 because you could put out so much music so easily. People forget to market it. People forget to create concept around it or at least make a connection with the fan base to make sure they understand what those concepts are. Because as much as we like to think that people are just going to like dig deep, listen to all the lyrics, try to get a concept or you can feel like you're being straightforward. People who can't see what's in your mind, they just can't. What's up, what's up? It's Brand Man Sean. And I'm Cora. And we are back with another episode of No Labels Necessary Podcast. You can catch us every Tuesday, every Thursday, full episodes on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you stream your podcasts. And this is your first time. What is No Labels Necessary? Well, No Labels, baby, you can't be put in a box. There are no labels. We're talking about for the artists, the entrepreneurs, people who really just break the rules out here. Now, getting straight to the topic today, though, we got something very special for you because the industry's in flux. It's saturated. There's a lot of information out there and there's a lot of competition, right? There's this stat, that 38 million tracks on music streaming services were played zero times in 2020 tweet, ooh, in 2022. All right, 38 million tracks on music streaming services were played zero times in 2022. That's crazy, right? But there's a reason for that. And then we got some other points along the same lines. A lot of people are having a lot of issue with content, especially music content these days. So, first of all, is that stat surprising to you, D'Corey? No, I think the stat quantified what we could always feel, but we didn't have enough numbers to prove it, right? I agree. I agree, and we're gonna show you the way up out of this and how you have to build for the future by the end of this episode. So, we're not just gonna speak on these problems, but the future does look bright for people who follow a very specific way of building out their brand, all right? Now, again, like you said, 38 million zero streams, it's not surprising. Not surprising. But we tend to kind of ignore what's not happening because we're only gonna pay attention to music that we're listening to the music that we see. So, I might see, okay, there's a lot of songs we got a thousand streams, but you don't even account for the songs that you don't see that have zero streams because you just don't see them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think we're in this position, through just the work we do there, where you come across it, you know what I'm saying? Like I've seen artists that I found, you know what I'm saying? Or they have DME and things and I go look at them and I can see that, you know what I'm saying? Or I have family members in real life that make music and I know what the Spotify accounts and the YouTube accounts look like, right? So, I think there's a lot of different pieces of context that have kind of made me feel this way for a minute, but to have a number on it is different. Right. Right, right. Because I don't know 38 million people, you know what I'm saying? But I was like, oh, the 10, 15 I know like this or in that stat. Now, just to add a little color to this conversation. I'm gonna play this clip by Ray Daniels. He's a music executive in the game for a long time for those of y'all who do not know. Just check this out. I think that Streamin' has made the music business lazy. I think Streamin' has made artist lazy because it takes nothing to upload a song. So, everybody talks about 100,000 songs being uploaded on Spotify, but can we just talk about how 97,000 of them are terrible? That part. No, I'm just being honest because 97,000 of them didn't have any thought put into it, didn't have a producer in the room, didn't have word thinking about how the audience is gonna react to it. Big point right there. Great point. Which is actually a silver lining for many artists, right? Yeah, we got 38 million tracks with zero streams, but you're not competing with most of these artists. Yeah. Right? None of you are trying to take this seriously. You're actually putting in the work, you're actually listening to stuff like our podcast, Party Communities, you invest and put money in your career. And doing it. And doing it. And doing it. And doing it. Listening and doing it, you know. Papa Corey putting it. Making sure y'all discipline y'all's self, but you really are competing with all these people. Some people are probably just throwing it out there for a hobby. Let me see if it works. Right? Yep. So there's, legitimately the number is still big, but it's not that big for most of you, right? With that being said, even among the serious people, there's some quality issues, you know what I mean? And that just means you got, you might be at a different stage. Some people are unaware of the quality. Some people are just early in developing, right? So that cuts out. Some more people depending on where your music is, still that number is large. I don't know what that number is. And this is when we get to the issue today, which is addressed specifically where Daniels was talking about. Now, like what's just the approach? Like, because you could put out so much music so easily. People forget to market it. People forget to create concept around it or at least make a connection with the fan base to make sure they understand what those concepts are. Because as much as we like to think that people are just going to like dig deep, listen to all the lyrics, try to get a concept or you could feel like you're being straightforward. People can't see what's in your mind. They just can't. Like there's some songs they're going to capture all that. And you've got the people like Kendrick Lamar where their fan base is going to like really analyze word for word. Most people don't have a Kendrick type of fan base. People who got strong fan bases don't have fans that are listening that hard, right? And then secondly, still, you have a vision in your mind or a feeling, right? In your body when you're communicating the music. And that doesn't always translate. So if you don't bring the world that that music should be introduced to divide and take those steps, it can be missed. Quick second, have you ever seen an artist catch some traction and then they start to move? The numbers start to grow. They might even go viral, but then fast forward a year from now, somehow their numbers haven't really grown that much. They drop back close to the same monthly listeners they had before the traction and viral moment. Well, that's because you have to know how to convert those moments into careers. And we've done this again and again with not only songs, but artists. And so has J.R. McKee, who's been a part of helping artists like Lil Dirk, Rod Wave, Justin Scott, and Money Long. And we just did a collab where J.R. McKee does a step-by-step breakdown of how he took Money Long from zero to millions of monthly listeners and winning a Grammy over Beyonce, Mary J. Bly's, and Jasmine Sullivan. Check out this breakdown while we still have it up. You can check it out at www.brandmannetwork.com slash Grammy. Don't forget the www, or it won't work. Again, that's www.brandmannetwork.com slash Grammy. Back to the video. I get it how he can see the industry's getting lazy and it goes directly into something that a young boy stated as well. So we're going from old hair to young boy, old G to young G. I don't know how young this dude is, but you can tell he's pretty young. And he's made some commentary as well. And this is like from a fan perspective and every artist should be aware of this perspective from fans, right? As much as y'all hear people like us talk, like we are markers, so we always try to keep ourselves in a fans perspective as much as possible. But don't y'all forget to listen to fans as well. Like not even your own fans all the time, but just like the overall fan sentiment in the marketplace. So check this clip out right