 I know there's gonna be more bags so it's not about the money it's more about the long-term plan making sure that my brand has real value because if I just start co-signing anything and everything the fans see that and that damages the brand long-term that means the bags are going to get smaller they're going to dry up and people are going to stop hitting you up what's up what's up what's up i'm brand man Sean and i'm kory and we are back with another episode of no labels necessary podcasts you can catch us every tuesday every thursday on youtube spotify apple music wherever you stream your podcast here at the intersection of creativity and currency you know this is no labels and always we're trying to find conversations and people who represent the no labels no rules concept people who are doing things differently and today someone who's a great representation of that kato on the track what's up sir what's gentlemen how are y'all pretty good no hard points hey man it's glad to have somebody good to have somebody in the building who who is so accomplished from an indie perspective man thank you man you have you're someone to admire have you moved on social and done it right right where you got the business together and the marketing together with the content yeah got 500 million streams over the last couple of years yeah that's nothing to sneeze at a lot of streams a lot of streams man which we need to get on that because you know you're not the flexiest individual but i want to flex on people for you you know i mean some of the things that you accomplished that i think is really really dope i think you were in the top was it five on tiktok streams most viral sound songs in the world and this was during the pandemic during covid yeah um which was weird it was like a lot of big moments happened for me during that period during covid uh so yeah it was it was just a wild experience hey well you know that time see i feel like he's gonna get the podcast like block because he said said the word you know i mean who knows but that was a period of time that made people make a lot of life decisions right good or bad but um i and you have to figure out what's what's uh serious or not but i think today one of course we got to get into your content strategy because you kill it with content and people will get a lot of value from hearing your perspective on that um also just the business as a producer but of course there's some other conversations that are on money and how you look at money as a producer that i think is going to be really important and what people will see the real purpose of this podcast but we'll we'll wait to get to that i want to start with the streams because one of the conversations i've seen around you was i think you had you showed your method it was a post you showed your method of how you create viral tracks right can you explain that method because after you explained that method there was some controversy around and that's the part i want to get to yeah yeah so first of all like i was uh i was one of those people who was hesitant to get on tiktok this was probably around the end of 2019 um and i had a tiktok account but i wasn't really posting i wasn't really active on it and i just remember at that time my business partner benton he was like getting on me about it he was like yo you need to start posting on tiktok and so it just had me thinking like what can i do on tiktok that would set me apart from from everyone else and i just spent more time just scrolling through the app just looking at what people were posting and i noticed a lot of these posts were like the split screen posts where people were duetting videos that other want everyone that other people were posting and i was like man what if i what if i uploaded my beats like i just posted my beats on tiktok and people could duet my beats and just drop like a quick freestyle or whatever and i didn't see anyone else doing that at the time like nobody was posting their beats on tiktok so i was like all right i'm gonna do that and the second beat the second or third beat that i posted was the so pretty beat which became the so pretty challenge and massively viral i mean got billions and billions of impressions and uh yeah it started from that beat that i posted so that kind of became my strategy and formula it's not really it's not even really a strategy it's just like i post my beats i let people drop a verse or duet it and that to me was um that was like that became my thing like people started to know me as that producer on tiktok that they had duetted you know which is which is crazy because i just remember we actually talked about this on an episode yeah because yeah that conversation was some people basically saying that's not you're losing the art doing it in that way you know you're letting you're trying to build something just to go viral and if it's all based on virality it's not really creative you know that whole conversation and how it goes what's your response to it i mean look i don't i don't look at that that's why i say it's not really a strategy right like i'm not looking at tiktok as something that can something that can turn into like an amazing piece of art i was looking at it more so as like all right this is a tool for me to find new artists that i can reach out to and work with behind the scenes but like let tiktok be the driver for the traffic you know what i mean for the eyes for the attention and like you know if we can get people's attention on the app we know how to turn that into uh into a long-term play right so that's how i was looking at tiktok it was like the top of the funnel right we're getting people we're getting people's eyes and ears and attention in and meanwhile behind the scenes like we're working on a full song or like an EP together and that's that's how i see tiktok like it's it's more about finding the talent yeah that's how you know these artists are picky too man if you're just drop the beat with a big artist to complain with a band oh he's like every other producer just working with big artists but to me that was what was cool about it was that there were a couple of videos i watched where you could see the artist was just like someone with like 50 followers or 100 followers or something in yeah you really launched their careers or launched them to a point where you know the platform at least took them seriously yeah yeah bro i mean so