 On today's episode we interviewed an artist who's indie and living completely off of the music. It's dope, but the crazy part about it, he's had a 20 year journey to this point. He's been signed to Dame Dash at one point. That's a crazy story. He actually lost one of his earlier record deals or ended that situation and had to become a battle rapper, go back to working regularly and did it successfully by the way and then signed to a basketball player. I mean, it's so much, so many, so many pieces of a game that he had, but at the end of the day, he's successful doing the thing that he loves, music. Check out this episode. What's up? What's up? What's up? I'm Brent man, Sean. And I'm Corey. And we are back with No Labels Necessary podcast. You can catch us everywhere, YouTube, Spotify, wherever you stream your podcasts here at the intersection of creativity and currency. And today, man, we got a guest for y'all. I'm truly excited, like no cap for this conversation because artists, I feel like y'all need this. This is, to me, going to be a story about the journey. And a lot of great advice on the way, man. Like you have a real story to speak on. And if y'all don't know who I'm talking to, it's a rapper by the name of Lock Smith. This person has some bars. Boy, you got some bars, man. I was telling Corey, appreciate you having you on, man. Like, you got some, I was like, man, you know, there's a lot of conscious rappers out there. There's a lot of people who got, you know, bars, they barred them up. And that's cool. But if you listen to enough rap, you've heard a lot of stuff. You know what I'm saying? And you also don't want to hear every type all the time, but you are definitely somebody who had me re-engage and say, dang, bro, he kind of miss it over there. Yeah. I miss it over there. Like listening to the bars tied together the way you tying them together, man. He's nothing to sneeze at, man. You know, 300 K plus on Instagram for y'all who need those superficial stats, you know, over 100 K on Spotify, the good stuff. You got a level success, but I think the fact that you're moving indie and doing what you're doing is going to give a lot of game on how other people can move themselves. So, yeah, again, bro, thank you for hopping on. And I want to start here, bro. Like, how long have you been in the game so we can start to break down some of these errors and where you are now? Yeah. I mean, I would say professionally, like doing music, like actually getting money for music about like 20 years about that time. I used to be in a group and my first my group was called the Frontline. We started here in the Bay Area, Northern California. And we had a song that was on the radio that was real popular, a couple songs that got real popular on the West Coast. And we were like basically getting that club, that brown bag money in the club, you know, and we were getting a lot of radio play. We're performing at like bomb concerts, summer jam concerts here in the Bay Area, Northern California, and like Vegas and San Diego and stuff like that. But that was like the first iteration of my career. So I want to say that started in like 2003, 2004, around that time. Yeah. 20 years in a game. And of course, usually we said professionally too. Well, I wasn't making a living, but I was making money if that makes sense. That's what I'm saying, though, making your first money. Now, which means you were probably working on it and developing yourself before that. So that's already given us standpoint of age, because a lot of people have this conversation of, can you be too old, terrap, etc. And for context, we were talking before you are at the highest point in your career and your opinion, like in things are getting better year over year, you mind putting out your age for people who really care about that? Man, I'm 176 years old. There we go. I mean, you know, I look at it yet. I feel like this, man, this is what I tell people. I feel like there's going to be a point when hip hop, just like other genres of music where there's going to be an artist who's going to be like in their 40s, and they're going to be a new artist and they're going to blow up and take over the game. And then you look at somebody who's like Killer Mike, who I've known for a long time from the A, who just won his first, you know what I mean? Like Grammy as a solo artist and like one three Grammy. So yeah, it really hip hop is that it's been around for over 50 years now. And you've got grandfathers and great grandfathers and grandmothers listening to rap. So there's a, it's really a beautiful time as far as I'm concerned. You said you were signed to a label and then you know, with the group like 2004 or whatever, y'all left that situation or did y'all like, well, how did that situation end actually? Did y'all actually leave? Did it go bad? Yeah, we were, we released a regional album like straight out the trunk. We pressed up our own CDs in 2004 and we were putting it in mom and pop stores because, you know, at that time, you know, you couldn't get distributed in like Best Buy or like FYE or Tower Records in any of those places. Well, no, actually Tower Records, you could, but those main, those big chains, you couldn't get in those stores unless you had a major distributor or some type of distributor. And we were just like strictly like we pressed up however many, I think like two or 3000 CDs on our own pay for our own money generated our own barcode. And we drove, I literally drove them around and put them in stores. What happened was we created our own buzz in our area so strong that one of the major chains, the head, I believe her name is Violet Brown for those who may be familiar with her. She was like the head of like Tower Records or Warehouse Music, one of the main retail chains. And she called one of the distributors like, yo, what is this record? Like people are asking about it. We don't have it. So then she ended up calling me because I left my phone number with one of the guys that like and like Best Buy. And he called me, he was like, yo, like some ladies calling Violet Brown. She was like a big deal at that point in time. She was like on Eminem, like Eminem mentioned her in songs. I was like, yo, this is Violet Brown. And she was like, yo, what is this record? And then she ended up put us in contact with somebody from Penalty Records. And Penalty Records was an independent label, which was distributed to Warner Brothers at the time from New York. And they flew out to the Bay Area to see our show. And they saw how packed it was and how, you know, how lit we had it. And they signed us and we signed a deal and we re-released that album through them. We put another song, a couple other songs on there. We took some songs out and re-re-released it a year later. And that was our like, our national debut. In your opinion, why do labels do that? Is that strictly for ownership? Or is that because they're trying to rework your brand? What was the purpose in your situation? Well, I think they saw the potential like, hey, this could be something that we can make money off of that could possibly go nationwide. You know, at the end of the day, they want to make money, of course, you know, they're not just in it because like, hey, we want to give these young kids a chance. They're like, nah, we can make maybe this could be the next, I don't know what they thought we were, but you know, they saw the commercial appeal and one of the stipulations that they had for us is that they were like, hey, we're going to re-release this album. One is you have to take the samples off the album. So we had to take like four or five songs that had samples off. And then they also were like, we need another radio song because radio was very important back then. You know, this is like 2004, 2005. So they were like, we need another radio song to get this get this record going. So we went back with our producer and we came up with another one that was even bigger than the first one. So now we had two songs that were like in rotation at commercial radio. And this is before this is before the blog error, you know, this is before YouTube videos were even really a thing. It might have just been beginning. So radio was very important. So the fact that we had 40, 50 spans on the biggest, both of the biggest radio stations in Northern California and in Las Vegas, San Diego, Seattle, we were kind of like really popping on those stations. It was very lucrative for the labels to be like, oh, we get behind this. At least from our perspective, that they put some money, we can become global. We won't just be known in the Bay Area. And they're thinking like, okay, we can make some money if this, you know, this thing can