 What up? What up? What up? I'm Brayman Sean and we are back with another episode of No Labels Necessary Podcast. You can catch us every Tuesday, every Thursday on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, wherever you stream your podcast here at the intersection of creative and currency here today. We got some hot topics for you guys. Number one, we got to let you know really our public goods publicist scammers or not. We're going to give you the news on how it really works today. Also, is rapping about things that you don't do corny? LaRussell has some words for y'all and a lot of other dope topics. But first and foremost, we got to start here because 90% of artists misconstrue what it takes to win in the music industry, largely misunderstanding this one particular detail. Check out this quote from Taz Taylor from Internet Money talking about it. And that quote, he says, welcome to 2023. You can spend a whole year on an album, but if you don't want to take 15 minutes to make a TikTok, a label ain't gonna give a fuck how much time you spent on it. Sad reality, but I know how many are dealing with this. Not all artists are entertainers. That is a mouthful. He says so many things. Not all artists are entertainers. The quote of the day. And a lot of what I want to say actually stems from that, like the reality of that on why how successful you can be or not. Right. But then there's other things we can get into. Most artists don't understand that the value that comes from how they capitalize on their work is not from the music itself. In most cases, it actually is in the entertainment value. Right. And it's weird because yes, we're musicians. So they come for us because of our music. They come for us because they find our music entertaining. You know what I mean? And we look at the people who last the longest in the game and do the best. All of them are entertainers. All the goats that most people allude to, they might not be your goats. However, when you look at a Beyoncé, when you look at a Usher, when you look at a Michael Jackson, a Bobby Brown, or a Taylor Swift, or you know, whoever the hell you find to be a goat, typically at whatever level you can go down even to the Pharrell's and the Tyler, the creators or whoever, these people find a way to entertain as well. And many of the people that we look at the most art as the artistic goats, right? Not just, oh, your commercial success. And you're not an artist artist. Even the people that we look at as an artist artist, if we know about them, especially on that level, because they were able to entertain us again and again and again. Hi, it was right. See another example. I don't think a lot of artists respect that part of the game enough realizing that no, you are here to entertain because the entertainment is how I maintain people's attention. That's how you don't get my people skipping your video on YouTube, right? Or skipping your song on Spotify. All this is just an attention, attention economy. And now that you have them listening to your music or consuming your brand, whatever way, you can then continue to monetize. And since you can monetize, companies and publications are going to continue to support you and configure how they can cap off your name because you are entertaining and you're grabbing attention. That is the game. So not all artists being entertainers. That is a fact. But also you got to acknowledge, artists don't respect the fact that many of the things, what many of them want actually requires you to be an entertainer. You don't have to be an entertainer to be successful in music, right? There's plenty of people who are making good money behind the scenes or with careers that aren't necessarily like commercial entertainment on that, like in their winning by their own account. However, I think the dissidence comes with the fact that one many artists want something and they don't realize to get there. I need to be an entertainer that is a part of the package or the label is investing in something because they want to get there. And that's the package required for them to get there. It's like, yo, I'm putting this money in because I'm trying to cap it to highest level on the level I want to get to require as an entertainer. But you're like, nah, bro, I'm good, like making my music. I'm living a life. I'm already making any meals. I collaborate with all the cool people that I want to collaborate with. I don't need anything else from this. And the way was like, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So that's that's my first thought when I think about this entertainment shit. Yeah. I mean, and I don't know if it's not respected. I think artists have learned how how hard it will be. Like I think being being a decent entertainer, I think it's harder than being a good New Yorker. I take it a day. No, that's not real. I think what I would because in order to be a good entertainer, one of the base values of it is something that most artists don't even like to admit, which is, hey, I am creating and doing for you. Ah, that that is true. After kind of language and understanding how I'm doing this for the crowd, right? Or is it that like, no, I'm making music for me. I'm expressing how I feel. Right. So it's like that inherently goes again, the core values of forgetting and trying to write someone Michael Michael Jackson print, but they would have never left the crowd. I'm like, I'll go for what they think I think I killed that shit. They go all the stress in my life down today. Notice when I messed up that two step count. Yeah, with the vocals on. So I think there's just a different mentality or one that comes to people pleasing from you, the artist of that man. So they don't they don't go for it in the morning. So I would that's what I think is right there. Plus, entertainment is such a very concept, right? Yeah, some people were, you know, they're entertaining to you. But someone was to ask you why you couldn't really put the right things are really intangible. I like the way their voice sounds, you know, they have really good timing with like either things you can't really like put your finger on, but our valid point. I'm glad you said that, bro, because I've definitely talked about that before, where I use specifically comedians, where I'm like, they don't have the ability to say, Oh, my music's so good. And these people just don't get it, right? For the most part, yo, if they're not laughing at these jokes, you're so right. But I got to figure out a tweak, right? And that's why they a lot, many of them like to create without the cameras, because it's like, yo, I'm working on real time trying to make this thing better and better. And the crowd and their reaction is a part of telling me whether it's better, right? Where music, like you said, and a lot of visual arts as well, it's like, nah, like this is all me, I can be in my, my whole and create the best work in a world of people don't get it, they just don't get it. And, and they don't understand reality. When we talk about the business, the industry, the, which is the music industry is in what industry? Entertainment industry, right? It's a branch of the entertainment industry, you know what I'm saying? Like, so that is the reality if you want to succeed at the highest level in the entertainment industry, right? So, Cleo and I, I agree, like some of them, like don't respect or understand that it needs to be there. And then others just don't have like the clarity on what entertainment is. And, and then, you know, I know a lot of people just want to think, hey, they like, I get it. But it is kind of wow, this statement, the way he positioned this, you can spend a whole year on an album. But if you don't want to make, take 15 minutes to make a TikTok, a label ain't going to give a fuck. I mean, that does make me say, oh, you spent a year, why don't you want to take 15 minutes? That's what I think. That's what confused me about, not doing this for what we did. But to those of you that know, we're, we're pretty, you know, saying, um, responsible content creators, we do a pre-production meeting. Yeah. We was looking at this shit on the pre-production. I was there, like, yo, is he being sarcastic or a sneak bean for real? Because I was in the circus. I'm like, that's the point I would make. Like, hey, you clearly have the energy to spend a year making the album. You didn't have 15 more minutes or energy left for you. Like, that's the argument I would make. Like, you're actually making it worse. Yeah. That would have much rather than you have spent six months working on the album. And then that would be fixed. That's knocking out TikTok. And I'm saying, just be real. Yeah, just to be real, right? I don't know what to have. I don't know if that's it. Yeah, that's it. Hit like you thought it was going to hit. I have to end with dawg with the label and this is what I'm like. I'm like, bro, you ain't got 15 minutes. Or better, bro, better. And, you know, we know with Taz, Taz is doing the mostly newer act, bro. Tell me what artist Taz is signing today that is not expecting them to have to make content? Yeah. Or do you at least have heard the word before? So if I'm a label going like, bro, you just signed this 19 year old that doesn't want to make TikTok? No. There's tens of thousands of them out there that will like think about a business investment. You know, I'm saying that's like, I don't know. I'm trying. Is it almost like saying something like, I can make the best fried chicken in town. But this vegan restaurant won't let me put it on the menu. You know what I'm saying? Like, what's the business model? Of course, content is a part of today's business model. And to be fair, labels don't dictate whether you need to create content or not. Like labels were late to realizing that you need to create content to get their return. They're just trying to do what it takes to get their money back, which is why they're in agreement with you in the first place. They didn't agree and invest in you just because they love you. You know what I'm saying? Like they could love you from afar. And plus, the people who do love you the most are the people who are doing a deal with you, usually. Like, and then, but the entity that they work for them, you know what I mean? I'm not the A&R. I know he signed him. So, you know what I mean? So, like, yeah, I think that all fair and just again, they are just trying to figure out the model that's working to get their return and investment. Well, before the content, well, and TikTok was doing what it did, they weren't saying you need to do that. They were late and we were trying to convince them that they need to have their artist do more of it just because of the opportunity of it all. We weren't like, I mean, you know, we don't got nothing to do with the, you know, no rollout, no support if you all do content. That's, you know, well, nothing to do with that. But we were on the, yo, man, y'all don't realize if y'all post content on TikTok at this time, y'all are already strict on the budgets, right? If y'all get them to do this, they're going to be able to have so much more of a return or probably get more than they were going to get for that budget anyway, just off of content, especially in the time we were suggesting that. So, like, but I don't have like the nipsey hustle type mentality, like, I'm responsible for my own success. I got to make some shape. So if my label, I mean, one, you don't have to sign to a label, of course, or whatever. But if I'm signed to a label and they're trying to, and I believe in a project, and then they're doing certain things to not make my project successful, I'm going to do the things I need to do for that time period, make that shake, and then figure out how to get the fuck out of this deal later. But I'm not going to stop my success in this meantime, unless I feel like it's so detrimental, because, like, I'm successful here. That's gonna, like, I don't know, they're gonna tie me up even worse into a deal. Like, that's another thing. But, like, yeah, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna do what I got to do right now. I made a mistake. I shouldn't even be in a deal with these boys. And then I must make it work. And then I'm gonna keep