pretty like that started from a beat that i posted and a girl that duetted that beat from melbourne australia she was 18 years old that was the first song that she had ever made in her life it's crazy and it became top five most viral songs in the world on spotify so and then she got signed by universal she got signed by steven victor um it changed her life you know and now she has an opportunity to turn that into making it her full-time career you know which is amazing like who wouldn't want that yeah off a tick top off a tick time yeah yeah man i it's crazy to me because one is like hey cable's putting this beat up like the art has already happened to me right from the side right it's not like you're creating the beat based on what they're doing like they're just adding whatever they do on top of it right anyway and the way you just broke things down you look at as traffic i think that's something that people aren't yet accustomed to in terms of using their content as traffic and separating that that way where you can have your more quality content and your lower quality or easier to create content that doesn't necessarily brand you in the way that content used to right yeah yeah it's it's a double edged sword right because if you're if you're only reliant on tick tock to get people's attention and to keep their attention that's that's almost the losing battle right you got to be prepared for what comes after that like if if you don't have any more songs or you don't have any more beats or any music after that big tick tock viral moment then those people are just going to move on to the next thing right so you have to be ready for that moment and i was ready for it like we had you know i had follow-ups after so pretty happen and i was working on a lot of music at that time too so you know we had records stacked up we had other plays ready to go in the pipeline after that happened so yeah that's how i looked at it had you had a moment in your career that had been that wild in terms of attention and feeling of success because you had been in the game for a while i know you had some ups and downs yeah um you know the whole label implosion and everything but it was was that the first time you experienced that level of tension on kato specifically yes 100 yep that was the first uh that was the first moment that was like where i was at the forefront of my own music you know it put me in front of a lot of people you know in the past it was like people might have heard my my production my beats but i was more i was more or less like the behind the scenes producer yeah and so i was trying to get to that moment where like i was at the forefront like i was i was becoming the face of my own brand and i had more control over my own brand and so i think that that tiktok moment definitely helped that's interesting man more control i hadn't thought about it that way yeah being in a producer's shoes can you speak a little bit more on that yeah because like traditionally right producers are kind of in the background like and they have to cater towards a lot of what you know the artist may want or what the label wants or they're not fully in complete control especially when it comes to the monetary side of it right like getting paid traditionally producers get their checks cut from someone else you know like the labels cut in your check the publishers cut in your check you don't get to be in control of your own destiny as far as like how you get paid and i didn't want that because that shit is stressful bro like not being in control of your own financial future and security that shit is stressful and i didn't want that so i was like constantly trying to figure out ways how i can control my own destiny as far as like the financial side of it and what it comes down to is just having your own brand you got to build your own brand you have to build your own business and i think the the publishing and the and the checks and the royalties that can most definitely be a part of it but it's really really hard to make that your main thing and be in full complete control of your own business because someone else is cutting your checks at the end of the day and if they decide like oops we are missing this money we don't know like you know we don't know what happened you can't do anything about that right so um yeah that was my that was my goal is i just wanted more control over my own business alright man i remember when a distributor took maybe an extra 90 days to pay us bro from when they said they were going to pay us and that and our stuff was in building on that we avoided that all cost and build our business from beginning so when the few instances that i i had that i can't imagine living my entire career off of that like i mean imagine like someone else cutting your checks it's it's a little bit better than a nine to five because you're still getting to do what you love right but someone else is in control of your money um and even when it came time to getting paid for so pretty even that check took a whole year a year it took a year for me to get paid for that beat why because the label was dragging their feet okay see you're still signed to a label are you signed to a label no i mean the the label that uh rayana signed to because they had to acquire the the beat from me got it right they had to buy the master from me so that was a whole another story but um yeah it took them a whole year to cut my check for that yeah i had a producer homie break it down to me like this one time too he was like you know once the beat leaves the producer's hand the artist is in complete control of how successful you are with that yeah essentially right yeah so i can imagine that being frustrated to sing a artist like maybe not or the label maybe even not push something as far as you think it could go and make it as successful as as you guys think it could be right yeah right yeah it um and i think i got i got an advance of like 25 grand for that beat but imagine if that was my like if i was depending on that check for my livelihood waiting a whole year for that shit like come on man i can't do that yeah yeah just stacking up bills yeah then when you finally get the check it just disappears because you gotta pay the late fees right exactly that's how that's how it is for a lot of producers and songwriters and people like behind the scenes that don't necessarily have their own brand and that's how