 What's up, what's up, what's up? I'm Bremen Shaw. And I'm Cory. And we are back with episode number 13 of No Labels Necessary. Let's get it. You can find us anywhere by Spotify, Apple, whatever you listen to. And of course here on YouTube, where we talk music, business, content, branding, and just have fun all around because we like to talk that shit. And today we got quite a few interesting topics for you guys. Starting off, as y'all know with this music stuff, we like to get into a little bit of advice. And I want to approach the advice a little different today, Cory. Okay. I want to not just show the advice, I want to ask y'all, how do y'all feel about the advice? Whenever we show the advice segment, I want to say, I want it to be about how people actually feel about it, right? So it's like, of course we won't give our commentary, but it's almost like raiding it. Was this good advice or bad advice? Yeah, but you feel like you can apply this? Do you feel like you can apply this to the general? West, what are your thoughts on it? We're going to share two advice clips today. So let's just be let number 13, episode number 13 be the way we kicked this off. But today, starting it, it's going to be a piece of advice from none other than DDG. Hold on, let me do the quick little refresh. And I hate this. All right, he says you got to treat the internet like a girl you want attention from, all right? Social media is a girl that you want attention from, right? Okay. If you don't give her attention, she going to start looking at other people. You know what I'm saying? So if you treat social media like that, like I got to stay in their face. It's like, how could they forget you? And then when you drop that hit song or whatever, you going to have eyeballs to catch it rather than you, you know what I'm saying? Not showing a girl attention. She not even paying attention when you doing your lit shit. But if you keep them in your face, even if you fuck up, as long as you stand in face, you still got a chance to get that smash, you know what I'm saying? Right. There we go. Wise words, wise words. Wise words? Wise words. That's what we going with wise words? Yeah, I get what he's going with the analogy. Okay. I think the point behind it is a good point too. Well, I'll say, I noticed when he said, if you don't give her attention, she going to start paying attention to someone else. You kind of gave him a little preach. It's a little bit extreme. Hey man, you know, I live the life, you know what I'm saying? I'll be out here, you know what I'm saying? He said, preach brother, man, okay. Hit a little personal. Well, yeah, I want to hear your breakdown, how you feel about that analogy. And then I'll give you my thoughts. So I, all right, stay with me here. You know what I'm saying? Like I said, I get what he's saying because we've talked a lot about how, how fickle music consumers are, right? They have a lot of choice. The choices are thrown at them very fast. And quite frankly, there are at least 100 other things that could arguably be more important than whatever your thing is, that they could be paying attention to. Right. So yeah, you have to stay in their face, right? Like you're literally competing. And this is why I think a lot of artists started kind of get it fucked up when it comes to social media stuff. It's like, you're no longer competing with just other music artists, right? You competing with viral videos, news headlines, you know what I'm saying? IG model photos, bro. Like it's a vicious marketplace out there, right? Yeah. So the artist, the person, the creator that can't consistently stay in people's face to keep some attention when they finally have that big moment that comes around, you know what I'm saying? Like you're saying that there's not gonna be anybody paying attention because you didn't baby stuff them to that, to the point of the big moment. And I agree with that. Cause the biggest thing that he said, I liked out of that whole point where he was like, even if you're failing along the way, just the fact that you're in their face is still enough because you're keeping their attention, right? That makes me think about artists and their content, right? How many artists have we talked to? Like I don't wanna put this video out because I don't think it's perfect or it doesn't show me in a certain light or I don't think it's creative enough, right? What he's really saying is like, yo bro, like if it's good or bad, as long as it holds their attention, it has the potential to snowball and pile up to whatever that big moment or piece of thing is that you do want people to pay attention to and you have to guide them to that. And I agree with that. Like I 100% agree with that. Okay, so one, I love how he did, how he ended it. He ended it like a rapper, right? Well, a writer, you know, but he's a rapper. Did you notice how he ended it? No, I wasn't. Bringing the analogy full circle. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, bro. Do you feel like that, bro? I appreciate the smash hit single, you know what I mean? The smash, you know what I mean? Smash, smash. I like how you pulled that together. That was very clever of you, DDG. The analogy itself. So have you ever approached a girl that you wanted to entertain or have entertained you and you didn't land on your feet at first? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, bro. It wasn't as smooth as you usually are. Yeah, bro, you know what I'm saying? Like, ain't no shame in my game, bro. I took some L's, you know what I'm saying? I got some battle wounds. Do you have any L's, right, that became a W? Yeah, 100%. Okay, okay. So I think in that way, I've probably experienced that where, you know, girl wasn't feeling me for whatever reason at first, but because of the proximity, I'm not even saying that I was trying to be in their face intentionally like music and all that stuff, but the proximity, you got to realize your additional perception of me was a lie, you know what I mean? Yeah, okay, I'll see what you mean. Yeah, you projecting your old stuff on me, man. I'm not that other dude. I'm actually some kind of special, you know what I mean? I'm not worth the shot. So that proximity that I've personally experienced in the past, right? Whether it's like because of school or like working a job, we still have to see each other all that time, right? It creates that space to even evolve your opinion, right? Which I think really plays into his analogy because one, you have those people that you went right off the bat. Two, you have those people that you don't connect with, whether it's they hate you or it's just they don't connect, right? But then you give them more time and space to fall deeper in love with you. Now, of course you could say the other way people mess with you when they have time to start hating you, but that's a little bit rarer, I find, especially like on online experience, like you have to really like turn to Todd or do something else. Say some shit or do some shit. Yeah, it has to be, it has to really go somewhere. So I can get with that analogy. I wasn't quite sure. I liked it on a surface level. And then I said, but I wasn't sure when I started to think about it if I would like truly say, all right, I'll stand by it. Now, I also am aware that there's probably some young woman out there that feel like, hey, it's not like that. Like that's not y'all talking wrong about how the relationship is. And maybe how, you know, his wording might have been a little bit off. That I'm not here to say. All I'm saying is the elements of it, you know, have added up in my personal experience at times. And I think that definitely applies online. Yeah, but the audience that is gonna hit with is gonna hit with the target demographic was reached. You know what I'm saying? But like when I saw the clip, I was like, damn, this shit clicks. Bro, like it was brought it all together. I had these words in my head, but I couldn't figure out how to express them. Like, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, bro, but that's what our whole artist took out of it. Like, amen, like the net we set all the time to name when the game is attention. Easy to get attention is hard to maintain it and keep people interested. Because you can't win the game without being seen, without being known. Yeah, bro. I don't even know it exists. The whole like, you know, tree falling in the forest. You can make the most amazing shit every breath. If I don't know about it, or if I didn't care enough about you to even, I guess care to be aware that this thing is coming, which is, I think one of the points he was making, like, bro, you gotta kind of put enough out there that people just like slightly care long enough that by the time you do hit them with the big thing, it just hits for them. Right? Like you said, it's like micro wins, right? Like, I come into it, I'm not, I don't 100% love you. Maybe I'm 3%, but in every, you know, VL you drop or something else, even you add like 1% to it. 1% to it, you know what I'm saying? And then the day you drop this thing, I'm at 80%, now I go check it out. And you got an extra however many people on here. And I mean, I think he's the right messenger for that message, because I've said a lot, I personally think he's one of the better content creators turned music artists, and you can see a lot of the way that he maintains his audience is by doing a lot of the same shit he was doing when he was a YouTuber. He's still dropping vlogs. He's still posting, you know what I'm saying? Funny personality content on the different socials and he's working the music arts angle into it. So I feel like it's a good messenger to put that message out there. Yeah, I could get with that. And I'll say this, right? Those steps, again, I might go even say who, but I remember somebody I know being sleep on the floor when I walk into the room and I had just been in that room five minutes later telling them they need to get up and they were on the bed. Yeah. And they were like, all right, get up. Then I walked back in the room, they on the floor, sleep and I was like, yo, I thought you were getting up. And he was like, the first step is getting out of bed. He was like mumbling, he was like sleep talking. So all that to say is same with the fan base. There's those steps that exist that you have to take people through. You can either like hop straight off the roof and expect people to know you and love you immediately or you can go the more sure route of just saying, hey, I need to have people aware of me and I need to stay there. And eventually they'll rock with me. It's very few times and moments where someone just sees you and then they rock what you like on that next level. Yeah, that's gotta be amazing. Gotta be amazing for whatever reason. The song has to hit crazy or the video has to hit crazy or in real life, right? You might meet that person and there's that spark like immediately like, oh, this is something different, right? Whether it's just a friend, a homie, a girl, whatever it is. But we know that's not most people that you meet. It usually has to develop a little bit more even if you kind of like their vibe. So I can see how it works in that way as well. I just say, hmm, I think the, I think let's, how do you term it? So that analogy of getting in people's face is and staying in their face to make them like you reminds me of the idea of indifference, right? It's like, at least being seen means they're on top, they're top of mind. But if I'm indifferent to you, then I'm probably not even thinking about you. I'm not bothered by you. I don't care. So, you know, I've been that guy where I've talked to a girl. Oh, I hate you. I hate you. I'm like, all right, at least you feeling something. We can work on that other, flipping that next time. But you're feeling something. It's like a sign, toxic. Hey man, you know, I'm nowhere near that life anymore. But, you know, I truly did add it up in my mind at that time, like at least they feeling something, right? That indifference, but that's a hard, you don't know what to do with that. How do I manipulate, like just actually not caring? Kanye polarizing, I can use the people that hate me cause they making comments or they bringing it up. And then they're creating something for the people who love me to attack and respond to. People who aren't commenting, they're just not reading the stories. What do I do with that? Yeah, bro. You have no control in that situation. No power in that situation. No power, no power. So, I think we gon' give that a, we gon' give that a W on that one. Give that a W. W, W metaphor. Yeah, on the metaphor. Let's see what we got next though. Advice number two. Oh yeah, this is a good one. This is a good one. Well, I've been waiting, waiting for this topic. Been burning in my soul. Posted by kids, take over, shout out to kids. Shout out to our shine, our shine, dope platform. Should never put people on the spot to check out your music. They're always gonna lie to you and be like, mm, okay, okay, that's kinda hard. You guys have been in this situation, right? And you can't say it's bad, right? Like what do you honestly say? Cause I've had like bigger artists play me their music in front of them, you know? And I definitely don't want to hurt their feelings. And you always want to have a good relationship with people in the music industry, right? What I do is like if they'll play me like four songs, I just won't say anything. And then for one of the songs, they'll be like, all right, this is the one I'm feeling, you know? Cause at least then you're kind of complimenting them, but then you're also letting them know like those other songs, they weren't it. You should never put people on the spot to check out. How do you tell your rapper homie his music ain't it? How do you do it? I mean, the process he gave was actually pretty genius. I'm gonna start using that. Like to listen to four songs, pick one and then be like, oh yeah, bro, it was hard, bro. Like that's genius, bro. I usually don't want to get that deep into it, you know what I'm saying? If the music is genuinely bad. That's actually exactly what I