really pop off. Because at that time, I think the South was really a region like Atlanta, Lil John, all that stuff was kind of popping. So the industry was kind of looking around, what's going to be the next region to pop, you know, oh, the Bay Area, these guys are they're independent out the trunk, just like what they're doing in the South. Let's go jump on this market. You know, so I kind of feel like that's what it was. Being from the independent out-of-trunk era, and one of the locations that I feel like it's still like truly independent bread to this day, like the Bay Area is just it's just crazy, like the DNA of how y'all move. How do you feel about that era versus today in terms of which one's more difficult? Because, you know, people say the stuff they say, but you actually exist and are having success in two different eras as an indie artist. So you're asking me, okay, which one's harder? I like this era better, because this era is way more accessible. Like, then it was like, I mean, it was way more overhead, like you had to just to get your song played. You had there were so many, so many more gatekeepers, so many more expenses, like you had to go to an actual studio and like spend money on all these overhead costs. It was, you know, it was more expensive. Now, like, I can do a mixtape, I can get original beats online, I can find people, I can send it off things to get mixed. Back then, it was very much you had to be in the studio. Like, I remember like, you know, just all those technical things of getting a song mixed, like you can do all that stuff easier now. You only way you can get your videos was to be on BET 106 in park or to be on MTV jams or MTV, like it was so much more difficult. That was the only way you got seen. But then, once YouTube and all these things start coming, it was like, oh, I can be successful in other ways, like everything, everything can be can exist without necessarily the gatekeepers being involved. So I feel like now it's much, it's a lot more than we do. But I rather deal with those problems than the problems of before where you had like the gatekeeping was so strong. Now, it's like gatekeeping still exists. But you can exist in a world where you don't necessarily have to deal with the gatekeepers if you don't want to, whereas back then you had to deal with them. It's crazy you said like the music video thing, because I never really thought about that. Like we always talk about how it's easier now in a different in some ways or whatever and distribution and now you can get your music out to people in different ways. But back then you could get your music heard, Andy, like maybe not on the same scale, but you could get it heard. But like a music video, like where were people watching it all? You really couldn't get that side of the creative off at all. I didn't think about that till you said that. That's crazy. It didn't exist. I mean, it was either, I mean, every place had their local video stations on their local channels. I'm sure Atlanta had one. New York, they had theirs, we had ours. But if you wanted to reach an audience, you would get your MP3 played or shared on different blog sites when that became a thing. But once the internet opened the game up, it just became just way easier. Then social media, like I remember when blogs stopped becoming a thing because, you know, then blogs became the gatekeepers, you know what I mean? And then you were trying to get on XXL.com, you're trying to get on Nile, right? You're trying to get on Smash, Worldstar, Hip Hop, like those things were like, that's the only way, that's the way people are going to discover my music. So then that's still, that was easier than radio, but it was still gatekeeping. But then when social media kind of like took over and then now your own channel becomes the place where people discover you, you know, if you can develop a following and use your skill set to whatever your skill set, you can now you can become your own gatekeeper to your fans or people who want to, who are interested in what you do. And for me personally, that works way better for what I do because just understanding my skill set and what I'm able to do is just like, I just need somewhere where people can find me. And I feel like I can develop a fan base. I've always kind of been like that. Let me take a quick second to say, if you're looking for a music distributor that cares about educating their artists so they can get in a better position, you should check out Too Loss because every single Monday, they have office hours where they bring on dope people in the industry to hop on calls, give artists insights on the future of the music industry and answer some of the questions they have going on in their personal careers. So if you aren't a user of Too Loss or just want to have a little bit more information about them, go to Too Loss on Instagram. That's T-O-O-L-O-S-T, Too Lost on Instagram and it'll take you to everything you need to see, inform you about the sessions and more. Back to this episode. Yeah. Now, it's dope to hear you say that out loud because we've talked about this before, right? Typically with, I'm going to say typically, but with like other older artists that we've talked to before and sometimes even ones we see just online. I always think like, man, like y'all went through the things y'all went through in the music industry during that time, I would think would have you jumping for joy at current music industry and where the world is today, right? Because I know just from different legends and things, one of the big points I hear get brought up from artists from those eras was the lack of accessibility, right? Like I was locked, like I'm really locked away from the people if I don't have the money to hit these certain things or have the access to these people, we hear lots of horror stories of people. It's like, oh man, I lived in Michigan. If only I could have got the LA, maybe my career would have went differently. And so it always, like newer younger artists that don't have contacts that said, like it's different. I'm like, all right, you don't really know anybody. But for artists that live through those eras, I am always confused on why the attitude isn't always positive. And I think you are a great example of someone that embraced it and moved into it. But yeah, I was just always been baffled by artists from different eras who are like, nah, like I kind of missed that. You know what I think it is? I think it's because they limit their vision of success to that era. So they're like, yo, I had success in this era. I had success with the blogs, bring the blogs back because I had success. They don't want to see me. I've always had like, I've had success. I was on the blogs and, you know, these type of things. But I always felt like, yo, I want to grow. How can I get more? So every new vehicle that comes along, I'm like, oh, let me jump, you know, not let me just jump on the way, but let me you let me find a way to utilize whatever that platform is. When blogs came along, I was like, oh, okay, this is what we are now. Let me use my skill set to utilize that platform. Okay, we're not using that no more. Now we're on Facebook. Now we're on Instagram. Like, let me utilize that. Like, you have to be willing to do that if you want to grow. But a lot of cats and a lot of artists who've been around for a while, if they were like, successful in the early 2000s, then they just kind of like, hey, this is what it is. Y'all need to, you know, come, let's do it the early 2000s ways. Like, nah, like things evolve and things change and you have to be willing to utilize it, you know? Yeah. Was that a mentality you had coming into the social media era or did you have to go through things and develop the mentality? That's a good question. I think it developed over time. Like, at first, I didn't really, I didn't really know what to make of it. Like, obviously, we had like MySpace and stuff like that, right? I remember being on MySpace. And because I had a following from the previous things that I had done, like I said, being on the radio, doing these big concerts, and also come from the battle rap world. So I had a little bit of a head start in that sense, because people were like, oh yeah, that's Locksmith. He battle raps. Or oh, he has that song that's on the radio. Cool. Let me go check him out on MySpace now. You know, so I already kind of had that. So it wasn't like I was fighting to get followers. It was like, oh, let me start on MySpace. Oh, okay, now I got 15, 20,000, you know what I mean? Friends on MySpace. Cool. But then when things kind of moved over to getting into like Facebook and then Instagram and TikTok now and YouTube, like I