it is for them man man so some artists and managers are just waiting for lucky moments when the ones who are killing it have systems to consistently take artists to another level over and over again and if you want to see what that looks like we just did a collab where we not only show the system that we use that's resulted in billboard hit some of the biggest viral moments on tiktok instagram and youtube but also we got jr mckay to break down how he took an artist from zero to one of the biggest hit songs of 2022 and getting a Grammy in january of 2023 this is recent stuff not old tactics if you want to check it out go to www.brandmannetwork.com slash grammy don't forget the www or it won't work because jr gets into the details of looking at the data decisions that got made how much content got created and how they adjusted the content over time for different parts of the campaign this is real behind the curtains type of stuff so again go to www.brandmannetwork.com slash grammy if you want to check this out and apply it to yourself back to the video so this is perfect in terms of a segue just to again i said earlier you guys just the purpose of this podcast a huge part of the vision is just to help make these financial conversations a norm with creatives it's too many people that still think the amount of money you have lessens your artistic abilities or having or if you have too little money that means you probably are some goat artist that nobody else understands and it's nothing to do anything it's two different conversations right yeah it's like how people say um they try to mix like love and happiness or whatever or love happiness and money those are the three things they they throw in together it's like oh yeah making x amount of dollars won't make you happy it's like yeah that's not even same conversation yeah like i need these dollars for this and then i'll do my happiness stuff when i work on my happiness you know what i mean yeah like and they try to do that with the art too it's like it doesn't it doesn't um you know connect at all like i think that's more of how people should start processing it because we look at Kanye West as a true artist and he got a lot of money you know what i mean 100 so like that should be enough for people to realize that it's more to this conversation and stop letting people trick you into thinking you should be broke so they can control your life right yeah so i love to hear you talk about this and you know getting control of your situation just through brand alone because that level of control the way you're moving is different than the more control that people have through distributors and some of these companies in the old system but it's still not as much as control as it's being marketed to be right right so i would love to hear the opportunities that tiktok brought like people like come on like got all condescending they shit it on you and i try not to curse because of our location but they they should y'all don't know y'all have no idea but they they shit on you for what you've done on tiktok right yeah but some some some right i'm this isn't like a victim hood it right but like there's people who just don't get it and they'll look at whether you have streams or whether you have this music specific brand that based on the traditional route yeah there's a lot of opportunities beyond that that your presence yeah one tiktok brought and what you flipped that into can you talk about what that looks like uh yeah i mean man the biggest opportunity that came from that was probably the brand deals the partnerships the companies that started reaching out to me the brands that started reaching out just wanting to collaborate and work because once you have that attention right then other people see that you have that attention and they want to leverage that for themselves and i'm fine with that like it's the music business and so if someone's coming to me and they want to talk business then i'm all i'm all ears um so yeah i probably did within a year of so pretty dropping and all that tiktok momentum probably did like quarter of a million dollars in brand deals and that became like a whole new revenue stream for me and continues to be so that is like the the biggest growth part of my business um it's just doing the brand deals and partnerships man so what did that look like to start and was it all tiktok based like well what was the first brand situation where where you're like oh man this is more than i i thought i would get um first brand i mean it just happened so fast like um who reached out red bull cover girl cover cover girl would have thought uh cover girl yeah yeah yeah yeah walmart um at and t kia i did team usa for the tokyo olympics a bunch of brands like kind of in the music space like i have a great relationship with steven slate who owns slate digital and um steven slate audio so we do a lot of work together um yeah man like the list goes on and on so all that happened around that time of like the tiktok growth and the virality got you got you i think you know it's important for people to understand these opportunities like beyond music though the slate digital situation is a little different because that's ram or like almost indian in a way it's not major major system yeah all right so first you have those right you have the major system typical things and then you have these more independently or corporate tight ram music companies yeah then you have things that are outside of music in general yeah and it seems like from what i've observed the biggest freedom really starts to come when you get those non music opportunities and become a figure within that world is that something that you saw hundred percent um and i think that's why it's important when you're building a brand to be conscious of like all the things that all your interests you know because i will say one of the things that i was like very adamant about is only working with brands that i actually use you know services and products that i use in real life or that i'm a fan of you know um so all the all the brand deals that i've done up to this point are things that i have a personal connection to because that's the only way that i can speak to it authentically if they ask me to create content around it or make a beat around it or post this um i can't i can't fluff it you know if i if i'm not a fan of that brand or that service or product i have