do, bro. That's exactly what I do, but I don't ask for it, right? In those situations, if there's more than one, I will say, yeah, like that's the one, right? Cause if that one has some redeemable qualities or that one actually is good and the other ones are bad. Cause you know the trick, bro, right? No, you don't know the trick. I mean, I got some tricks, bro. I got a, I got a- Yeah, multiple, all right, there's multiple tricks, but I'm not even talking about the trick with the artist feedback, but you know the trick on how we've talked about sometimes somebody will send us a song and we'll be ready for the campaign and then they'll switch out the music. And we'll be like, what the hell? This is even the same artist. It is the same artist, but like, how is this song so good and the rest of it doesn't sound like- Yeah, Bill Gema like, what is this moment? What is this? Like, how is this the same person? All right, so when you have multiple songs, that's an opportunity that you get. But me, to be real, I'm pretty straightforward with it, man. Like, I will straight up say, like, I think you need some development, but I can see where you're going with it. I can hear it. Like that kind of thing. Constructive feedback. Yeah, I try to be- Constructive feedback. He's in this shit like it was so foreign. He's like, I never thought about that. Like, damn, constructive feedback. Bro, my mind, I don't ever go there. He's like, how can I just not tell him it's trash? Or how can I say this is good? Constructive feedback is a lot of work. Like to really, to add like true sincerity and thought into a constructive feedback. That is a lot of brain power, bro. And sometimes I just don't have it in me because artist friends are bad about picking the worst moments to ask you for your opinion on shit. That's terrible about it, bro. Like, that just be hype. It'd be three in the morning. You barely, hey, bro, I'll just make this shit. Check it out. I was like, no, bro, I'm going to sleep. I don't even know why I'm responding back to you right now. You don't sound to be real with you. So- The fact that you mentioned friends actually, hold that down. Just the bass, yeah, we'll fix it. But the fact that you said that friends, I forgot about that part. And if they're my friends, they definitely get into the real shit, man. It's no way they're getting it harsh. Yeah. I mean, I like to pry myself on thinking that all of my music artist friends are really good. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't personally think I have a trash. Exactly. Music artist friend. Which allows me to be even harsher when it's something like this. Actually not even all that bad, but- You know what I mean? You can hit them with the, hey, bro, it's cool, but you better than this. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Hey, man, I like this, but I don't hate to be that guy, but it ain't the last thing you show me, bro. This ain't, this ain't that. But my biggest pet peeve with it is, because personally for me to give someone a good opinion on their music, I have to listen to it for at least like three times. Oh yeah. Because the first time I'm like just listening, just to listen. The second time I'm listening for like lyrics and then the third time I'm listening for like the vibe of it. Yep. Now, if I truly think the song is trash, I'm not making it past listen number one. I'm already trying to think of my finesse to get out of- How I get out of this. Yeah, how I get out of this, this thing you asked me to do. If I at least like it too, it's good. Yeah, at least two, three more times. You know what I'm saying? I can come back and say, I guess it's constructive criticism. Yeah, bro, I think the hook is cool. Y'all can see this shit doing whatever, whatever it wasn't really feeling diverse. Cause I feel like, and this is what I do appreciate about all my artist friends. I feel like if you ask me for my opinion, you are giving me permission to tell you that you trash. Because if you didn't want me to possibly say that, you didn't have to ask me for my opinion. You know, I'm not a guy that's just out here slapping the opinions around just because I feel like it. Well, I mean, I guess this is what this podcast is. But not about shit like that. Like I'm not going to just walk into an artist and be like, Hey bro, I heard you playing that song a couple of seconds ago. Yo, that's you? Yeah. Yo, that shit was trash. Like I'd never do that, right? Hey man, you heard me playing that song down in studio B. What do you think about it? Hey man, I might need, I don't need one or two more listens. So I, I haven't- Whatever you're at a show, you believe in booing? Booing? Yeah. No, but I do stand in the crowd and look at them very disappointingly. Because at some point, if they're a good artist, they're going to make eye contact with you at some point. And now I want them to see the look of disappointment in my face. Oh, I mean, they probably aren't a good artist though. You know what I mean? If you have to give them that face, that's funny, bro. That is actually hilarious. Just looking up dead in the eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can, I'm just like. They say it. They're saying it, bro. They're saying it. I'll give them feedback on the actual performance. I'm gonna have to adopt that, bro. I used to call it the single boo. Because literally I would give them one boo. I'm not trying to be rude and over-take the show. I just need enough for you to hear me and know that there's some discontent going on here. Yeah. They'll just be like, boo. But that's too dangerous, bro. Because you don't want to be the guy that started the boo. That starts with boo. Yeah, bro. I don't want to be that guy. You know what? I've never, no one's ever, you know, followed. It's been like, people will look at me like I'm crazy. Like usually like my sister or something. But like, bruh, you're like, it's like, no, I'm not trying to start something. Just, just let them know that, hey, I'm not feeling this part. So, you know, I think there's a synergy there. You got the face. I get a boo. Right? So you got a visual. I just got a sound that I give them. But I haven't had to do that in years. Yeah. A very long time. Really, bruh, it'd be coming down to like context of the situation too. Because now I probably get asked that question the most doing sales calls for like artists that are trying to work with the agency. And like that, you know, I got my whole way of getting out of that. You know what I'm saying? I got pretty genius. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if I should share my dark secrets. I don't think you should. I actually don't think you should. But when you hear, bruh, you would never know, bruh. This is me basically being like, hey man, that shit ain't it. Cause there's also a part of me that sometimes can acknowledge that what if I'm just not the target demographic? Right? What if I think it's trash because it's not for me? I've been wrong before. I've been, you know, I've been very vocal in the agency about the amount of times I've been wrong. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm cool with that, right? Like, so what if it just ain't for me? So I always think that in the back of my head, bruh. Like, what if this isn't trash? What if I just don't like this? So I do try to give ours a benefit of the doubt. But if you ask me and I genuinely think it's trash and I would prefer it, but you're like, you really wanna know my real opinion? Yeah. Are you sure? Like, yeah, like, no matter where I go with it, you're cool with it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I bet. Now let me know. It's like three signatures on the contract, you know what I'm saying? Make sure that shit is signed, dotted, and all the t's across, bruh. Click and do the prompt. Yeah, before I tell you what I'm about to tell you. Cause I don't know, man, bruh. It's nothing worse than being popped off on by RSA, ask you that you're opinion on the song and don't like what you had to say, bruh. It's the worst. It's like, it's like, bruh, I ain't, you asked me, bruh. I didn't come to you about this. That's a fact. That's a fact. Well, I'll say this as well. Based on what our Sean said, the biggest problem is playing the music for people for that first time reaction. And most people can't get it. Just like you said, right? You have to listen three times. Like I like to listen in my own space. I might not even typically hear, like you playing it off your phone or something or it's just not my environment. Like I like- You got dirty AirPods. Yeah, exactly. Like no, I ain't gonna put them bitches on, bruh. Like get them things away from me. You just took them out your ear. So the environment really matters and giving people space to comfortably listen to the music the way they actually listen to music. And maybe they need multiple times if it comes to feedback, then you want that. Now, if we're in the studio, okay, I can see it a little bit more than you just play it out of that off of that. Because there's an environment that's already kind of built around music listening. But still it has to be that first time reaction. Like, you know, it's like, all right. And you have to say, hey, I just kind of want to know your first vibe, your first thoughts, which is it takes some pressure off of it too, right? Like do I feel it or do you think I'm going somewhere? So yeah, I think it's the artist responsibility when asking people for advice, you know, for their thoughts on their music. And it's the artist's responsibility to consider the environment that the people are in and putting them in the best position and give them the best advice. Yeah, I agree. I mean, like take away the pressure. So hey, you can tell, like you said, tell me you can let me know anything. You know what I mean? I'm strong, you know, I'm not going to be hurt by whatever you say, preface it with stuff like that. Or, hey, I'm just looking for your quick, like, you know, nothing deep, but like, do you feel it in general? Or do you like to beat? Do you be specific? So I can give feedback, all those types of things help. But at the end of the day, most people have a problem telling people they don't like, they don't like stuff to their face. Most people are not confrontational. Me, I'm different. I see that as a moment to challenge myself. Like, here's a confrontation. Don't bitch out. This is a moment where we run through the fire. Yeah, this is a moment where you can practice being strong. That's the way I look at it. It's not like, oh, I'm just straight up an asshole. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you, oh, let me hurt these pills. It's like, nah, I see this as a challenge. Figure it out, Sean. How'd I be direct with not being an asshole? Like, that's the way I look at it. But overall, the advice, I actually think this is really, really, really good advice. He was specific with it, right? The environment, it's really a problem playing the music community for real, for real. This is an important conversation that we need to be had. Very important conversation to be had, man. He needs more views on this TikTok right here. So shout out to our Sean, the whole Kids TakeOver platform. I didn't know, I think I saw a different clip with him recently. I didn't know he was still in school. He was on the, yeah, he was on the Jalil Club. But he said that. I didn't know that either, bro. How did Jalil Club? Well, actually, I do that because I follow him on Instagram and he'd be stressing out about school sometimes. He don't post about it, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, oh, college student. The life. Media, content, credit, struggles, bro, I get it. He's killing it to be in college. I wish I was that clear on what I wanted to do in life back then. Or at least had something like that I was dedicated to. Had a skill. Or I was trying to figure out what hustle. I was probably still trying to sling red boxes at the time. So red boxes? Yeah, the things with DVDs. I was just about to say, brother, DVD. What do you mean by sling? Like, what do you mean by that? Start a red box business. Oh, OK. You franchise them things. OK, OK. I had all different type of hustle spread this. They're crazy, bro. I seen one the other day at a Walgreens and they blew my mind. I did not know they were still around. Yeah, bro. Shocked me. Like, I was like, I had to double back and go, look, is that a fucking red box? And what made it even wider was that was like this old couple standing in line waiting on it behind this younger couple. It was a line at the red box. It was like the younger couple. And then maybe not a line. Maybe like a two people makes a line as far as I'm concerned. It was a line. Hey, damn. Four people scrolling through looking for their next release. It blew my mind, bro. That's crazy. Fuck me up. That's crazy. What are they putting in there? So I'm saying, man, like, I was really like looking. I'm really sitting in the car looking at them like, nah, man. They just like, maybe they just like looking. Now, maybe they're also surprised that it's over there and they can't believe it. And they're like, oh, I remember baby when we started to come and pick up a DVD while getting our eggs, that's what I was thinking. But I seen one pull a DVD out. And I was like, oh, no, he's serious. Like he really taking this home. That's crazy. That's crazy. Y'all ain't got, I don't know, man. Baby, show the red box. Still good money. Show the red box, bro. Still good money. Maybe I should have, you know, stayed on it. Had my passive income. You know what I mean? Started selling red box courses and shit. Actually, bro, that would have been crazy. Especially that time. The way stuff going these days, vending machine business, be all on people's podcasts, be the red box magnate. I still might look at it, man. We'll see, we'll see. But, oh man, this is not the story I wanna do. We have to get into. Let me take a quick second to say if you're an artist trying to blow your music up or if you're a manager, a music professional in general, trying to help an artist blow their music up, I have something