 How do you go from less than 10,000 monthly listeners to over 4 million monthly listeners as an artist in only two months? Today, we're gonna talk about an artist that did exactly that and give you some of our case study walkthrough of what happened to make it happen and maybe what you could copy or even do better instead. And this is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary. All right, all right. Today, we gotta talk about an artist by the name of Four Bats. This man is going crazy. Like I said, less than 10K monthly listeners to 4.2 monthly listeners as we speak. 4.2 million, my bad. I forgot a lot of zeros in two months. And it all started on the outside, right? With one video. Ironically, a video style that's been spoken down upon by another artist recently, which I don't let a little man, y'all shouldn't take all y'all advice from an artist because this man just blew up with the type of video style that another artist said, that, no, it's lame, man. So let's speak on this. This, I wanna play a clip. We can't play long because we're, you know, we're on YouTube and stuff. Yeah, yeah, trying to make some sense, man. I might just call and catch a plane. All right, so I'm gonna keep playing the video. So those of y'all who are looking, you can see this video. And for those of y'all who are listening on Spotify and other DSPs, I'm gonna let you know, like the voice that you just heard was a male artist. He has on a shiesty or a ski mask, if you will. All right, he has all black, he has on golds and he's standing in front of your typical project type, like a Southern project, not like a, you know, up North project style building. You know, you got grass and stuff, right? But that's what's happening, right? And when you hear that voice, then a big part of why this blew up. Yes, musically, it's good, right? Dope even. However, a lot of the feedback was, yo, I didn't expect this dude to sound like this because of the look that he's presenting. Like playing one side and the same other side. That's good. Most specifically, you'll see people saying comments like, this is the hood Brent Fias. You'll see a lot of that, all right? So that's a huge part of this blow up. We're gonna get into other elements, but a key element, and I haven't done anything on this in years now. This is like OG channel when I would talk about unique pairings, all right? You take one element and put it with another element that seems to conflict, and then when you put them in the same package, it appears to be unique. Now people are more attractive to it. Well, actually you get more people who hate it and more people who love it, which is what you need. You wanna create some energy, all right? Now what's worth talking about is not the norm. So to see a guy who looks like a hood artist, right? Hood rapper, basically, in terms of how most people would stereotype it, but he sounds smooth and sultry, right? With a higher pitched voice, that's breaking people's pattern, right? It's a pattern interrupt. Now I'm paying attention, and then beyond that, it gives the song a chance. Is it good or not? Cause this wouldn't have went this far. Like the video we're looking at has 163,000 likes. That's just the likes. So what is it, probably like something meal? Yeah, two, three meal, right? Like, it wouldn't have had the chance to go this far if it was bad, unless it was like comically bad, and now we're just going viral for a different reason, right? Before you talk, I want to add one more example, right? Of this, the idea of the unique pairing. One we had rumor, right? He wore, it wasn't a ski mask, it was a, it was a scully. It was like the scully with the eyes though, right? And he's a R&B sounding dude as well, right? Different type of R&B voice, but really good music. Same thing, pattern interrupt, right? I would always say use examples like if you look at somebody like the rock being really swole, right? But then also if he would be like with a baby or something like that, it's like, oh, swole, man, but being soft, right? You see the soft side that you wouldn't expect, or how they'll stereotype like a beautiful woman, they might not expect her to be smart, right? Those kinds of stereotypes exist, and then, oh, okay. Now that's something that you're not used to. You know, there's all kinds of stereotypes with being, let's just say in this case, right? A dark skinned black man or whatever, and then you add a social voice. So positive, negative stereotypes, you can use people's ignorance against them. Yeah, and you just made me think about something too. In his case, you know, you look back at him. This wasn't his first time attempting to be active around the song, but this was the post they hit, right? Now if you're familiar with four shooters only, four shooter only is typically a marketplace for the hood rapper. And they're having other types of artists that have hit the platform, but if you're being real, 60 to 70% hood rapper. Definitely not singers, they're usually not singers. So he comes onto the platform, he looks like the type of person that would typically make sense on here, but then when he starts playing his music, it doesn't sound like something we would typically hear. Not only does he visually stand out, he also auditorily stands out based on what we're used to seeing from that platform. And so I think that's a good point to make because I think sometimes people will look at these platforms. I've seen artists say, I can't go on four shooters only trap music, right? Like that platform doesn't make sense for me. That could be a good thing, you know what I'm saying? Like you could be a breath of fresh air to that community. Yeah, come as you are. Cause like if he had did this on colors or like R&B, radar or something, I don't know if this would have hit the song. I don't think so. I don't think so. Yeah, so yeah, like you said, it's the unique pairing of the individual package, but then also the platform he packaged himself on. That's placement and marketing. Yep, yep, yep. And I think another