to be connected to it in some way um and i think it just translates better for your audience too right like if you connect with it in that way and your audience will feel and um and they'll be more they'll be more likely to to connect with it too yeah yeah i i think it's such a tricky thing to do i feel like for somebody starting out when you're just like you're seeing new money opportunities though like yeah did you see anything where you're like i don't know man it's a nice bag i might want to take this one and really or you try real hard to figure out how i could make it authentic yeah of course of course but if it doesn't i always go by my feeling bro yeah like if the if the gut feeling is not there i know there's gonna be more bags so it's not about the money at this point it's about it's about it's more about the long-term playing and and making sure that my brand has real value because if i just start cosigning anything and everything the fans see that they see that you're not connected to this thing and that you're just you're just getting paid to to promote this thing that you're not connected to and that damages the brand and if it damages the brand long-term that means the bags are going to get smaller they're going to dry up and people are going to stop hitting you up so the indication for me that i was doing the right thing and i was promoting and cosigning the right things is that the brand deals keep coming and they keep growing you know that's the indicator to me i you know i gotta shout out the matt black tesla the brand deals probably help fund that you know i'm sure i'm sure all right uh i bought a new crib in atlanta bought a new car and um you know like i'm not i'm not out here just like throwing money right like i'm smart about it where i know that the car can be a tax write-off for my business where my home that i just purchased uh that can be a tax write-off at least some of it because i work from home i have my studio in the basement yeah so i'm in there working every single day um yeah so help me save and taxes for sure speaking of i want to get into some of kato's money tips okay you got a post on the ground yeah get a business account yeah and write-off expenses gear plugins travel etc speak on that so first thing i would do if i'm making like 15 thousand dollars a year off of just music income whether you're an artist a producer engineer whatever first thing i would do is i would open a business account at a bank just go in there like see what kind of business accounts they have and create a separate bank entity um and also license your llc with your state wherever you live um so create an llc and create a separate checking account for that llc so you have basically what you're trying to do is you're trying to separate your personal income from your business income so everything is separate so that's step one and then step two really after that is i would find a good accountant or a cpa um and a lot of times they'll be able to give you tips on like what type of llc you should set up um you know the tax designation and all of that kind of stuff uh and how to write off expenses for your business so is there a certain time period that you feel like you have to wait before you start this or do you do it day one i would say if you're making a certain there's like a there's like a monetary threshold right because if you're not making any money from music whatsoever or if you're making a small amount it's probably not worth it for you just yet because you're gonna have to pay to renew your llc and your licenses and that kind of stuff so um yeah i would say like once you're making 12 to 15 thousand dollars a year off of music got it that makes sense because of expenses and yeah and then how you funnel the income well and i need to read this this title tips on managing finances as a musician or artist courtesy of kato detract let's get to the second one okay use credit cards with good rewards yes mx capital one etc and pay off every two weeks yeah um so the idea behind that is like most of these credit card companies now have like a rewards program right so they give you back things or money in exchange for you using their services their products so yeah one of the first things i did was i opened up an mx credit card because to me they had the best rewards for what i needed i was traveling a lot at the time so i wanted to get a credit card that had like good travel rewards so i got an mx credit card um and just started charging all my business expenses to that and i was making sure that i put it on autopay and was paying off the balance every single month so that i wasn't incurring bad debt bad debt is like if they're charging you interest every month on the balance that you have on that card you don't want to pay that interest right because it's going to fuck up your credit and it's just going to look bad and you're going to spend more money so i was paying off the balance every month and just keeping an eye on my finances and using that card just for my business expenses and getting travel rewards back so you know things like getting a getting like tsa precheck and um you know certain cash back for when you spend at hotels or on flights and stuff like that yeah man it's a beautiful thing the first time like we had the scales real chip and i realized we had points that could cover all of it yeah it's like oh man this is great bro i have to really do the math and you know use the system yeah that's what i learned about once i started making money is that the system is set up to work against you when you don't have money everything from late fees to overdraft fees when you look at how many things are set up to work against you when you don't have money it's insane yeah like when i was broke i was probably spending more on late fees and all kinds of like hidden things and when i didn't have good credit you know i couldn't get a loan for a house i couldn't get a mortgage i would pay higher interest when i took out a car loan like those systems are set up against you when you don't have money so i told myself that once i started making money i would learn about how these systems work so that i can have it work in my favor that's a fact um and those are things that you're not taught in school you should have been broke today man joe joe biden trying to help these these folks out man i know you saw the thing about the the mortgage i mean the