 What's up everybody, once again, it's Brand Man Sean and this video is brought to you by brandmannetwork.com because I signed myself and today I got a very special guest for you guys. I'm talking about an A1 mover and shaker, the voice of the indie that she calls herself founder of Spill the TV, got to say that right, Spill the TV and of course content creator and event curator and I'm talking about event after event after event. My pet favorite part, I'm just going to go ahead and say this before I even say a name about you is just a hustle, like really A1, we're going to talk about that part seriously. None other than T-Cup is right here to speak to y'all, maybe even preach to y'all. I got a lot of questions for y'all and I think anybody, not just artists but anybody who's thinking of moving and grinding in the industry will get a benefit from just learning about her moves and I'm interested to learn more about her moves. Without further ado, like talk to us, I appreciate you coming out T-Cup. Of course, no problem, wow, you gave me such a grand introduction, I appreciate that. I hope this conversation lives up to that, so thank you. For sure, for sure, I guess I can start here, just get into the flow. How did you even start doing what you do right now? What was the first entry? Because I see so much in music but it's not even just music at this point. Right, right, right. How I started doing all of this, wow, I started doing all of this in college. I've always just felt like I've had so many, I've tried to rap before, I've tried to do so many things and I feel like I was never good at anything, like I went to college with my major undecided, like yeah, so in school I had a lot of talented friends, friends that threw parties, friends that could DJ, could sing, rap, all of that, it was my homie DJ Prez, he had a radio show at school on campus, so I ended up basically getting on there talking one day and then it just happened, just went on there from there. I was doing radio locally in college. How I kind of got into Atlanta, me and my partner Bree, it was like a lot of things going on just in the black community, it was first like Mike Brown, I believe he got killed in 2005 or something like that and then it was something else happened, it was like these Baltimore riots happened as a result of something black that happened. So at that point, me and Bree, we wanted to come up with a solution of pretty much just how to build black people, you know, so yeah, we created this nonprofit called Emojolive. So that was really my introduction to Atlanta as far as like throwing events, I would say. Got you. And then I've always had my interviews coming from West Georgia and then yeah, I just ended up combining into like combining community and then combining like the arts and that's just my brand. That's definitely the brand. So what I want to skip and just ask you, what are your aspirations? Are you trying to be a big personality on a TV show or something like that? Because I mean, I see you seems like everywhere, you know what I mean? I would say, yeah, the goal was always like interviews first, like always just to talk to people to get like the untold stories and of course to talk about shit that people want to talk about on the timeline all day, so let's bring it to life. I would say my goals, yeah, would be to be a TV personality, but some more importantly, I want to kind of bring bring unity, like get black people into like spending money with each other, loving each other, coming together to push this forward because everything that's going on right now or everything that's going on within the past like five or six years that I've been active in, it's like we just need to come together like we just need to really spread love. It starts with us. So that's just kind of my goal and my passion with everything I do. So I can't really say what all I want to do as of yet, but I do know I love, I love, love, love interviewing, like interviewing and telling stories, talking about the Atlanta culture that's always been first. Got you. And because you interview so much and you've talked to I don't know how many artists right now. Do you know how many artists? Oh, I have probably like almost 200 videos on my YouTube of like just artists, people from other cities. Yeah. So much like content things going on in Atlanta. So yeah, I can't even keep up at this point. 200 then 200 plus, we're going to say that I'm 300 coming real soon and because you interview so many people, my interest, my question is how do you choose the artists that you actually talk to? Because I think a lot of artists don't necessarily understand what makes them interesting or just sometimes it might not, of course, even be about interesting. There's other ways that might make people interested in interviewing you. How do you personally select artists? So I started out selecting artists, well, first because when I started doing interviews, when I was like coming up on the Atlanta scene, probably like 2014 2015, I wanted to get like, you know, all the big names, you know, this and that, but I wasn't cool enough. You know, I didn't know everybody. I wasn't plugged in, you know. So what I did was when I started throwing, like artists started from the showcase events, when artists started to ask me, I'm sorry, from the emoji like events, like I would involve artists in like the Juneteenth festivals every year and they started asking me to throw shows for them, like, you know, just outside of emoji like outside of my nonprofit. So I kind of made it a thing as to where like made a competition like, yeah, whoever wins the show on Cypher or this and that, they get the interview. So like that kind of started that thing. That's how like I kind of built my community because it will be like, OK, people will go hard, bring on the people compete for the interview. And then you'll see whoever got interview. And it's like, OK, next time is to go. But what