moving. That's what I, what I feel like artists should do if they have this type of, if they have one of these types of situations. Because these deals, these days, most of them, most of these deals, that just is what it is. And I agree, all artists are not entertainers. Many artists are, they're, I was just gonna say recording artists, you know what I'm saying? Like, but that was a real thing in a separation that existed back in the day, where now everybody believes, you know, there's in this one bucket. But before there were people who literally, hey, they just go to the recording studio, put it out, and they cap that way. You even had the horrible situations where you'll have some people like, these are gonna be the performers. These are gonna be the singers in the studio. And then we're gonna pretend that these are the performers are the ones singing it. You had every single mix, you know, for a variety of different reasons, whether it was like race or just lack of talent in one space. There were so many ways that kind of model got flipped, right? Or like, they didn't like how you looked esthetically in general, not even just race or you were too big and whatever the discrimination was, all that to say, again, and then writers, right writers that was their bag, right? I think a lot of now, I think some of this comes from people getting mixed up that thinking that they represent every single thing, and even labels and represent everything because we're trying to squeeze one person to get the maximum return out of it. And that, that shit ain't right. You know, I can say that. Yeah. But we all, but nobody has that clarity or set expectations at on the front side on the front end. That's the problem. Yeah, one of the reasons it is our fault, man, who is our the artist side, the industry side, fans? Who do you mean? Artist and fans, man. Okay. Like to your point about, right, that's a good point, I think the reason that artists maybe aren't being great in times before is one, there's no development, right? You look at, you know, label a lot more time, bring them about the one that you dance, that was dancing at six and shit. And the artist quest over the last decade, it's so cool that I can do all of it. I mean, those two main thing, like I said, I'm pretty sure to fight it as far as I probably like, no, you can't. You can't do all of it. If you just stay artist and let us take care of X, Y, V, and then some artists came along, I can't do it all. Ah, look at me, I've been right. And for do same thing, advance and do grab the design and then label like it's this, all by the bottom line, they start looking at me looking like, actually, when he started doing all this shit about himself, we say a lot of money. You know what I'm saying? Well, it used to take us now 300k plus and I don't know, and employee fees, the, the bill to artist should now we maybe spend 20 K because he doing 80% of the thing by himself. Now the narrative changes, right? And now we push how you should be doing everything that you could possibly be doing to make it would just come along and be the bank, right? Yeah, or the connection or the work. So I think we, like, we talked about some of the position, right? It's like, you know, how is I really changing it? Like, I really, it's almost offensive to a music artist to be able to assume they only can make music. Yeah. It's like, it's a slur for them. Yeah. And like, what now? I'm gonna, oh, you're a rapper, right? Rapper, writers, producer, but I feel bad. I'm the main dancer and the backup dancer, but we actually just talked about this. Remember, I was talking about watching a Whitney Houston movie. One thing I realized is like, you know, one thing that artists really hung their hat on back then was performing. Yeah. And they weren't really necessarily worried about if I wrote the song or any other stuff, which is why you had these great performers and these great brands. And then of course, in some ways, some artists actually were the writers too. And then they didn't get their credit or just doing things like that. But many of them were literally just seeing some of the same songs, songs that were already popular over and over again, where you'll think, you know, oh, I thought that was Luther's song. I thought that was Whitney's song. I was like, no, that song is actually like, for the streets, right? It's for the streets. And it's been that way for a long time. So, and then you even go back, well, no, but still back from now, to last episode, talking about Lil Bow Wow. He's just like, hey, I didn't care about owning my master's because I wasn't writing the song. JD was writing the songs all like, I'm a touring artist. He was actually looking at an old bottle. So, you know, I don't know, there ain't no but Bow Wow was it? I can see where Bow Wow was coming from in that perspective. I know the artist in that old model. Like I said, in that head, I was like, bro, I was never meant to cap on this like that. Right. So I was meant to cap off about everything else. So, you know, this capping off the streams and the music, the record, that's a new artist, you know, screaming about the quality of streaming. Hey, I want to read some of these comments. Every artist had to utilize the tools to break through every generation of music. The tools just changed. Not wanting to do a TikTok today is like not wanting to go on 106 and Park or TRL in 2000. Oh, they they're smoking. This other one go a little hard too. Just make a TikTok and promote your album. It's not that hard. Oh, man, let me see. Why not take 15 minutes to promote yourself after working on a year project? I don't see it. Maybe we should have just read the comments on this one, man. This is a wild comment section, man. I don't, but it's on academics page though. I thought it was on here. I want to see it on. I'm going to look up task page. I wonder if they gave him the same energy because he's a little bit more insulated into the industry. Probably not. I got that. Just actively getting banned. Yeah, we're not going to read your response to the comments. Fuck no, TikTok ain't no comparison to 106 because all the all they going to do is keep scrolling on to the next thing and get distracted. The rap game is watered down and all together because so many people can easily record a song now. If anything, you can compare 106 in Park to like going to the breakfast club and shit because you can actually talk about upcoming work or you've already put out minus the music video premieres. Ah, I was just so wrong. But yeah, back then you had to wait on a world premiere to catch a music video. Yeah, like, bro, one, you can talk about your shit that's coming up on TikTok. You can hop on other people's TikTok pages and do collapse. There's all these TikTok creators and all this stuff. And you can post your stuff you could do with accessibility back in the day. I think you probably weren't getting on 106 in Park unless you were in a deal that you didn't like. So like, I'll take hopping on TikTok versus 106. Yeah, way over his head. No happy meal, no act. I don't know. No happy act. He's right, but the only way shit finish changes is artists unionize and take back creative control from labels. Sad to say it, but as of right now, it's just damn near impossible when all of the big major A tier artists are locked into contracts with big money. So it's kind of a loose, loose situation. I feel like we haven't heard artists complain about creative control in years. I don't think that's what it is, but I think artists are getting almost too much credit. Right? You know, man, like now you have credit control in every aspect of the whole business. I would make the argument again, whatever it was. I haven't heard artists complain about creative control in a minute. So if you worked on an album for a year and you clearly wanted a major label route, jump through that last hoop and make the 30 second TikTok vid that will take less than 15 minutes to come up with a record recorded share like FF's go complain. So this is interesting because now we're starting to see, this is important for artists to see and think about. Consumers are turning on where, especially since the music industry has looked at it as like a cool job, a dream job in many ways. You don't want to make a TikTok when I gotta go slain these burgers or I gotta go sit in this damn cubicle or I gotta work from home pretending like I'm working and I gotta stay logged in even though I really want to like cook or watch a movie or something. Like that's how they feel like this looks entitled to a regular consumer. Artists, it's not that I don't empathize at all, but it's very important to understand the temperature of the room and or the environment. And I'm not even necessarily as aware, like as I read this at real time, it seemed like consumers, they're not fucking with that like that. Yeah, well, like if I said, I'm just like, bro, you have the ultimate deal. Man, Mike, we know it's not okay. But yeah, for all you do is make music, make TikTok. I would love to have to do that. Yeah, all day, every day. And I feel them. And then, but that even the first half of the comment, I think was the big point, man, it's like, yo, you clearly want to go to major level right at the jump through the last one. Yeah. Right. It was like, hey, bro, is there a hoops? You had to jump through to get into the situation. There were hoops. You had to jump through to maintain the situation. Yeah, right. And it's like, you know, there were hoops. You had to jump through it. You committed to all the hoops. It's completely all the doubted. Hey, that's, this is interesting. And so I feel like, because we know that we've seen people complain and demonize labels successfully. And then like the fans are like on the artist side. But I think it must be more on a, like when the artist is coming to the fans directly, and then their fans specifically will feel for them because they care about them. I think that's probably that. And then, you know, especially, you know, a lot of these male audiences, they're not going to empathize that way. Like, so I, well, now I think about it so far, you know, I'm sure it could go both ways. So far, the ones that I've seen get everything have been women artists and their fan bases. But this might be the first time I've seen the actual, like a male industry person and then the responses around it. And I don't seem like that side is really messing with it. I do see this person right here. This is facts. I was just speaking to an executive last night in Vegas. Talent is secondary. Yeah, entertainment is first. Entertainment is first. We just talked about this. Not every artist is an entertainer. Some people just want to make music and release to their fans without the commercialism. All right, but don't go to the major label where I want you to go to major label, but like commercialism is the game. Yeah. Yeah, not every artist wants to be associated with TikTok or the type of crowd it attracts. That's a bullshit comment. Like, that's just dumb. Like, all right, let me give context to it. It's not me being offended. It's literally the amount of people that are on TikTok at this point, well over a billion means more than every single person that's in the United States around 300 million are on TikTok. You're telling me that every single person on TikTok is not your type of audience. Every single person has billion plus people on TikTok. That doesn't, it just doesn't make sense. Right? Like that's you looking at the app in your, in your small bubble, like, hey, I haven't left the block type of perspective of the world is just too many damn people. There's only 250 million people on Spotify, something around that maybe 300 like somewhere between that area on Spotify. Are your fans on Spotify? It's a billion people on TikTok. They probably use TikTok too. You know what I mean? It just don't make, it just don't make sense, that type of comment. But I feel like people say that type of stuff and it's cool to feel that like you can get by with it in your own environment and your mind and justify it. But when it comes to measuring your success and actually, you know, trying to get where you supposedly want to go, you can't like let those type of like thoughts