 All right, so artists are always talking about record executives finessing them. But there's an argument being made by this successful music executive saying, we are only finessing y'all because y'all are finessing y'all selves first because y'all only care about perception. That's his argument. And I wanna play this clip and believe it or not, there's somebody who's extremely famous and popular that y'all all love that support his same sentiment. But check this out. People post pictures of Bill Gates and Warren Buffer, they say not one Gucci belt in there. Well, guess why they don't have to, they don't wear a Gucci belt because they don't have to. But if I'm a black music exec, I better wear a Gucci belt because I'm trying to sign a young black kid. And if I don't know the right thing to wear, how am I gonna help him? How do you feel about that? So a hell of a argument, but it's true. You feel like I gotta look fresh based on whatever the trendy clothes are just to have some kids signin' me? At least in route, man, because kids care about that, you know what I'm sayin'? Like the 16 to like 25 year olds really care about fashion. And to his point, if you're not at least, maybe not, you don't have to be the trendiest, but if you don't at least look nice, they assume if you out of touch with your t-shirt, how can I trust you with my music career? You know what I'm sayin'? It's a wild correlation, but the correlation that gets made is endless. All right, let him finish. So we gotta chill with the, they don't do that. Pee from QC has to pull up to his meeting in a Rolls Royce. Mike Karen get UberX to his meeting because a black kid doesn't expect Mike Karen to live his life like that. But if a black kid expects a black man from the hood with money to live his life like that. All right, see, that's where we draw the line because I've experienced that same to be true in many cases. I've seen people with that mentality. This older white gentleman, I don't expect him to be on. He doesn't have to dress or spend all this money just to impress me. But nah, how come you dressed in those khakis? You know what I'm sayin'? Boat shoes, we not doin' that. I definitely have seen that mentality and we know in many ways this can hold us back, but is it even valid? Doesn't even make sense because if you got somebody that you don't expect that way, in this case, the white man, but you trust him to do your business, do you even trust the criteria in the first place if you're using that against the black man but you're not using it against the other man? That doesn't even make sense to me, right? Yeah, I mean, it stands from deeper racial issues, probably than just- Oh, you goin' into race? Nah, I ain't want to, but he took it. I mean, okay, okay. I mean, I get it too, but I think even just, all right, no, it is race, okay? But- It's sad what it is, bro. It is, but I think what's crazy about it is everybody's doin' this in some way and hip-hop we're doin' this in a way that just hurts everybody because now you gotta waste money. Look, artists are like, yeah, man, they pulled me out here. I've heard artists like, yo man, they pulled up, they had the rave and they took me chain shopping, all these things, right? And then they signed me and they were happy to see it and some artists didn't sign, but they're like, oh yeah, they flew me out to the hotel and I almost signed. They were so happy about that experience that it became a story to tell. It was somethin' that made them consider one person more than the other because that also made them feel like this person must care more because they're doin' all these things for them. So I was like, one, I'm mis- I'm only judging that you must know what you're doin' because you know how to dress, which, bruh, newsflash, it don't mean that you know what you're doin', it just means that you know how to dress, even if you like that style, like, for one. I know some amazing people that are terrible dressers. Terrible dressers. But they're great people, great at what they do, amazing work. Bruh, look at the best fashion designers. Half the time, they don't even dress that fly. Like even Kanye, cause people might not know some of the more obscure fashion designers are like deep into that world, Kanye doesn't really dress all that fresh. Yeah, they go walkin' on with feet on or somethin'. I don't know if you saw that one picture. I didn't. I didn't. You gotta look it up. Offscreen, I shoulda cried. So that's a wild argument, but why is he not spending that much time? Why? Because he's workin'. I got all of these ideas, the creativity's in my head, and I'm creating product, I'm helping build these things. And the people who are supposed to be building you up, they might just be spending so much time on you, right, or building other artists up that they're not thinkin' about them. It's a low key that could be a better way to look at it. Yeah, and I think part of it too is right, you wanna aspire to be in the position of the person that you're under, right? So I think there's that thing of like, hey, if he looks this way, or he or she looks this way and they look like they're livin' a certain lifestyle, then I can assume that if I am takin' under a wing, I will eventually live the same lifestyle. And music is not true. We know lots of broke artists signed to multimillionaires. Yeah, that is a huge part of the problem, because you wanna put that in the bucket of, if this person is successful, then I should be following him. I don't wanna follow advice from people who's not successful, but then we're deeming and judging success based off of those superficial things. And that's probably where the disconnect is. But check this out right here. I wanna go into Ali, because I feel like, but how about Ali describes this shit better than anybody else? I never forgot this, so as I saw this, I probably saw this mess like 10 years ago. I have the things I buy for reason. Black people in America, I'm ready for you. Black people in America do not respect even the world. People, the average man out here, why not on your show? What's yours for me? Why can't I get up and talk so bold on TV? Of course I'm the heavyweight champion, but I was just another nigga. I was at work and I watched some dishes and my opinion don't mean a damn thing. I know that. But let me tell you another thing. Why do I buy pretty cars? Because all of the educated people we're trying to convert to the Islamic faith. The thing is, you