credit score people with lower credit score are getting charged yeah less than than higher credit scores yeah every time i i figure something out man they work against me man yeah yeah but generally speaking like there's so many little things right set up to work against you when you're poor for sure it's literally inertia in each direction like i build momentum being broken then everything cascades in that direction or i'm starting to get some money and if you keep making those right decisions you know that grows and grows and that's why we always you know hear about the gap growing between the rich and the poor right little details like that is part of why it happens outside of policies and all these other things just some small decisions uh i mean the small ways systems are set up because when i i first start not when i first started business because i remember doing lc's a couple of times like when i was younger but it was when i um like did taxes seriously and you just started hearing how these things are set up certain advantages etc and i was like you know what i can see how basically the country is set up for people to be business owners and you're not a business owner yeah hey i'm gonna say you're fully getting screwed but you know there's a lot of advantages to have a business and continue to spend more money and not just sit on that money too right so they want you to be a business that continues to reinvest in the marketplace that's basically what they want you to be exactly yeah yeah now with that being said you specify pay off every two weeks you just said every month but on this post you say every two weeks so what why did you say two weeks there um i don't know i i don't know why i said two weeks but i pay it off every month i make sure that i pay off the whole uh the balances on on all my cards every month i do i i also pay taxes every month instead of just once at the end of the year not there yet yeah i mean that's something that i had to learn is um because for the first couple years when i set up my llc and you know i was starting to make a little bit of money through music i'd talk to my accountant and it was always like at the end of the year he'd hit me with this huge number that i had to pay in taxes and if you're not prepared for that if you don't have money set aside just for that that's one of the things about owning your own business like you are the one that has to keep an eye on all the cash flow all the revenue that you have and where your money is going right so if you spend everything that you make as a business owner you're not prepared for when you got to pay 20 30 thousand dollars in taxes at the end of the year so um to kind of to kind of make that blow a little easier i started paying quarterly and then once i really started making money i started paying monthly so now i pay taxes every single month and then i pay at the end of the year too but it's less and i'm sure a lot less stress yeah exactly as well you having clean books is a blessing that's for sure yeah yeah um and finding the people that can help you do that that's why i say like having a good accountant having a good cpa you know having a money manager or an advisor you know once you get to that point i think is important because it's hard to manage all that stuff yourself and be in the business now last tip you put on here set aside 30 of all income for taxes and pay quarterly or even monthly if possible so there it is yes there it is 30 at least i would say to be on the safe side set aside 40 of all the checks that you get all the revenue once you get royalties if you um sell beats online or if you're you know getting checks set aside 30 to 40 percent of everything that you make and if i were if i were a new artist right i would even set up uh a high yield savings account right i have a high yield savings account that earns me 4.7 percent interest so i make 4.7 percent on the money that on the balance that i have in my savings account so every month i'm making thousands because if you just have money sitting in your checking account you're not making any yep you're actually losing money yeah due to inflation right so that money is going to be worth less and less every single day due to inflation so if you put it in a high yield savings account which there are tons of them um you're at least fighting you're fighting inflation but you're probably also making a little bit of money on top of that just by having it sit there yeah depending on what era of inflation we're in at the very least you're dying slower yes yeah yeah and i'll take that you know i'll take that over a quick deal a quick death well what i love about this post right here is when i look at it these three tips where was your response to another company's tweet that said what's your best advice or managing finances as a music producer right you tweeted that out all right then you put it on instagram with this beautiful cover you flash in the money you got hundreds and then it's a carousel posted the scroll is that that uh that tweet what does your content team look like to be able to pull something off because doing stuff like that and actually having time to think about that is it's not an easy thing to pull off if you're doing all the other things that you're doing yeah yeah uh so i just recently hired my first kind of social media manager so he helps me schedule out content he helps me edit content videos graphics whatever i need um and i use other tools like i use sprout social i pay you know five to six hundred dollars a month just to use that platform but it helps me manage my entire social media and content ecosystem from one platform so i'm teaching jay in tiktok yep even tiktok i think they're still integrating tiktok in a lot of ways but yeah whatever so i have jay who helps me on the social media side i have personal assistant sometimes she'll help me with like finding duets and remixes that people do to my beats and i'll repost those but yeah it's just us and then i have a business partner um that that helps me that's across like all my brand stuff so to me because that's not a complex operation right it sounds like content is the culture in your company they like everybody understands how important content is because yeah you said you just hired this social media person anything you mentioned your assistant and your manager like they throw in some ideas for the pot so they understand