lie. You can say, hey, I don't really want to get on TikTok and I'm going to try to figure out how to win without it. But throwing this whole idea of like the crowd of TikTok ain't no fucking crowd on TikTok. Like, like a specific crowd where everybody watches one type of video, one type of thing. But we'll be stuck in 2019. Yeah, bro. It doesn't make sense. Now, we're going to read a couple more of these. Good. Give a fuck about TikTok, FYTP, man. All these damn acronyms. Stop being followers. Do your own shit. Keep your creative control thing for yourself. How's a non-entertainer going to perform his music? I don't know. Good question. Bro, TikTok has complete garbage and is ruining the world a little by little. It's crazy to see because now it's such a young environment. Usually it's old people who have these type of things like something's ruining everything. But it's a lot of young people that feel this way about TikTok. That's why you rarely hear hits anymore. Not only jingles. Now, that's a more valid comment where it's something worth discussing. Let me just go to Taz's page. I want to see the energy on his actual page. Yeah. Artists overwhelmingly, it seems like there's a lot of people who like, look, bro. Again, like you said, your life is better than my life. And unfortunately, when we think about classes and all these type of things, typically, like when people see you're in a better position than what they are. Look, and that's the problem. They perceive you, not see you. They perceive you to be in a better position than them. They don't give a fuck about your problems. Yeah. Yeah. Or just perceive the job to be easier, man. Like I said, I'm like, are you just singing, dancing and making TikTok on a desert? Throwing boxes in the back of a U-Haul truck? Yeah. No, something. Yeah. I mean, look, and that's the way of the world. Like adults will always do that shit when you older. I'll be older and like, you know, when I kiss them, like, bro, how are you tired? I do the same thing. It's like, it's no fit. You tired. Why are you sleeping? That's tough, man. I'll be breaking the fuck up, man. That's not a cycle I want to break, bruh. I ain't go live, bruh. I'll be like, hey, y'all need to like that. And like, maybe you need to use more energy to go outside. And then maybe you'll have more energy. You don't got much, what do you call it, endurance? That all that inside shit. See, I sound like, I sound like the old people, bruh. But I get, when you see it, you're like, I don't know, man. Like, how are you that, how are you? But this is, now I'm trying to vent myself from going on a rank, but, you know, but, but, but truly, you know, when you know what you've been through and what you're dealing with, it's harder to see that. And that's what the fans are dealing with, just like I might be like, dang, bruh, I literally, I remember being in summer camp and now that's like, I'm breaking, like we were in summer camp and we were outside all day. There was no inside. The inside was like, under the gazebo or whatever. And so we just outside in the hot Georgia sun for like eight hours or whatever that shit was that I ain't put my kids to that shit, bro. Like stuff like that. I'm like, that don't make no sense, bruh. You know, I could pay a lot of the $20 to go to a better summer camp or something, but no, I have an endurance is good for you. I think it was on me to be tired all the time. No struggle, build character. You know what I was saying? No, you struggle now. So I could love you better later. You know, what they say to them, the kids that get spoiled. And you see some of these parents who got to deal with these folks when they get older. I've been saying some wild stuff in the stores, but I digress. We're going to get to the next topic. And for this next topic, a lot of artists think publicists are a scam. And we have somebody really giving a strong opinion on why they think so. We'll give our thoughts afterwards, but we'll love to know what you think. We're going to endorse paying for publicists. And so maybe you're making millions and any publicist is listening to this. I'm sorry. But I think the whole publicist industry, since the log era, especially have died completely down. I think publicists are a scam. If you're still making money being a publicist, you have to be scamming because who are you convincing to pay? In what world does it make sense? Unless you're getting smaller artists to give you four or 500 or two or 3000. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm ignorant because I haven't entered the realm of money that requires one. So I'm assuming that it's a realm of money way beyond what I'm working with. But I've never experienced a positive experience. I'm spending my money on a publicist. Even recently, the label is spending my artist's little budget. And I'm like, y'all can take that out of y'all's budget. This shit isn't doing anything for us. So shout out to the publicist that you're hearing this, but that shit is a scam. The label, obviously, are using high level marketers and high level publicists. It's just we're talking about 50,000 plus. We're not talking about five, 10K. And a lot of rappers will save that money up. And I'm just sitting there thinking, you know what you could do with 10,000 if you actually put, you didn't just throw it at someone's doorstep and say, all right, do what you said you were going to do. A month later after those two or three blog articles came out on that one print media, they're like, okay, give me another 10,000. We'll do another run. And it's like the artists could have done that themselves by just simply networking. All right, Jacory, you got more background in this world than I do. We both worked with publicists in there, marketing adjacent, but you like came up in the post world. So what's your thing? Man, I think the publicity game, the publicity game now was interesting. And I found the publicity game because of the blog era kind of got fucked up because now that's what we associate publicity with is blog placements and website placement, which is a big part of it. But PR overall is more so about spending narrative, right? And so it's, it's more so I use the resources that I have a hand to spend narratives blog and websites became the most powerful way to do that, right? And then it gets associated with it, right? So what I just think is that that is the complete misconception of like, what the job is supposed to be doing in the first place. And within that, there's a complete misunderstanding of when it makes sense for you to hire somebody with that job, right? Because like I said, there's new attribution of publicists, especially in the route spaces, person that gets me on blog, you know, makes artists think, hey, there's, I really got to have a publicist at any point in my career because your job is to get me on the publication. When in reality, once again, going back to it, a publicist's job is to create, spend and spread a message on narrative. Yeah. Well, a lot of artists mess up if they don't have a story to spend that that's, that's worth getting you on to, right? And now, and of course, they're like high level publicists who can create these things and pull it up from scratch and make it happen. But for 80, 90% of publicists, this influx of artists with most story coming to them that want the servers is creating a problem for them. Now, like any business, right? They're going to find a way to take money and that, which is where to her point, you get the really low quality blog services in the end that don't really make sense. But hey, you want two or three publications that makes you happy. Cool. I can do that for you for five cents at all, right? So that's where that comes from. That's where you get the verification batch selling that a lot of publishers will live in off of up until, you know, men and Twitter kind of change things. But like, I know lots of people who are charging 5k, 8k, 20k, 30k selling blue checks. And the process of getting a blue check to people because before the meta thing, it took press to get a blue check mark who control the press world, publicists, right? So who did it make sense for to monetize this blue check mark? Pubslip, right? Right? So I think those things kind of have warped the way the position is looked at. The last thing I will say too, is there's a lot of just miseducation around going back to a publicity. Like I said, I think because of the raffin blogger, publishers are just look at the person that gets me on website. But like I said, more to it, and like a good publicist to her and DJ Payne's point is going to typically run you 50, 60, 70, 80k plus because if we go back to looking at how stories are then built and how long it takes people to even believe it, like that's the wrong guy. I might come up with this story for you in January, have to guide you through the pieces I needed, you executing it to help me get it out there, and then do the work to get it out there, and then do the work to get the perception that comes out of the world. That could very easily be a whole year process in itself, you know what I'm saying? Now the mission, condensing that for micro moments, you're trying to create for artists around a project or a career or something like that. But most artists aren't coming into the publicity game thinking of it as what they're thinking like, hey, I can make my publishers life easier by coming to them with a really strong narrative, right? Or building a story before I even reach out to them and try to use their services, which should be the way it gets done. But it's not, you know what I'm saying, different music. So wherever in music, wherever people smell money, there's going to be somebody that comes along and takes advantage of that and doesn't do it the right way and give everybody a bad rep, right? We see it happening with, you know, scamming producers. We see it happening in our space and marketers, right? Naturally, like I said, somebody is looking at it like, man, in order for me to do publicity the right way, it's going to take me 50K. But there's this huge group of people who are willing to pay $200, $300 for it, even if it's not the most quality version of it. People are going to jump at it, right? So as much as I would like to say that publicity services, seeming, scamming, and the bad PR of it kind of followed on publicists today, I also put some of this back on the artist, right? Because the lots of artists out there who funded these people, these institutions, when there were people like us telling them, it doesn't make sense to be doing that in the middle of your career anyway, right? Like, I usually can tell, like, somebody that asked me, it doesn't make sense to me, literally, that means it doesn't make sense to me. It's a great way to start. The fact that you're asking me says that you don't need it. You will know if you need it. There'll be so much shit going around you, some of your narratives are like, somebody will be like, yo, but this could have been eight news articles, and you're like, what the hell are you doing? You need to be. Until you get that point, you really don't need a publicity service, right? And so that's why I think with Aaron's press session coming along, more often than, I think, most other physicians in the music industry, I mean, you can go a very long way, a music career without a public. Music especially. Yeah, music especially, like, because narrative, like today, a website like Complex, still has power. It doesn't have as much power as I will argue, as let's say, like, let's say, like a DJ academic in the social media era, right? Like, the same way that four or five years ago, if I wanted to climb to get a message out, I would send them to hip-hop B.X. And we'd send them to a break club and we'd send them to, I don't know, I can't think of that. Angie, I can't think of that. Martina. As in Martina, right? And then maybe we sent them to that piff, right? That was the run, right? Who were the popular media outlets and personalities and sent them there? That's still a version of that today. But what's changed is that half of that media strategy now include different Instagram page, YouTube and podcasts and influencers and things like that. The great thing