here. And this fan is telling artists what they're doing wrong today. Do you guys remember like back in the day when you could name people's discographies? When you could like compare albums and see which one was better? Yeah, the days of that, it's done because it's impossible to do that. Like I could rank my top five Drake's discography right now. You could compare and see which albums are our favorite Kendrick albums. We could do the same with Nicky as well. But it's nearly impossible to do that when the artist drops five times a year. How am I supposed to enjoy this music when I can't even name like five, 10 songs? I don't think rappers have the same cult following that they used to have back in the day. Like baby, I like him as an artist. And we used to compare him to Wayne, but the quality of his albums are nowhere near as close. The songwriting is nowhere near as good. I feel like artists are more focused on quantity rather than the quality of their music. And I honestly don't feel that artists right now have the same fan bases that our older artists had. I think the only ones I could name are maybe Doja, obviously Cardi, and definitely Megan Thee Stallion. But I think the music industry needs to bring this back. Authenticity, great music catalogs, and overall, damn good artist. All right. So young, so naive. What do you mean by that? So positive, so optimistic. I like fan tastes because they usually give them without context of the inner workings of industry stuff. And they always feel so like pure and wholesome. You know what I'm saying? Like, oh, the industry used to get back to good music and concepts. And it's like, we all wish that, man. We all wish that, you know. So like I said, this is an issue that's plaguing everybody on the fan side. They're feeling it. The artist side, they're seeing so many people that become competition. All these tracks without streams. And we're gonna talk about how you navigate this and move and build on this in the future. We'll give you a step by step. But addressing what he said directly, I think he's talking about an error where personality shines before music, right? Overall brand feel shines before music and people don't even know what's happening to them. They don't know you being consumed into this space where you just rock with how somebody looks, right? Cause somebody represents you. But that's the error we are. Like it's a tribalism error. I'm looking for somebody who looks like they would be in my tribe, right? I like how they move or like how they dress. I like everything about, right? What they seem to be doing and how they're moving. And I wanna be a part of that. I feel like I could be a part of this world. This other world I don't connect to as much, right? And then the music gets consumed as a part of that, right? The music is almost a story or the, I don't know, the soundtrack to that world, right? It's the side salad. It's the side, for sure. It's the house salad, right? The generic basic ass salad. That's how our fans are taking it even though they say they want music music. That's the problem. As much as we say we want this, we're acting on the other thing and it's working. Yeah, because going back to, like I said, how I typically feel about fan opinions is they, I think a lot of times they speak from, they speak from like noble, they speak from a noble place, right? A place I think like deep down we all kind of wish would be. But to your point, our consumer behaviors don't reflect that, right? Reflect it. Because then I was telling, me and Sean were talking about this off camera where I was talking about the Mexico trip. Oh yeah, I was waiting. Let's get to it. I was talking about the map that won't. So if y'all haven't watched that episode where we were in Mexico with the since the 80s guys, there was a point off camera where they were challenging me on my fandom for a particular artist. I'm not gonna name the artist, but this artist is an artist that is like, he came from Atlanta. He had a big moment. He's not as big anymore, but he was a huge part of my music development. And in the conversation, one of the guys bears out, if you're such a fan of him, name three songs of him right now. And I couldn't do it. I was like, he's like, name three songs and saying the words. That's another part where he's like, and saying the words to them right now if you're such a fan. And I couldn't do it. You know what I'm saying? I could tell you why I like this artist as a person. I could tell you the good feelings that he brought me in that period of my life. I connected to, I was telling them that that was when I just moved to Atlanta. So I connected with the nostalgia of having just moved to Atlanta. All these things that he was saying has absolutely nothing to do with the music. And I think that as a consumer, I don't think that's a bad thing, right? I don't think it's a bad thing that we're able to pick up on so many of these different things about a person that can make you like them or dislike them regardless of how you feel about the music. I personally think it's a positive. But if I'm being honest with myself, that artist that is like that isn't the only artist I feel the way about. So I have lots of artists that I like that I couldn't name five songs from them to be rich. I can maybe name one or two. But then I go beyond that. I'm just like, oh, I think they're cool, right? I think I like him or her for some reason. And so I think all of these points kind of tie together in the right. Like consumers are finding different reasons to like artists. Back in the day, that's all we had, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's not all we had. Like they still did personality building and things but you didn't get it enough for that to be a main driver. It was like back then you heard of artist speak when they did a written interview or a radio interview or maybe they got on BET or 106 or 106 and Parker or MTV or something like that. Today we can have our SP every day, you know what I'm saying? They tweet and they drop in TikToks and they make an Instagram. So we're able to pick up on the personality a lot faster and the personality makes an impact a lot faster than they used to, bro. And if we don't fuck with your personality. You're out here. Basically, basically, right? Like you said, the music was basically what we had to determine if we liked your night. Now we have all these other things that are actually easier than listening to the music. Listening to the music takes more work. Yeah, a hundred percent. Cypher in the lyrics and doing something that's focused because I could play the music in the background with the energy and everything. But that don't mean that I'm not working while listening to your music, not cooking or doing whatever I'm doing, you know what I'm saying? And I'm just sitting there and listening to it, right? Which is a whole different type of activity. So paying attention is a it's a tough. It's a heavy lift for a lot of people. That's just the area we're in. So it's good news and bad news, right? It's bad news from the standpoint of people who long for their music to be the only thing, right? But it's good news for people who like a good person that got good personalities or people or people or people who just at least are aware of it. Yeah, because you're able to manipulate the game once you're aware of it. If you're moving and you just expect, oh, my my music is going to get tough. Look, but Ryan Leslie, I remember when I interviewed him, like he said that when he was coming up, he realized that that was enough just being really, really dope. He got really dope because he thought that was how you want one in music. Like all that production, all the skills, all the instruments. I'm just going to be amazing like Prince and then somebody will find them and blow up and you're like, oh, no, I got to get out, start networking, shaking, right? So there's look, there's the pros and cons that that come with this era. But the tough part, the tough part