that's a game changer for you and it's completely free. As you may know, we've helped multiple artists go from zero to hundreds of thousands of streams. We've helped multiple artists go from hundreds of thousands to millions of streams, chart on Billboard, GoViral, all of that stuff. And we've now made the way we've branded multiple artists and helped them go viral completely free step by step in Brandman Network. All you have to do is check out brandmannetwork.com. You apply, it's completely free. But the thing is, we're not gonna let everybody in forever. So, the faster you apply, the better your chance of getting accepted. Brandmannetwork.com, check it out. Back to the video. Behind the scenes of one of TI's marketing campaigns. Oh yeah, a little history. Yeah, a little history, 2007, a big moment in time and I'm about to show you the meeting what it looked like. This is the sound of the new Warner. TIN, T-I-P, they're taking over BET. Executives at Atlantic Records, a Warner label, plan the upcoming release from hip hop artist T-I-P. Currently the number one artist, hip hop artist on my space. And you too. Big things popping will be on there this week. They've created special ringtones. He customized a voice tone for the troops. It's a broad offering of new products and partnerships which have sent digital sales from zero to 14% of the company's revenue in four years flat. It's gonna be smash, it'll be awesome. We're no longer just about putting up 10 or 12 songs by an artist every couple of years. Ringtones and ringback tones, then connecting them to blogs, to ticketing opportunities when the artist goes on tour, merchandising, you name it. That new revenue can't come quickly enough. Last year, more than half the music acquired in the U.S. was not paid for. The majority of my music. This is the sound of the new Warner. What a time. T-I-N, T-I-P, they're taking over BET. Everyone was scared of the mighty ringtone. The mighty, mighty ringtone, man. That is a fascinating clip to see. Just the visual, first of all, of seeing the label meeting. And you know when you always hear just that stereotype of, man, the people who are in those board rooms don't look nothing like us, or don't look nothing like the culture, dah, dah, dah. That was the first thing that stood out. I was like, T-I? Yeah. T-I, Mark, you know. Right, right, right. Now I'm sure there's people not in this image or that you could catch, you know that they're probably dressed for work, right? I see a couple of people here that, you know what I mean? They might look, they can have a other side to them. But for the most part, you're like, yo, they say, this don't make sense. Same T-I target demographic. Right, the understanding isn't there, right? But the shit did well. So like they understood something. Yeah, the plan was hard. Like you had the breakdown. There was the voicemail thing for the troops. There was the ringtone stuff. They like to pump him hard on my space, which is crazy because I don't remember T-I being crazy active on my space back then, but maybe. That was weird to me. I didn't know that. Yeah, maybe it was just for that promo window. And then, but yeah, they literally laid out, oh, in the MTV, the music video run, whatever that first thing was. But like that was, we were going to drop the video, we were going to hit them with these ringtones, we were going to gas them on his my space shit, and then boom, we were going to hit that little side brand niche with this nice little message for the troops. You know what I'm saying? Get a little country love going on, you know. Yeah. At these times. Yeah. Cause I'm trying to think of that time. Now I think that might have been before the gun stuff. So he might have been look good. That's what I was going to say to the whole T.I versus T.I.P. Was that the, was that the one we came out of jail? I can't. No, paper trail was the one we came out of jail. Paper trail, that's what it is. That's the one we came out of jail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, paper trails when we came out of jail. So the few things that stand out to me is one saying that online sales went from 0% market share to 14% in four years. Four years. That number is ridiculous. Now you see why people were so scared. Like, yo, cannibalizing at that rate. Yeah. I don't even know how much money that is. I would have to look at the numbers of how much sales were at that time. And then you add what they say at the end, what they say half or more than half of consumption was not paid for at the end. This is like, you know, prom, like Napster and all that stuff. So you're easily talking about billions, right? That right there is crazy and for it to happen that fast is scary as hell. Like, that's my industry to see somebody coming that fast. Like I know 14% sounds small, but if you can think about, I'm just gonna make up some brands. Let's just say it was like McDonald's and Burger King, which you experienced in corporate. Let's say McDonald's exists and then Burger King is a new burger in town and it's actually killing it. The rate of market growth, you don't see that type of number. Even the one that you're afraid of and they're killing it, 14% in four years, it's like, it's historical in most market places to define things growing that fast and cannibalizing that fast. TikTok will be a good example of that. They came so fast, right? When you come that fast, it's just a different monster. So that right there lets me know why it took so long for the music industry to figure it out. And they still don't figure it out, right? But it's like COVID, they say they, I probably shouldn't have said that. That might get a strike on a video. Damn. But like the whole pandemic situation, when they say they had a solution that they were already working on for similar instances. All right? This is just me trying to avoid all the words, right? At this point. And so they said, that's why they were trying to, they were able to get to a solution so fast, right? The shots. Now, something like this, and you know, believe that or if you're not, I'm not trying to spread no information, y'all. I know a lot of people have strong feelings about that stuff, but this is something that wasn't like, oh, we've been working on a solution like a streaming platform for years, trying to figure something like this out and then all of a sudden Napster hits and then we figure it out, right? It's, that was just not under works. And then you add all these actors, like the music labels having to get on the same page percentages. You have to really rethink the business. So it was very hard to literally like say, okay, well, this is the new solution. Yeah, Napster exists. Well, we're just going to create a paid Napster. It's not that simple. You would think it would be that simple, but music is so fragmented. The label ownership and the IP is all right. It has so many stakeholders at play. You can't just, you can't do that with music. So it's crazy to realize that happened so fast. And then on flip side, you saw a buddy say, oh man, you know, we no longer are just releasing 10 to 12 songs. Across a couple of years. I was like, huh. Across a couple of years. Last in NBA, young boy. Bruh, yeah, exactly, exactly. Now you're going a song a week, you know what I mean? More than songs, one song a week if you're on average for some people, you're dropping like that and now you again, once again, understand why these artists are complaining. We'd like the old school artists, right? It's like, oh, I could drop 12 songs and do millions and not have to drop another 10 to 12 songs for maybe two years. You don't say like two, three years, but you're a little break. Bruh, like the amount of work is ridiculous from that side. So I can see, the more I understand, I mean, I always understood like the overall numbers and the history of the industry, but whenever I hear like specifics like this, I'm like, oh, okay. I understand your particular experience, old school artists and why you feel the way you feel. And honestly, I mean, yes, I know that more artists have an opportunity today, like things are more successful, da-da-da. But for the artists that are winning, right? Once you get to that level, the winning level, it does sound like the old way was a better way. Yeah, bruh. Once you're winning, I would rather have the old way if I was a top level artist. Yeah, what I'm about to say is it's gonna make a lot more sense, I think, later in the pod when we get to the different top because all this shit connects. Man, I kind of think about like that point. But I think artists today have, they definitely have a much higher creative output, like a kind of like a higher mandatory creative output, right? Because it's the music, more videos, we want more content from you. We want you live streaming, you know what I mean? You have to exude all this creative energy all the time versus like artists in these different eras that have the creative, you know, of course they probably, I would probably argue like a music artist back then, or depending on the era in music artists, they probably make about the same amount of music. They probably still just pumping out songs, you know what I'm saying? But that was it, as you had to do that, you got to do your shows, maybe there's some TV performances that have been on how big you were. Like your creative output had like good, like breaks in between them, except like maybe when you were on tour versus like today as an artist, buddy, there's no such thing as a real creative break. Even if you take a creative break from the music, you might still have to be creative on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube, right? Or all your outside things you're doing and kind of like maintain attention. So I could kind of see that too, bro. It's like, damn, like you said, bro, you know, 1991, bro, I dropped six songs that year and made $30 million. You want me to drop 60 songs this year and make three TikToks a week? Come on, bro. Hell no, for 20 bands? That shit sound good, like I said, to a rising artist. But an established artist, yeah, I get it too, bro. It's like hell no. No way, bro, no way. And you already, you know, alluded to it. This next topic right here. Part of the interruption, I have to take this quick commercial break too. Let you know that we are sponsored by me because I signed myself. We signed ourselves. It's this brand-man network. That's why we're calling no labels necessary because no label, nobody else is necessary for us to get the train moving. So if you could just subscribe to show appreciation, we'd really appreciate that. Back to the program. Lear Cohen said short-form content is destroying music, particularly the artist, or we want to get it to the quote, the music industry is facing one of the biggest crisis crisis crises to date. To date. Now, do you agree with it? Let us go through the content before y'all can agree or disagree. We should review it. Let's have this view up and try this one. So Lear believes that short-form video poses a major threat to the music business. He also thinks it might be the music industry's savior in one way. But let's go through the three main problems that he presented in this podcast. He says, problem number one is an expectation for modern artists to spend a significant amount of their time, creativity, and energy on certain social media platforms that in Cohen's view rarely lead to deeper fandom amongst consumers. Let's stop right there, right? Because that's what you were talking about, right? TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, wherever, right? It's funny he says certain social media platforms. I wonder if he avoided specific names. Well, not YouTube though, not YouTube though. Because for y'all who don't know, Lear Cohen actually works at YouTube, right? But, you know. That's important to keep in mind while you listen to it. Very important to keep in mind, right? Story, career, Def Jam, all that great stuff, but today he's at YouTube, right? So, like you said, they are having to spend so much creative energy on things beyond the music itself. If you are doing that, I can imagine that it takes a toll on the music, right? Or you go with the evolutionary argument and say that now they evolved to a point where they can put out high quality music and do all these other things at once. That's an argument that you can make. I sure know that there's not that many artists that really wanna lean on that argument, but I think because of the creative output that they are being demanded, the creativity that they're in touch with today is at an all time high in terms of a commercial output. Yeah. Right? It's like now I can churn. It's like, what do you talk? Motown. Motown, I remember Smokey Robinson talking about, you know, all these artists, you know, talking about being inspired. You know, if you're a songwriter, you write, right? Like we wrote every day like a job. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, whatever, but it's a muscle and you build that muscle and then you get great at it over time. Next thing you know, you can just write something amazing out of nowhere, right? But it's not, it won't always be your best or that one, but it's a muscle. We treat this like a job. We built ourselves, so we're built differently. So I can see that from a creative output standpoint, right? If you look at artists today, I'm like, because they are creating TikToks, creating reels, creating music videos, creating their music, creating teasers, like doing the video, editing a lot of them, all that stuff, their creative output and their ability to turn things out is probably on a different level as a whole. Now, again though, this is a music business. We're talking music. Is that what's best for the music? Because then you go through the theory of spreading out your energy, right? It's like, yeah, you're using more creativity and you're more in touch with it from a superficial level, relatively speaking, but you can't go as deep with the music because you can't spend all that time. So there's arguments on both sides that I get. I feel like I want to go through some more of these points before. I personally try to figure out a hard stance that I want to lean on, but do you already have a hard stance? Well, I was like, because there's a part at the bottom too where it goes a little more. It's like he kind of breaks down a little more to some of the points, what the points he's making and he got some things in that, but I'm gonna have some strong thoughts around. So problem number two, he says, lies with consumers themselves. And his concern is that the next generation of fans aren't currently delving deep into artists, their stories and their catalogs. Now, I think that is the other side of it, right? You have content creators or artists having to create more, put out more stuff and you putting out more stuff just means I have more stuff to consume from you in the first place. Let alone, everybody's putting out more stuff. So how do I keep people's attention? The market's so much saturated, I'm gonna miss as much stuff. And now we add that to the era of TikTok or just short form, messing up your attention span period. So I don't even have that attention span to go deep if I could go deep. Or if there wasn't as much saturation out there, it's a weird space to be in when you look at that coming from the old school and I'm talking about like old, old and not even music, like comic books, right? My uncle is one of those people who were into the comics when he was little and he knows all these stories. Bro, just stories and stories and stories and what you'll find with these comic books. All right, here's an example. Have you seen Black Panther yet? You still haven't seen it. Oh, all right. I haven't. I know, bro, see, bro, now you're judging me, bro. Like I'm saying, I ain't think that was gonna come off. You can't hide from it, man, you can't hide from it. So there's a character, new character introduced. I'm like, dang man, that's a crazy character that they invented and throughout there. My uncle was like, nah, man, this dude was in episode, series X, Y and Z from way back when. I'm like, bro, they still have characters to introduce out of all this time. Like how do y'all have so many characters? I'm like, no people at Marvel and DC were going to work back in the day. And it's like, all of them got these deep stories, real backgrounds, like they were truly going to work. Y'all have been introducing new characters for like 20 years down there now. But back then, my uncle had the attention span to be able to consume all that stuff. He was deep in it and not distracted by a whole lot of different things. I don't know how you develop that today. Like, can you expect people to go that deep into anything today? I think so. I think it's about like how much they care. Right? And like we go back to the whole like, I think now the amount of time you have to hold someone's attention to make them care, to learn that is a lot longer because consumers have a lot more things they could be doing, right? So it's like, whereas maybe an artist back then it took fans to say three to six months to care because that's all they had to pay attention to. Now it might take you really like a year, two years to get people to start to kind of care that much. And then, you know, especially I think it's genre specific too. Like with rappers and rap, you got to just keep dropping like hit songs for the fans on that side. I kind of want to pay attention to you. Versus I do think some of the other genres get a little bit more of like the classic leeway. It was like, you ain't got to be a hit all the time. Just keep dropping shit out. Like, you know what I'm saying? I kind of like stick around. I do think other genres get away with that a little bit more, but yeah. So I do think fans are still doing it. The thing about the argument that I don't think is fair. And like I said, when you get to that bottom part too, cause he has a line there that kind of made me think about it. But the part of the thing that isn't fair is that we're not, we haven't had enough time yet to gauge consumer behavior from this generation of artists and people like, it's unfair to say they don't create long lasting fans. It's been like two, three years for most of these artists. Like, how do we really gauge that? You know, because with music, you're always, as long as you have the attention around you, you're always just one song away from just reigniting everything. You know what I'm saying? Like you could be an artist that had this big TikTok moment. Maybe you have 60 million monthly listeners at the time. A year later, you got 10 million monthly listeners, right? So you've fallen off, but you still have multiple millions of people listening to you, right? Who's to say that four or five years later, you won't have another moment because those people stuck with you along the way. You know what I'm saying? And kind of have you stand on- I don't think about his mindset though. Cause two things I give to him, he's been in the game a long time. And he's at YouTube. So he probably sees a hell of a lot of data. Yeah, that's true. Right? Yeah. So I'm thinking, yeah, we do know about these people, you know, two, three years at this point, but then there's quite a few people. I don't know. If we look at the whole 2010s decade, there's a lot of people who came and went, right? Now, can you say that happens for every generation? I feel like there's probably, there was one hit wonders back then, but maybe it's more at scale. Is that what he's saying? He's seeing more people. I think it's about the fringes actually. Cause we know every scenario exists. There's always gonna be one hit wonders. There's always gonna be people who stay in the game and become a superstar. It's harder to become a superstar. And then we think about the fact that it's harder to become a superstar today. Then what is that alluding to? It's the fringes of attention. So if you think about 20% being a super fan, 40% not rocking with this at all. Now you're leaving another 40% that has the potential to become fans cause they're just on the fringes, right? But if you can't get that attention from the fringes, you have a hard time converting to your fan base. So you're stuck somewhere around 20 to 30% where in the past you had a better opportunity to take that 20% to 50%. You get what I'm saying? Or cause even convert some of the haters, right? Or 20% to 40%, whatever that number is. So I think that's what it is. Because when you come from an era where even though someone didn't fully rock with you cause their attention was, they were on the fringes, their attention wasn't on the fringes because they didn't have other places for their attention to go, right? It's like when all these people are watching these old TV shows, like today a show like Friends, right? You have a lot more, you're not gonna have as many different races watching a show like Friends as you would back then, right? Or you go to, I'm trying to think of a black show, like Martin, you're not gonna have as many different races watching a show like Martin like you were back then. Why? Because races, genders, all these different interests we have the things that we're naturally interested in and something like that might be further from our general interest. I watched Friends when I was younger, not because it was an immediate interest but it was one of the few things on TV. You know what I'm saying? And then you watch a story long enough you can get invested, you know what I mean? And I was like, okay, I'll follow up. What happened to such and such? Okay, now I watch it, I watch it all. It's only thing on after school or me watching Jerry Springer, all these things that I probably, I used to watch Gilligan's Island a lot when I was little, I'm talking about like six years old cause I wake up, only thing, it was TBS. It was like 430 in the morning and that was the only thing. It was like Gilligan's Island and some I can't remember the other show, right? So I'm watching Oh, Andy Griffin show or whatever. Andy Griffin, I understand. Yeah. I get that one. So like these shows that no way I relate to or not necessarily, but I buy into them because it's all that's on, right? Cause that was better than like the news and the 700 club or whatever it was called and the church channel or whatever. So they have my attention, I'm one of the fringes but because they have that attention then I can get pushed down the funnel. Today, not only are people on the fringes in terms of their first level interest, their attention's also on the fringes. It's one thing for me to be on the fringes but you have my attention. It's another thing for me to be on the fringes and you don't quite have my attention. That goes back to what DDG said, right? Yeah. Cause if you still have my attention at least you got more of a chance to convince me. And I think that's what the struggle is today when he talks about the consumers on that side. But I don't wanna spend too much time on that cause we got a couple problems and this article is so substantial. A lot of dope points is exactly that thing thick. Problem number three, Cohen says, lies at the door of record companies who are struggling to break long-term artists with the level of regularity they like in this digital environment, all right? So, you know, that naturally loos too. Like he's seeing the numbers, he know what the record labels are saying. Like people aren't lasting and it's probably a trend that they can trace back to. You can say, oh yeah, I pop, I'm going for a while and I come back. But that's a comeback story, right? Before it's probably, okay, I'm around three, four years before people even care to see a comeback story. Not have one year, then I take three years off and come back. So that's probably the stuff they're seeing. Let's, where should I start next? Is it here, J'Core, you wanted to get into? Yeah, yeah, so this is when he starts getting deeper into those points, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You say, I don't know what the euphoria in the music industry is about. I think we're facing one of our biggest crisis to date, yet it feels like the band is still performing on the Titanic, the Titanic. I don't know if you all remember that, that movie. It was the orchestra performing as a ship sank, all right? He says, I'm confused why there's such euphoria because there are so many people saying, yo, the music industry's about back, the numbers are looking good, but the reality is, every time I hear that, I do go back and look at the trends. We are not nowhere near where the peak was, all right? So it's like, we just feel good because we're doing better than before. But dang, you fell far, bro. So we jumped from a one to a four, but we're still in a 10, yeah. Exactly, we still in a 10. Exactly. So there are three things that are deeply disturbing to me. The first one is that artists feel like they are completely out of position. They feel like they're about to go on strike. It feels like they're overburdened with the effort like for likes and subscribers on social media, putting themselves as creators as opposed to artists. I mean, we haven't been talking about that a whole lot. We haven't been saying that again. Streets is rumbling about that. The streets is rumbling. I guess we just treat, we are the streets. The more we have artists always being on, right? Like turn to a switch off, turn to switch on. Instead of occasionally, occasionally brilliant, our music industry is going to be in real trouble. That occasionally brilliant line isn't actually mine. It was actually Universal CEO David Joseph's and just resonated with me. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Let's get to the next part. What is he saying here? I think the answer is short, is in short form video. How do we get here? Now, this is when we talk about it being very important, like you said, to remember that he works for YouTube. He works for YouTube. I think the answer is in short form video. Short form video that doesn't lead anywhere is the most dangerous thing I've seen the business face in a long time. That's how I imagine him sounding in my head. But short form video that can be a discovery tool like YouTube shorts, aha, aha, can prompt the consumer into a deeper fan engagement of interviews, performances, premium music videos, all the stuff that artists do. That allows a kind of, well, that allows a kid to find the soundtrack of their youth. But if they're only stuck on a short form video platform and if they think that they're getting a music service via short form video, I think the business is going to lose a generation of consumers that are really important and valuable. So what is he basically saying? He's saying, bruh, TikTok is not the move. That's what he's saying. That's all I heard right there. Is that not what he said? And reals, basically real doesn't have long form constant either. Yes, exactly. So what he's saying is, yo, people being on these short form video platforms and thinking that I'm consuming music, when I'm really actually not even consuming the whole song, I'm consuming this artist when really I'm only consuming bits and pieces of the artist versus a completely orchestrated vision is killing the consumer's standard of how to even see the artist, right? That's what he's saying. Where one, I would argue, it's probably not to the extent you've seen because what have we always said? TikTok created the highest transferability from platform to platform that we've ever seen before, specifically for music and to YouTube. We would see people go from TikToks and go crazy to people's YouTube because they're probably trying to consume more of the videos. They're trying to consume the long form, right? And we would see crazy results people going from TikTok to Spotify, right? And Apple, it would go back and forth depending on the artist and genre, right? So we know that people will go from short form to long form. I think we even read a stat that maybe 50 plus percent of this generation, Gen Z says that they go from short form to long form. So we know that's a behavior to me, this is just a selling point to say, yeah, but ours is all in one platform. That's all you're saying right