 One of the guys bears out, if you're such a fan of him, name three songs from him right now. And I couldn't do it. Like I was like, I could tell you why I like this artist as a person. I could tell you the good feelings that he brought me, you know, in that period of my life. All these things that he was saying has absolutely nothing to do with the music. Every artist should be aware of this perspective from fans, right? As much as y'all hear people like us talk, like we are markers, so we always try to keep ourselves in a fans perspective as much as possible. But don't y'all forget to listen to fans as well, like not even your own fans all the time, but just like the overall fan sentiment in the marketplace. So check this clip out right here. And this fan is telling artists what they're doing wrong today. Do you guys remember like back in the day when you could name people's discographies? When you could like compare albums and see which one was better? Yeah, the days of that it's done because it's impossible to do that. Like I could rank my top five Drake's discography right now. We could compare and see which albums are our favorite Kendrick albums. We could do the same with Nicky as well. But it's nearly impossible to do that when the artist drops five times a year. How am I supposed to enjoy this music when I can't even name like five, 10 songs? I don't think rappers have the same cult following that they used to have back in the day. Like baby, I like him as an artist. And we used to compare him to Wayne, but the quality of his albums are nowhere near as close. The song writing is nowhere near as good. I feel like artists are more focused on quantity rather than the quality of their music. And I honestly don't feel that artists right now have the same fan bases that our older artists had. I think the only ones I could name are maybe Doja, obviously Cardi, and definitely Megan Thee Stallion. But I think the music industry needs to bring this back. Authenticity, great music catalogs, and overall, damn good artist. I think he's talking about an error where personality shines before music, right? Overall brand feel shines before music. And people don't even know what's happening to them. They don't know you being consumed to this space where you just rock with how somebody looks, right? Cause somebody represents you. But that's the error we are. Like it's a tribalism error. I'm looking for somebody who looks like they would be in my tribe, right? I like how they move or like how they dress. I like everything about what they seem to be doing and how they're moving. And I want to be a part of that. I feel like I could be a part of this world. This other world I don't connect to as much, right? And then the music gets consumed as a part of that, right? The music is almost a story or the, I don't know, the soundtrack to that world, right? It's the side salad. It's the side, for sure. It's the house salad, right? The generic basic ass salad. That's how our fans are taking it, even though they say they want music music. That's the problem. As much as we say we want this, we're acting on the other thing and it's working. Yeah, because going back to like I said, how I typically feel about fan opinions is they, I think a lot of times they speak from, they speak from like noble, they speak from a noble place, right? A place I think like deep down we all kind of wish would be. But to your point, our consumer behaviors don't reflect that, right? Reflect it. Because I was telling, me and Sean were talking about this off-camera where I was talking about the Mexico trip. Yeah, I was waiting, let's get to it. I was talking about the map. So if y'all haven't watched that episode where we were in Mexico with the since the 80s guys, there was a point off-camera where they were challenging me on my fandom for a particular artist. I'm not gonna name the artist, but this artist is an artist that is like, he came from Atlanta, he had a big moment, he's not as big anymore, but he was a huge part of my music development. And in the conversation, one of the guys bears out, if you're such a fan of him, name three songs from him right now. And I couldn't do it. Like I was like, he's like name three songs and saying the words, that's what the other part was like, and saying the words to them right now if you're such a fan. And I couldn't do it. You know what I'm saying? I could tell you why I like this artist as a person. I could tell you the good feelings that he brought me in that period of my life. I connected to, I was telling them that that was when I just moved to Atlanta. So I connected with the nostalgia of having just moved to Atlanta. All these things that he was saying has absolutely nothing to do with the music. And I think that as a consumer, I don't think that's a bad thing, right? I don't think it's a bad thing that we're able to pick up on so many of these different things about a person that can make you like them or dislike them, regardless of how you feel about the music. I personally think it's a positive. But if I'm being honest with myself, that artist that is like that isn't the only artist I feel that way about. So I have lots of artists that I like that I couldn't name five songs from them to be real, which I can maybe name one or two. But then I go beyond that. I'm just like, oh, I think they're cool, right? I think I like him or her for some reason. And so I think all of these points kind of tie together in the right like consumers are finding different reasons to like artists. Back in the day, that's all we had, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's not all we had. Like they still did personality building and things, but you didn't get it enough for that to be a main driver. It was like back then you heard of artist speak when they did a written interview or a radio interview or maybe they got on BET or 106 and Park or MTV or something like that. Today we can hear our R.S.P. every day, you know what I'm saying? They tweet and they drop in TikToks and they make an Instagram. So we're able to pick up on the personality a lot faster and the personality makes an impact a lot faster than they used to. And if we don't fuck with your personality. You're out here. Quick second, have you ever seen an artist catch some traction and then they start to move? The numbers start to grow. They might even go viral, but then fast forward a year from now, somehow their numbers haven't really grown that much they dropped back close to the same monthly listeners they had before the traction and viral moment. Well, that's because you have to know how to convert those moments into careers. And we've done this again and again with not only songs, but artists. And so has J.R. McKee, who's been a part of helping artists like Lil Durk, Rod Wave, Justin Scott and Money Long. And we just did a collab where J.R. McKee does a step-by-step breakdown of how he took Money Long from zero to millions of monthly listeners and winning a Grammy over Beyonce, Mary J. Bly's and Jasmine Sullivan. Check out this breakdown while we still have it up. You can check it out at www.brandmannetwork.com slash Grammy. Don't forget the www or it won't work. Again, that's www.brandmannetwork.com slash Grammy. Back to the video. All right, like you said, the music was basically what we had to determine if we liked your night. Now we have all these other things that are actually easier than listening to the music. Listening to the music takes more work. Yeah, 100%. Cypher in the lyrics and doing something that's focused because I could play the music in the background and with the energy and everything, but that don't mean that I'm not working while listening to your music, not cooking or doing whatever I'm doing, and I'm just sitting there and listening to it, right? Which is a whole different type of activity. Paying attention is a... It's a tough, it's a heavy lift for a lot of people. That's just the area we're in. So it's good news and bad news, right? It's bad news from a standpoint of people who long for their music to be the only thing, right? But it's good news for people who like... Got good personal. That got good personalities, yeah. Or people who just at least are aware of it. Cause you're able to manipulate the game once you're aware of it. If you're moving and you just expect, oh, my music is gonna be hit. And tough luck. But Ryan Leslie, I remember when I interviewed him, like he said that when he was coming up, he realized that that was enough just being really, really dope. He got really dope cause he thought that was how you want one in music. Like all that production and all them skills, all the instruments, I'm just gonna be amazing like Prince and then somebody gonna find them and blow up. And you're like, oh no, I gotta get out, start networking, boozing and shaking, right? So there's the pros and cons that come with this era. But the tough part, the tough part that I think everybody has to take in is, no, it's not about the music anymore. Just about the music.