that I think everybody has to take in is. No, it's not about the music anymore, just about the music. A perfect example, though, because this isn't music specific. Did you see selective outrage, Chris Rock special? Most of it. All right. So there was one part about it. One of the few parts that I actually liked about it was he was talking about Lululemon, you saw that part in the racist pants or whatever. That was like, you got a sign on the door like no racism or no. It was something like. But like all these things saying that you're not racist, you're not feminist, you're not insert all these labels. And Chris Ross was like, bro, I don't care. Like I want the pants. What's this got to do with pants? You know what I mean? And then he was like, well, y'all with this $97 yoga pants. Y'all racist. I mean, y'all don't like somebody pro people, right? He's like, give me $20 racist pants over a hundred dollar. Not racist pants, right? And that's the era, though. That's exactly what we're dealing with. Where people went all these labels because there's some people who are like, like, bro, what's this got to do with anything? I'll pay for the messaging. Right. People will pay for the message. All right. So although some people are kind of like that, especially in their specific area of expertise and things that they care about your craft, you're probably like this, like this shit doesn't matter. But most of the world isn't like that. So they're like, oh, yeah, is this something that I can agree to? Remember the tribalism, right? This sounds like messaging that fits into my tribe. It's because I'm the same way. I'm one of those like, what does this have to do with anything? You know what I mean? Like as a black person, I'll be seeing signs who are like this. That's for us or whatever. And just like, I don't know, bro. Like, it's kind of feels weird that we even talk about this right now. And these frauds, $20, man, I don't think you really do support me. Like, yeah, how much is my black life really matter? You know what I'm saying? You wouldn't even give me fries of my black life really matter. You know, I should be free. You gonna take me out, bro. Don't make me pay twice. But like, this is like, this is the legitimate error that we live in. It is about your message and people want that because people in some ways want to know that they are even comfortable or can be comfortable listening to you. Are you safe? Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, because I think the realization I made maybe like two years ago was that everything today, people feel like it is a representation of them without where represents me in one way or another without listening to what I watch, what I talk about. And I don't think ours a lot of time think about it. All right, like people gravitate towards you or move away from you because you might represent something they don't want to be affiliated with or do want to be affiliated, right? Like you are a part of their expression, right? So if I walk into a room, I walk into a party and J Cole is playing that tells me a lot about the room I'm walking into versus I walk into that same room and like little babies playing that tells me a lot about what I'm about to get into, right? Maybe the type of people I'm about to deal with or what's about the transpire at this party, you know what I'm saying? And then the J Cole part would just be sick in general. J Cole part would be crazy. They'll tell me a lot, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, leave. I mean, he does with Katy Perry on that changing things again, right? Completely changing the vibe, bro. Like so it's like, that's something that I've never even seen it with us, you know what I'm saying? People talk about our country and all you guys like represent these things that maybe we may never even blatantly said, but like, that's what they're taking away from it. And that's why they choose to support or tell people about it. For example, a couple of episodes ago, I had on that Tommy shirt or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And somebody in the comments, I can't believe you wearing this brand. They don't like black people. Like, first of all, bro, I just thought shit on. It was in the closet. I'm not like one of those people who overthink every single brand. Like, all right, there's some real strong polarizing brands where I like, okay, I probably like for the most part, whatever, bro. Second, like, I don't know. To my knowledge, that whole thing was like actually a myth and came out to be a myth, not a direct thing. The thing that he was trying to refer and say to that guy doesn't like black people, but even so, bro, all right, I'm wearing it. I'm not aware that people are going to be receiving me. I am aware as a marketer, but I'm not thinking about it because something, you know, a lot of times we still don't think of ourselves like that, right? Like somebody who's trying to build a brand influencer in that in that way, which we can do better at at times. You know what I mean? Because we know what it is at this point. Got our issues. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, just like we tell y'all, right? We know people are watching and picking up on these cues after they make small comments about like, carrots and beer and some shit like that. So I was in the comments. I had on this T-shirt from I went to see one of the activists two weeks ago. It's the T-shirt I got the black shirt. Well, it's the episode I got the black T-shirt on with the. Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm in the comments. Oh, Cory, devil worship or some shit. I'm like, bro, I just like to show. I didn't see that coming. Yeah, he didn't say that. I don't want to put those words in there. It was in that same spectrum of the Illuminati conversation. I'm like, nah, bro, I just thought the shirt was hard. He had a cool set, you know, and I like supporting artists and buying things at that show. I needed a shirt to wear that day. I hadn't did London yet. You know what I'm saying, it was on my bed clean. See? Well, why not? Well, we can't. We can't live in those days no more, brother. Old days, bro. All the shirts we used to get for free and shit. Like, you just thought you were done, bro. People start the meaning thing, man. You wear it and you don't realize you're projecting a meaning. You didn't know you were projecting. Like, oh, shit. Me and something completely different. Like, it goes back to me. My first hardcore experience was still I was like 16. I was wearing this Sean John shirt and it had a fist on it. And the teacher was like, what is that? And they were like, why are you wearing that shirt? And I'm like, what you mean? And then she's like, yeah, that shirt. I'm like, yeah, this shirt, it's a fist. OK, cool, whatever. And she's like, you don't know. And turns out, oh, she sees black power fist. First time I've ever heard this shit in my life, she sees it as like some kind of like, I don't like white people, anti-authority. And then I started realizing there's white people that think that black panthers are like evil and stuff like that. Never hearing that where I come from in my neck of the woods, you know what I mean? And first of all, I wasn't even thinking that deep. Like, I wasn't like, because I didn't, I didn't relate it to black power. I didn't relate it to black panthers. I didn't relate it to nothing. I was just like, this is a black and white shirt. You know what I mean? This guy's fists look kind of cool. And more importantly, I got a shit for like $3 because it was like a deep, deep clearance sale at Macy's. And that's really the only reason I got it. It said, that time in my life I was like, hey, I don't really care for Sean, John, Sean, John like that. But I was like, eh, some people do, and it's just cheap. Well, how are we? And I got it. I was like, I'm thinking 16. I know I was in high school. Oh, no, you knew better. You knew what you were doing. Bruh, I did not. I swear to God, I did not. Like