all don't have nothing. Elijah Muhammad Ali used to have a little old house, a real house trying to be humble and all the Negro preachers of Christianity will say to their followers, how can Elijah Muhammad be from God? He lives on a shack. Shouldn't God be able to bless him with a nice home? He wanted to be humble. He got. That's exactly what people gonna do to you, right? Yeah. That's exactly what people gonna do to you. Yeah. People gonna pay attention to the things. Oh, but that reminds me of, remember you told me, I don't know who you said it was, but somebody that you knew, but they don't even, I don't think you know what I'm talking about. Oh man, I don't know. I could. All right, let's see. You told me that somebody was gonna look at us. They said, if I was y'all's enemy, I would say, how come y'all don't have a lot of followers if y'all are good marketers? Remember you said that? Yeah. That was back before we were really growing our profiles. Heavy like that, right? But my argument mentally was just like, one, but we might be marketing our clients, not us. Right? Most of the people in the music industry for years, like social media didn't even exist and people were popping artists off. So you can't judge the people based off of their profile. And as a matter of fact, most of the people online who got big profiles aren't even really doing it and they don't know how to market artists, right? That's the actual thing. However, we know that people get finessed by that. So you kind of have to build followers in some cases just for people to kind of understand and respect. So I get that sounding, but that's kind of what Ray was playing off of. That's what Muhammad is saying. What did you think God was about to say? I thought you saw the story I told you a couple of weeks ago about that old client. I never told you that story? No, you didn't. All right, man, let's buckle up. Cause this is before we were working together, but it was like 2018. Wait, should we save it for the end? What you mean? It's gonna be like, are we gonna go in a way, a whole another direction? No, I got to do this. And I don't remember God, man. We never worked with him, but he was like, okay, so he wasn't a client. He was about to be a client. All right. And he was this guy. He had just got out of prison, hit me, I wanna work with you. I have a bank account. Can I give you the money in cash? I'm young, I'm stupid. First, maybe 15 marketing clients. So you don't know how to go pick up cash from the motherfucker you're about to work with. But I'm like, yeah, cool. I'll meet you in little five points, right? Little five points for y'all. I know it's like a RC dish with Atlanta. And I go, and at the time I had this very, very, very shitty Toyota camera. It was shitty. I still got to my mom's crib. Terrible. It got me places with a shitty car. And he seen me get out the car. And he was like, man, I don't know if I wanna work with you. I'm like, why not? He was like, because of your car. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like I would have soon, if you were good at what you do and you were successful, you would have a nicer car. And I was like, what if I'm being physically responsible and not putting my money into a car? And I'm being judged by the motherfucker without a bank account. That's what I thought to for this man without a bank account. It's judging me for riding around in my shitty Toyota Camry. And I've never forgotten that. I've never let that go. That's my religion origin story. And that's exactly why people would dress a certain way. Just to get over those hurdles that don't make sense, but it's your fault. So back to Ray Daniels, like y'all are finessing yourselves. Y'all think we're doing this and we tricked y'all. And then when I say, you know, I'm just speaking on his side, but really you tricked yourself because you wouldn't have respected me in the first place. As a matter of fact, a lot of people don't know what to look for. So they look at that. I don't even know how to tell if what he's saying is true. So I might as well just look at his clothes because that's some kind of symbol. But let's let this Ali clip play out because you know, buddy is something else. You'd have had a big home. He drove a little old car in his younger days trying to be humble, but they think you don't have nothing. People don't respect you when you look like you don't have no money. So I got to buy diamonds. I got to be the heavyweight champion. I got to have a rose rust. So when I pull up to the other black man with a rose rust, hey, my brother, come on down to the Muslim temple today. I want you to hear the sermon of Allah. Well, who's a pretty car? What are you watching from? Oh, my man. Come on up. And they listen. You got to have something. Hey, that word must be good down at that church. You got me. You think you got some time, though? Watch it from all my man. Come on up. And they listen. You got to have something. Most people will join a church. You get a Catholic church in the kind of church and build a church and put gold seats in it, put diamond carved speakers on the wall, put carpet in that church and watch how many followers you will have in your church. Let another man preach a better word of God, let him have a little house with a storefront and he won't have no followers. People in this world, we love wealth. They respect people with money. So I have to buy these things, line them up. I'm fixing up a home in Chicago, English Dile House, 14 bedrooms, 60 years old. It will cost a million dollars to be able to pay 100,000 for. I'm putting all new furniture from Beirut, Lebanon. It's going to be a plus-plus house. I'm never at home. But when I invite people over to talk to me. First of all, the way he's able to flex but then say, I don't want to do this to people again, this is brilliant, like handling in PR, bro. I don't want to step on you, bro, but I got to. Y'all got to study this. But check how he ends this whole thing. Check it. It will cost a million dollars to be able to pay 100,000 for. I'm putting all new furniture from Beirut, Lebanon. It's going to be a plus-plus house. I'm never at home. But when I invite people over to talk to me and they ding, punch the bell, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong. And my show's coming door. Oh, yes. I missed all of you. It'll be out in 20 minutes. I have to set upstairs for 30 minutes and make him wait so he'll appreciate me. I