there. You're bigging up your own company and throwing some shade without using the name. That's all this is. Can they do it better? It is on one platform, I'd say probably. Yeah, I mean, that's that convenience aspect, but like you said, bro, he's pushing the YouTube shorts agenda because shorts culturally isn't the same as TikTok is. Yes, it's like they're borrowing a lot of elements, but I don't know just something about the user experience isn't the same, but that becomes my argument with that argument is how long does the music industry continue pushing the narrative of the stupid consumer, you know what I'm saying? Because like you just said, we've seen it, bro, people on TikTok are like, yeah, there is this desire for them to go find longer form content from you. That's what short form content tends to do. I can become invested in you in 10 seconds, right? The example I would give to like our clients and stuff is the same amount of time it takes me to watch one YouTube video, I could have watched like seven TikToks from you, right? So I could fall in love with you a lot faster than if I came through any of your other mediums. I understand that within this realm, I can't consume longer content from you. So what am I gonna do? I'm gonna figure out where you're posting long form content and then go over and check it out, right? That to me seems to be the average behavior of the average consumer. Like all of us have multiple apps that we use that we understand like, hey, you are this way over here and you are this way over here. So I know when I want this from you, I go there, when I want this from you, I go here, right? But it always feels like the high level of the music industry pushes this narrative of like the stupid consumer, bro, like there's this stupid dumb consumer that can only look in one lane and one vertical. And if he's on TikTok, he's just gonna forget about YouTube and XYZ, right? I always try to tell people that people at the top look at everybody else as stupid. They truly do. Like people try to say, oh no, it's not a leaders or the Democrats look at people as more lovingly and the Republicans are a little bit, no, everybody at the top, most of them look at people as stupid. Like you gotta look at Hollywood, right? They have a comedian there to then roast the celebrities so they can appear to be more normal. Right? But if I say, I need to put a comedian there to roast me and make it seem like I can take a joke to appear more normal, to me, that means I don't think I'm normal, you know what I'm saying? Like, so they're all aware of this and the whole game is to appear to be more relatable, right? That's a part of the game, even though you don't think you can truly relate, right? Because we know that's when you lose people. So that's how they see it. And you know, to be fair, look, Rev, as a marketer, you know, you market enough and you be like, damn, people are kind of stupid, right? Or you see it as, there's just so many vulnerabilities because you realize even in the highly intelligent people, they're vulnerable points because nobody can be on guard at all times when there's an agenda being pushed on them from a hundred different directions at all times, right? So somebody's going to slip through, right? And again, that's part of what the, let's say elites are aware of. So the stupided consumer, I agree with you, there's a level of detachment in terms of understanding how the consumer actually thinks. And I actually don't think YouTube short-solved this problem that he's saying. If you talk about the real problem as long-term artists, I don't think YouTube short-solved that. I think it does have a nice sense of solution in terms of an easier, less friction path to go from short form to long form. Like you can't deny that. Oh, I'm on the YouTube video and then I can just go to the full video because I've seen there's some shorts now, you can actually click a part of the short and go to the long form video, right? So that right there is beautiful. The problem is that just makes it easier to go the same path that you would on TikTok, right? Go from the short form and go find a long form, right? But remember, TikTok is now, I helped you identify the sound, right? But remember, TikTok didn't used to do that, remember? Somebody would just post it on there and people would start Googling the words of the song to go find it themselves. So all you're doing is making things more convenient. You're not necessarily changing behavior and outcome in my opinion, because the problem that's making things hard for the long-term artists to exist is the fact that there's so much saturation. It's the fact that the channels are so fragmented, right? Again, like I said, I can't necessarily convince a young black boy to watch a show about 20-something white people as easily as I could before because he might not even be aware of it, right? You can clearly go back to the 90s and behind and most people, especially if you're into music at all, you would know who the top country artists are, who the top hip-hop artists are, right? This is why Dolly Parton so legendary. Everybody knows Dolly Parton, right? No matter who, what kind of music you were into, everybody would know who Whitney Houston is. Today, I don't know who the top country artist is. That's not my first genre. So you might be able to go deep on that immediate stuff. It's hard to be aware of anything outside your immediate bubble. So when things are fragmented like that, it's hard to become a legitimate long-term artist and even greater superstar because part of being a superstar is having all that attention for people, the grandma's on down and being able to connect with that many people. So that's just a different type of game. I don't think Shorts is a solution to that. And he's kind of pitching you that, but I get it, right? You know, you bad for the whole team. Yeah, exactly, bro. You got to get them shares up, you know what I'm saying? But the thing always draws back to attention span, bro. And sometimes I feel like Gen Z catches unnecessary smoke about that attention span because you can make the argument that, yo, these are the generation that wants to watch a 10 and 30 second video. This is also the same generation that wants to watch a six hour live stream on Twitch, right? It's the same generation that'll sit there and sit through a stream with them, you know what I'm saying? Watch their favorite Twitch streamer stream for 24 hours straight. But that person does have to be entertaining. It does have to do it. They got to hit the boxes. Yeah, they got to hit the boxes. So you kind of, you know, that means they have to switch it up a lot and then there's a participation element that goes into it. But that, I understand that point, but even that even goes into culture, right? Cause you mentioned culture. I don't think YouTube Shorts will ever have the culture of TikTok. That's when I knew TikTok was good. Like, oh, they got their own culture, right? The only threat to TikTok is American government right now. That is it. But in terms of the app itself, the culture that's there, it has a completely different utility than those other platforms. And I feel like especially generations that don't get it, older generations or people who just don't use social media, they don't understand all these things look the same to you, but they're used differently. Like you said earlier, this person might be like this on TikTok, but they act like that on YouTube. They're like that on Instagram. Everything is a different side of your personality. The communication, the language, there are sub languages, right? On every single platform. So I think they don't quite get that part of it. And that leads to some of these assumptions to where you don't understand that impact. You can't overtake the culture of TikTok because you can't just, you can't duplicate culture. Yeah, exactly. You can create a new culture, a different culture, that also is powerful, but you're not about to cut into that culture itself. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Do you have anything else to add on that one? Cause I know this is, I mean, like we said, there's a big article right here, but there's so many great points. If you don't have anything on that last one, definitely want to go to this second issue. Well, the one thing I will kind of touch on, cause it's in that last paragraph right, where he's like, the kids don't want to do that anymore. Where are you? Well, right here, right. When I was younger, it was okay for me to break open a record, put it on the turntable and listen, that's how my get down was crazy. The kids don't want to do that anymore. They actually want to participate. Short form video format allows them to participate. I think that's part of the solution. So one thing I will give him kudos to is he was pushing this thing out of a long, long time ago. I don't know if you remember when, I don't remember exactly what it was. There was a point where YouTube was gonna start pulling down user-generated videos that were using songs and stuff. I don't remember the exact conversation around it, but this was maybe like three, four years ago. And Leo Cullen was the one that stood up and was like, no, if we kill off UGC videos, we're gonna kill off the fans being able to participate and helping their favorite artists grow and things like that. So it is nice to see that that wasn't a pandering narrative. He's still sticking to, or it was a very strong pandering narrative. He's like, no, this one gotta stay in the docket. You know what I'm saying? They fuck me when I say this, you know what I'm saying? But because, I mean, we see it, but that's the biggest advantage TikTok has over YouTube is the ability for the fan to participate is much easier on that than it is on YouTube, bro. Like, YouTube is short, bro. It's hard to even sometimes figure out how to connect the video to the viral sound on there. It's a lot harder to find some of those things versus TikTok is streamlined, but you as a fan could make a TikTok account today and be making videos to your favorite artist song in 10 minutes, you know what I'm saying? YouTube, you're gonna be fumbling around a little bit. They make you connected to your Gmail and shit, you know what I'm saying? All this extra stuff, hit those welcome messages, but it's like the process for fans to be a part of the creative process for the artist isn't as streamlined on YouTube as it is. And that's the part that like I'm thinking, like unless they have some new feature update or user experience coming up that kind of fixes that, they're not fucking with TikTok in that part. But yeah, that was the last thing I kind of held up point. It's just, it's nice to see him sticking to the same narrative. Like, it makes me feel like he really means it, you know what I'm saying? No, that's fair. That's fair or not. Look, I'm always ready to see some consistency and see how long somebody's been standing on a hill and if they willing to die on it. So that's cool to see. And he was writing that one obviously because the participation is like the culture of today, right? Everybody wants to be involved. Well, the younger generation in particular, and I don't even know how much they initially wanted to be involved or they just got indoctrinated into that because it was just fun at first, right? They were having fun and now it's an expectation. If I can't be involved, then- Do I wanna be here? Do I wanna be here? Exactly, do I wanna be here? So this third problem, it continues to get interesting and I love especially knowing his level of insight into labels. Wait, are we at the second one? The way he talks. Yeah. Oh, well, no, we actually did skip it. So, cause you went straight to the bottom. I thought, yeah, let's get that. The second thing that I would like to help solve is the abundance of choice that kids have today. You wanna take our choices? What do you mean? Hold up now, hold up. Let me, they've been hit by a tidal wave of choice. You know, a little dictator-y bruh. The other thing that they're dealing with is that they really cannot stand traditional social media. My life sucks and everybody's else's lives are better. Okay, so this is him quoting, like that's how people feel apparently. That's how the kids are feeling. Yeah. All right, so then he goes on to say, that's why you're seeing a rejection of traditional social media amongst young people and you're seeing apps like Be Real explode. When I was younger, it was okay for me to break open a record, put it on the turntable and listen. That's how my get down was, okay, that was that part you were in. Oh, that was my bad. I thought that was the bottom line for all. So. I mean, the choice thing is interesting, bruh, because see, the thing is that I think consumers like having a lot of choice and the general industry doesn't like the fact that all of this choice means that you could not choose me or my thing that I want you to choose. Like you said earlier, but that was a point in the industry where everything was so controlled and so tight knit that if there were eight artists that, you know, I wanted to be mega stars by the end of the year. You know, of course there's, that they had their own world blocks and things, but it was more likely to be able to control the process. I can put you in these spaces that everybody is paying attention to because they have nothing else to pay attention to. Right. Versus like, and you already said, like I won't super get into it because you really touched on it earlier, but it's like today we have so many different things that could be paying attention to. You could be an artist that's huge in this community over here. Right. Like how many times have you come across an artist? You're like, oh, who's this guy? You look at it and you got like 20 million monthly list. You're like, who the, who the fuck is this? You know what I'm saying? Like how exactly brand you look at it and they're just popping in a whole different space. And I think that segmentation, the growing segmentation of that because we're going to see a lot more of that. We saw in another episode, right? Like the