you was like nine or something? No, bruh. No, I'll see you now when I was more like, when I was nine, I was walking around Georgia State campus with my brother and people were like all day saying, oh man, I put with a hat or like laughing or whatever. And come to find out at the end of the day, I took off the hat because my brother just put the hat on my head. And it was like, you ever seen, I know you seen on the bathroom sign, right? You know how they have like the little avatar of the man? Yeah. So it was the avatar of the man and then he didn't have a head and it was like on the ground and he said, need more head. And I was just going around all day with that on my head. I was like, oh, damn. That's sick. Damn. That's sick. Hey, bruh, like I said, bruh, I ain't mind just throwing shit on, man. I was like, I could go with a younger house probably like five I had on this Freaknik shirt and all these cartoons with big butts and stuff like that on the caddies and stuff like that. Had that on one thing in the thing of it. You know what I mean? I don't know how I got my shirt dirty, but my uncle gave me a shirt. And you know, my uncle, my uncle, but my mom saw me when I got home. She's like, what the hell you got? Freaknik shirt. Thank you a freak, Sean. Hey, hey, you know, whatever. So like, but all that, like that, that type of like just moving around free like we said, it got way deeper implications today than it ever has, right? Like those are like small blips, but like niggas can ruin their careers. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. If you were like an influential child, you know what I'm saying? And you had did that over for you. Yeah. Like it'd been over with. That's the hard part about it too, is that I think it's a blessing in the curse sometimes. Like I think it is a blessing that the internet has allowed people to share some of your different experiences and perspectives. I learned about things I just never would have thought about if it wasn't for like a Tik Tok or YouTube. But in the same time, you walking on eggshells all the time because you never, like you said, you never to your point, you never know. You don't know what you don't know. And you might say something, pick something up because you think it's cool. That should hit the wrong section of the internet. Wrong section. And just like that, you over with and you don't even know why you're over with, you know what I'm saying? I hate that shit too. Because people are so, so centered. They're like, yo, Doug, that shit don't even mean that same thing where I'm from. Like over here, it's a good thing. And over there, y'all offended because it means something else is like, I'm not even aware you got at least give a brother time to like be acclimated. It's like, hey, man, can you you want me to understand that I got to change my ways for you or whatever or be a little bit more? But you got at least come to understanding that. I didn't mean to offend you in the first place. Give me room to grow and live. We don't we and I do think I do feel for artists at the end of the way. I do think artists of like the 90s, 80s, 2000s like we gave them way more room for error. Like they could they could like smoke crack and beat that wife and then be at a sold out show the next week and fans like, oh my God, he made whatever is amazing today, bro. Maybe a little bit too much leeway. Too much leeway. No, I don't think it's, you know, I don't think it's great in all aspects. I'm saying like just to talk about like, like. No, yeah. I was, I think that's when some of the artists back name might have been a little worse because they could get away with it. You know what I'm saying? Art's always on eggshells about like, will I get away with it? You know what I'm saying? So many people are watching and paying attention. So I feel for ours in that way, but you're walking on eggshells a lot more. Sometimes you represent things that you don't mean to represent and vice versa. But these are sadly, to your point, things you have to be aware of if you want to be a artist today. Like you going to, the shit going to hit the fan one day eventually, whether you ready for it or not. You know, who was it? I think it might have been the since 80s name. Remember, Bear was like, you gotta ever think about when y'all going to fuck up. I was like, I think about it all the time, man. Me and Sean got a bet on who is going to be first. I think it's going to be Sean. Oh yeah. I 100% think it's going to be you, man. I think I'm the easy target, but it's going to be you. No, bro. Yeah, I 100% think it's going to be me. Because I grew up getting in trouble for saying shit. So I'm just accustomed to it, bro. I'm still going to probably feel misunderstood and be like, bro, I didn't mean that, but oh well, and just take it on the chair. I didn't know flip-flops meant that. I mean, I wait, even to the all this point, because the thing I did also want to touch on with the Ray Danes conversation of art is getting lazier. I think is, I understand why it's easier. It's easier, you know what I'm saying? It's like to the OG's point, it's not him, but just them in general, right? It's like back in the day, you want to make a song, you got to get your ass up and go to the studio, right? You're in the studio for however many hours. You got to go down to the local press shop and get to see these press stuff. If we fast forward to 2000, you still got to put some more than, you know what I'm saying? Get the shit out. You got to find a distribution partner. You got to do all these things that were like, just for the song to even hit the shelf. You probably had already went through about 10, 15 steps worth of work already. Today, maybe three, four steps between making the song and having it online, you know what I'm saying? So to the point you made earlier, there are a lot more people who feel like, oh, I could just hop into it. It's $20 a year for a digital kid account or I haven't mentioned it 20 a month, 20 a year. I don't know. Don't kill me for that. $20 for a digital kid account. I've seen lots of videos online about here's how to make a studio set up for less than $500. You know what I'm saying? So if we assume, I'm assuming a large majority of that 38 million of people that probably did that. You know what I'm saying? They just needed a quick hop in. And so if you can become an artist today for essentially less than $1,000, is going to flood the marketplace, right? Anytime people, especially for a business model where for such a long time, we saw so many people make a lot of money from it. Or we felt like we saw a lot of people do it, right? So it's like, think about any time a new business opportunity is introduced and then the price to get into that business cheapens. There's always a lot of people that flood it and the quality diminishes. We're just seeing that with music now, right? We for 23 years should long enough decades watch all these artists make so much money. And then just one year it becomes less than $1,000 to hop in the game. Yeah. Everybody wants to hop in the game, you know what I'm saying? Shit, I be thinking all the time, man. Should I have become a rep? Maybe I missed the block. You know what I'm saying? I missed the calling, bro. Missed it, bro. So I do think that artists are a laser in the sense but I understand like how they got into that place. All right, so one, we are going to get to how you build out of this. Oh yeah. Harp on that point. It's the first thousand streams. You 100% have to expect people to be lavious just because we know that just proportionally there's always some people who are lazy and some people who aren't. Yeah, 100%. But then the environment dictates the amount of laziness that can cut or not, all right? Let's see where you're going with this. So everybody still has that incentive. But if I have to pay X amount of dollars in this studio, ooh, I don't want to waste all that much time. So I got to use this wisely. I'm going to prepare on the front end as much as possible. I