is important i need to always be looking out for content yeah all right how did you establish that across the team um just by observing what was working you know because i've been in the game now bro for over 12 years now and that whole time i've been posting content on socials so i got to see firsthand like what works what doesn't work yeah so by now we have a pretty good idea of what is working and what we know definitively for a fact that is working is content and social media being the driver for my business it's not everything right but it is like it is a primary driver for how i get a lot of my business so we got to make sure that we're on our p's and queues and that we're like optimizing and leveraging that as much as possible so yeah scheduling out post um so i'm gonna start to post like a lot more consistently and a lot more volume on a daily basis anywhere between like three and four posts every single day across all platforms that's the goal how much were you doing before maybe once a day or once every other day and you were a large part of doing that editing and stuff yourself yeah i did everything myself so the good news is like because i had to learn how to do everything myself now no one can bullshit me when it comes to social media like you can't try to tell me it's going to cost x amount of dollars for something that i know takes 10 minutes to do you know um so now i can like find the right people i can train them i can help them understand like how to take certain responsibilities off my hands that i can focus more on music and the things that i care about you know i love that because i actually remember the first time i interviewed you like i don't know years i remember years ago and it was like bad camera horrible stuff right and you mentioned your social media even at that time and i don't even think so this is pretty tick-tock and all that stuff yeah but you were meticulous about it all right i remember i asked you maybe about volume and your answer was a lot less volume focused but more the quality of the content but from an aesthetic standpoint like everything where did that come from and how do you think about that now because now you're going up yeah volume yeah does that there's your version of quality still um exists like explain how you see that that's a good question i think that quality comes through volume and consistency you know like i don't really know what quality content means anymore if it if there was one if there was one thing that i could say that matters the most when it comes to content is it's got to invoke a feeling it's got to make people feel something yeah right whether that's educational or entertainment value whatever like if you post something that makes the audience feel something then it's good content to me outside of that i don't fucking know i just post shit and see how it does and the people's reaction and their feedback tells me what is good that's the only indicator that i know so i've kind of had to get over what i see as a barrier for most creatives is getting in their own heads about what they think is quality and might not necessarily be the same for what their audience thinks you know what i mean i've seen that as the biggest barrier for a lot of creatives which ultimately stunts their their progress it slows them down because they get in their own heads too much i'm glad you said that man because you did experience success right you saw grow from the way you were posting content before yeah but now knowing what you know do you feel like you could have done even better if you weren't so particular in those moments or was that just the way that you should have done it at that time um both do i think that i could have put out more content probably well i mean like experience more success from putting out more content not just put out more content to do it but like would you have been even bigger if you posted more in that time maybe without your whole without your brand hesitations yeah probably okay probably um i don't necessarily regret it because it got me to where i am today and um i'm i'm in a great place today you know like i have no complaints but yeah i think it gets to all of us as creatives like us getting in our own way happens to everyone i don't care who you are like you could be at the very top of your game you could be just starting out we all get on our own way in some way shape or form to me it's just about minimizing that as much as possible yeah i like that i like that i i've definitely had some ways that i've gotten in my own way before and i feel like there's always limiting beliefs in one area or another that you have to go through but when you're in it feels like that's what you're supposed to believe you know that's the problem that's the problem it's it's a it's a cyclical thing like it's a cycle you know and if you don't find some way to break that cycle then you just get stuck you get stuck and um and it it stops all progress from happening how do you look at self-development do you have a process of how you improve i think it's just having a a certain level of self-awareness right it's like making sure that and a big part of that is keeping good people around you like keeping a good team around you people who can check you when you're you know like when you're not doing or saying the right things or um yeah just uh being very mindful of your decisions and your actions that's the only way i know how to describe it because and we start to get really uh philosophical with shit no i respect that i respect that so anything to keep yourself from from going too wild right basically right dope dope well i i have to mention the the documentary concept right the opportunity that's come to you also basically that came from tiktok essentially yeah can you i know you can't go too deep into that because it's not in place to talk about yet but that's an iteration of something else an initial idea can you you speak on that at all yeah so um around the time that so pretty happened i got invited to host a kind of a reality show and the whole idea the whole premise of the show was that they were going to have a bunch of tiktokers with millions and millions of followers um and put everyone in a house together and challenge them to make the best music possible right so these were tiktokers that didn't necessarily make music or didn't at least do it consistently but were but had huge