remember one of the biggest videos that I had when I first started doing solo work in 2009, it had like millions of views. And it wasn't even on my own YouTube page, because I didn't even have a YouTube yet. You know what I mean? Because I didn't really understand the importance of it. Because I was like, yo, I want to get my video on BET, you know, which I eventually did get play on like MTV Jams and BET. But I didn't understand the importance of a YouTube until maybe like two years later until like 2011. And then I was like, oh, I got to set up my YouTube. I got to get this going now, because this is where people are going to watch music videos. You know, they'll see something on TV and they'll be like, oh, let me go find it on YouTube. Then when you go on YouTube, you find all these other artists who exist outside of that. So then that's when I was like, okay, I got to set this up. So I wasn't closed off to it. I just didn't. Yeah, I just was ignorant to it until I found myself like knee deep in it. You know, you mentioned a battle rap era. So, you know, the label situation ended or the group situation ended. What did that like feel like first and foremost when that ended? Was it like an intentional hey, I want to move on to grow? Or was it like kind of a negative ending that you had to recover from mentality wise? What was that like leaving a group in a label situation? It was just hella weird. It was just uncertainty. Like I was like, man, what am I going to do? Like we used to get played. That's a weird feeling to go from getting played on the radio on commercial radio, which was everything at the time, you know, like, like what's the what's the radio station in Atlanta? The major one? Like is it V103 or whatever? It's like imagine getting played 50 times a week on V103. You know what I mean? Both are with another other station and you're performing at the biggest concerts and it's and you got that run for like five years, four years. And then all of a sudden they just stop and you just like, damn, like what am I going to do? Like how am I going to re I still want to do music, but my songs aren't getting played. The game has changed. Like what do I do? You know, so I was kind of like confused. I didn't know what to do. So what I did, I was just like, well, I know I know I have faith in my skills. I have faith in myself as a musician and as an artist. What do I need to do? And then that's when I kind of like start really delving into YouTube and the whole battle rap world. And I was just like, oh, this is kind of interesting. This is a way for me to express myself artistically. But it's very popular online. Like if you look on WorldStar, I'm talking about the original WorldStar hip hop before it was a YouTube page or Instagram page. It was an actual website, right? Where they had like their own, you know, what do you call it their own kind of YouTube within WorldStar hip hop, you know, and they were getting millions of views. And I was just like, and people were blowing up on that. They would be like, walk down the street like, oh, I saw you on WorldStar, you know? So I was like, okay, I can do this battle rap shit. Like I know I know I know how to do it. It's just changed a little bit. Let me like hone my skills to adapt to this new way. So then I started participating in the battle rap world because of the name that I had already developed. It was like, oh, yeah, come into this. And I started doing well. So then I knew that that would bring me recognition as locksmith, the solo artist. Me like, Oh, this guy is, this guy is dope. Let me see what else he got. Music was always my main priority, but I just used battle rap as a tool. So I was like, okay, this is my way of getting people to notice me, to understand my brand. And then once I've had that, I'm going to show him my music. And that's kind of how I transitioned from that era to the next era, so to speak. Were you able to be in music full time while you were doing battle rap? Or did you have to go from a what did that look like, you know, even just from an ego standpoint, you know, you know, I never looked at it. I never looked at it like that, man, you know, always looked at it as I'm using my job that I was working like, I mean, I was a, I'm a college graduate, you know what I mean? So I went to college. While I was in college, I started mentoring and tutoring youth in my in my city. So while I'm doing that, I'm also pursuing music. And that's when all this stuff is going on. So it's not like, I never had a job that I felt like super embarrassed about, you know what I'm saying? It was like the job was like working with kids and people like, oh, yo, what's up, like, oh, you know, they work with the kids, you know, like, so it was like all kind of love in that sense. But then what happened was when I started really like going hard full time with the music, like my time was being pulled away from my, my part-time job so much. And they were offering like a full time position like, hey, we can offer you like good money, you know what I mean? Like making like six figures damn near, you know, like doing this job. And I'm like, nah, I still want to do music because I'm flying, you know, I'm flying New York. I'm flying all these different places. Every chance that I get, I'm using all my sick time vacation time to eventually be like, Hey, look, we can't pay you no more. Either you're going to be here or you're not. And I was just like, it was a very tough decision. But I remember having a conversation with my pops. I yo pops. I mean, I was living on my own. I wouldn't live in a home or anything like that. But I was like, Hey, I don't know how this is going go. But pops was like, yo, I believe in you. I think you can do this. You know, it was important for that my father believed in me, you know, just the fact that not him giving me money or anything, but him just saying like, look, if things go bad, I understand we can work it out, you know, but give it a try. So I, um, I stepped away from the, from the, from the part-time job and went full steam with the music. And I went on unemployment, which is for the first time, you know, I went on unemployment. I was like, all right, I'm gonna get this unemployment check. This will last me a year. You know what I mean? And filling out the fake unemployment, like, yeah, I'm looking for jobs, knowing I'm just in the studio, you know what I mean? But, and then surely I want to say halfway through the unemployment, anybody who's been on unemployment in California, I don't know about the rest of these rest of the states, but halfway through, they cut your, they cut your unemployment. So you getting like a good check for the first six months, you're like, Oh, shit, I can, I can make this work halfway through. It goes down. So now you know, you figuring out a way to live off of half of the amount of half of what you was already getting. And I'm like, wow, how am I going to do this? So it was a struggle, but literally on the last month before I was going to have to figure out to get a job, I ended up getting a phone call from someone who knew someone who was like, Hey, they're interested in signing you. They have a production company. I talked to them. They actually end up giving me an advance. And I was just like, Oh, this is cool, which wasn't even that much, because I had to get a lawyer to look over the contract. So I had to give them a portion, but it was enough to me to be like, okay, you know what? This is a sign for me to keep going. And then it, you know, things kind of snowballed after that. And how many times did you need a sign to keep going? I mean, you know what? It was tough. It was tough. I mean, I always would be like, what, you know, how am I going to figure this out? But every time I, you know, when things got rough, something, another opportunity opened, opened the door. I was like, okay, let me just walk through this door and let me go after it. So yeah. And it's still like that. Even though that I'm making way more money now and I'm able to finance and take care of things and, but it's still, you'd be like, Oh man, like what, what seems like a lot of money. One year doesn't seem like a lot of money the next year. Cause you're constantly growing. You're like, Oh, I made a hundred thousand. And then the next year you're like, yo, a hundred thousand is not going to do it. Like I need this much. So you're constantly, but then you look and be like, yo, three years ago, I was dreaming of wishing I can make a hundred thousand, you know? So you kind of have to put things in perspective. Before we get too far from the battle rap era. What do you think? What is the difference between being a battle rapper and a traditional artist