might try that one time and be like, whoa, I just wasted a lot of time and I need to create one song. So let me figure out my lyrics, hear it, hear the beats, whatever, like do all that stuff. And then, oh, when I have to try to get my music in stores, I have to print them on. Physical CDs. And once that's done, it's done. Like brother say no refunds when he like type my shit out, type out my CD name and all this stuff and the cover is already done. It's a song cost. So you literally don't have the ability to make it mean, well, you have the ability but the cost is so high it forces people to be on their piece and choose a lot more. Now, like you said, cost so cheap. I go in my room, I do it. I don't have to deal with nobody. So nobody's making me move fast enough. I could go eat, I can play a game. I could take a nap or whatever. And then nobody's forcing me to create music fast enough. There's no pressures. And then when I put it out, like, all right, if I get zero streams, there's no feedback. I might just throw another one out there, right? So the risk is so low. It is an environment today that allows things to be lazy, right? But that's, I like to implore artists to look at the world at large. This is just where we are, man. When a baby young lady, you know, whatever you live, there were probably less women that you were attracted to per square mile, right? Than what you see today, right? Everybody has your type. So whatever you're attracted to. And when you come across that, now you're like, oh man, I want her or I want to shot at her. So one, you got to probably look whatever your best is, but your personal brand, smell whatever your best is. Then when y'all go out, I got to show up with my best face on and go on a specific type of date. Today, hey, swipe, swipe, swipe. I'm like, oh, bro, she want to go to a restaurant. I just want to go to the park. You know what I'm saying? Like, let me, and the park could be a great career. I'm going to go to the park. She in my park got great food. You know what I mean? Let me run that back. But we're like, let me, let me do something that's lower effort. I don't even want to invest that much in the front end because I got so many other shots that I could take. Right? I'm not so worried about this. I got access to people that I'm attracted to within a certain square radius without me even having to leave the house. I could see them and just find them that way. Right? Where I can look on Instagram. There's all these different ways. So people are even investing less, even on that side of things. And I hear it all the time. Thank God that I'm not dealing with it. You know what I'm saying? But- Man, it's hard out in these streets. I hear. It's hard in these streets. I hear. You know what I mean? So, like, it's the same, so imagine taking that same type of mentality and you're an artist feeling like there's a lack of value shown that you apply that to a dating scenario. Or you apply that to movies, actors and actresses feel the same. All these different categories are feeling the same and it's just coming down to the fact that there's less attention, more content, right? More information and easier access. So why am I gonna go hard and invest much when I could just wait for the thing to pop up? As much as we believe in this strategy and use this strategy, it's the same mentality. Yo, let the song bubble up and then we invest heavy, right? Don't put a lot of money in the music. Let the audience decide and then you write it up. It's the same thing. I'm not trying to invest. Let them tell me. Let them pick me first and show me they're committed. And then I'm gonna put it in. All of it's the same and the problem is, I said, we can want one thing. But like we said earlier, what's the behavior? Well, the behavior works, right? Today, to treat it that way. Which is why people keep treating it that way, right? So can knock it. Now it's just about how you build up out of it. And two of the keys to build up out of it comes down to brand and community, right? In the space where you need to separate yourself, right? How do you? Because there is plenty of content. But all of these artists that are trash, that don't market their stuff, there's a lot of artists that are great and are marketing themselves, are building fan bases or getting a lot of attention, right? But there's still competition and there's still difficulty in my, not only standing out from the pack, but actually monetizing. That's the real thing we want to get down to. So, Jacory and I put together some of the key points and steps that you have to keep in mind when it comes down to building up out of this space and what we've been doing with artists. So you can separate yourself from the pack and build beyond, all right? Number one, when we're talking about building community, collect information. Now, I know it sounds simple to some of y'all, but I literally saw somebody in the comments like a couple of weeks ago, does it really become helpful to collect emails and phone numbers? Yes, it does for real, 100%. And I know many of you guys have heard this information for a while, we're not gonna harp on that point specifically, but literally collect emails, phone numbers, all that stuff straightforward. Now, how do you go about it? That's the more interesting point and we'll get into that some of that as we talk about these other things. But part two is your mission and your brand values. We gotta know what we're getting into. We gotta know what we care about, right? We talked about personality is one of those leading things or just that front facing aspect is not just the music. And many cases it's not the music at all. And I fought with them, but I can't even recite three songs, all right? That's the reality that Jacory just spoke for himself and got called out for him, but I think it's true for many of us, right? Because what's the difference between that? And you saying, I like this actor or I like this person and you actually do not know him. That isn't a difference, not to me. You watched a couple movies or you heard a couple songs and you talk about how you like them, but you don't know them for real. Like who they are behind closed doors. It's the same thing. So we've all shown that we had the capacity to be that way. We just haven't been in an environment where it really affected artists like that. So again, for me to feel deeper for you, wanna be a part of your tribe, then I have to know what is your tribe and you got to define that for your audience. You wanna speak more on that? We're about to get into, actually, no, yeah, essentially it's like the, I don't know, I look at like, who's the crowd of people you want to attend your party? You know what I'm saying? It's the best way to look at it, right? Like to the point where you want the golf kids there, you want, you know what I'm saying? I don't know. Who you want to show up to your party? Essentially, I look at the brand messaging and I know one of the big things that we talked about in that is also like, how do you want your community to act within your mission and brand values, right? What are the rules and boundaries and regulations of being a part of your world? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And there was a point I was talking to like a client about a couple of days ago that I think does kind of time to this. She was asking brand questions and things and so the way that I've come to understand it is like you as an artist, you were essentially building like your MCU, right, your Marvel universe, right? And so if you look at Marvel, Marvel doesn't give you the whole plot in one movie. They give you the plot broken down across multiple movies, TV shows, spinoff and things like that, right? But if you're a real Marvel fan, you're picking up on different points of the plot based on these little things that you watch, that you watch and that you see. And then if you bring it to, I guess like real world, kind of like the branding of like Marvel and like them as a company, like they do things in real life, they make the actors speak and talk in certain ways and interviews that reflect whatever the brand is. That is essentially what you're trying to do as an artist. Like what is my big brand mission, right? How am I gonna take this six hour plot and break it down into 10 movies? You know what I'm saying? That my fans can consume in bite-sized ways and still gets the message across and then how am I on the business side going to reflect that? You know what I'm saying? What regulations, rules, am I gonna make the people under me or apart of me, you know what I'm saying? Kind of reflect so that my world is actually represented everywhere that it goes and it's kind of talked about. Yeah, I like that because the perfect example that I mentioned earlier was Tyler the creator's camp vlog, right? Yep. Drake came out. Drake left. Drake did leave. Those of y'all who do not know, Drake came out at camp vlog now. That's Tyler the creator's festival and he got booed. Now, the reason he got booed is multiple folds, right? One, they came from Frank Ocean. Yeah. And received Drake. Drake is not Frank Ocean. He's not Frank Ocean. Drake is Drake. But he's not Frank Ocean. He's not Frank Ocean. All right, so when you talk about the marketing, the rules and the energy that you're attracting people with and then you do a little switch of rule, like they didn't even give anybody in the same category. Now, Frank is a tough person to compare to, right? He really is in his own lane in many ways in terms of his perception and being that level of success with that type of style of music. But there's people closer to Frank Ocean than Drake, right? I can see how they, I can see why they thought Drake though, but I agree that it was as much better people. Yeah. I mean, you know, anytime Drake is that level where you almost think, hey, Drake. He crosses enough circles, you think, yeah. But you advertise at Twerkfest. And you came, Kirk Franklin. With Kirk Franklin. And that ain't right, right? That's the problem. Like, why am I sitting now listening to this sermon? And I ain't dressed for this, you know what I mean? All right, I ain't come to see all these clothed people. This is just not what we're here for. So when you switch up that vibe, what you just marketed for, it's an issue, but that's how powerful that is, right? And then you go to the next level that that happened. Tyler, the creator in his audience, Tyler, the creator, the rules, the boundaries that he set were pretty open in that type of energy was the energy that Tyler's always projected. Like, young Tyler with Boo Drake in a moment like that. 100%. And he was like, yo, you know, you got to respect, da, da, da, da, da, but that's not the brand that Tyler himself built and the energy that he's attracted people with, right? And that's not even a shot at Tyler in that moment. Specifically, it's more so a highlight of something he's done very well and curating that particular type of audience. Because there's some audiences, believe it or not, that wouldn't even just feel comfortable booing Drake. Like, they wouldn't feel comfortable booing and then they definitely wouldn't feel comfortable booing Drake because they just feel like because of the clout he has or whatever, whatever, all these different reasons. Tyler, the audience built a, I don't give a fuck attitude who you are, what you're doing, right? We got smoke for you, you're getting it. That is what it is, right? So that's great because he built that specific community. What does your community look like? Now, number three, we can get even deeper into that because number three is, give them space to hang out, whether that's digitally or in a physical space. Now, a perfect example of this, I'm gonna start at the top, the Dreamville Fest. Now, I didn't go to the recent Dreamville Fest but I was talking to Piff Marty recently. Shout out to Piff Marty and he was there and he said, it was really, really dope. You got, some people told me it was 30,000, some people said it was 50,000, some people said it was like 70,000 people there. It was a lot of people there. Either way. Either way it goes. And Piff said, everybody here was like on the same type of time, same type of energy. He made it sound like it was like a good energy, positive energy. Like it was Jay Cole's values at scale, right? That community he built. When you can do something like that, attract one, your own fan base and then also curate around that because this is your taste, right? Cause you're making those decisions, brand values and making sure everybody is in line with that and your messaging and you bring everybody out for a specific energy, that's a big win, all right? And a lot of these concerts have issues when things overlap and you attract, you don't do a good job at curating on the front end, right? Cause even some artists that you might have on a bill, they can do multiple energies, but so if you can throw them on your bill and they can attract the other side of their crowd that you don't necessarily want there, right? So how do you do that? Jay Cole is somebody who's been very, very, very good at like amplifying his type of community. You already kind of know what it is. You're not, it's not there to be necessarily flashy, maybe cool and expressive and flash your creativity, but it's not the flash, flexi way in terms of the stereotypes that we like to think. All right, I got more money. I got more money. All of those things have been set, all right? And then another activation though on the top end was Travis Scott, all right? Oh yeah, the Fortnite thing? The Fortnite thing. So that's the digital. Less about the conversation of those mission brand values, Jay Cole did a great job at that. But this is just for this single example of giving people a physical space that hang out and community to come together. So you have physically Dreamfest, Jay Cole. On the top end, you got Travis Scott, Fortnite digitally. Do you bring that down to an earlier level in process? Well, you got popups in general. A lot of artists have done popups, right? So it's easier to accomplish. You come in, you have this day where you can either profitably or at least break even, you know what I mean? Getting only a hundred people to show up, right? Whatever that number looks like, all right? We got an artist that we're working with right now. She just hit me up saying, I think she sold 75 tickets, $400 or whatever sold out in a small space, right? There's these things that you can do, these small community-driven events that you can do that will allow you to build. And we'll get deeper into that and cover more of that stuff later. But you can sell and do numbers like that. 75 people, $100 each, small curated event and they're happy while there's still new people who want to come, but they couldn't make it because it was sold out, right? So now you got other people who know that, yo, when I do this, I sell out. So next time I gotta make sure I come because I might miss, all right? So you got that. And then we talked about people like Tom, who else do you say? Kari. Kari, their discourse, small digital community spaces to meet up, right? Those things are great places because when your community doesn't have a way to hang out, then it's hard to truly build community around you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And community is important too because I think there needs to be space for the fans to make memories and build positive feelings towards you without you having to do any of the work, right? So like I had an artist tell me a story two weeks ago about how he had this fan that met his wife in like the comments of like one of his videos, you know what I'm saying? Which I thought was pretty cool. He made a comment, she made a comment back, kind of went back and forth. He told me it was a poem that was breaking up and they had him in the middle of it, you know what I'm saying? It was DM and him. It was crazy, but it was a cool story, right? It's like, so if that