followings right and the whole idea was like can we turn these tiktokers into full-time musicians and artists and so because i was like popping on tiktok they invited me to basically be the host and the in-house producer um helping these artists make music so that was an eight-week process and we lived in upstate new york for eight weeks and just made music and these were like you know i'm a little bit older these were like kids you know like early 20s still figuring things out so there were a lot of challenges with just getting them to feel comfortable and secure in their own uh in their own voice you know but yeah it was a it was a wild experience so hopefully that that that series will be coming to a streaming platform soon that's cool to see you have these opportunities that just knocking your door yeah from having visibility and then you have some that you create yourself yeah like you did your tour yeah you've done that at least two times at this point right so how do you balance digging into this brand side all these opportunities that come with having visibility and being an actual producer it's tough bro i won't lie i think it's uh it's just finding a balance between everything i think the music for me right now at this stage in my career because i've been doing it so long i have to be there has to be a spark from somewhere you know it's gotta be it's gotta be inspired from something like i'm not i know a lot of producers and beat makers that can just sit in their room and make beats all day every single day i can't do that because there are so many other parts to my business now that i have to handle um so it kind of comes in waves like when i find or i hear an artist that inspires me i'll reach out we start working on some music together and i'm like yo i love how this feels and then we can start working on a ep or something right so perfect example of that is an artist that i worked with recently named abby the nomad and um really really dope talented like super talented artists and he wanted to make a hip hop album and bro like can rap for real like he kind of started more in like a pop lane but he's a dope artist like in general so we locked in and we've already made two eps together and they've performed really well and he's completely independent um so it's like those kind of scenarios where i'll really dig into the creative the musical side and put my producer hat on and kind of take off my like entrepreneur business hat and just like focus on the music and really lock in but it's got to be inspired from somewhere i can't just sit in my studio and make beats all day got you got you man well look man you shared so much information today i was the what i was about to unless you had something i'm not i'm talking about but i was gonna say but one of the last things i gotta make sure i get on the way out of here it's like oh it's definitely the ai you're talking about ai okay yeah yeah yeah no i i have to ask you about your perspective on ai because you shared you know so transparently how you feel i think you called it whack or corny or something what people were doing man so you know say it with your chest man how you feel about this ai for real all right so i want to clarify right just just off top i am not against ai i'm a fan of ai i think there is a place for technology in the music business right um the only thing that i don't like about ai right now is that because there's no policy and regulation around it it's a fucking free for all so anyone can take anyone's voice put an ai voice on their song release it they can distribute it and you know they can even make money off of it not legally but they are and so i don't like the exploitative nature of ai right now because it's not regulated right and there's no consent behind it as far as like anyone can take anyone's voice yeah without permission right that part i don't like now i do see us getting to a point where ai becomes regulated there's policies in place right streaming platforms won't allow you to upload ai songs without the artist's consent and even one step further i can see a getting to a place where drake has a license agreement with this ai company and they can legally let people use his voice on their ai songs so that at least drake is agreeing to this and maybe it's like branded as a drake ai voice right it's like branded as something separate from drake the artist yeah right and it's like a product in itself um and then at least this monetized it's legal and uh and you get the permission from the artist to use it so i see us getting to that place eventually and once that happens like the floodgates are are open right everyone's going to be dropping ai songs they're going to be all over streaming um and i think once that happens it's going to tip back into a place where people want realness and authenticity to me it always comes back to that right because ai can't replicate authenticity of like the real thing yeah you know what i mean yeah so it'll be interesting man i think i think um it'll be interesting to see like how this plays out yeah it's interesting that it's becoming popular at the same time as community building is becoming more popular yeah it's like a very strong divide down the middle or that's going to be the great separator right i don't know if you are really who you say you are and so i buy this hundred dollar ticket to this thing you're having personally oh that cat that is exactly that is kato exactly exactly and you can you can't you know ai will never be able to do that yeah you know when we layer the the bots and the holograms with the voice uh oh i don't know i don't know yeah we'll have fucking terminators like performing right in front of live audiences put together a bot with the lookalike you know the whole wax face and then you have a chat bot experience how they can respond and it's using kato's voice i don't know man so i want uh with a kind of his double bro like you know if i could sit at home and send a a double here with boo when he was sending booty shows insane it's insane i mean do i do i think that we'll get to that place maybe maybe ten years i'm calling it well it might be faster than that we remember i think you shared a post a grimes said you could do that with my voice i saw that too i'm not gonna remember the rapper kill it you just read a post canadian rap on tiktok you're still doing the same thing but my question is like that's