making songs? And why is that gap so difficult for people to cross on certain, on certain sides? Well, there it is two totally different skill sets. You know, the way you approach a battle and the way you approach songwriting is completely different. Your brain has to be wired differently. You know, like this is something I had to understand too. So I started off, I stumbled into battle rapping. I didn't know that I was even good at that. I wanted to be a rapper. You know, I was listening to Jay-Z and Eminem and Nas. And I was like, oh, I want to be good like those guys. I later found out that, oh, they battle rap too in the streets. So at that time, when you're talking about the late nineties, early 2000s, proving yourself on the streets was a part of your initiation into being a hip hop artist, you know, being a rapper. Like you had to, and that was the only way, like I said, this is before social media. So the only way to get a rep or for people to know about you, you had to go out and prove it in the streets. You know, you had to rap at talent shows. You had to rap at showcases. You had to battle people in front of these different places. And then people would be like, oh, yo, that's that guy locks me. Did you hear about what he did? And then you developed a reputation and you actually would get booked for shows and people would hit you up and other artists would network with you. And that's how you developed your reputation. So that was just part of the thing. You had to be able to do that. So that's how I developed that skill. But my main focus was always I wanted to be an artist. But battle rapping, once the internet and once it became, I want to say around that eight mile era, we know when Eminem did like eight mile and everybody was like, oh, battle rapping and it became popular. So I was like, okay, I'll participate in this. And I got all this notoriety from it. But I always knew that songwriting and battle rapping are two different things. One of the biggest things is the difference is when you go to perform a show, it's much different than when you go to perform a battle. When you go to perform a battle, everything is about your opponent, but it's also about the crowd. And the crowd has to react to every bar every punchline and you're looking for that validation in order to destroy your opponent. In a show, the energy is different. People are coming to see you, you know, you're entertaining them in a different way. It's not the same. So that's why sometimes battle rappers have a hard transition into doing a live show. And then sometimes artists, established artists who want to jump in the battle ring, they don't know how to transition because it's two totally different fields of a crowd. There are some things that overlap. There are things like anybody who sees me perform. Like I've never had a problem performing in front of people who don't, who are not aware of my music. I have a fearlessness about me because I come from that battle world. I know how what it is like to step in front of a crowd and everybody's like, their initial opinion is like, nah, you whack, you know, and you have to win them over with your delivery. So when I step in front of a crowd, it doesn't matter if I'm opening up for another artist or I'm on tour with another artist. If people aren't familiar with me, I'm like, this is great. I get to win over these people. They don't know my songs, but by the end of the night, they're going to be coming up to me like, yo, so I can take that skill set. But at the same time, there you have to have a relax in this to you because it's not the same as a battle that I feel sometimes battle rappers, I see that as like, oh, they don't really understand that this is not a battle. This is a live performance. It's two totally different things. So those are the differences that I've noticed. Yeah, it's it's cool though, man. You know, I don't think I've ever said this out loud, but I I kind of look at battle rap is like the improv of the rap world, right? You know, like a lot of actors will go take improv classes to know how to better move in certain situations. And it's like, that is what that is what that is the improv of the rap scene, right? Because there you're forced to learn how to deal with real time crowd reactions, you're forced to to deal with, you know, I mean, your opponent, right? You don't know what your opponent is going to do or going to say. So you're forced to react to those situations and you have to be like a quicker thinker than you may have to necessarily be in as a traditional music artist. But if you're smart, you can take a lot of those things over to the music space. And now you have an edge because you're taking the performance aspect of battle rap, which you know, I've always kind of said this is like, however you feel about battle rappers in their music, it's hard to dispute that on average, they're like better performers than the usual like average artists, right? So it's like, you could look and go like, Hey, they may not be all the greatest of songwriters, but most of them are really good performers. What can I learn from this space that I can now bring back to the music space where I now can dominate because those people have never had that type of experience and they don't know how to move in these situations like I like I've learned to move from being over there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Now that's that's I mirror those sentiments exactly. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Because you said the improv because I was thinking something similar to from the comedian side is like the comedian, especially on a come up, they have to squeeze as many laughs per second. But then if you're Dave Chappelle, you know, we're coming to see you and we're not just coming to see you as a comedian. That's dope. We're coming to see you as Dave Chappelle. You can just get up there and tell a story. It's not even funny. He'll milk that thing. You know, you don't laugh until five minutes in because he's taking you on this whole journey, but we're here for it. We're waiting for it. I'll give you I'll give you another example, not to cut you off, but it's it's even a difference between like like when I do my own tours, when I go out, like I just did my own tour. I did like a 19 city tour in October and now I'm getting ready to go out as a supporting artist on another tour. When I do my headlining tour, it's a different type of energy than when I do when I'm doing an opening set. Like I structure my songs differently. I structure, you know, obviously it's going to be more condensed. It's a different, it's just a different mentality that you have to have. Like if it's my headliner tour, I can come out my my songs. I'm going to structure them differently because everybody know we're coming to see you. You're the headliner. But when you're opening up for someone, you only got 20 to 30 minutes. You have to pack it in a certain way and you have to perform in a certain way to grab people's attention straight off the bat and keep it moving. So it's different for sure. That's crazy. That's crazy. Man, so battle rap era. And then I mean, I think you when you mapped it out, you said it was probably, I guess, maybe maybe a decade almost between not being signed, having this error in between and starting to get into YouTube. And then you said you signed to Dame Dash and like 2011 or 13 or something like that. Yeah, 2011. Yeah. So I end up. So that was the beginning of like, when you start seeing a lot of people, it wasn't Instagram yet, but it was definitely YouTube and it was definitely Twitter. And it was definitely Facebook. So I end up. So this was the time when Dame Dash was doing DD172. This was when he had Currency, Jay Electronica, Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller, all of them. I don't know if y'all remember that he had like this. He had like this art gallery. It was like a three four story art gallery in Tribeca, New York. And they were shooting all these videos with most death and currency. And I was like, Oh, that's super dope. And the producer ski beats who produced Jay Z's first album, dead presidents and all that stuff. He was the producer. And I did a freestyle. I just posted it on Twitter and I mentioned him. And he was like, Yo, come to New York. And I was just like, he was like, let's work together, but you got to come to New York. I was like, what? I had never been to New York. I mean, I went to like on vacation one time before. This is my first time going in this capacity, like on my own. And I was just like, all right, I'm gonna go to New York. And I remember just getting a buddy pass flying out to New York and staying at my boys