makes artists interesting to me to interview is is you having an audience, you know, people that want to hear your story. Whether that is them physically saying on social media, because I use Twitter a lot, I'll see people quote their lyrics or I'll see people mention them, like, hey, how did you do this? Or how did you do that? Or what inspired that? Or people saying, hey, well, check out this project. OK, well, we heard this song. We want to know more. So that's what really piques my interest for wanting to interview our artists, people that have an audience that wants to listen. So. Got you. That makes sense. It's funny because everything always seems to come back to artists needing to build a fan base and get some kind of interest before other people get interested in them. But I think that's even from a journalist perspective or interviewer perspective. I think that's interesting, the fact that to really think about it more cleanly, like, OK, people are interested in this. So let me figure out what the story is there and what's worth talking about there. Do you do you find anything that you do with artists? I'm sure now at this point, artists just are reaching out to you to interview. Are there like some no-nos when it comes to that? Yeah, I have turned artists. I don't really have turned artists down. I wouldn't say that. But I would just say, OK, well, it's not time right now to interview. Let me follow you. I follow your journey because, of course, as a journalist, you want to interview credible people, you know, you want to interview people that like I want to be able to interview you and the interview was still relevant five years later, you know, like I'm not interviewing you. And then your ghost five years later or, you know, nobody's mentioning you. So I want some credibility to my interviews, too. So I don't necessarily tell them, no, like, oh, no, I can't interview you. I would say, you know, let me follow your journey and let me watch you build and grow. And then when you do have that audience that's ready to listen, then that's when we can get it popping. Got you. Like, let me be sure you're going to be in the game first, right? That you exactly before I put my stamp on you. True. That makes sense. I feel like people don't understand sometimes like the value of platform because if you just drop a whole bunch of bad interviews, right, with people that at this time, right, don't no one cares about from a fan base standpoint, that's really going to dilute the platform. So eventually people aren't going to watch your interviews anyway. So there's no value like you create you destroying the value of my platform. You know what I mean? Exactly. Exactly. Even though my platform, I will say my platform is for the underrepresented at the same time because because of the fact that I was denied a lot of access to events and stuff early on. Or, you know, it wasn't so easy for me to get in certain rooms or to be around certain people or to even interview certain people. I kind of created my own community when I started the events and started highlighting that through the interview. So I do I am for the underrepresented and I do try to go for artists that they have an audience that wants to hear them, but they just don't have that stamp yet, you know, or they don't have that certain it might not have complex, but they may not have certain interview platform shaking for them just yet. So they have that community to have people they have people, you know, when I'm like, hey, what new music shall I listen to? Or who should I have on the show? They have people tagging and they have people doing this, but they just don't have any backstories. And you'll be surprised. There's so many people just like public figures, artists, all of that. And when I say voice of the indies just to make this clear, I yeah, my main focus is artists was always in community. So indies, everybody independent, everybody underground, everybody making their own moves, whether that's a business owner, whether that's an artist, whether that's a person creating a movement, creating an event, whether that's a figure that has like a key piece in something. So it's in there. It's independent. Not an artist. So yeah, so I try to get these a lot of these businesses, a lot of these things, a lot of these things that a lot of these people or places or things that influence us directly in Atlanta or directly in our everyday lives, because you have certain people always talking about what Cardi B is doing, what Gunna is doing, what this and that is doing. OK, but you go to Edgewood every day, you know what I'm saying? OK, but you you go to this local show with one of my favorite artists out right now. And that's the Indian artist is J. Newton. You go to a J. Newton show every week, you know what I'm saying? Like, like stuff like that. I try to tell all the stories. Got you. Got you. When do you find things got easier for you? Because you talked about, look, I wasn't getting in everything. At the beginning, but, you know, you you're getting in some things. Definitely now, right. Thank you. Seen to be every time I see some I'm I'm pretty sure she'll be able to like be one of those people, the correspondents and people who get to report. How'd you get to that position? So, yeah, I like I literally had to create it for myself. Like when I started because when I was doing the Emoja Life events and I met Artisan Bar, um, I brought I did the Emoja Life nonprofit event at Artisan Bar and they told me they were like, OK, well, we don't want this. We want parties like we don't want just sit downs and gatherings. We want people dancing, drinking. We want parties. So I was like, well, I don't really do parties. I don't really do showcases. So I brought in my partner, Forty Oilspo. I brought him in and he started doing showcases and then like people started like more people like would see me there and they just started asking me, you know, to do more