artist, I'm assuming goes on to marry this woman and they make it work, they're always gonna have these positive feelings associated with him and he didn't even do nothing. He just made the post and they made that happen in the comments, right? And I see that all the time with discord groups, right? One of the best things about going to art specific shows and festivals is that you meet people that, you know, y'all have something to comment, you might make some friends, right? And so it's like all these different experiences that will benefit you as an artist that don't necessarily have anything to do with you. Like you didn't put them together, right? You didn't make them meet, you didn't make these connections happen then. You talk about as your audience grows, then that just starts happening 10-fold, 100-fold, right? Sometimes a thousand-fold and you're getting all the good will back, right? You're curating, right? As people are gonna say, like, man, I met my wife at a callery show. You know what I'm saying? Like, shit, man, whatever you got to sell, I'm with it, you know what I'm saying? Cause I have this feeling associated with you. So that to me is the most important part. Discord is cool because that can happen whether or not you're awake, right? And it's an easier setup for most artists on my easier to learn for most people. But like, that's the big idea behind this. Like you want the people congregating in these spaces so that they can build, they can make memories around you that don't necessarily have to do it exactly with you. Exactly. And this is the difference between fans and community. Yeah. If they, if you have a bunch of fans that never meet them, they're fans. Those fans can then meet and share experiences with each other, now you have a community, right? And the whole goal is to build, I call this passive fan-based generation, right? Cause you get the fans to start creating new fans for you, right? And they have this environment that you curate it. You were the taste maker for it. But once it's there, it starts to live and breathe beyond your own ideas. They start having ideas. They say, hey, I want to do this again. Can you bring it back? And then they're gonna bring some of their other fans cause they thought it was so dope, right? Yeah. Like that's what you want. And it's easier to do that in non-music experiences than it is in music experience, right? Yeah. Like, okay, if I like this song, then I can share this all true, right? But there's a limitation to how much you're gonna get that happening, right? And if I want to go to your concert, yeah, that can happen too. But the concert experience isn't usually a shared experience to the same extent, especially when it comes to meeting new people. The way most people throw them. Best of them are closer to that, but then that's not your show. That's your, you know what I mean? That's a whole thing unless you're the one curating it. But if you create a type of show that has an energy beyond the music, right? Where it is a little bit more relaxed and people are there sitting around, not just like standing, looking at you in a dark room, then you can curate more. If you do experiences far beyond music itself, it's still curated. Book clubs, I don't know, right? You can insert a lot of different things cause I wanna talk about some of the stuff that some clients and people I know are doing right now. But if you do stuff, that's beyond the music. It's easy to market because people still wanna have experiences, period, right? And there's a specific experience that they think about when they do a concert, but I still wanna go out on dates. So if you're a R&B artist, right? And you can have a good vibe for me to take my girl out or something like that, then dope. Like remember that was one of the things I noted about that GZ concert. I was like, oh man, I can get, it's not on Valentine's Day, but I can get like Valentine's Day points on it. It's on a Friday, she gonna get the dress up, you know what I'm saying? That's points for me, you know what I mean? Like all these different things I noted. I had a whole list, like networking, there's a lot of things, but that's what I'm doing, right? I'm not just like, oh, this is going to see young GZ. Literally I saw GZ the month before the, no, two months before those tickets were out. You know what I'm saying? But I thought about how he positioned that specific experience. It was a higher end, black tie, you know, attract a certain mold of people. It was a whole different thing, right? So that allows you also to hit your fans in more ways than one, right? So I could come here and be an opener for Corey's show and I could come back the next month and have no more new music released, but have a different experience that I bring you around and you will still come to my shit. Yeah, and you're gonna appeal to different types of your fans, right? Because that setup is going to appeal to a probably older, more paid section of his fan base. And then as an artist, if you're aware of these different communities and people that are paying attention to you, you can create experiences for those different pockets, right? Right, yeah. Some people like, yeah, bro, I fuck with your music hard, but I can't be out that late because I got a family. It's gonna be harder for me to get in that vibe. But so if you create this other version that still makes sense, depends on your brand, right, for your brand, but it might go along with your brand and then speak to a different part of your fan base or their parents or they got a different lifestyle because different parts of your fan base lives a certain lifestyle. You wanna be able to keep your vibe consistent, right? Don't cater a pander too heavily because they still already rock with you, right? You don't wanna change who you are, but it's just creating a new space that they can exist in, afford, right? Make it to in general, right? On the other side, another idea we've been talking about for a long time where you participated or helped people in what's just doing like video game tournaments and stuff like that are the same idea, right? You got fans who are now playing each other, they're engaged around something, watching it's your tournament, but they're watching it because watching other people because of you. So now you're not even doing work and you're building fans. That's the passive fan base generation that I talk about, right? Like people do celebrity basketball games. All of those things are by achieving that goal of community, by bringing people around and you don't get community without bringing people together. You just can't, otherwise you have fans and the fans are great, but community is better. It's better. And that's how we begin to monetize. But you do monetize, right? In today's era, when we talk about standing out, there's artists that will have more views, but not hit as hard as people who have stronger brands. There'll be people who have stronger brands and more people that legitimately love them that aren't making as much as people who have stronger communities. I got a stronger community with less people and you got fans that would be a bigger community but you just aren't doing the work, bringing them together because community creates more monetization opportunities. We just touched on that, right? There's more purchasing put into it because I'm just showing in different ways and I'm a part of this. I get a sticker to say, you know, label is necessary. I get a shirt to say, no label is necessary. You know what I'm saying? All these things just to show us a part of my lifestyle, right? Beyond my primary consumption route. So there's, like community is the way and one thing you gotta do with those folks is communicate to them frequently. So let's review. So far we got collected data on these people, right? Cause you gotta know how to get out to them. You gotta know who they are. Secondly, you gotta have a mission, which is the more important one, but I say collect data just because