crib and then taking the train. He stayed in Upstate taking the train down and getting in the studio with ski beats. And we just, I was so excited and so eager to rap with them. And he just heard the bars. He was like, Yo, this is crazy. We end up recording like a whole album. I want to say we recorded five songs that first night we shot a video and Dan was very early on the content creating. So he had a thing called, he was working with creative control. You know, that's the guys Cootie and Chique who had did the, they were shooting all Kanye's early videos. Cootie, he was working with creative control and creative control was like handling his content. And I remember we shot a video, we recorded a song that night and we went out in Brooklyn on the bridge and we recorded a video for it. And it was up on MTV jams like the next week. And it was all over and people back home like, Yo, like you blowing up and all these people were coming to Dame dash is our gallery inquiring about me inquiring about everything he was doing, obviously. And it was like this really great feeling of like independent like control. And I was like, Yo, this is it. And I was just watching how easily they were shooting content and that just opened my mind like, oh, I can just get a camera and shoot something and we can edit it and it just opened my mind. So once I started coming to New York and networking at the same time I'm working on this album with ski beats and Dame dash. I'm also networking with other videographers and producers and engineers in New York. So I'm like recording two different projects at the same time I'm recording an album with him, but I'm also working on my own stuff completely independent because now I see like, Oh, I can shoot my own music videos, you know. So that kind of like open my eyes to this whole like shooting my own content, putting out my own mixtapes, I don't have to wait, you know, I don't need to be quote unquote signed. What was it like doing business with Dame dash somebody who would achieve what he achieves and it's very opinionated that nobody's ever asked me that question. I talk about it. Dame never did anything directly harmful to me, but I did see things in the way that he moved that I don't think was good for business. He moved in a way where now that I'm been more established in business and I see the way things work. I can understand why certain things have not worked out for Dame, but based on the way he says things, that's the way he wanted it. And I kind of believe him because when there's certain things I remember certain deals and things that he had on the table, he basically just sabotage them. Maybe it was on purpose. He didn't want to do the deals, but there were a lot of things that I thought was going to be beneficial for me and for the collective because there were several artists that were signed. We're not signed, but we partnered with Dame and it all just kind of crumbled. It all kind of fell apart. And it was because of, from my perspective, certain things that he was doing. I was just like, oh man, this is not going to work out well. So eventually my project was able to come out. I didn't sweat it that much because I was like, look, I'm doing an album with ski beats, who's a legendary producer. We have all these music videos that were shot. Ski took a real liking to me and what I was doing. So he was pushing for me like, yo, like his dope, like his dope, let's do this. And I was very enthusiastic about what I was doing. So I was, I was taking the songs that we were doing. I was shooting my own content, aside from what they were doing. So I was like, I have all this content. I'm just going to flood you too. Cause I saw this is what was the way that was going. So when the deal fell apart, I was, or when his situation DD172 obviously doesn't exist anymore, when it crumbled, I already was set up for my next thing. I was like, I'm not tripping. I'm moving on. And which is what I did. But yeah, I wouldn't, I looked at it as a learning experience and nothing like negative came from me other than it was just kind of disappointing how things, how things went. I know you said that just overall getting to see a lot of the way he moved though gave you a different vantage point of independent. Was there anything beyond that specifically that you took away, maybe it was something he said, or, you know, just an additional insight that you were like, okay, like this is how I need to move from here on out, or this is just the most impactful piece of advice I got from this situation. I learned what not to do. I learned what not to do. I saw what he was doing. I was like, nah, that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to do this. But Dame, you know, Dame, he's successful from the things he's created. Nobody can take that away from him. I never speak badly about it. It's just not the way I want to move and the way I want to do things, you know. But I just remember like going to his, the studio where we all went, and I just go there one day and it's just boarded up. I'm like, what's going on? Like, what happened? It's just four clothes. It's like shut down. I'm like, what's happened? Then we go to Brooklyn and we had to move over there. And then that was like, then that ends up getting shut down. I'm like, why is everything getting shut down? And then business meetings and things. I'm just like seeing business executives pissed off like, yo, it's just his brash way of doing things. Obviously, it rubs people the wrong way. And even some of the people who are working for them, they had a horrible taste in their mouth after dealing with him. And I had to smooth those relationships over because they had things that I needed. I'm like, yo, you guys shot my videos. These are my videos. I know you hate Dane, but can I still work something out so I can put and I ended up working those things out and it was all good. But those were the things that I just didn't feel like it worked out the best with his company. I mean, you moved on from that. I think you got signed one more time. Right. You said so that last situation, obviously you did that and then you left that situation. I guess question number one, I guess, because that you got signed. I think that last time you said about in 2015, something like that, you went through being signed once, where you were indie, were signed once. This other era in between signed with Dane or it was just a project. You weren't officially signed. You were still indie. So at the end of the road, not the complete end, but at that point, like you signed again. What made someone who had been independent for so long and already seen both sides sign at that point? You know, I don't think being signed to a label or signed. So I signed in 2013 or 20 year around 20 from 2013 to 2014. I signed a production deal. I signed with a production company, a 360 deal. Now people think, you know, 360 deals are terrible. It's the worst thing in the world, but I don't agree with that. I believe it just all depends on what your intent is and what you're trying to do. At that point in time, I had put out the album with Dane. I had released like two mixtapes and it garnered the attention of a professional basketball player, Amari Stottemire, who played for the New York Knicks. And Amari had a record label that he was like re-resurrecting or putting back out there. And he was like, hey, to a mutual friend, he was like, this guy locksmith, I would love for him to be the next, you know, the first artist off this new label. I had a talk with him, a great dude. We vibed. Obviously, you know, he's making hundreds of millions of dollars at this time playing for the New York Knicks. I'm staying up in the penthouse, you know, life is good. I'm like, yo, we about to get it, you know? He hires a firm to come in and basically as a consultant to help me put together a project. So the whole goal was to put together a project and mixtape, quote, unquote, because it was all original music, put together this project and develop enough buzz for locksmith to get him signed. So immediately beginning of 2013 or maybe it was the end of 2012, signed the contract. He brings in this team. We start putting together these songs. I go out to North Carolina, I'm working with Nightwonder. They put me on tour with Joe Button. So things are moving, you know, I'm like, okay, this is a great opportunity. We haven't even put out the mixtape yet. But I'm networking, I'm building with other artists. And it's great, you know, I'm learning things. I'm seeing things from a different perspective. And we actually do end up getting a deal on the table through Sony. Through Sony, yeah, through Sony. And I sit down and have a meeting with