stuff like what I did with the Emoja Life, like more stuff, including like the art and artists. So yeah, when I started doing that because Artisans was new, it was new. The apartment store had just closed. A lot of venues or places that people go had just closed. So Artisans was new. Everybody's like, OK, what is going on there? You would see it on the timeline because I would have like R&B and Chill parties, Crunk Juice parties or I'll have these events called like show and ciphers where we would have the monthly ciphers or we'll have like Apollo shows and stuff. So it was always something going on at Artisans, like at least once a month. And it'll always be like crazy videos of like, wow. Wow, these people just got into a bad rap. Somebody got cute or not cute, but, you know, cute in a bad rap. Or yeah, we had Apollo. They just got booed. So I just started becoming a talk. So then more people started because people it would come back to my page and it would see like interviews, footage, interviews, just all based on that community. Then that's kind of how people started recognizing me, started finally letting me in like, OK, this girl has something going on. This girl has something. And it was fairly new because it was kind of a shift in Atlanta at that time. So it was fairly new and it was something that's being introduced because during that time a lot of new artists got introduced, you know, just on the scene from the events and from not even just my events, from events surrounding those events from other curators that were Artisans or from other platforms that were coming up in Atlanta during that time. So got you. It's dope to see that you actually built your own platform when you couldn't get in, right? So let's go build a platform because so many people complain that I can't get in, can't get in. But the best way today, even outside of just being an artist, we always tell artists to get fans a professional in the industry today. You don't have to just say, I got to go through a labor. I got to go work on these other general situations. You can do what you did, right? And I'm sure now people are willing to offer positions or can even consider you more likely from building your own platform for other positions that, you know, you might have won it before or you don't even necessarily want, but they still like, oh, you want to do this? You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's dope. So you did that. And one thing I heard, though, was the fact that you said you didn't do showcases and like party type events. And it's funny because you people say do everything say yes to everything. But you have a self-awareness enough to know, I guess that wasn't your thing, though. And I ended up doing it anyway. You end up doing it anyway. Like what made so how do you balance that? Like between certain things and opportunities between whether it's your thing and you just you just didn't know. Like you kind of you didn't feel like doing it or you didn't know enough to know it's not your not for you or it's actually for real for a notch. I'm going to say this from like a standpoint of like people that are listening for me, you have to really listen to your audience. Like you have to listen to them because I had people like people tell me they would love the Juneteenth events. They will love the emoji like events. They will love the feel and that is something Atlanta does not have, you know what I'm saying at the moment and people could feel my spirit was really genuine and that like because I like I used to have events because artists was rocking with me so hard. Like they used to just, you know, like give me some of the bar and just like, you know, that will cover my DJ or whatnot. So I've had free events before like whole free events. I've had events where where I like I don't think I've ever charged the artist to perform. Probably I've charged artists to perform for my non-profit, actually. But and I have but I haven't charged artists to perform for spill the tea, which is so backwards. But it was a non-profit, you know, like I had to. I wasn't trying to make a profit. I was trying to pay for like the bingyou and stuff or trying to get supplies to help this parody or, you know, this and that. It makes sense. Right. So when I came to artisans, I've never charged the artist to perform or any of that. So it was kind of like a safe space that was created in Atlanta because you had certain platforms that were it was 20 artists on a bill. The curators didn't really care about the artists. They were trying to get a quick dollars. Everybody felt that like my heart was genuine. They were like, well, you should just go ahead and you should start throwing shows. You should start doing this and that because you really have something. And yeah, it took an ex-boyfriend to tell me he was like, because I was I was helping Poe with his showcases. And it took an ex-boyfriend to tell me he was like, you should start throwing parties. Like he was like, it doesn't have to always be about the artists. You can start throwing parties. He was like, or maybe you could combine both. My homegirl was like, yeah, I would really love a karaoke night. And yeah, so I came up with our mutual was my first event at Artisans as spill the tea. So it was like it was a throwback party. I had like four or five artists that did covers and it was crazy. It was like over eight hundred tickets gone. It was crazy. It was like my first. And I kept having like a lot of big events. Probably after two years of doing events at Artisans doing events every month at Artisans for two years. I probably only had like two dead events. So Artisans named a drink after me called the Seacup Margarita. Yo, that's hard. But yeah, I would tell people just listen, listen to the universe, listen to your audience, always be open to new things. Even if you think something isn't for you, just try it. You know, you don't have to probably stick with it or