about those people is most of them are very accessible without a post, right? So the gates that publishers kind of hold the keys to are still relevant, it's just not really relevant until you reach a certain level. And 80-90% of artists on that path just don't qualify for it. But they all want it. And me, like, think about how many people ask it to y'all. Y'all do PR service. You barely scratch them about with a thousand dollar budget. Ask them in the other team. Can I put some blogs on top of this? It's like, no, bro, you're being greedy with your brother. You're being greedy with what that money makes sense for. And I felt when you get that in music, that greed breathes more greed. And eventually you get a greedy person that's smarter than you. You just scam everybody. Like eventually you get that, you know what I'm saying? So I think that's what kind of happened in publicity. And like giving publicity the bad name. I mean, dropping music is not newsworthy. And I think that's what people have to think about. Is this newsworthy? That's when you start to get into the PR side of things. As an artist on the come up, because there's also this highly relevant and obviously needed side when we talk about the damage control side of PR publishers, right? Everybody has those once you get a certain level. So we know those publishers are scammers. But I think being able to access something is not the same as being scammed. All right. Just because I can do it, like, hey, I might pay $50 for some chicken at a nice restaurant. And this is an expensive ass restaurant. I could chicken cook it myself. That's not getting scammed. All right. You know what I mean? Like, I might do it even not so necessarily for myself. I might be doing it because I'm out on a nice date. I'm trying to, you know, entertain my lady. You know what I mean? Flex a little bit or whatever, right? All right. I still got that value. I got the value of the convenience. I'm not, I'm not doing it at all. So where people have to, but artists have to take into account and take accountability for, even if you could have done it yourself, you're the one deciding to do it. Right. So when you need to be educated, cannot do it for myself. And then the only decision that you need to be making it off of at that point becomes convenience. Remember, I talked about like early on, once we hit a certain point where there were certain artists who were like, all right, we want to work with people who like they're working with us out of convenience, not of, not because they don't have access or anything like that. They're paying us as much as they pay us because they need the trustworthiness that will do it right. Yeah. And you know what I mean? And then pay a certain level of attention to it because they're holding that valuable other asset, which is their artists and their business. And they're at a certain level where mess up, have a bigger meaning, right? When you're early on messing something up or investing in a page or something like that, that, that doesn't give you the return. And the implications might suck for your budget, but implications career wise doesn't necessarily add up to what it looks like for a bigger artist. So, yeah, I think then, of course, there are definitely the scammers like that really do exist, right? So there's people who are even published publicists and all they do who is get you on these social media pages and they call themselves publicists, right? The people who are legitimate publicists. And those legitimate publicists, some of them even might, you know, they scam on the low end. Look, how many times you've seen somebody who is official on the low end in the business, but then they got like a little back end operation. Let the cousin go ahead and get a little profit off of their name or something like that. You know, that does exist. More than I like to admit, that does exist. And that's always interesting. You know what I mean? Like, oh yeah, you keep it. I mean, it was crazy when they allow somebody else to manage your social media and run scams off their social media. It's like, bro, you're directly messing up your name by guy, you know, piece of the time. But that was the other thing I was gonna say, too, is I think the publicity gang got messed up because the line between publicity and marketing is so blurry, right? It's marketed, offering blog services that publishers are getting you on playlist and running ads. It's a while, right? Because I think that's what publishers thought was like, hey, okay, it was cool to say I was in the world of spending narrative that when blogs were a thing and we were all reading, but now they're just in the attention game. And once you're in the attention game, you're telling the market to me, that's how it feels. You know what I'm saying? Don't shoot me out there publicly, that's how it feels. Once you were in the eyeball, in the game of getting eyeballs and impressions, you are marketing me in that. That is, right? They're definitely related. But yeah, that does go back to differentiation. PR person at a core is not like marketing first. It's an avenue of marketing, the story, the communication aspect of it. But we've deduced them because of the blog error, right? And how it transitioned to the social media area. We look at them as like marketer and we judge them looking for marketing results. And that's a part of it. It's like, nah, bro, if I put out my motherfucking PR narrative, right? And I told this story and I did this across all these pages, it don't matter if you could have got access to these things. I did one, I did my job. You know what I mean? And me as a publicist, my job is not to get you streams. My job is not to get you what it shouldn't be. And I think that's part of the dissidence there, right? Artists think you should get these streams. I should be getting you followers. That's not a real publicist's job. That's not really what they're focused on, right? That direct type of impact is more like marketing versus branding. We know they're related and they're in the same house. They fall under it. But like when I'm focused on brand, that's a long tail conversation and what that looks like. But everybody, anything that's marketing related, any of the arms, it's like, nah, bro, you're really just looking for streams. You're really just looking for this direct results. There's more sales and marketing than any of the other parts of it. Yeah, because I think the bread and butter of PR got a lot harder to sell. Hell yeah, because of the accessibility. Exactly. I mean, I could pay you to give me on comments like I could pay, I don't know, talk the cops $200 to post me on Instagram. It's going to get the same job. My narrative is going to be spread. You know what I mean? Because I might have narrative and I'm going to have some followers. Yeah, but I remember thinking about too, I've not worked with a publicist like this was super early in my industry career. We didn't really start like talking about like numbers into maybe closer to the end of me working for him. And that was around the time we're like, I mean, Twitter was all with the band. Like Twitter with Instagram was really just becoming a band that talked about like 20, 18, 20, no, not just, you know, it was like 27, 20 and really starting to hit the mainstream. So that's when like numbers started becoming a thing. That's when I started seeing him have the report and meeting. Hey, this is how many views I got on YouTube. This is what it hit before he just would be reporting how many Argos came out of it, right? We will look on things like Twitter and see how many, hey, on this day, only eight people tweeted out about you. But the day after the Arba came out 150 people to that, that was the type of thing that we were reporting. It was, it was very rarely like directly like music related. So it's just interesting to see that. Like I said, the publicity about that turned into now, not necessarily like the really, the really high level ones kind of still keep you there, at least service level, but majority of them are basically marketed, you know, man, marketed with some press, you know, that's how they go, man. That's, that's definitely interesting way to see it, because well, first shout out to, well, to Music Entrepreneur Club. Should have said that in the beginning, but shout out to all y'all, Dame, DJ Payton. One, this is a good conversation. I think it comes down to, so if you look at in the agency, we started calling it IGPR, that's the grand PR. And then we expanded to expand it to social media PR, right? Any of the platforms because we could do PR on any of those platforms. But I always differentiate those social media PR platforms are where you can spread narrative and you'll start to see impact on potential streams and things like that. The other side, though, when we talk about business PR, that's not for streams, that's building your relationships, especially when you talk about the company side of things where somebody wants to become your client, let's say for an agency, right? And they see there's a bunch of articles on us as an agency, like real articles, not like them fake, you know, everything on Yahoo, you're like, oh man, there's some credibility to these people. So that will help you get your clients. So I think music probably experiences the more scam side in this way more than some other industries. Because if you're doing a business PR, you're not looking again to a result, you're just looking for proof of concept and controlling the narrative, right? That's all it is. It's like, oh, I'm appearing like I'm more credible to these people. So they're going to buy into me. Or if you're an artist, there are some companies and things on the brand side for you to have that kind of background when they, because some of these companies, when they want to do it, artists, they want to see what some of the other companies and brands that you've dealt with. All right. So the business PR side of your brand is completely different than that. The fan base side of it, where before during the blog era, there was this sweet spot where you knock both of them out at once for the most part, right? Doing a blog is the shit that's going to pop up on Google. And it's what fans are actually paying attention to. Now, the thing that pop up on Google and what people are paying attention to on social media, those pages are completely different. Well, no, man, all publics design scammers, but in music industry, yeah, you like, look, the first thing I understand that I got from whether you need to publish this was you need to have something to talk about. You need to have buzz already. All right, there are rare moments where people out the gates damn near have something to talk about because of a unique story that they have to tell or they are a part of or it's happening in real time. So you can follow it in real time, like, hey, if I'm a decent size artist, like, and I don't even mean decent, like huge, but just like, I got, I don't know, maybe I got a little something going. You want to have a, a no matter if you technically could be zero. But like, let's just pretend your music is not trash, right? Your music is good. And you say, I'm about to go across country and walk across country and play at every Starbucks among the way. That's a story. You know what I'm saying? You don't need a huge following for that to make sense for public publicity. However, you know, even at today's age, you need to be creating great content and be your own publicist in that, in that way too, to underlie that. So I think the reality is today, just like everything else, until you hit a certain level, like now before you couldn't do anything until you were at a certain level or could pay a certain amount. Today, many of these services are not worth paying for until you can afford to pay a certain amount. That's just all it is. Got access. Hey, that's what, that's where you go back to the whole free marketplace. I ain't man, like, you know, having access to all the candy comes with the risk. A stomach ache? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Free market, free to bump your head, bro. Like, hey, hey, free to bump that, bust that ass. The pros and cons, baby. I love it. Let's get into this other clip right here. This music producer broke down how you can hack the label systems, see what some of the things that they're using and how you can use them for yourself. Check this out. To beat the music industry at their own game. The main thing the record label has that you don't is human capital. So go to a site like glassdoor.com and look at the reviews for these jobs. You search up the record label and you search up the jobs and the salaries. Once you have all those jobs and salaries, you go to a site like Upwork and look for the same exact job title. So basically now you can take your own money and hire the same people that the record label would hire and you could use them to your benefit to grow your business instead of growing the record labels business. Once you're done finding the key players, go to any record labels website and copy the URL. Go to the site called built with and then paste the URL. This site will show you all the components used to build that specific website. And if you want to create your own apparel company like TDE, you can go to a site called jungle scouts and you can go on Amazon and look for different suppliers. Most companies source from Alibaba, but there are other top vendor websites and that's how you beat the record labels at their own game and keep your 20%. Now, hey, first foremost, man, some of these labels take them more than 20%. A lot of these labels and we talk about labels, but let's work with 20%. I think this content was from busy work beats. Shout out to him. I disagree with this one and in a lot of ways, but I also agree with it in some ways how to beat the music industry. The some ways is I do think that you can use a lot of the stuff that he said if you want to write to find people and thinking things like that, I would probably use LinkedIn over Upwork just to be real or Glassdoor, but I'll probably just go LinkedIn more than anything to see these people working at these companies. My issue here is what they talk about in the comments. Some people say the capital. You got to have the capital and a lot of these people aren't ready to deal with some of these people. This is how you get scammed like the folks that we talked about with the PR people because the label people are going to charge and what they charge. If you don't have the knowledge, you're just going to pay them whatever they say is worth and not know how to judge whether it's worth it. That part, I do agree with how he used Built With to see what website you can do that with anybody's website. There's a lot of things just to give yourself a quick idea of what people or other people are using. Sure, use Built With and come up with your own merge site to use whatever based on that. That's interesting because especially some people, they might have a favorite artist and they're like, oh man, I wonder what they're using. And in some ways that helps you see, oh shit, they're using fucking Shopify. They're using some of these basic ads websites. It's not that complicated. So I think it's very helpful to use things like Built With just so you can understand the technology stack that things are built on. That's cool. But you know, it's almost like some of these merge sites and things like that. I mean, they're so again, all right, never mind. Some people might think it's more complicated than that. So it's good for them to use Built With. But I'm almost like, man, do y'all really need to use these sites to know which are the main websites that are good to use? But actually kind of rewind and move on to that one. People do because it's a lot of these sites that people will be using just because. Yeah, because it came in first on the Google mouse. So definitely use the Built With shit. But the hiring label people, unless you are a stoop business person yourself and know how to navigate conversations and learn from your work with one person and apply to the next and you have money to blow, I don't know about hiring labels people at the beginning. Yeah, I think that advice is for if we look at being artists at the scale from zero to 10, I think that's the best advice for artists for like eight and a low, you know, ironically, I wouldn't I mean, how do you get to level eight? Like that's that's a rare air. But ironically, I think this is best for people who are starting a record label. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what people like do this. To that point, what I was about to bring up is like, why I don't think that advice works for the average artist is that typically the power players that are really like moving and shaking bane for artists, they use a working boy. I want to say usually because it feels so good. This is when my friends that you're not working for the label, bro, like usually like the right hire of the artists or maybe they do some type of like creative gig with like you, you know what they do without even needing like to go look at glass or right. So me glad though, like, oh, I don't know what a CTO does when I need a CTO for my Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, looking at fucking, I don't know, Drake's team and being like, oh, yeah, the dope videographer like you didn't really need glass over to figure that out. You know what I'm saying? Like you're gonna kind of and yeah, a lot of these folks in the music industry, which I discovered when I got into music industry, they don't even use LinkedIn. They don't even use like or you said that they don't have official job title on blast door. It's very much so a need to know industry relationship based industry. That makes me so I'm CEO of human development. But what are these HR? Like, okay, I got you like, you know, so that there's that there's a confusion behind the roles. There's not even publicizing the people in the role of being at a position where it makes sense to do it, like musically career wise having the capital to do it. Like, you can go find the best one ever in the world. I don't want to get paid. Yeah, you ain't across their hurdle yet. Really ain't gonna do too much for you. And I just think that I think too that that a lot of those steps will probably like you're at the point to where you're trying to enact the strategy. You probably have a lot of it already picked up. Yeah. You know, like I said, this to me is a scat strategy for the artists eight, eight from 10. Like your level to artists. No, like you said, you better maybe hit a link then if you're just curious. But it's really you're really gonna be kind of wasting your people time and your time, you know, unless you're in a certain position. So I don't know. Like I agree with the sentiment and the message behind the sentiment. But then, you know, is it actually something I think most artists could do? No, is it something I think most artists should do? No, I don't. Yeah. Yeah. This is something I think a very specific group of artists to get away with. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. And I'm not like I'm not on it heavy. Like just because I feel like most artists aren't in position to do this because I'm big on Hey, bro, this is the internet. I decided to watch this content and come across this page. So I can't just view it from my perspective. Like this one person said, you know, like the first things like most artists don't need this or this isn't any art independent artist problem. Now if he specified, this is how to beat the industry as an independent artist or something like that. All right. Then I'll be like, we just said this is how you beat the industry. And I think, like I said, for a label, that could be useful, but I'm not about to hate on somebody because they like always say I might be watching a PhD level video and I'm only in second grade. And I'm like, dang, bro, no, this is too fluffy. You're not specific. Nothing. No, I was like, no, bro, like I'm killing what I'm saying. Like your ass need to level up. You know, and then you'll have those people at that level will be like, this is amazing video. We get that type of thing all the time. And then when you make some content for the second graders, if you were a PhD, be like, you're not talking about nothing, bro. You ain't saying no shit. It's like, it's like, bro, no one told you to watch this video. Like if you don't connect with it, assume that it might be for somebody else who doesn't know that already. You up there trying to flex in the comments that you know it already. Nick, everybody don't know this. Right. So that's how I try to look at all of this type of content. And because there is like a lot of people on hate, but I try to find a usefulness in it. I do think again, the mentality and of trying to approach labels could use this type of approach or like people in general, like try to basically quickly try to quickly find people who can consult you and give you some perspective on how things go and what you should be looking for. I think the problem comes when people try to, which I wouldn't want to do based on what I've seen with labels and hiring label consultants type people, I wouldn't be looking at those people to be like an ongoing consultant oftentimes right off the gate. I'll be like, Hey, what do I need? Like tell me the inner workings of this business so hire for a consulting call, not just like people jump to like, Oh man, I want to do marketing. Let me just go hire a person in the marketing department from a label to be charged in my marketing. All right. Or let me go, you know, there's higher in this Laoya. Now we're instantly in this ongoing relationship. No, help them charge them to extract the information from their head on how you should be viewing the game was really was not problem with going to, especially for ND artists, going to a label person kind of lose to what you said earlier because I'm an indie artist and I'm at ground zero or I'm at a thousand going straight to a label. A lot of these labels, whoever's in charge of their marketing, they don't have no idea how to really break an artist or how to build an artist career. Because I just been running ads, you know, at this label based on these clients who are at this level and people just bring me to client and I rest on the ass for them. I know how to what a good ad campaign might look like as an artist, but holistically, I kind of know what those other teams are working on, right? Or I might do influencers. I kind of know, but they don't have a holistic view. And I'll just talk about marketing. It could be multiple categories, but that's the nature. You know, I used to argue with my sister about this stuff, because she's on the corporate side of things. And I'm just and I'm like, indie, aren't like build companies from ground zero. I was like, you get this knowledge. And it's a certain perspective you don't have, right? Like y'all have a there's less risk of your mistakes within a larger entity. You know what I mean? And there's a lot of gears in that machine that you just don't have to account for yourself personally. Now you probably have a lot more data to work on work with. So you probably understand after a certain level of like how to look at data, manipulate data or like maybe how some of these departments and things should work together. That's something that's harder for somebody who's ground zero hasn't seen and built that yet, right? So there's just pros and cons from coming from a, you know, the corporate or completely indie side of things. But the point is, in the beginning, when you are indie, you want to find somebody who really know what the fuck to do from this indie point and how to build out the mud, right? Once you start getting to those other levels, you don't want to just listen to any niggas all the time on how on their perspective, because they're not playing that game at that level. Right? And that's just made sense. You know, but, but yeah, this is a, you know, cool advice. Wait, so hire label execs as an independent. Now that's a good question. Yes, you can definitely do that. Hire label executives as an independent. But again, again, that's do proceed with caution. I'll say that. And this person said, no, he's saying see the positions, the descriptions tell you what they do, then hire virtual assistants to fill those positions in your business. That's