them. But a little bit of what happened was the reason why that situation has ended, because whenever you sign with like a basketball player or somebody who's not really in the business, they have their own stuff going on, you know what I mean? They're playing, if they get injured, you know, the energy around the whole camp is kind of like, oh, he's injured, or these things are happening, if they lose in the playoffs, you know, like it's a lot of different elements that are there. And when things are going good, it's great. But when things start going down, and this happened to be nobody knew it, but this was at the tail end of the Morris career, you know, so he ended up not even being in New York, I think getting traded and going somewhere else. And the relationship that I had with the production company, they were kind of like, I felt like the company that he was utilizing didn't really have my best interest at heart. I felt like they were just kind of doing what they were doing to utilize the situation to build relationships outside of what I was doing, you know, so I kind of recognized that. But I still had a deal on the table. And which is what our goal, but they weren't able to take the album that we had, because they were like, Oh, well, this album, we're gonna have to redo this whole album, because you got samples, because you know, we have like ninth wonder and all this stuff. So it's tons of samples on this album. You know what I mean? And so they were like, Okay, we're going to have to redo this album. And I was like, Well, this is going to be a completely different album. This is going to take a whole another process. So what happened was that contract expired. So like I said, every deal that you contract you do is cool, but you just have to know what you're getting in. So when I signed that deal, the deal was that we have a 360 deal for and that that deal is in place until you get signed. And then I obviously I still be signed to them or until the 18 months runs out, then I'm free to do whatever I wanted. So once the 18 months ran off, I was free to do whatever I wanted. Mind you, I'm still working on multiple albums. I'm doing his album that he's paying for, but I'm also working. I'm working my butt off and I'm recording more songs on my own. So I recorded another album on my own because I already already was preparing like if this thing doesn't go great, I'm still going to be able to continue doing what I'm doing and building more relationships with all the people that I meet along the way. So that was kind of how that how that went, you know? Yeah, I hear like an idea of constantly planning for the next move or figuring out how to make the best out of this situation while also figuring out if this situation doesn't work, where do I go? Because as you've talked about multiple situations, you've kind of thought about incentives. That's what it sounds like of the people involved, right? What people are focusing on. And you said that basically like, yo, these people probably don't, these people don't care about me. These people, they just want to work with Amari. And this is my way to work with Amari and then flip the relationships of working with Amari. That's what it sounds like. Because he got bread, you know, Amari has money, you know, he's paying all these people. Yeah. So you kind of touched on it, like one reason in terms of like where their life is focused. But whether it's a basketball player or people who are not in music in general, what are some more pros and cons of working with people who like are not like music industry people in general? Well, you know what? Back then, I didn't have as much knowledge as I have now. You know, obviously that was 10 years ago. So I was still very ignorant to a lot of things and how the music business was like, like now if I knew what I knew now, maybe I would have stayed in that deal because I would have known how to utilize it better. And a lot of artists, you know, are not big enough to say that like artists at the end of the day, we hold our own destiny in our hands. You know, the decisions that we make, when we decide to be stubborn about things or we decide to, you have to be able to deal with the consequences, whether whatever company that you're dealing with. And if I would have known the information that I have now, if I would have known back then that I could have probably finessed the situation and not in a bad way, but like massage it in a way where it made sense for everyone and I can make it work. But back then I was like, yo, they're doing this wrong. I'm out of here. Or, you know, like, and even Amari, like, he probably would have been like, at some point in time, he was just like, I don't want to deal with this stuff. I've already got my own stuff going on with my career. I'm gonna step back, you know, so I probably could have handled the situation in a different way, not to say that I regret it because I just still learned from it and I was able to come into what I'm coming and he actually reached back out to me not that long ago. I was like, yo, I love what you're doing. I see any help you need. Let's get it cracking, you know, so, but yeah, I just feel like, you know, the information I could have, you have to understand like your destiny is in your own hands as an artist. Like there's, it's no labels fall. It's no streaming platforms fall. It's like, you have to make it work. Like, that's the difference between you not being successful and being successful. You have to take the initiative on yourself. Like nobody else is going to do it for you, but you whether that's being too aggressive or being too laid back, you have to learn and figure that out within your journey, you know. And then now you're in this era where you say that, I mean, this is your most successful era as an individual, you're independent now, things are getting better year to year. You got 300k plus on IG and things are moving. I mean, you were on sway, did a crazy, crazy freestyle and sway gave you the highest regards. And I mean, of course you got content going crazy in general. Like what's contributing to this space? Oh, by the way, and again, this is a reference because I know so many artists watch this, right? You are living off of the music as an indie, right? Like after this 20 year journey, you are living off of it and this is your space full time. So yeah, man, like what has contributed to that? Let's just start there and then we'll get to some of the specific tactics you might be using. But oh, by the way, I missed this 400k on Facebook, which I want to talk about, you know, as well, which I want to talk about as well. I think the main contributing factor is just being open and being willing to learn, you know, not just being like, oh, just the way it was done. And it's got to stay this way, like, you know, watching like watching the transition go from the blog era to social media or going to YouTube and from YouTube to Facebook and from Facebook to Instagram and then eventually to TikTok, you have to be open to it and understand it and not be so like closed off because they are certain times. Like I'll give you a perfect example. From about 2014 to about 2019, things was going great for me. Like, I mean, the amount of growth between every six months was like, it was a lot, at least it seemed like that at the time. From doing one or two shows to doing like by the time 2019 came, I was doing like 200 shows a year, you know, I'm releasing an album every year. My YouTube videos are getting minimum like 200, 300,000 views. Some of them are hitting a million, some of them hitting seven, you know, so I'm like, okay, the checks coming from streaming is doing, it's great, you know, I'm like, okay, this is this is it. I'm on my way. And for those, I'm sure you guys noticed this dealing with artists, when that pandemic came, things start changing. Yeah, yeah. TikTok starts taking over. I remember being on tour in 2019. I don't, 2019 was such a blurb because I did so many shows, I was making so much money from touring and merch. Man, TikTok, man, forget all that, man, that ain't nothing. That's kid's shit. You know, that's what I'm thinking. 