do something different. But just give it a try and listen, like listen, your fans, supporters, whoever they they will tell you what they want to see. Yeah, what's something that you learn from like moving how you've been moving and being somebody who navigates and there's a lot of people that you deal with, right? Right. There's a lot of relationships that have to be maintained. You know, what's something that you learn throughout that process that you think will be really helpful for people to understand, especially not even just in the music industry, obviously, but just. Yeah, I don't know. And moving and shaking and entrepreneurship as a whole. You mean, as far as like how how to how to how to deal with a lot of people or start there. OK. I like to say, first, you have to understand everybody's different and you kind of can't take things personal. Like you have to understand everybody wasn't raised like you. Everybody didn't come from your same background and everybody communicates differently. Some people don't know how to communicate. So you kind of can't take things personally. Like, I know when building certain relationships, you know, people may not respond back or, you know, people may feel away. This and that, whatever, just don't take it personal. One thing I'm still learning is to not react to certain things because usually you can react in a crazy way and it can rub people the wrong way. But usually when something is meant to be, those people always come back and you don't ever want to leave that impression to them that all your this that person, you know, your drama queen, whatever, this and that, because people always come back. Like even even from all those people that I used to try to reach out to back in the day, like I was never nasty or I was like, never like, you know, of y'all, sorry, I was never I write or anything. And now those people are coming back because, you know, now they see the value or they see what I've created. You know, I wouldn't even say by myself because I've had people help. But what pretty much I've created, you know, the community that's been created. So no, that's real. That's real. That they're taking not taking things personally is something that I feel like everybody has to go through at the beginning of just starting to deal with stuff where you don't understand. Like you said, people have different things going on their life. Genuinely, sometimes people just like to communicate differently, whatever it might be. But then but then yeah, that I don't know. That's that's been an interesting thing. And I honestly have to still constantly remind myself of that. Like every single time the way I feel like, you know, what's going on? And then I even saw myself just like, you say people come back. Yeah, people will come back. You know, maybe they will circle back because of these because if you DM somebody or email someone and then they don't respond or they don't give you that response, they want, definitely they want to your page and they've seen you. So when your name circle backs around, then they're like, oh, shit, I've talked to her and then because I've had, I have so many threads. So many DMs where I've tried them. Well, I've probably hit up people like 2008 or something like that 2007. And then circle back. Now they in my DMs again, asking for something. And I'm like, yo, like, what the hell? What the hell was my response nature of the first time? No, I don't say that, but I don't think that. But I won't say I'm still open, you know, to I'm still very open to, you know, hearing, you know, what's going on. So I feel cool. Is there is there anybody or anything? That's what I want to say. Is there anything that you feel like you can say to be helpful to people who want to do what you're doing? I know you have a unique path in the way you went about it. Is there a way that you feel like if they want to do what you do, there's a few things that they should make sure that they get done. Hmm. A few things that they should get done. If you want to do events or if you want to do medium, of course, your relationships, of course, go places like physically go places. Don't just build relationships through the internet. I feel like a lot of people think the internet is just like, yes, use the internet, of course, is very helpful. We still go out there and physically meet people. I would say, hmm, what do you have to do? I guess, do what I did. Um, if people want to help you, let them help. You know what I'm saying? I feel like it is always a boundary with that because you never know people's intentions, but there are some people that are heaven sent that want to help you now. Because I feel like people have a really hard time struggling with that with asking for help or with accepting help, I should say. No, that's real. That's real. They don't trust issues. Yeah, I would say, of course, real relationships. Being able to accept help and what else I would say. Um, hmm, I would say, man, just do it. Shit, just do it. Don't overthink. Don't. Yes, research. Yes, study the way people have done it. Successful people. Um, yes, you may not have every piece in the beginning. I saw this post. It was like your first podcast is going to be trash. Your first event is going to be horrible. Um, you know, just then the third, you know, just do it. You have to do it. Sometimes experience is the best teacher. Like, no, all the time, my opinion, at least that's the way I get it. That's a bit. Well, I appreciate you. Um, and really enjoyed talking to you. And one, everybody, make sure y'all follow. T cup at T, E, double A, C, U, double P underscore. I'll make sure I put that up on the screen and everything like that. But of course, as always, this video is brought to you by Brandon at word.com. Because I signed myself. If you like this video, go ahead and like button. If you like it, you might as well share it and if you're not subscribed, you know what to do here to subscribe.