what he said. Is he saying that? You think he's saying that? But he's basically saying, yeah, look at them to see what positions they hire and then go hire the people that do it. Right. But I was assuming like people from the labels who might be offering at something, a virtual assistant. Yeah, that sound wild. Like, he's like, I don't know. I'm a A&R at an executive and then like, let me go hire a virtual assistant regardless of A&R experience. That's wild. All right. It's just an interesting topic. A little bit of fodder around that one. But let's get into this next subject. I got a question for y'all's asses. He's rapping about things you don't do, corny or artistic expression. I really want you to think about that and have an answer. And while you think I'm gonna play this clip that might affect your thoughts on that. For me, it might sound stupid, but I think that's kind of corny for you to rap about. I believe you're rapping about specific drugs on a regular basis and in real life, you don't do them drugs. That's weird. If you're rapping about anything that could be detrimental that you don't fully participate in or do, you're laying. You're corny. Like just naturally. Because you have a billion things that you could choose to rap about, including your own life. But you choose to portray a narrative that's not true and it's influencing people in this detrimental and it's like, nigga, I choose that of all things to say and you ain't even doing your damn self. Right. So it's definitely corny. We see a lot of rap now and it's like, nigga, you're lying. It's very clear and adamant. It's not even at an artistic point because some of the music don't even be great. You're lying. Is it corny? My initial reaction, because the way we got this, right? Zach gave us the topic and he was like, oh yeah, this is a LaRussell clip that where LaRussell said it's corny to rap about stuff you don't do. And I'm always looking for the angle. So I was like, I got it. I would disagree with this nigga because I had one angle. But then I actually got to watch the clip. And he said, if you're rapping about something or making music, I guess about something that's detrimental and I'm like, damn it, that was my angle because I was going to say, yeah, detrimental like that kind of stuff is crazy to me. The stuff that is like, I don't know, I see myself as an alien and I'm rapping from the perspective of an alien, you know what I mean? And have this whole world that I paint, this movie that I create, that isn't right. But he's not talking about that. He's specifically talking about, yeah, you know, you wrapping my drugs, killing, shooting like those kind of main things. It is, I, you know, I got a big problem with that, particularly, which I think this is assumed that is what they're talking about. If you're doing it from the perspective as if you truly do it yourself, knowing that you are convincing, you can say, oh, I was doing it and I was playing a character and I was trying to, I don't know, artistically show something, right? Or represent something. But if you see it's clearly not being received as, hey, this is not you and how you, you know, run your life. Yeah, I got a problem with it. Like one way or another. Like, just know, we know the effects of it by now. People say, oh, music don't affect me or whatever it doesn't. Like I'm not a role model or all these things, right? That's a fucking lie. Music is marketing. All music is is words and shit on a beat. And it's actually one of the most convincing ways to market to people. Like period. Yeah. Yeah, I will play devil that would be here and say that, especially in rap, they probably feel like, well, when I'm doing it in the beginning, I have no influence. And then I build my influence raffling about this thing that I don't particularly do, right? Yeah. Now it goes back to like, like, you know, like kids having fun in the classroom, right? Yeah. Because of in there now, some of that shit can go viral and create stars, right? Yeah. Just staying in that environment. So I do think there are more artists today who get caught in narratives that they don't really live because of that starts off as a joke. And then the joke goes too far. You know, man. Yeah, I'll give it an age limit. Like, I can let you off if you like, yeah. I'll even let 21 slide. Yeah. You know, if you talk about some shit you don't do, yeah, portraying a lifestyle and in a way that you are trying to convince or aware that you're convincing people that that's what you're actually doing and then influencing them to then perceive that lifestyle differently and how they participate in it. Yes. I got a problem with that shit. All right. All right. And then that was good again, because I thought about it before. I thought about this with, do you remember when Future was in some shit? Yeah. Right. Drinking cucumber water and and I remember the cucumber water part. I feel like an interview where he talked about drinking cucumber water. I just remember he, I thought you were gonna talk about like him saying he don't do drugs or some shit like that. Okay. Right. You don't do drugs. You don't really, you know, frankly, like that. Now I remember a question that in faith in like, man, he's so calm about this. He's so chill. He's talking about it so candidly in an interview. And I'm like, well, if I'm a future fan, we're gonna watch future interview. I would never know that I would never know that he doesn't live his lifestyle. So now when I go listen to the music, I'm still thinking he's pushing this character versus me as a fan fan now. That's part of the problem, by the way. A lot of people don't watch interviews. I wasn't aware to have like, because I love watching interviews. A lot of people don't watch interviews. Like, who, who does the fault for believing in the character fall on if the artist is making good intentions to put out there that they are finding the character, right? And so every, like the future is a great number. I've heard him talk about my interview. He's talking about it recently on like radio interviews, but if you're not really watching future interviews, you don't know that. I don't know. That's like some politics shit though, bro. It's like, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna show one thing over here and then we're gonna do it, but then we're gonna want that other thing to be seen as much. And we know that we didn't yell over here. We whispered that shit over here and then we yelled over there. I don't know about that, bro. Like the argument, I don't like just doing the caricature of the future shit. Oh, yeah, man, you know, since you lean so heavy, you know, like, use it heavy. What do you mean? He's like, you talk about all the time. So I can't do that shit on a time. You see how much money I get? I'm a hustler, bro. I can't be doing lean all the time. I'll be lazy, bro. Don't you hear me talking about lazy? That's kind of like, I think the energy people perceive if I'm like, dang, bro, because he didn't, he alluded to something like that, like he couldn't work all the time. So it's almost like, since I was like, like, I don't know, like, I don't want to say shit, no, but it was just like, hey, bro, like, no, I couldn't be me doing that. You know, future argument. Well, I don't know if he ever did lean super heavily, whatever, whatever. But he did, from my knowledge, come from a certain lifestyle and did partake, right? He is equivalent for him in particular, anybody in a similar situation, right? Let's say you're doing it in a moment and you're talking about it, right? Cool. Based on what we say, it's cool to share your experience. Even if that experience is detrimental marketing to the world, we're all apparently cool with that, right? I decide for the betterment of my life to stop doing that shit. However, just like an artist who gets out of a bad relationship, goes through breakups. But now I've been good for years. Can't I call back to those bad relationships and still make music based on those experiences? Am I right? Am I allowed to write from old pains when I'm in a moment where I'm not feeling that pain anymore? Because maybe I can see it better now I'm not dealing with the pain, you know, talking about the pain in the pain is different from talking about it or, or if you want it outside of pain, that's two different types of music. You know what I'm saying? I also think it ties to the argument that was then made around the whole, you know, young thought about even lyrics in court, which is artists are not allowed to play character, right? And, you know, artists or should there be some type of stigma, cold regulation on a little boy, but should artists have the disclose of us when they are kind of characters or not, right? The same way I can go look at a movie and I know I don't know they're probably active, I'm not my bad at all. But I can look at this movie and be like, okay, this Michael B. Jordan, I'm there, you go back this planet character because I have enough context here to know this is a movie, different movie lives, we plan a coffee man, you're bought to okay, that's a clearly a different area, doesn't it, right? Yep. Artists can jump from character to character and not tell it. All right. And we just either have to kind of pick up the pieces and see it or we just get strong one and believe like, hey, this is just who he is now. So that's why I thought the argument, I do believe like, hey, artists should be allowed to play characters just like movie actors and TV actors and actresses and things like that. But at the same point, I think in order for artists to get that privilege, they have to be a lot more transparent with us about when they are trying to character with you and me, argue killed off the magic of the character. But is the magic just the ability to trick people? People can do that in movies. And you can still experience the movie and love the movies. I think people just haven't given enough of a chance. Yeah, when you go into a movie, open mind and to man trick like you, you're walking, right? That's true. And we see the I know I said, I'm, I'm, I'm open to being fair argument. Actually, matter of fact, you go in that bitch, trick me. If I don't get a trick, if I don't fall deep into the world, that is that is a true and people with the fans. So they try to blame basically blame the fans of demanding this being real, right? And seeing real shit happen to these people who are actually in part of in real life. And basically, I don't know handling the, you see the conversations around is very like a desensitizing dehumanizing and how they look at artists and these characters when they go through some real shit and just like kind of thinking it's funny. So there's a lot of people to your point, a lot of people would get like, man, the art might be going through this now, but it could very real be a real trauma situation that they went through them living in now. Or, you know, like the cases I think of so many artists, I know people are doing this stuff and I'm talking about their experiences. That's not J. Cole got away with it. You know what I'm saying, J. Cole, but these are my viewpoints. These are the viewpoints that make it round. But he made that clear and he never felt that like it was him being him. He actually, you know, all the while showed a, you know, having thoughts against, you know, that's a certain lifestyle. So I feel like, yeah, that's why he got away with it. But basically, it needs to be like this. You're very, very clear because we can just see you move from space to space, right? Like Kanye dressing and being different for each album and it's drastically different. So if you show these drastically different characters, then it's pretty obvious that it's characters, right? Or how you're presenting yourself or a theme or something like that, right? But if you out here saying I, right, and implying I was riding and pulling up on them and X, Y, and Z in with the ops, then you probably need to have one of them damn little hashtag sponsor that on your album. Like one of those type of thing, you know, like not the nigga I pretend to be like needs to be a clear message. Like when you click the YouTube video, this ain't real. The first person who does that ironically can do it as a concept and they'll actually blow up for it. You know what I mean? They can lean into something like that. That's the ironic thing about it. Everybody else, you know, it'll just become a norm at some point or whatever. It wouldn't necessarily be as cool. But somebody who does that well, who's far away from that, that life. I mean, I don't know his life life, but like, what's his name? Jordan, not Jordan. The dude who, I'm not racist. What's his name? Joyner Lucas. That's all I'll say, Jordan. Joyner Lucas. Very clear that he's playing character within project to project and he does it in a very ironically like movie cinematic way. All right. That's, that's cool. Cause I saw some song where he was saying some shit that, you know, this ain't the Joyner I know. You know what I mean? Like it was some feature and I was like, Oh, I can't believe maybe it was like him in future or something like that. And he was talking future talk. If it was a future song, he was talking future talk. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, this ain't, this ain't Joyner talk. This is future talk. But you know, you kind of accept it because he's like, maybe he's just getting in Joyner bag. I mean, future's bag for this song, right? But then he going back to his world after the fact. That's completely fine. All right. So yeah, I mean, that goes into this next question or point at large where the question is hip hop is hurting the black community. It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. That's actually not a question. Let's play this clip. I didn't realize it was from a radio podcast. It's like, yeah, we get out, some of us get out based on, you know, telling the stories. But I feel like today, or even back then, like those stories and no longer just like imagery is like real things has happened. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's just regurgitating the energy from the experiences back to the people that's still in the hood. You know what I mean? I feel like it's just circulating the same energy to just perpetrate the same, you know what I mean? The same vibe, the same violists. We could be the club and we all sing it. But there's somebody in the hood right now who's like going through some tough time that's actually thinking about doing what, you know what I mean? Well, you're doing the celebration of the club or whatever we at. So I feel like it's the reason why some of us is out the hood, but reason why a lot of us still in the hood. So the caption on this is hip hop, the new gift and curse of to our culture. We can break it down, right? But let's just say service level. Do you agree or disagree? I agree. I agree as well. But I'm gonna hear you out first. Yeah, I mean, pretty much exactly like you said, man, like this art form, this genre has been probably one of the single biggest contributing factor to getting younger hood individuals out of the hood, right? The problem, the caveat is that it now attracts those type of people, right? Those type of people come along and tell those stories. They're entertainers so they make it sound good, look good and I mean, entertaining and then it creates this generation of people underneath them who are like, hey, I want to be like this person and in order for me to be like this person, I have to live this lifestyle. Which you could argue would be cool if music had a higher success rate, right? So think about it, man. Think about it. One artist blows up that convinces 50,000 people to live a similar lifestyle to them to possibly be where they are. They're only maybe one out of 50,000 is going to make it. I like that. What happened to the other 49,999 people out in the real world doing bullshit, you know what I'm saying? Because it's not like getting celebrated as a programmer and then 49,000 other people become a programmer and then we see what that success rate looks like and the longevity of it and the quote unquote safety and all that stuff that come with it. That's right. I like the success rate point of that argument. Yeah. That's right and that's really what I think it is, man. It's like you look at, I think it's like you think about just the generations of people that sound up to be rappers thinking they will be you and they don't make it and then like what skill set so that possibly left with it, right? Especially the one that suit like that really don't know you better because there are some street arts I've met. They're like they get the game, right? Like I understand how the back end of the industry work. I'm going to use my street background almost as like a pawn to help me, right? I'm going to lean into it when I need to. I'm going to step out when I need to. That's that's a very few amount of arts I've done there. Most of the rappers are the thing like I want to do some hood shit and it's going to get me there and it's like no, it's not the case. You know what I'm saying? Maybe Paul, it's very smart to send it to you but most of you it's not going to happen. You're going down, you're going to jail, you're getting caught. You know what I'm saying? The music ain't going to pop like you think because we are also also I think a long, long, long way away from like immediately just popping this to the street anymore. I do think there was a time when it was like that. We're like you just let me go for a catchy beat use out here. You know what I'm saying? It's like, okay, open up. You talking hood shit, you know what I'm saying? There's a little there's a little white deal over here talking hood shit. I don't know who to believe. You know what I'm saying? So I'm just going to stay neutral and all of it into the go with my ear. You know what I'm saying? Like I think we've got we've gotten kind of faster there. I can't it's hard to tell whose stories are authentic and not anymore. Right? That's part of the problem. All right. I think I want to even clarify though before we leave this point, you talked about the success rate and music. Yeah. What about the success rate and street rap specifically and then everything that that comes with on top of it. Right. So you're talking about trying to pursue a music career is very hard to do you. The odds are very low. They're not in your favor and then you're acting, acting, adding real world danger to it by being that type of artist and increasing the cost to do it. Not just lifestyle style. Well, no, not just life wise but lifestyle wise because the assurance and then events and venues not wanting to take care of you security all these extra things that come with it. And again, I'm not even necessarily talking about who should do it, who shouldn't do it. I'm gonna get to that. Right? Like but I'm just talking about again popularizing that as a route in general when we could be pushing people in a different direction. That's my my first thing that I really think about based on what you said. But overall this question and this thought is like one of the legitimately frustrating things about being black and loving being black and loving black culture is the way that street music has overtaken black culture to the point that in many ways they're synonymous in ways that it shouldn't be. Like it shouldn't be this motherfucker that's from the suburbs who knows as much as he knows about the rules of the street and then he's so worried about all of the moving in a street way when he knows nothing about it. He's not living that lifestyle. Why the fuck do you want to go to the like a voyeur on vacation just to see what niggas are doing there? Right? Like why are you acting like you relate to this stuff in a way that you do not? I love the art artistry. I love the fact that people can come up out of it. I understand people who are in it like doing what they got to do to get out of it. But one like we all remember the goal should be to get out. Right? Like that's just the goal. Like and when I came up you know I got my family from backgrounds like in many ways first generation on both sides really second generation on one side like that's cool like outside of the hood. Right? Now of course that means you still got plenty of other family that are and you are in and out of it moving around it. But from my purview and the people around the goal was to get out. Right? Not to have to stay in there. Now it's just like fun and games for people and sometimes I get like even personally I don't want to say offended you know what I mean? But it's just like I get turned off whereas it's like why are you acting like this when this isn't having nothing to do with your background? Like the parents, the lifestyle I got I like all right so I went to like some people won't know what all these areas are and all that stuff means. But I spawned a cater Camero Eastwick was where we live first and so this is South the Cab. My dad's from Newark, New Jersey. Right? Which kind of like you want to compare to any side of Atlanta was way way way worse. Right? But you know there is some reputation that comes with the South the Cab area. Cleveland Avenue on the west side is where I went to school. That was my grandma's side of things and then I spent a lot of time with Campbell and Green with Briar. Then I had these weird areas in like like the country and then going to school on like the north side. Yeah it was I can go like a lot deeper like yeah yeah it was a lot of shit going on right like when parents got divorced moved to Riverdale before I saw Riverdale not be hood and then turn into hood when I first moved there because that was why my mom like we moved to this other way because you're like oh that's getting whatever but it like so like having all these experiences gave me a perspective like fatigue but I say all that just to then say when I moved to when I started going to school on north side right I would have all these people like try to act so hard right and and portray all these things and it was weird because I look you read like the first thing I was like wait what y'all need to got two parents you know I mean like very like unfortunate way to be looking at things as a kid but I'm like y'all got nothing to complain about y'all living good right but then you see like oh man they living in big houses some of them not even that big that I'm ordering to see but but like in no way did they leave like dentists and doctors and all that type of shit were like their parents right and that's just so I'm like this doesn't make sense y'all are from over here y'all acting like this y'all aren't the people that I that go to my home school you know I'm saying and you know I was never somebody soft or anything like that but I'm also was never somebody like I'm gonna do all this extra to portray something like now you don't you don't want to mess with me I'm gonna handle myself again because of what I grew up around I'm very equipped well equipped to handle myself but I'm not about to walk around acting like I don't know like I'm some nigga on the corner or like a drug lord or something and that's how these niggas will act right so we when you see that impact that's when I look at like a massive curse on the community because you have all these people outside of it's like is it better for them to not even know about like that's how shit goes because they wouldn't act like that unless they know about it that's the marketing of it all you know what I mean like ah like we we fucking we uh we celebrate it that's what I am like but like buddy say maybe you said it would be in the club you know like basically all having a good time to the music but somebody else is actually living that experience and us celebrating it makes it seem like something that will that's worth accomplishing you know what I mean and I'm not saying like some of the things that get mentioned in these songs aren't like a celebration for the person who's doing it but when you celebrate it the way society psychology and incentives work if we celebrate in this shit somebody's gonna want to become because they see it being hell hell high just point blank and when we add like it's not hip-hop did not create like like it's not one of the first time black people started doing drugs or you know what I mean there's first time black on black and violence and and create uh like existed or anything