2020 comes, everything shuts down. But even then I pivoted it. I was like, okay, well, stuck in the house, I'm just gonna make more content, record more, and that was going well. But there's something happening. The algorithm starts changing. People are starting to get out a little bit more. People aren't spending as much money. I'm seeing the views go down. I'm like, man, is it the content? What am I doing? I'm starting to feel bitter again. I'm like, I don't know what's going on. Like my career things aren't working out for me. And I had to look at myself and be like, all right, what am I doing wrong? So then I started studying. I start paying attention. I start watching shows like yourself. I start watching shout out to the homie, LaRussell, seeing what LaRussell doing. I'm like, okay, this is somebody from my area and he's getting it popping. What is he doing? I mean, he's a dope artist, but how can I take some of the things that artists like him, artists like yourselves, I mean, you know, content creators, and I'm like, what can I do? What can I take this information and utilize it in a way? And then that's the thing, that's the time or that's the point in time when things start changing for me, when I really started to change my mind frame and understand like, hey, you can become successful. You can't be stuck in how the way things were three or four years ago. You're going to have to adapt and change. I had a homie that was just like, yo, La, why aren't you on TikTok? He's a successful independent artist. He's crushing it on TikTok. And I'm like, and I'm looking, I tried to just ignore it, but he was just like, bro, you need to get on TikTok. I was like, man, I don't know what I'm going to do on TikTok. He's like, bro, just do the same shit you're doing on Instagram. Just do it on TikTok. Just watch it. So I get on TikTok and I just start studying and just watching TikTok videos, like, you know, looking at the stuff that interests me. And I'm like, okay. It's like, all right, you know what? I had an idea. It was an idea that I had already existed. And I wanted to apply it in 2020, but the pandemic happened. So it was a concept that I came up called the lock lift. And those are the videos when I'm driving around in a car, rapping, pretending like I'm picking up passenger, why I'm picking up passengers, but they're not actual like lift. These are my fans, you know? I started it in 2016, but I was like, you know what? If I do this shit now, it will be even dober because now this is the way content is being consumed. This will do even better now because every time I would repost, because I was already repurposing content. You know, I was already had a knack for that because I had so many music videos that spanned in my whole career that I would always bring them back, repost them and people would think it was a nuke and I would just repost them and that would kind of keep the algorithm going. But I said, you know, when I reposted this lock lift content, man, this stuff is getting like 100,000, 100, 200K on IG. It's like, man, let me repost this stuff and see how it works, you know? And then I saw it start doing well. So then I said, well, I want to do it a new way. I want to actually shoot it for TikTok, for Instagram Rails, because it's already kind of made for that. And once I did that, my next album that I started working on in 2023, I started releasing the first singles. I said, instead of shooting four or five songs in the lock lift, I'm going to do almost my whole album like this. Every song, I'm going to shoot like 12, 13, 14 lock lifts. Every song and I'm going to shoot five different versions of every one, like because I'm picking up five different people or six or seven different, that's six or seven different rides for each song. For 10 songs, you do the math, you know what I'm saying? That's like 60 pieces of content. And each piece of content, you can break it up three times. So that's like, you know what I mean? 180 pieces of content. That's half the year right there, you know? And I'm also shooting other, I'm also shooting my music videos and I'm shooting one take video. So I just took everything that everybody was doing. And I said, I'm going to repurpose it and do it in my way. And I'm going to post every day. And it's almost been a year. I started in the end of February in 2023 when I posted my first lock lift video. And every, since then, I've grown to the numbers 200,000, subscribe 200,000 followers on Instagram. I want to say 200,000 on doubled on Facebook. And I went from like 30,000 to like 150,000 on TikTok, posting all that content. So I just had to rewire my brain on how I was shooting and presenting my art. That's crazy, man. I mean, and I got to dig in on that fan concept because I didn't realize that those were fans in the car. I didn't know who these random people were. Well, actually, when I thought, you know, first I thought it was like legitimate lift people once I realized the name of it. But then I was like, probably not. But I thought they maybe just might have just been homies. So how did you, how do you go about like selecting fans to be a part of the lock lift? So yeah, basically, I just post, I just made a post. Whoever wants to listen to my new album, I'm going to perform it for you live. I'm going to come to your house and pick you up. Email me here or DM me. I post it. I start getting the DMs. I get like 30, 40, 50 DMs. I weed out. I was like, okay, I can't do it in Atlanta because that's all the way on it. This is strictly for Northern California. I picked all the people that are like within a radius. I'm like, okay, I'm getting the most people in San Francisco. I'm getting 13 people in San Francisco, but I'm getting 20 people in San Jose. Okay. We're going to have to do San Jose. Sorry, San Francisco people, you know, I have to do you all another day. So then I just basically had everybody in that area. I would just go around, pick them up, set up the camera. I would perform like four or five songs and made everybody, you know, obviously sign a release form. And these are all my songs and all original material. So they're all upcoming songs that are going to be released. And yeah, I will spend like two or three days doing that and chopping up the content and be ready to go. That's crazy, man, because I mean, we always talk about finding unique fan activations. And that right there is good as it gets. You have a private moment with, it's always like one fan at a time in the car, it seems like. I think we combined it this time. We had like, so yeah, we would combine because we had too many people. I was like, y'all can't do this many. So we would combine like two or three fans. So it'd be like three or four people in the car. So that's, I mean, that's even bigger, right? It's something that grows where like this usually how it starts is like, oh yeah, we started it was just like this. And now it's starting to get bigger. We got to figure out how to squeeze more people in. And then let's see where it's going to go in the future. But I mean, you're given a private experience. You're promoting your song, you create and you turn in that album listening experience into digestible content that's going to go crazy from itself. Where usually we do album listening parties and little moments like that, like in private almost, and you might try to make it look cool. Oh, there was a lot of people there. But this actually is cooler because you have less people there. And because it's better for social, it's going to get seen by more people. Then I got a private party with, I don't know, like 100 people there. And it looked like it was dope. It was like, no, like, I don't know, man, everything about this, I love it. And of course, it's not the only thing you you're doing. Like you said, you're still doing your other forms of content. So I don't know, man, just kudos to you. I hope people hear this and create their own concepts, their own version of the lock lift there, whatever that looks like, you know, for their brand. So that was super dope. How would fans react to that? Like, you know, when they had those experiences? Man, they were like, super excited. It was like, yo, lock, this was like, thank you so much. You know, they were just like kind of blown away. Like a lot of times they were actually, so the first time I did it back in like 2016, yeah, the very first time I did it, I wasn't performing, I was playing the songs. And I just captured that. And when I posted it on Instagram, I actually made a collage of all the things. It was just one video and everybody was like, yo, that's genius. That's genius. And I was just like, really? So the next time I did it in 2018, I was like, I'm going to actually perform it. But I still combine them all and to make it like a couple, you know, I only use like one fan reaction for one song. But then my boy who was filming the next time, he was like, yo, bro, you don't need to waste any of this content. You need to don't put them all together. Use every single piece. I was like, you know what? You're exactly right. We're going to cut all this up and use them all. So it's more content. But what I learned is at first the fans were kind of just shocked, like, oh, I can't believe I'm here with you. So