marketing right now that's cool that's cool that i mean i'm i'm all for ai but how how are you gonna enforce that like how do you monetize that you can say it on twitter but if someone makes an ai song and it's also dangerous right because what if they because it's not regulated right now what if someone drops an ai song using my voice or your voice and it's like uh and it's like a neo nazi anthem you know what i mean and people think it's the real thing like that could be dangerous just allowing people to use your voice however they want well that's a part of the problem that the ai voice introduces not just it being unregulated where someone just makes a random song and you don't know it happens right let's just say it is regulated in terms of you getting your percentage but i don't think people understand the power of even if i know it's drake ai right it being done in my voice yeah the same way music sticks in our head yes it could be the right wrong song and then it tarnishes your brand regardless yeah right now they're at your show yeah say do the thing that's popular online let us hear you do it and you know right right it blurs like it blurs that line sometimes i think that's the most enforceable part of it right now like the the brand um tarnishing i think that part is somehow legal if something gets big enough like it's probably why m&m was able to take things down that was probably the argument because it couldn't have been the voice right you know that but it's like ah this is taking over x y and z i'm not a lawyer so you guys don't listen to me but i think that that might be what it is have you seen something though yet outside of okay they did something in somebody's voice have you seen something yet that you're just like yo that's really cool though i mean yeah when i listen to these ai songs i think some of them actually are really good and i think you know i also made a post about this saying that if songwriters and producers and artists were to use ai as a collaborative tool right so if i were to produce an ai drake song with the ultimate goal of being able to get that in front of drake not to distribute it to streaming platforms that i can make a lot of money off of it but to get a placement with drake and i was using his ai voice as like the the placeholder the reference so that the reference exactly so that he could hear it and be like yo this is dope i want to cut this record life changing my life is changed from that as from using ai as a collaborative tool i don't see people using it that way yet right but i think there are people that will take advantage of that and probably change their life yeah i wonder if it's happening behind the scenes like if some of these bigger artists are reaching out to these ai creators and like oh that is that is dope let me get that you know i wonder if it is yeah and i would even take it one step further because i have a platform on socials like i would post that on my socials and be like i made this for drake do y'all fuck with this and if if the fans like it they'll react and they might tag him he might see it he might not but you know to me it can only it's only a win from a branding perspective yeah you know because what everyone's doing now is like making a fake burner account like anonymous and then dropping these ai songs like it doesn't do anything for your brand and you can't monetize it and it's not legal so where's the win you know like i just don't see it right now yeah i feel like people would have to be more creative to make it a brand where it's more about them instead of hey i just layered this using somebody else's voice exactly it would have to be an approach where it's like oh yeah he did it differently or where you notice more the construction of it yeah like who did this that right now is yeah mostly just layering people's voices on other words and exactly and that is not going to be cool in about two weeks you know because everyone's going to do the same shit and and that's why i say eventually people are going to get tired of it because it's not it's no longer a novelty right it becomes a commodity at that point once people start making money off of it legally it becomes a commodity and so then we're just going to see the floodgates open everyone's going to do it people are going to get tired of it and then what are they going to do fans are going to come back to the real shit they're going to come back to the authenticity that comes from a real person's voice you know what i mean so to me music is never going to be fully replaced by ai it's just going to be a you know ai will be a tool or a side side thing yeah man what you said to me sounds like great advice for artists probably any public figure but especially artists you know you're in attraction in moments in time but sometimes over your career you won't be the hot trend yeah there'll be other things that are hotter whether it's ai tech or another artist and you got to let the fans turn their head for a while without you feeling like oh wait wait you know yeah you still see me and and run around to the other side just so you can they can see you he's like yeah stay where you are they're going to turn back around once that new thing is no longer novel you just got to give it time yeah yeah and and you know history proves that like everything is cyclical things come back into style that went out and they always come back in some way maybe it's like a little bit different or kind of reinvented in a way but i really do think that if you just stick to the core of what you love then eventually people will find you you know and you're gonna be you're gonna be at the top of your game in that lane and people will recognize so i don't think there's any point in chasing trends you know what i mean yeah yeah for sure man now am i free am i really am i free to do it no um for real kato it was great having you on man and you know we love to have you anytime you got something to talk about you feel like you got to get something off your chest we can arrange it man it's been a great conversation you educated people on the financial part of the game which is a huge part of where my heart is so artists can have not only the finances but control of their destiny so they can continue to create what they want to create and impact the world so this is yet another episode of no labels necessary podcast i'm bram and shon and i'm kory and we out peace