like that so let's make that clear but when you again market that energy it does expand you know what I mean like it's different at r&b and somebody's other like we just talked about this talking about the international takeover like r&b the love and all that side kind of left and then afro beats came in you know what I mean and it was other shit coming in yeah I think it was was crazy about it too I thought it was more that I thought about it would be a little mabo shit whenever kind of gonna borrow hey bruh see we that that didn't come out because the audio messed up we so they didn't know the conversation we had about that but I wasn't with it yes we had a deep dive about mabo and I thought about it to your point why like people are gonna hear hear see it here get celebrated eventually somebody's gonna want to grow up and be it now the interesting thing about street music I think used to be the argument and I kind of tweak it for the day but used to be the argument of like they didn't talk about those songs right they were talking about all the fun parts of being in the hood and not the bad part that huh yeah which I don't ever really think that's true what I think is was true and it's still true is that the fun part makes it to the hit song was making it to the radio the sad part so I'll make it off the b-side you know because nobody want to be sad that's my point and you said so you're talking about thinking about all the I don't know how old them are we're probably like 17 so thinking about all the who would have been popping when he was like eight nine well it'd have been like nine years ago who would have been a pop and speed rapper in in 2014 like Wayne or something you know that Wayne or what I don't even consider Wayne a street rapper I mean the closer maybe early Wayne almost but even then like man yeah let's say a little bit about why do you probably why do you like or something calling I don't even like pop yeah that's the closest yeah there we go there we go breaking the kids are going about why does he young though hearing the fun parts about it hearing about all the bitches they fuck I'll say they may get the money you made and then they don't go listen to the b-side about family struggling you know what I'm saying family members on hard drugs get dying or almost dying everybody they they skip those parts you know what I'm saying yeah and that's the that is the the scary and beautiful thing about music sometimes we have music how the powers of our men desire the most fuck felt shit in the world brother that's right art does hooty yeah yeah but it can our men desire the most fuck felt shit in the world or make a bombing look like like a field of David and uses you know what I'm saying like crazy and then see your point it's like you don't really get to see the impact and who fell for that oh if you don't fly decades later and then you watching you know you watching like little Marvel was coming out of your life damn damn this is what we did you know what I'm saying right back to school I saw that shit I saw niggas turn and change directions and become a character and I saw some people break that character and get on a right path and there's some people who we look at their life now it went too far and again again the ones that was a clear character from I'm not talking about somebody who came from a certain place move a certain way cool right but like I saw like as I had to actively you know say hey no I'm going to opt out of things these I'm talking about there are some guys who are like they not even have any kind of influence I'm going to go find the influence and opt into that world and like you said you can see the okidote it's just like damn bruh yeah I remember thinking I used to have this job while I used to work at Ryderama in the little fire point and belling that out but I used to work with this that was a time when I first started working out that was this kid working out he was doing my dope man but he was a kid when I saw that 15, 16 bruh I was I fought with him so heavy because he was I had never seen some way I could have made as much money to be he had the job where he was making there's so much that I was making and he had like a side gig going what was that with that and he finally like thank you for nothing about being 15, 16 making like four to six and bands a month in the band like you know what I'm saying it was a great money of the 16 dope and the suburban in the key if I'm what I could tell you know what I'm saying well I'm watching him grow up and I'm watching him kind of like growing to run I always remember this one day we were just like working and this is when I just started getting into the music so I mean he was like man Decorate if you ever need me to knock the neck off I'll do a break 1500 and I was like what he's like yeah if you're like I know you're in the music shit and usually get sticky you know what I'm saying if you ever need my knocks on my head I'll do a break 1500 and I was like bruh that's so sad bruh like you know what I'm saying bruh you would throw your life away from me for $1,500 bruh I said that's a terrible deal because if I had money for it needed I would definitely take it I would throw your life away for this stupid you know I was like nothing but you have to value yourself more if $15 at least hit me with 30 bands bruh for your life you know what I'm saying um and but it was I always think about the conversation because that's the people who want to click bruh I was like man people are getting the romantic style version of this without realizing the cause of what they're giving up in exchange to live life bruh then we just like oh this just sound cool my homie in music $15 and I knocked my out and it's like that's how I got the money to the fucking $15 bruh bruh it's like that's nothing you know what I'm saying like but it's that's that's that's that's one we could pay bruh like I could I could throw your whole life away but one take shot you know what I'm saying put some some petty shit and so they all go to parts of it that I I can't say don't get communicated now because if I listen to a lot of street artists like they do that like I think our modern street artists are better than the street artists with the olds like you know what I'm saying they talk about it in the letter all the way they documented a little bit more and talk about it boy a bit more realistically I think not all of them but I think the ones that we respect you know I always say in the mid to later 2000s or whatever yeah better than those yeah for sure the early 2000s that was still in that like that's the character I can milk it I mean it's still it's still hard like it's still like them well no I'm saying like the ones now probably is more apparent but 2000s to like I don't know the exact year somewhere in the 2000s that's when it really became a thing to be like the fake character and that's when they started exploiting it in the 90s and like 80s like there was still a lot of people like it's just seeing the opportunity I'm a I'm actually living that and then rising not to say there was nobody who was faking in there but like it was because we still hear all the stories where they were actually doing all the stupid shit and thinking now like confused like oh man wait I can't just like jack up this music executive like that's just how we handle so like now it's a different world of how you handle things on this side of fans like this is a clip on youtube bro well not yeah well I'm sure it's on youtube I saw somewhere iced tea talked about he didn't know you could fake it yeah he was like yeah like that this album cover like that was my that was that was my car that was my like all it was my because I didn't know faking it was an option so there was the time that that was that but then once something becomes successful we know people going again incentivize because it's being celebrated or there's monetary incentive to do it like so it had to get popularized first and then that's why I feel like it or the two thousands is when it started to get violated yeah and I was out there remembering my grandma told me that man she said all like the reason we don't really see who it make is amazing or it's because all the hood make it with an R&B singer yes yeah like bro bro oh my god it was so it was one guy and he was he was one of them dudes that I used to work with and um he was a lot older to me I think his name was G if I remember correct from Chicago and yeah he was and been you know I was probably 20 at the time he had been like he got a prison probably like in his 40s he was there for like 20 30 years something like that right and and then he was talking about like his song back in the day and like prom and all this other shit and it just be all kind of music that you know to date like you wouldn't associate with a hood nigga but all they had were those type of songs now right today the hood people dudes a lot of them don't even want to be caught listening to like certain type of like r&b and love music or whatever where it's like now back then but they were all listening to the same shit bruh and yeah and like you said it could be the actual r&b singer who's gonna like beat your ass so you you can't tell the difference but that was good in one way because you don't need to see that side of me you know you get that side of me if you if you cause it to come out if it's in that like you know my dad you know bless his heart like I said he's the one who who got out for the family but he still has a very much so I didn't overreact I gave you you know it was an equal opposite reaction you know what I mean you think I'm tripping no I did what was what was a fair response to what you did right and you know his version of a fair response just happens to be something that many people wouldn't consider a fair response you know what I'm saying like that yeah like you said your grandma like but she spot on like because that's because I never thought of it in the context of this conversation it would just always be like funny when you be like damn brother like he's this is the same dude who moved like that so we got there I was like man like y'all I was like that's something fair about something y'all generation even have these type of artists she's like yes we did that just with the iron reason and so like yeah which was her point because we was talking about something similar to this kind of her point was that like at least our artists have the quorum to hide it you know what I'm saying yeah ours is like take a right how about it bruh because there were more cold and respect and then of how you want the community to represent itself you know what I'm saying that's like when I spoke in language like hey man we in a bad negative light right now man we gotta we gotta hold it together for the the race PR and but there's no race PR right now no it's not that shit that shit is wild it's running wild and it's a lot of oaky dope going on I feel like we fell for quite a bit of oaky dope and funny you said when you talk about the oaky dope in the future I think a huge oaky dope that is going to be experienced unfortunately men and women of many and all races this red pill blue pill shit is hardcore managed for your hardcore on the other side and these kids and these male female they gonna grow up and they gonna realize how bullshit a lot of it was man like hey but you know again some of these guys are playing characters but I'm gonna say all this shit cause the kids or love are going on like they fall in love with it I give you calling all girls bitches or like and I don't even say that generalization the deeper part of the fear tactics of how they say build these relationships and how things go and but these and now we had a point like like there's always been conflict between men and women right misunderstanding miscommunication frustration but but these people motherfucking hate each other for real like I've never heard dudes like hate women so much that's gonna be an interesting oaky dope conversation that goes back to the marketing and branding and how people just take any of these conversations you know and what it looks like I think that's a good place to end this episode I'm Fred M. H. Shine I'm Cory are we out?