they were like heck of nervous. And I was like, so when I went into this round of doing the lock lift, I actually like have my assistant and she was like, listen, the more interaction, the better. If you want to be like, oh, like you can do that, you know, it makes it for better cause they're just like scared, you know, like, yo, nah, you can be more, you know, you could like, you know, get into it. So that was something I had to learn for sure. It's cool too, because this content where it is today is made from so many iterations. And I think people forget that, like, it's not just, oh, he was genius and he came up with the idea exactly as you see it today, how it's working. It's like, nah, I tweaked it. I tweaked it. I remember when we were talking to the Russell, it was like, yeah, how did you get these systems where he was like, man, we just a thousand tweaks, you know, and eventually this is the result. Like you came up with the concept that was it was there, right? The raw material was there, but you had to figure figure out, you know, the iteration you have now. And I'm sure you're learning and still seeing stuff that you want to prove next time around. Absolutely. Well, the next, the next level of it is I started doing the celebrity lock lift, where I started having other artists in there with me, because I had already had songs with like exhibit, MERS, Syrock, the Russell. So we end up doing the lock lift. I end up saying like, yo, we got this track. Let's hop, let's do it in the lock lift. They start seeing it like the Russell was one of the first people when it started getting traction. He is me. I'm like, this dope. I was like, man, let's do it in the lock lift pulled up, you know, went viral, went crazy. Same thing with exhibit. I was like, yo, ex, let's do it. He's like, man, let's do it. So that's the next level. So now I start getting actual other artists who I have no relationship. Their managers hit me up like, yo, how can I get my artists in the lock lift? You know, celebrities, Damien Lillard, you know what I'm saying? Dan Lillard was like, a lock man, this dope. I was like, man, let's get it in the lock lift. He's like, let's do it. So now I'm just trying to build it out even more. Building out a series. That's hard. We even specify the idea of like an actual series. But like you gave it, there it is. Like we always talk about like, once you find a series, you can build on something like that. Something that you do consistently, you have all these one off ideas that are creative. They might go super viral, they might express an idea. But if you have something that can be branded and built over time that you own in people's mind, I mean, you get to it. Like they just over the whole journey. Like I hope you can clearly observe like everything that you just said and how it happened. Like organically, you know, of course, everything you do is purposeful and artificial in the moment. But the growth and the evolution is only organic from everything you learn and how the crowd responds to it over time. You mentioned your assistant and that may that actually brings up something that I thought about earlier. Like you being an indie today, you went through all these iterations signed and all this stuff. We know you're indie. You have an assistant. What does your system look like as a person running their business today? Do you also have a manager manager or like what is your perspective on like the team? Yeah, so at the time, so I don't have a manager or anything anymore. But at that time, I did have like a personal manager where I was actually, we kind of had a thing where at first she was helping me out just because she believed in what I was doing. Like, oh, I like what you're doing. So I would just she would just kind of like do simple things like answer emails and things like that are like, and then as time went on, you know, I started getting busy and start having more things to handle. And I was like, hey, if I pay you this certain amount of month, would you be down to handle just all this administrative stuff, you know, or just be the middle man to like people hit me up for shows, you know, coming up with the contracts and doing certain things like that, you know, just being that person, that middle man, because I start running into problems dealing with like promoters or dealing firsthand like on phone calls with them, you know, like sometimes I can get kind of weird as an artist. So I was like, okay, I definitely need somebody in between at that point in time. So she kind of came in as that and it worked out well, but it was mainly I mainly utilized her. I didn't look at her as like trying to get me shows or book me opportunities. She was just literally someone who handled administrative things for me paperwork. If somebody went and do a show, you be the middle man or how much do you want for a show? I want this much. Okay, you go tell them. But it was mainly for live performances and those type of things. So when COVID kind of shut down, obviously there was no live performances. Things kind of slowed down. I was like, hey, you know, it's good. She's like, I understand. So I just kind of took on the reins again. So I've been kind of handling that for the most part, since then is just handling it myself. Eventually, I probably will bring someone on, but I might hire her back or I might get somebody else. It just all depends. Like I just feel like as long as I can manage it myself, I'm going to do it. But when it becomes where it's too much for me to manage, then I will get a manager to help me manage it. I'm not looking for unless there's a manager who can bring something to tell me, like, hey, lock, I can create opportunities for you, which is kind of a different kind of manager. So I'm like, okay, so that's how I kind of look at it. I don't look at as a manager to be my savior to create things for me. I know that the responsibility and onus is on me. I've been in this game long enough to know that. I think that's where a lot of artists get that twisted. They get it mixed up like, oh, a manager is supposed to do that. Well, that's kind of something different. A manager is supposed to manage what you got going on. I love that you say that because especially in this era, there's so much opportunity for that paradigm to be flipped where the artists truly can see themselves and act as a legitimate CEO, all right? Or you can hire a manager to be a CEO. But you could legitimately say, hey, I'm the person who's running this business. And then the same way as CEO might have a chief of operations, right? So you're handling the operations where back in the past, people would treat the manager. No, I don't even say in the past, there's still a lot of artists, like you said, are looking at them as a savior versus no, this is my business. Like Kanye runs his stuff more so like, yo, I'm hiring y'all to enact my vision. I know enough about the business. I have a specific creative vision. And I want a team to help out to that. And you might have a very, very impactful role within that. But this is like me, I'm leading. But I feel like most artists don't want to lead their business. It sounds like you have that perspective of I'm leading my business. And I'm going to find individuals that can help grow my business that I have. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what it is. You're looking for people who can help you facilitate and grow your vision. And sometimes it is, there are managers who have connections and do those type of things. And that's great. I've been in those situations too. It just all depends on what you're willing to give up to get that. And I'm not I'm not opposed to that. I just think that artists, we just have to have realistic expectations. I mean, I'm just gonna be real. Oh, man. Amen to realistic. That's funny. That's funny. Well, amen. Appreciate you being all man. If there's something that you want people to look out for, like, let the people know. And I'm gonna get out of your hair, bro. We definitely got to have you on again. We definitely got to do it in person whenever we're in the same city too. For sure. For sure, man. I'm a huge fan of what you guys do. I'm still learning. So I listen to the content that y'all put out there and I'll learn from it. I'm like, okay, you know, so but yeah, if you want to find me, I am lock.com is my website. All my socials are linked to that. It's the locksmith on Instagram. DA locksmith on Instagram. DA locksmith on TikTok. It's the locksmith on Facebook and the locksmith on Twitter as well. So yeah. Hey, that's perfect. This is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary Podcast. I'm Brandon Manchin. And I'm Corey. We out. Peace.