upper class of artists is going to shrink but the middle class is going to extend. You know what I'm saying? So you're going to keep seeing that. And I think that segmentation, I ain't going to say I think that segmentation is scary for the major level entity because it's like so much of that structure revolved around being able to control the process from artists to fan discovery. Now we have no control over it, you know what I'm saying? Like we don't, we, somebody's popping right now getting ready to get their first viral song. We don't know who the fuck it is. You know what I'm saying? Like we don't know who that person is. And that's because control brings you a level of comfort, right? It's safe. Right, it's safe. And all of these companies are risk-averse. The bigger you get, the more you just want to hold on to what you've got, the ways things are moving, but less control can actually be better in many cases. And I'm talking about even for the individual case and point, John D. Rockefeller, Standard Oil, billionaire, like going crazy, the money is great. Now, I think he was, I think he was even a billionaire before the, without inflation, cause you know, some of those old billionaires still, they'll say in that time, richest man in the world, let's put it that way. So he had Standard Oil, it was a monopoly, vertically integrated, beautiful. And then because he was a monopoly, they were like, yo, we gotta break this bad boy up. This is where you get Exxon and all these other oil companies, right? When they broke the companies up, he became richer. So he lost control, but he got more money. All right, so sometimes that's not the most profitable route to just have it all that control, but you're willing to lose some of those gains just for the certainty to know that I got my hand on the foot and you get what I'm saying? So, you know, that right there is, it was what the industry is dealing with. And then when you bring it back though, to your statement, I actually disagree with people wanting more choices. I think it's a little bit more nuanced than that. I think what I see is philosophically, people want more choices. In true behavior, people don't. Oh yeah. You get what I'm saying? All right, that's the idea of decision fatigue. It's been research, right? Oh yeah, you come up to me, I got a little food stand or a food truck. I got three ice cream flavors. Oftentimes, I'm gonna get more sales than if I had 50 ice cream flavors. Why? Because people get tired of trying to figure out what do I want. I've been to look at the menu at restaurants before, you're like, dang. I got six flavors of ice cream? Yeah, y'all got six flavors of ice cream, 20 flavors of wings. I don't know what to choose. Just give me the base. I'm not gonna even look anymore. Just give me some lemon pepper, you know, hot, like just the basics, right? So there is that a such thing as having too much choice. You know, we also experience it like changing channels on the TV, like just what are the best options and then how can I choose from the best options? That's why curation is always gonna be so powerful, right? Cause now I can trust you that you've already sifted out, right? Some of the best option. I was just talking to Jason Grishkoff, the founder of Submit Hub, he was like the ethics of a curator. He's big on that, the ethics of a curator, right? He's not being, he's not for payola cause the ethics of a curator is you're showing me this because it's your opinion. This is your taste, right? My argument was, well, the best curators, you can pay them but they're not gonna take the money unless they still stand by the actual product, right? Why they gonna take the money and still say what they got? I was like, no. You know, right? I mean, you know, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You saying, say what they gotta say. Like, hey, I'm gonna put this music up here but I'm also gonna say it's trash. I'm gonna be truthful about it, right? So to me, there's that fine line but the point is people rely on curators to make decisions for them. That's all it is. You know what I mean? It's just like asking somebody else for their opinion cause you don't feel like thinking. And I'm like, oh yeah, well, what did you see? What is Biden? You know, what is his policies that he's standing on this time? Oh, what is Trump? Talking about this time and what's Warnock talking about? What's Herschel Walker talking about? You just, you get some shorthand cause you don't have time to look through everything about everything. So curators are, I mean, I think they're gonna become increasingly more powerful than we think. You know, it's not gatekeeping because of the traditional sense but curators are definitely gonna become more and more useful because of this choice making. And I think people, it's up to people to find their own curators in life. I don't know how the hell you take away people's choices. Like he's saying he wants to get rid of their choices basically, or he just thinks people have too much. Let me re-read that before I, yeah, let me see. We went out, how can we, yeah, he would like to help solve the abundance of choice. How do you solve somebody having too many choices? You know what I'm saying? Like you can, unless you either take them away. Yeah, you take them away, bro. You get rid of the competition or you create some type of barrier for people that have to pass through the qualify for a ride, which is basically going back to old music industry system. It's like this ideal of an old system in the new world. You know what I'm saying? Like, I guess more perfect probably. But like, that's the thing. Like, but he literally answered why I don't think it's going to work. And the earlier paragraph is fans are too, are too invested in their choice and artists that becomes successful. Cause that is the thing I do think fans have this power through this social media app of having to truly feel like, oh, I picked this person to be successful, right? You are, especially the earlier you kind of catch them. You know what I'm saying? Like I saw you as a small creator. You have 500 followers on TikTok. I liked that one snippet you had. Yo, it's been me following you and liking you and sending you those donations, right? And doing X, Y, Z to kind of like get you to this point. And I think social media is at least, you know, cause it's really the algorithms curating what you see. So we want to be super technical. The algorithms or the platforms are the curators. That's what I'm saying. Like it's the illusion of choice. Yeah, exactly what they did. That's the illusion, right? Cause we know what, what do we have to do as Margaret, we talked about on last episode. So we have to lie to you because you want us to lie to you. So you can feel like you made the decision even though I'm only here or you're only seeing this because I, I made that decision for you. I put it there. I was like, I knew you was gonna like this shit. That's why I was right here. Yeah, you know what I mean? That's why you were keyword in Facebook. Facebook knew you was gonna like this, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that struggle. Again, people, people philosophically want all the choices in the world. But I think as humans we're limited and we actually can't handle all the choices in the world. Yeah, but that's a, that's a fine line though. I don't think he's gonna figure out how do you keep the illusion of choice while taking away choice? Mm-hmm. You know, it's like, hey, here go 15 people that you can pick from, but really I picked out 15, right? Like, the label doesn't have enough, I think of a stable A&R infrastructure to have that kind of control because the internet's still gonna be the internet. The people still gonna, will still pick who they want. And one way or another, they will figure it out, bro. Like, it goes back to the old days because if it was a motherfucker on the street that was hot and the town was here in the bottom they would get him lit right where it was spread. So it's like, one way or another, but people are gonna be the ones to kind of like pick these people. It just happens a lot faster on the internet, you know what I'm saying? Because of how fast you can spread. So it's like, how do you truly take away someone's choice while leaving the illusion of choice? I don't think they can completely exist in today's music landscape. Because you have no way to predict like who you need to put into your system of control until they're already popping. You know what I'm saying? At that point, then they were picked by the people. The very people you were trying to take choice away. Took choice away from them, you know? That's true, I think. Yeah, we think about what's happening today, right? People, companies, A&Rs, managers, people allow the system of people to make the decisions first. And then, oh, here it is. They're allowing the general public to curate, to be curators or do. Because it's too many damn artists out here because too many artists now can't create music, right? So they're allowing the general public to curate from them versus them doing all of the curation and curating and influencing the public. So I think if anything, there's just a cycle today, right? General public influences us. We influence the general public. General public influences us. We influence the general public. I think that's just as good as it's gonna get and finding ways to allow that to be expedited or be more accurate in the way you analyze the general public's sentiment is the solution on the labor or industry side. And maybe once artists at a certain level, you can create that illusion of choice. But that part, I'm struggling to see how you actually pull that off. Yeah, bro, I don't think they will. It's not gonna be YouTube, bro. It's not gonna be YouTube. As much as I love YouTube, bro, it's not gonna be them. Yeah. Hmm. I think if anything, if anybody could do it, it's TikTok. Cause you don't know why the hell you're seeing what you're seeing. Yeah. All right. So there's that. I feel like anything they're showing me is that I'm just seeing just because and we've bought into that reason. Even though we know it's a black box for some reason, we feel like it's random but we know it's not random at the same time. And because I decided to watch this video and didn't decide to watch that video, it in fact is a choice of mine. That's how we see it. So TikTok is some way is doing it probably beyond everybody else. And then maybe the metaverse there'll be some ways that they could pull that off. But okay, okay. So that's something to think about. Something to chew on. Maybe we'll come back with that one. But let's get into this third problem. Cause again, I think it's so interesting because we know his experience with the record labels and how closely he speaks with these folks. And he said, I've never seen so much confusion at record labels. They actually don't know how to break artists anymore. All right. Artists all hear that. They don't know how to break artists. We've kind of said some of this stuff anyway. All right. Record companies used to be able to work to a date in an artist's campaign and focus on that date thing. So they came to focus. It's not as clean anymore. There's an elongation of the process of breaking an artist. The runway is littered with artists in the process of breaking. I'm like, what does that mean? A lot of metaphorically deleted artist bodies on the path to the successful artists. Oh, dang. Yeah. Yeah. Very vivid imagery. I'm just picture like, I'm saying deleted. You know what I'm saying? Like a deleted music artist is laid across the sidewalk. You know what I'm saying? The new superstar walks up the pearly gates. Finally made it. Into the shining of business success. Right. You dashing down the track. You see all these bodies laying down. And you're like, ooh, good thing. I didn't fall out and then bam, you get taken out too before you made it to that finish line. Yeah, bro. It's like, what was that stat? Like labels would sound like a thousand artists every, I don't remember the time frame. I remember something crazy, bro. So I was like, yeah, bro, maybe 10 of them are successful every year. But I mean, there's thousands of metaphorically deleted artist bodies, you know what I'm saying? The pay of the way for those 10 to be successful in some way. Right. And it's important in this conversation to keep in mind that going viral is not breaking as an artist. Breaking the song is not breaking an artist, right? So all these things are in consideration. So what he's saying and getting to that point of breaking an artist, and his point of breaking an artist is probably different than what we consider breaking an artist. He probably has a higher standard than we do, just to be real based off of what he's seen and that's probably not the thing that he's considering as well, though. Remember, being detached from the general public, so many artists are happy with what they consider to be their breaking point, but he would be unhappy with that point because he doesn't consider it meaningful until they get to a certain point. As a label, as somebody who profits and you need to see a certain amount of money. Just like a lot of people will be happy to have a company doing 50 million a year and you have some people like, yo, like we got to get rid of this line of business. It's over, it don't matter if it's not hitting the bill or 500 mil, whatever. So some of that is to be considered, by the way. Now, the process, all right. So it's not as clean anymore. There's an elongation of the process of breaking an artist. The runway is littered with artists in the process of breaking. Getting kids to participate in short form video as their 3.0 version of social media will help labels act, will help labels break acts and take social media burden away from artists. All right, now you're just talking about TikTok again, bruh. You low key diss TikTok, but now you're actually saying the thing that TikTok brought to the game and scaled far beyond anyone else is the solution. So the solution is actually happening already. The solution is the problem. The problem