don't run, I don't run to the door. I don't run right to the door and answer him. You go to meet Queen of England. I bet you. You don't walk right in and meet the Queen. You set that for a while and they take you to this room and you set that for, Queen's probably sitting there watching the news. But make you wait. Make you think about what you're going to do. You go meet a president of a country. You don't go meet the country. They show you what he's building. They let you see what he's doing. And then when you meet the president, you realize who he is. So I'm trying to convert. I'm trying to wake up my people and help them. So I have to have these things. Otherwise, I'm broke. He's a Joe Lois. His managers take all his money. He made five minutes. He don't have nothing. Now that's why you see these cars and stuff. Any more? Hey, bro. You can't break it down any better than that. Yeah, man. He ain't lying, man. You can't break it down any better than that. I'm gonna see if Ray had anything else to say that we were missing to add to this. Let's see. Is it wrong for Peter by a Rolls Royce? No, it's a part of his business. So we got to stop being so, so we got to stop being so judgy on expensive stuff. If I got to use that honey to attract bees then leave me the fuck alone. That's my honey. Sometimes hard advice to hear, but it is advice nonetheless. And again, it does, it does suck because it shouldn't be that way. And look, Ray Daniels just made a comparison explicitly. Hey, they're talking about Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, but I'm a black executive from the hood. There's an expectation for me within music from this young guy coming from the hood. And then Ali, he switched it to worldwide perception, but even he started black, right? And there's some issues that we have to speak on there. But even beyond that, again, you go back to the perception of it all. I think it's something that when you dissect it, there's still a lot of value there in general. Cause one, yes, there's an issue in what the signs that of wealth we're using. Cause if you don't know wealth enough, you're gonna use the wrong signs. But this idea of I'm going to create a show, right? So you then can then respect who I am. That's basically what Ali just broke down, right? It's like, you just meet this guy and all right, who is he? Or oh, he does this. But if you meet this guy right after someone said, oh yeah, that's the building on this company, UMG or whatever. This guy, I don't know. Muhammad Ali owns it or whatever. And then you meet somebody that's like, oh yeah, we're waiting to see Muhammad Ali. So you see some people waiting outside. You're like, dang this Muhammad Ali on that building, these people waiting outside. And you're like, man, this guy must be important. You see all this, you go through that type of thing and then you sit down and then you see all these other people waiting to see him. Now it's like, oh shit, who is this? Right? Like there's a whole another level of respect and perception that comes with that. Now again, that's not to say we need to like keep people waiting or do it like do those or play that game in particular. But what does that look like for your show? What does that look like for your experience in general? Like how can you increase importance and perception or value of your world through small signs like that? And that's obviously what we talk about because we into marketing, all right? And that's why the phrase, fake it till you make it has been around since at least as long as I've been alive. You know what I'm saying? Probably decades and decades longer than that, but- And I have a love hate relationship. If you're not going to listen to me until I get these Cubers or Coneums, hey man, it's a little small marketing investment, man. I gotta do what I gotta do, you know what I'm saying? It's sad, like I said, it's sad. But I don't know, like he took it young black. It really is many like rap, rap, right? You see it way more in rap. Especially rap, yeah. Which is crazy because if you really think about it, right? People assume that people in rap have money but I feel like we've been around long enough to see that broke rappers do exist. It blows my mind, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, and I mean, for the last thing I would say especially rap, because rap has such a young age and the way that come up happens is a little bit different because we know, especially young people in general, we don't look at those same things. That's why we got those YouTubers who used to be riding around the Lambos and all that stuff all the time, you know, in the make money world. So it's like the make money online world is what we have to deal with in music, like rap music. That's pretty much the equivalent. Yeah, I know about it, you're right, damn. And that's the problem. Most genres of music don't have to deal with the make money online type of energy. That's what hip hop energy is. Now we got all these music telepages running around. Which might even speak of like a issue, like, oh, are we devaluing music for the money? Like we're only getting a lot of people getting in the game for the money, not necessarily the music itself. Yeah, man. That's probably what they're saying. I personally'm cool with that. And so that's a conversation for another day. Definitely a conversation for another day. Let us know what y'all think about this topic. We'd love to get y'alls feedback. And then let us know if there's some clips out there that y'all would like us to comment on. Other than that, it's another clip from us at No Labels Necessary. I'm Brandon Sean. And I'm Corey. And we out. Peace. Hey, if you like this clip and your artist is looking to grow your career or a manager or a label to have artists that you're working with, we have free content and courses at nolabelsnecessary.com where we break down using some of our real case studies. For instance, we took an artist from zero to over one million streams on his very first song using a special content rollout method. And we break down step by step everything that we did and how you can use it for yourself. Check out nolabelsnecessary.com. If you'd like to get access to that, ask us questions directly and see how we help artists grow to millions of streams from ground zero. Again, that's nolabelsnecessary.com. And if you're watching this on YouTube, there should be a link in the description below. See you next video.