people need their reminder. Mission brand values. You gotta have something that you're standing for. What are we? Who are we? What are the rules of this place? And let me opt in or opt out. Don't be afraid to allow people to opt out. Number three, give us a space to congregate at. You have to give fans a way to meet each other, right? And you'll have people who aren't even fan fans begin to become deeper fans just because you created other experience, right? Number four is communicate frequently. You have to have a way where they are still seeing you. And also, when ways that you know you speak to them directly, all right? So I still need to see you remember that you exist and I'd still need some way that not only you, I can communicate to them, but fans are able to communicate with each other. Now it doesn't have to be a daily basis, something like a Discord, right? It could be, I got a monthly show or I got a yearly event, but then you have ways that you build up to it and remind people of it before the after. There's ways to do it where it doesn't mean this is like a daily task, but you have to have some level of ongoing communication and building. Yeah, that's one of the biggest fuck ups most artists make. They don't talk to the community, man. Don't talk to them, just there, radio song. Yeah, now some of y'all don't wanna talk back. And I give, I really do get it. And you can do it without talking back to people, but you still do if possible. I don't say you still need to do, but if you can and if it's possible, you will find benefit for having deeper experiences with some of those people, right? Back and forth communication, but maybe you reserve that for the physical event. Certain times happen on a live Q and A or like open period. So you're not allowing people to text you back and forth. Hey, in terms of this text fans, this is just for me to let y'all know of some important things. I'm not gonna blast y'all every single track to come out if I'm dropping weekly, but when I'm having a big show there's a big moment or maybe monthly, I might text you so I'll let you know where I'm coming from. But, hey, same for y'all to text me back. When y'all wanna talk to me, all right, then we'll do a Q and A or we'll do meetups and things like that. That's fine, you just need to establish the rules. That's where we go back to number two, all right? What are those, that mission? What are those brand values? And rules really could be its own thing when we really get down to it. Now that I think about it, right? Rules can go deep, you know what I mean? We love, even beyond just regular brand values. It just means like, hey, bro, don't leave me alone. You know what I'm saying? This is how we act. When you get the rest of the community understand and then they'll support it. So one fan of yours, man, he didn't respond to me and you try to blast me on social media, but then I already set the tone on my fans and they're like, yeah, bro, he's a regular person, he got life, he got this, he got that, you know what I mean? He got a family or something. Then what do you expect? So the fans like just lean into me and they'll defend for me, right? You know, I established those type of rules, right? But last but not least, number five, reward your community. Show love to your community in public, right? Not that person that you just take out at night time and friends don't know about them. We talk about out there in public where there is, yo, this happened with my community. I had the pop up, right? Y'all came out, show that on social media, right? Cause then you can have some fans that get jealous. Like, whoa. He hugged you, that's crazy. Yeah, for real. Hey, I gotta pull up to the next one. I didn't even know you were giving out hugs at these events, you know what I'm saying? I didn't know that was possible, like Chris Brown with the- Oh, the pictures. Oh, you had them pictures. Like, whoa, I didn't know I could get that close. I've heard about the idea of doing meetups, but whoa, I get to like, it's gonna be like that, right? That's a different type of experience. And I can see myself in that position, right? So, like you advertise it. Cause also then you show that you give love, fans will appreciate giving love, you give in love to other fans like seriously. Some will say, oh man, I just really appreciate that you're so appreciative of us, even though the interaction didn't have anything to do with you, right? So you show that love to your community publicly. It'll be a signal of how important you are or how important the community is to other community members. Yeah, and that's big. Cause we talked about it before in the podcast, but fans like to feel like if it wasn't for them individually, then you will not be where you are. So they like to feel like, if I stop listening to you today, you falling off, right? So when you're rewarding them and you're doing these things, you're openly like feeding that side of them. You know what I'm saying? Whether you agree or not, that's a whole different thing, but you want fans to continue feeling appreciated and feeling like they are an important part of your success because that makes them want to go harder for your success, right? And then when they start to see, hey, when this artist has success, I benefit in this way, then they naturally want you to succeed more because they think about all the things they will get as a community because of you succeeding, exactly. So I think it's very important to just continue like driving that point home with fans and making them feel like, hey, this is our thing. It's like giving bonuses of the year to employees, you know what I'm saying? It's like, hey, here's the base love you get for doing your job and in their case, it's just supporting me, you know what I'm saying? And here's some extra things I want to give you to show you, like, hey, man, I fuck with the moments you went above and beyond and some of the other things that you did that you didn't have to do, but it really helps, you know, help overall. Yeah, I mean, and it's just that simple, right? It's just that simple. There's deeper tactics of how we can do each of these, execute each of these. And maybe we'll get into that in a different episode, but we just wanted to make sure we laid this out for you guys because again, in this competitive, saturated space of not just music, but content as a whole, life as a whole today, the way the world is set up, right? If you want to keep giving people reasons to go back, you have to give them something to be included into, right? A reason beyond just, hey, you're another artist with good music. Good music is not enough when we talk about monetizing, right? So you have all the opportunities in the world. That's the good news, right? Because people are open to that these days. They're actually looking how to give you money beyond the music in itself and how to get deeper into the rabbit hole. But with that being said, there's a feeling of, yeah, you don't value the music enough, but that's just not enough. No, it's not enough to get to where you probably want to. Because that's the only thing that's to judge. It's like, well, I'm streaming. I mean, right? So I did it, but you decide that's not enough. I could say me getting some streams and 50,000 streams a month for 100,000 streams a month, that's enough for me. The problem is not that gap. The gap is you want more, right? Maybe money, notoriety, or deeper relationship with your fans. So for that, no, that's not enough. But the opportunity does exist. With that being said, we're going to get out here for today. If you guys want to see us get deeper into community building specifically and how you stand out today and what you're going to have to do in the future, let us know. Drop that in the comments. Go ahead and subscribe. You somehow made it this far and you never subscribed to the channel before. Definitely crazy. And yet again, this is another episode of No Labels Necessary. I'm Brandon Sean. And I'm Corey. And we out. Peace.