is the solution. So I'm now very interested to see where he goes. I know we're going to the sales pitch. But we have to prompt the consumer of the grazing mode and into fan engagement mode. No, we have to prompt the consumer out of the grazing mode and into the fan engagement mode. Okay, that is the key. And that's my mission with shorts. Ah, to use it as a discovery tool and prompt consumers into a multi-format richer experience. Instead of the empty calories that are on other short form video platforms, I like to think of shorts like an appetizer. YouTube like the main course and subscription via YouTube music like the audio dessert. I see you with the analogy. You've been hanging around rappers for too long. That is, I think a much better health, a much healthier ecosystem. Keep killing this analogy with the healthy and the food and appetizers. I'm loving it. The empty calories, bro. For the music business, it's sustainable and actually allows artists to go back to their craft. And it also helps labels break artists and helps consumers find the soundtrack of their youth and become deeper and more committed fans. All right, so like simplifying it, he's saying YouTube shorts to the YouTube page, right? Where you watch a music video, longer form and content, you could be vlogging, you go into that full world. And then you have the ability to do subscriptions on that platform. I can also phone lower to the music. You can now find it over to the music, right? So you have your Patreon on YouTube. I would be interested to see, because I'm not super familiar with the YouTube subscription program and how you have people subscribe to you. Because I'm not thinking about like subscribing to YouTube music, but like when you subscribe to your channel, right? Yeah. Do they have a gated process yet? Like where some stuff only shows. I know when you're doing like a super chat, it shows benefit that, oh, this person, you know, is a part of my subscriber program and things like that. And you can say only subscribers can comment, but is there gated content on YouTube? I don't know actually. I don't know. I never looked into that. I would think so because I know at one point they were going hard with kind of like competing with like Patreon and stuff like that. Right. So maybe actually we should look into that. Yeah, we should. I feel like it's not there yet, but I could see it organically being there, right? Yeah. Because then, I mean, man, we talked about the issues with Patreon the other day. I mean, man, YouTube pretty much has everything there. Just like now they have shorts segmented on your main page, imagine they have your community comments segmented on that main page. Imagine you just have another segment that subscribers only, all right? You might have one video there for nine subscribers. They only see that one video and it's just talking about the inside of it. But you open that up and literally it's just more YouTube videos and the comments, that's the same experience, but except I can only see this if I'm there. So they do, if they did that, they're already better to Patreon in my, my, my, right? Yeah. They could do some damage in that space. Now, actually selling people and converting people onto that platform, that's always a whole another story though. All right, and these programs, no matter how good and innovative you are, it could truly be a better product, but it won't matter if you can't get people to adopt it enough to continue to invest in it. So we'll see, but if YouTube's really invested in that, I would like to see it. I think it could be better than anything we have today or at least more streamlined. Is it the answer to the solution? I mean, to the problem that he keeps presenting. I think it's just their way to better monetize on the new ecosystem that exists. Yeah. I don't necessarily see it as a problem solver. Yeah, because I mean, it's really, it's really just a different experience of the bigger experience that everyone wants to do. It's like everybody has a short form content aspect of their platform now, other than maybe Twitter. I guess Twitter is all short form really. Yep. So their big selling point is like, hey, we can become the place where your short form content pushes the long form and then their long form pushes the music. The platform where that whole process can be streamlined from you, you don't have to break like you do from TikTok to whatever, nor Instagram or whatever, which is fair. That's a great point. It's a fair point, right? YouTube is probably, I wouldn't say probably is the most music industry friendly platform, I think there is. Why don't you? Like it's not like the users that aren't friendly towards it, but like they're as a platform, they're always thinking about the music industry, right? And kind of their impact on that side. So I think the model is like great in theory, but it ignores realistic user behavior. Cause it's very rare that you have someone that likes to use almost like the entire ecosystem of a thing, right? Like for example, like I'm deep into Google sweet, you know what I'm saying? Like I love Google sweet, but I got a couple of apps that I'm not checking out no matter how much I love Google, right? Or like Apple, like I'm deep in the Apple world. There's some products I'm never getting. Like I like Apple, but I don't like them that much. You know what I'm saying? There's going to be elements of this that people feel the same way about. Hey man. Bro, you just spoke to me, right? You just spoke to me. I just had this experience though. My uncle, I won over Thanksgiving when I went to his house. He has a Samsung smart refrigerator. Oh, sure. This junk is amazing. Yeah, I was like, that's just beautiful. Yeah, it is beautiful, bro. And you know, he was, everything was so streamlined cause he's all Samsung or whatever, and I'm like, dang. Is that worth considering going back to my Samsung? Cause I'm only like two years into Apple probably. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? I'm like, dang, and is that worth going back? I've had a Mac for maybe four and the iPhone for two. But I'm like, nah, cause my work experience is too perfect. I need Apple for my work experience. The phone and laptop being synced. That was it. Matter of fact, remember that was when you told me you were recording videos and then you were airdropping and shit to it. I was like, oh my gosh, I need that. That is a game changer. So that, my work experience is one thing, but dang, I'm like probably like my house is, but I don't wanna Apple for refrigerator or something. Apple refrigerator, bro, that's just not crazy. I don't wanna Apple TV, personally. Crazy. You know what I mean? So at some point, the interest does, like it does segment off. You're not gonna be fully invested in everything, controlling everything. There's gonna be those few, you know, obsessive people about a brand, but most people are there. That's what YouTube music uses out there. Whoever y'all are, you know what I'm saying? Like they exist. The numbers keep growing every year. So, but it's just like, like I said, the finalist stuff I think is perfect. They just are not, the only part of the funnel that YouTube is the strongest in is the long form aspect of it. Because like you said, the culture of TikTok is a large part of the reason why TikTok dominates that. It's not because people are making better seven second videos over there, or maybe they are right, but it's like the culture of it breeds ideas at a quicker rate, like collaboration aspect of it is a lot faster on that right, like we talked about earlier, like the fan interaction engagement can happen a lot faster on a TikTok than on YouTube short. Even TikTok itself has made it easier for people to do that. Like they give you editing tools, writing out like some good editing tools. It's not like some bullshit little clip, you know what I'm saying? Like a scissor tool, whatever it's called, but it's like, no, you could, it's damn near Adobe Premiere Lite in that shit, you know what I'm saying? People create better short form content because of TikTok. Exactly, exactly. It forced that and created that environment. YouTube short is only gonna be reaping TikTok's rewards in that regard, okay, yeah, not even just talking about secondary content, it's like, no, when it comes to short form, TikTok is the school. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's like, you're trying to win the battle with a platform that I don't think you're gonna win with. And like we said it right now, brother, the social media, what to pay attention to is TikTok versus YouTube. It's not TikTok versus Instagram, like some people might think, but it is TikTok versus YouTube. They're literally doing things to take shots at each other, right? TikTok has the live stream thing, which I strongly believe is their way of trying to train their users to be more okay with long form content so they can compete with TikTok. I mean, we'll compete with YouTube, right? YouTube is trying to put more emphasis on the shorts so they can get the short form content aspect of it to be able to compete with TikTok. It's crazy, bro. They're literally taking each other's things and trying to optimize it better. And then even the music, I think Leo takes a shot at TikTok and he's like, yo, they've been trying to make their little music industry and a distribution ship happen for the longest. How's that going, right? So he acknowledges that they're coming for a similar business model that a similar artist to industry pipeline that YouTube is trying to create. And like in TikTok might be the only serious competitor they have in that regard. So that's why I said like that sales pitch sounds nice. You know what I'm saying? It sounds good to the higher up person that I don't think is looking at the tradition of music fan. And you bought up a good point too that I didn't think about. Like he could just be looking at it from a different lens. You know what I'm saying? Like he said, like what he might consider to be successful artist, so he might be thinking of, you know what I'm saying? He might be thinking of Olivia Rodrigo in his head while we thinking about like, I can't even think about it. You know what I'm saying? Like DDG or something, right? It's like, we're looking at the issue from two different vanity points. I could acknowledge that. But I think we talk about just general consumer behavior. I don't know, I think he's fighting a losing war. But I was like, the people have shown like this is the direction. They want things to go in. And I don't think you don't win the battle trying to fight user behavior. You win it trying to figure out how you can adapt to it, which is what he's doing. Like I give him credit for that. But this article is just confusing because like, but you come in this shit on it to then say, it's the answer. And it's the answer because we're doing it this way. Right. But everybody else is doing that shit. That shit don't make no sense. Oh yeah, I'll show it for on content. I'm gonna make people on the watch long videos but yours for whatever reason won't. Brett, that's what today has come to, Brett. Today is an age where even Lee or Cohen has to troll and be polarizing. You got it man? Oh, he's always been like that actually, you know what I'm thinking about? He's always been straightforward, you know what I mean? But that felt like the order of everything. And it's probably how the article is positioned. So I'm not gonna even say it all to Leo or Cohen but just like you said, he shit on it to then say, we got better shit, you know what I'm saying? And that's cool. I think that the last thing that I get from this whole thing is it's very clear that YouTube has a strong chance of having their own distribution platform at some point. Just because that's what it looks like to have to compete with TikTok. And what's even clearer and that's more speculation or guessing. I'll say that. I'll say what's more clear is YouTube having, YouTube, TikTok, tech companies, social media platforms in general, that's the new influence when it comes to record labels and the hot job. Just look at how people move who want jobs. What's the hot company to be at? If I'm in music, oh, I want to be at YouTube. Oh, I want to be at TikTok. That's really it actually. Like it's not that you don't want to be anywhere else but like the hottest ones and that look like they're leading in their cutting edge and nowhere things are going. Spotify still has some of that too. But it's not the labels like it used to be. Yeah. You're right. Not the labels. It's the tech companies for music executives. That's a whole different landscape that we're in. And it just shows the control of it. And we know that it's not going to stop. So there's people who are still at labels. I'm sure they have great jobs and they love the job of making money. And it's not like what they're doing is completely irrelevant. But day to day, what they're doing is highly influenced by what's happening at the tech companies. And if you're at a tech company, you're a part of the leading charge in the main influence versus having to react as much to the record label. You know, record label is like government. That's what it is, right? We regulate. Whoa, whoa, we figure out how we can regulate so we can make it commercial, make it good for everybody and the actors involved. Tech is, I mean, they tech, they're the innovators. They're the pioneer of how this thing is actually going. It's what's being followed. So, I mean, that's only gonna continue. And it seems like tech is solving a lot of their issues with the label side of things by figuring out how can we get rid of these guys? Because tech don't like to have to answer anybody. That's why you know, TikTok would sound on and having their own systems. So, that'll be interesting to watch. Shoot, just over the next two years alone, let alone the next five. But we'll continue to revisit that. Shout out to Lee or Cohen for dropping a well-versed article with a lot of points that we can speak on. Yeah, ain't a lot, man. I'm kind of scared for when Dane dashed to his clip. What you mean? Oh, I don't know, man. I don't feel like good things could come from it. Oh, man. Oh, yeah, we need to put it in Dane face, dude. Put it in Dane face. Yeah, hopefully he see it, man. Hopefully you see this, Dane, and you just appreciate the knowledge aspect of it. You know? That was a too smart gentleman. Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so I think I'm gonna skip that just for time's sake. One thing that I wanna talk about, no, we'll end it here, make this the last topic right here. All right. Which is nothing to pull up, but do you remember last time when I talked about the Vlad TV model? And I said, will you talk about it next time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so when we talked about Vlad TV and the whole sweetie situation. Which I do wanna say, by the way, I listened to that EP today and it's not that bad. We already know it don't have to be bad to not get listened to. I actually saw, it was actually a clip on a Joe Budden podcast or whatever. No, the Roy Amal podcast and he was reading through the lyrics and by the end of it, he was like, man, she gonna harm this song. Let me go actually listen to the run. So it could be good. I haven't gotten it yet, but I'm gonna get there. Well, yeah, music does not have to be bad to not be listened to, right? It's my own prerogative and the same for the rest of the public. Now, with that being said though, the whole thing was Vlad talked about somebody on sweetie's team turning down the Vlad interview and sweetie actually later tweeted that it wasn't her, right? Because Vlad initially thought it was sweet and in that whole conversation, you mentioned that Vlad offered sweetie $10,000, right? To do an interview, right? That was the number. All right, so I'm gonna pull up VladTV real quick on the YouTube, you know what I'm saying? Let me pull this up. Oh yeah, you're too bad. You said it, wait, what? So you're too bad. We're at the top. Oh. Look at that artist. Right. So how do you reek in the minutes? I'm reeking. Poor reeking, I get it. So we go to VladTV's page. Let's look at Boosie interviews. And actually, it's so perfect. It's so perfect. So you go to VladTV's page, man. And what do we know about YouTube? When you got your ass turned on, you get paid money. You make money. Do you not? Yeah. Do you not? So if he's giving her 10K, he probably gets that money just off of the interview. Oh yeah. Right? Yeah, definitely. And then if you look at how he snips stuff up. More monoclubra. That's what he does, the sniff is like that, man. So if you look at, let me see, sweet 10K, 10K, probably a million views. Yeah, a million views, $10,000. Sweetie interviews, you add some sensational questions and everything. You throw that in there. He probably has one, two, three, probably within three snippets. He'll probably get that 10K back at least, right? And then at the end of the day, we know Vlad will have like 20 snippets, right? And make another 30 to 40K, something like that, right? Yeah. I just now get his business models in a whole another level. I know he probably, you know, he has ads, he has his own website, but man, once you say that number, as far as him being able to pay artists, cause shoot, man, I wouldn't be surprised like if he was doing so many interviews with Boosie, cause Boosie probably like, hell, yeah, bro, you know, you gonna give me 10K every time I do this or 20, with 5K, whatever the number is, right? Yeah, why would he feel like that worse? Yeah, like, oh yeah, I'll just take a quick little number cause Vlad know he's gonna get crazy views. People gonna watch it more likely to watch other Vlad videos once you watch them, right? And so there's like, I might have, in some of these people, he's not even paying because Vlad's platform is also worth it for a lot of people. It's like, yo, I'm not even on this level. Vlad's gonna give me visibility. So you got the people that you don't pay, then you got the people that you do pay, right? And the people that you do pay just off the interview alone, you gonna make that money back here. You get somebody like Boosie, who is basically a star when it comes to commentary, everybody's gonna wanna watch. I mean, you're hitting gold. He's doing the same thing with Sean Prez and young jock, those interviews. Like they hit next thing, you know, Sean Prez and interview young jock, probably like four times in the last two months or something. All right? Like, because the clips is going crazy. Jock is one of those same types of guys. So I don't have to say when you put that number out there, it just clicked and made everything make so much sense. And just, it's just such a beautiful business model. And I know that's probably us. This is a small portion of whatever Vlad's full business model, et cetera is. But like, the fact that I can, because I'm on YouTube page is so big, again, he probably can get plenty of these people who are gonna do very well off of the fact that one, it's a big platform and you're exposing people. So yeah, I'm doing this cause it's a op. If I don't need the op, still it's a respectable platform. I'm getting a lot of views. It's getting my message out. It's a great look, right? Cause there's still like, big artists go to a radio station, they're still, they're not expecting the radio station to pay them, all right? So you still get that. But then in the situation that I do need to pay people, I'm making the money back. I'm making the money back easy. Just offer the views on YouTube. Yeah. I mean, he's essentially just buying content. Yes. Right? Cause another- Buying content and having a full ownership of the shit. Yeah. Cause I was gonna say like another thing I noticed that a lot of them are starting to do is, they'll take old interviews and then be like, here's throwback interview of the day, right? Throwback. He kills that, bro. He kills that. And so it's like, man, I literally have this content to use in perpetuity. You know what I'm saying? Yep. The bigger you get, the bigger this clip gets. And he's like, you bring more people back to my other content. Bro, that's a beautiful model, bro. Beautiful. Beautiful model. And I mean, I'll assume that's what all of their business models are, bro. Him, no jumper. I'll assume it's a part of the Breakfast Club model at some point, right? Got a Breakfast Club. I don't think they can do that. Oh, cause the radio, you're right. Yeah, the radio situation is just a different climate. They can't do that. Well, maybe I'll hurt it. I'll hurt it, definitely. Look at it that way. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'll hurt it. I'll hurt it. Maybe not them, but yeah, I'll hurt it as well. Cause it's like, and that is what used to be so interesting about Atom 22 with no jumpers version of it. Because to me, his is a little more risky because he interviews a lot of smaller artists right like newer people into the music scene. But he's probably definitely not paying those people. You know what I'm saying? I'm not at all. Yeah, exactly, bro. And it's like, but it was like, when he did that, that first like XXX and Tosion interview, like that video, that interview was everywhere, but actually it was viral as fuck. And I think I wonder how much money he's made out of that video that was probably free as fuck. You know what I'm saying? Like probably a lot of money out of it. And then just having the ability to clip it up and introducing during different conversations as the artist grows and builds. It's like that one $10,000 interview that I paid you for, if you were successful and you keep moving and having a successful career, that could easily be a couple of hundred thousand, you know what I'm saying? Dollars for me offer just like content revenue. And I'll even let alone, like you said, like the people that just convert to the other shit, like his website and I'm sure he's selling and merging all these other back end things, right? Crazy, bro. It's a beautiful business model. Bro, it's so smooth. It works so cleanly. Yeah, the slang and content, bro. And the fact that, you know, he keeps it really simple too. That's the beautiful part about it too, right? It's to sit down. It's just on them. Reduction don't have to be stupid or anything. It's cheap. Cheap, man. Hey, man, we might have to start. But we got to start getting guests, bro, for the exact reason. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, you know, y'all, y'all come on in. Y'all come on on, or look, let's start one of those channels, like a side channel and then just have like a little cousin or somebody do all the interviews. Just be automated. We just booked all the interviews for him. That'd be crazy, bro. That'd be crazy. Bro, are you familiar with the YouTube automation channel thing? Man, it made stuff finally make sense to me. I was surprised that I wasn't aware of this is what was going on. But you've ever been to one of those YouTube pages and it has like the weird robotic voice in the article. And like, this is weird as shit. Like, why are people doing this? People are weird for like taking their time and doing this. And now, I understand the human behavior behind it. So people are trying to make money from ads by having these automated voices read, right? So obviously, if I have an ad, if I have an automated voice read through a script, now I can literally not have to do anything personally and then make all the ad dollars, all right? So I'm never running the channel. It's never about my face. It's a face of the YouTube channel. Matter of fact, here's the system broken down in full. So I go and find a hot topic, all right? Or a hot niche first, right? Let's say it's hip hop. And we know there's always news about culturing hip hop period, right? So since I have that, then I'm just going to take an article and literally insert that article into the softwares that'll literally paraphrase the article so the words change up a little bit. And then I have a voice over read that and the voice over the robot. So it's like everything's automated and the channel's growing. Now what they've seen happen, apparently, is YouTube's cracked down on a lot of those channels. They're starting to become tight on that, which, you know, it's like, hey, it's growing, it's growing. I'm surprised YouTube is cracking now. I got to look into it to figure out why. But so people are getting around that now by hiring voice over people from Fiverr, right? So you still don't have to do it. You just have, and you actually do have to pay somebody, but the channel grows and it pops big enough. You're good, right? And again, this is, I didn't have to spend any time creating content. I'm just getting content paraphrased from other places. That's just genius, bro. That's just genius. I was like, oh, shit, it makes so much sense now. Before, I'm like, oh, this is weird as hell, but now I know what they're attempting to do. I thought you were just, I don't know, wasting your life. Like you're uploading this, like, what are you doing? Okay, you're trying to make money, it makes sense. That's the popular thing right now, bro. There'd be these videos on TikTok going viral where there'd be a robotic voice reading a Reddit thread and there'd be a game of Subway Surfer or something at the bottom. I've caught myself washing a handful of those videos. I don't know what it is, man. Something about the monotone of the robotic voice. You know. Do you think it's sexy, bro? I don't know. It do something to me. I ain't gonna lie to you, bro. And I was just like, man, I could listen to this story about, I don't know, it'd be stupid shit, bro. That was Reddit stories. You're crazy. Oh, yo, I know what you're talking about now. It just clicked. Yeah, I think it's hard. I'm not gonna even fully get that to the voice just because those stories are so crazy. You could be hooked in and not even care what's going on. You just want to know how this shit ends. But I was gonna say, that shit is actually genius because you go to a Reddit thread, bro. And it's like, that shit is just right there. It clicked as soon as I said that, bro. That shit is wild. It's right there. It's right there. See? So then that makes me say, hey, maybe I need to start copying Reddit threads and then get a voiceover actor from Spotify, from Fiverr. That shit will probably go on my phone. It's like, look it up. Just straight up tell all the stories and let the channel grow. That's crazy. Well, that shit might get started tonight. Hey, it's such an easy business. It's such an easy flip. If you can get it to work. You know what I mean? Of course there's a barrier, but once things are moving like that, man. And sure, at that point then you'll get a little intern to now be the person who finds the stories, uploads. Yeah, that's, look. That might be the wave, man. It might be the wave. It might be the wave. Yeah, I can't remember whose YouTube video I saw, but it's probably like two days ago I saw him talking about, he tried the YouTube automation channel or whatever. So I was like, dang, okay, okay, I see it. So, you know, hey, artist, y'all looking to make a little side money or try a little song, right? Let me get some Reddit stories, look. To add to your campaign money. Get out and try it. That's a pretty low risk, you know, thing to try. And until you probably hit a thousand subscribers, of course you got to invest to get in it, but man, level of effort. You want to try to get some easy money. I'm not a big proponent of like saying, money come easy, but man, that sounds like one of the easiest things I heard in a minute. This is going to be boring as fuck at first, but yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean? Growing pains. Yeah, growing pains. That's part of business. That's part of business. So, hey, y'all, we appreciate y'all rocking with us yet again for another episode. Of course, every Tuesday and Thursday, be here. You know what I mean? Be here. We are dropping new episodes of No Labels necessary. We would love to hear y'all feedback about these episodes in the comments. We try to stay engaged with y'all or at least use some of that as inspiration for future episodes. But until then, I'm Sean. I'm Corey. And we out. Peace.