get a nigga way more lit than a nigga could get a girl artist. I think so. Because way more people pay attention to the girl artist than the guy artist. It depends on how and why. But yeah, yeah, go ahead. But yeah, I just want to know what y'all think, man. Drop in the comments. Would y'all take 50% or would you let them live their new best life? With no contrastal obligation to you? That's what I wanted to know. It'll be interesting to do it with options. All right? So there's an option, like kind of like marriage. Like how things change somewhat if you like cheat and things like that. You know, it was like, all right, maybe for the good ones, you don't activate the contract in full. You know what I mean? So there's incentives for good behavior. Only reason I wouldn't activate the contract is if we got married. Because at that point, the money just comes back in the house. Well, that's different. Yeah. That's different. But it's like a peace of mind clause. If you let me maintain my peace of mind, which is extremely valuable, then I'm not going to hit you over the head. Or if I hit you over the head, you ain't going to be knocked out. You know what I mean? I ain't taking that less than 25%. That less than 25%? Okay, 25%. But then 50% for the people who do you wrong. That's all I'm saying. It's just an incentive to have good behavior in a relationship. Yeah. But see, but then this is going to have the business model. At some point, I feel like I wouldn't want that because I want to go pop off more celebrity people. I'll take it. You know what I'm saying? So then you'll be looking for somebody? Pembroke basically. Like you already said it, bro. Pembroke basically. That's basically exactly what it is. But that's what I was going for. All right, man. I got one of you. You hit this vertical. You know what I'm saying? You, you, whatever. I can appeal to these people over here. Now, let me go find somebody that like, you know, all right, man, let's say girl one appeals to the fashion over demographic. I want to go find the girl that appeals to the Barnes and Noble demographic, the anime demographic, saying the athletic demographic. I'm trying to have a whole management team of these top clients. That's what I'm saying. I mean, at that point, you can just stop dating them and skip to the signing. Why not skip to the signing? Now, if I buy like person two or three hours start telling girls that like, yo, I'm going to be real with you. This is purely a business venture for me. Now we can do this and make it look real on the outside. You know what I'm saying? But I want you to let you know what I'm at with things like once I get your career moving, you making about six figures a month, I'm going to move on to the next one. So I can get some more of these. I'll be real about it. Hmm. Oh, no, that's plenty of people. Some girl will do it. No, there was a lot of that would actually do that. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. But I'm just saying, you know what? At some point, I value my time in a way where it's just like, no, we're not even going to pretend to date. Just give me 50%. And now I'm going to build other systems. Maybe I hire a, what's the word I'm looking for? Dang, I can't remember. Oh, a stable of dudes and pop these dudes off. And now you have to stick to my model and date these dudes. So I don't even have to be attached to any of it. Now you're on the whole thing. But anyway, we're not going to even get that much deeper down that rabbit hole. Hey, every once in a while, I don't know. We might end up in the pie with some bullshit. You know what I mean? I mean, I don't think that's a good category. Some bullshit. And ruminate on it a little bit. This is episode number 26 of Red Man's Shot. I'm Corey. And we out.