good thing too, I put all of it, I mean, I use all of it as an example for, I mean, I guess we never really put this out, but when we were running the TikTok boot camp, right? Teaching people about video hooks. And so the most popular video hook is the text-based hook. You know, put a cool caption on the screen and that's what you're gonna see in 80, 90% of your shorts. But it makes some people lazy. Yeah, it makes a lot of people lazy because they don't focus on the visual. But what I haven't seen get talked about a lot outside of us in that classroom setting is the other two types of hooks, which are visual hooks and auditory hooks. Break that down for y'all. Text hooks are words on the screen. Your visual hook can be you, something in the background, something that visually catches your eye about the video. And your auditory hook, same thing. Something, some sound catches your attention that could be the music itself. That was the Alexa Capelli situation we had with the screen. That was an auditory hook, right? And so he's hitting two or three of those things, right? He doesn't have a text-based hook on this particular video. But there's a visual hook, right? Like you said, there's a contradiction on how he looks. And he has an auditory hook with a contradiction with his voice, I think. It's a couple more things, right? Because, so, what I say the first one you said? Text, visual, auditory. Well, no, no, I'm talking about. Oh, the hooks, yeah. So I think it hits the visual hook, because like you said, the look and the auditory hook because of how the song sounds with the high-pitched thing. All right, bet. So I think the visuals go on multi-levels. Like when we mentioned about you talked about, this is already for shooters only from the block, right? Bam, so I see the logo, I know the platform, so I'm paying attention to that, right? And then secondly, like, you know what I mean? Something even without the branding of them is the mic. Yeah, you recognize that. You just, well, they, so this is a whole another, I'm a go sub, Corey interrupted him, but he's, it got me about to go another valuable interaction actually. So this is perfect. So I always try to like make sure people understand the value of branding and the value of branding does not come from doing something crazy. It comes from just doing something multiple times consistently, right? It could be simple and consistent. For in this case, a mic drop was not unique to for shooters only, yet they owned it by doing a bunch of videos like that where there's a huge community who thinks of them once they see a mic falling from the air. He owned something that wasn't abnormal, but he abnormally owned it. You know what I mean? I agree, because now when I see a mic drop video and it's not followed by the four shooters only logo, I feel. Now exactly, that's like some off brand. They took something everybody was doing and made your regular stuff feel off brand. That is literally the power of branding. If y'all get anything from this video, ironically unrelated to the case study explicitly, that is so powerful, bruh. You can literally take something from somebody and I mean, you know, people do all the time. It's like, oh yeah, you just, it's almost like a sample, right? Oh yeah, like how they do old school songs. You got this four minute song, but like for five seconds, damn, you just did something crazy. And know what I'm gonna do in my rap song? I'm gonna take that five seconds and loop that thing for four minutes instead of just be five out of four minutes and next thing you know, I own it, right? On a whole another level. So that, right? But back to what I'm saying from it. So one, yeah. So you got the visual hook, you got to do like the look that he has. That makes you pay attention. Then you got the visual hook on another level of you have the platform recognition, right? One, he has the logo, but two, when you see that mic drop, you're already gonna have some expectation for it to be that brand, especially if it looks like a more, you know, hood, rap branding and location and vibe. But three, prior to for shooters only owning this and it's still gonna happen. A mic in front of an artist alone creates an expectation. You're like, oh, they're about to perform, they're about to do something. So you'll listen, you might give him at least three seconds just to see if this person is gonna be trash or not. Like even if I'm scrolling, I'm not looking for artists or this doesn't look like the type of artist I wanna hear. Like let me hear this trash real quick. And that's enough time where you might capture them based on whatever you do, right? So when you add the power of, ooh, there's a mic, this person's about to do something and this guy kind of looks interesting. And then you add, well, within that three seconds, that you break in the pattern because he sounds nothing like what you expected, that's gonna automatically buy you another 10 seconds to see how this thing continue to goes. And then, you know, the story is what it was. Yeah, right. You know, you touched on it. The music has to be good for all of that to carry. Because like you said, there's that first second you get, let's say from the logo and the mic, that buys you the first two seconds. The look buys you another two or three. Like you said, the curiosity about it might buy you another five. And then we had 10 seconds and everything beyond that, the person on the other side likes the music. The music is good to them, which you can't beat, but you can trick 10 seconds out of them, which could still move the video, but that don't lead to four million monthly listeners. Yeah, exactly. Oh yeah, no, not at all. Not at all. I remember working the campaign, hey, and it was more advising on one of the guys who was in our boot camps. And then I'm helping him with some things. And look, the song wasn't great, man. It just wasn't. However, we were able to catch something, find a little sliver for people to hold on to. And I don't even know if I told you that it went this far, because it did over one million videos on TikTok, videos created to it. And only had like 1.5 million streams. Exactly. Yeah, it wasn't good, bro. The song wasn't good, but the song was. Every person that made the video gave it a stream and then it went back. Yeah, bro. It just is what it is. So when y'all think that people can force stuff down people's throat, we all think just cause y'all had these numbers, they will translate any other thing, video by our typical metrics, right? Any other campaign that did that type of numbers and video creates, which we actually did have a couple around that at that time, you're talking about like low-end, like we had some doing hundreds of millions at that time. Cause that was a 2020, 2021, 2021. That's like the first million videos in 2021 times. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. So. Now, with that being said, we already kind of touched on this second part of the campaign, but we didn't, but we have to break down another perspective of it. So we mentioned, oh, he's on a platform. All right. All right. And this platform had some unique qualities, but I want to make sure we straight up say, in terms of something that you can't utilize for yourselves. And you said this right before, either before we hopped on, or maybe you said it early in the pot and I just always already forgot it was earlier in the pot, but if you don't have a platform, or you can go on somebody's platform, right? So that was, in this case, he actually, this post is actually on his page. We should acknowledge that. But he got the benefits from the branding and stuff like this, but he was also posted on their platform too. Yeah. Right. In the other places. So this goes into what we call social media PR. All right. But we've been doing this for years, a social media PR run, but really haven't put it out there like this to this level. And we got a whole new way we're approaching it this year. Corrie, I'll let you like break that down. Kinda like, we can talk about the old and how, and history behind it, but like just break down what we're looking at in terms of social media PR runs this year. Hey, just want to drop this quick mention. If you're looking for help in blowing up your music and your career as a whole this year, at the beginning of every year, we open up to find new artists that we want to work with and continue to grow throughout the year, which has resulted in many of the big moments that you hear us talk about. So if this time we've opened up where you'll be able to see how we approach things from ground zero, digging into your brand identity, translating that into content, advertising and full blown campaigns that result in streams and real fans. And it's only $1 at www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days. I'll put a link in the description below, but beyond that process, we actually have ways to speak, get to know you, watch you grow throughout your process so we can lean in and offer extra advising on how to navigate what you're going through in real time. So if you want some real help without having to sign your life away, check it out at www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days. Either way goes best of luck to you and your career. We've been doing this for years, a social media PR run, but really haven't put it out there like this to this level. And we got a whole new way we're approaching it this year. Cory, I'll let you like break that down. Kind of like, we can talk about the old and how and history behind it, but like just break down what we're looking at in terms of social media PR runs this year. So a lot of it is borrowing from traditional music industry mechanic in terms of other runs, right? So we saw in the 80s and 90s where like magazine runs were really popular. We saw in the 90s and 2000s and even the 2010s where these DJ freestyle runs were really popular make their way to all the poppin' DJs. Now we're ending an era where that same run makes sense to do with these different platforms, right? So the great thing about what platforms like for shooters only on the radar, even bigger ones like Tiny Desk and colors, the great thing about those platforms is they have inspired other great platforms to jump into the game. And you know, what's great about that is that before if you wanted to do this type of run, the only real platforms that were with Tiny Desk, colors, Vivo has something, I feel like there might be one more I might be missing. All genius, right? And genius would really like the main four. I will argue before a lot of these started to pop up and they were all really, really high tier platform you were not getting on unless you were making some major motion, you know what I'm saying? For shooters only on the radar, platforms like that came up, open the door. And like you said, because of your stunts a lot of other really unique platforms started to pop up. As I get an artist the opportunity to not only build their audience but also get some really cool content made. We don't know if Orbats had the resources to make this quality of content on his own, you know what I'm saying? But he was able to outsource it by going through other people. So what we're going to be focused on for this year is being the facilitator for artists to these platforms. We have a network of these platforms across most of the major markets, Atlanta, LA, New York, working on some of the other markets, you know what I'm saying? As we kind of build things and yeah man, we want to help artists be able to, like you said, not only go on these runs and use these other platforms, audiences to build their own but also get some really unique content out of that run that allows us to amplify it in more traditional ways, like the influence of marketing, the ads and things like that. But we're, you know, taking an approach where I would say, since we've been in business we've typically come in at step two. Step two is typically when the music is all, I'll take it back. Step three, step one is typically make the song, step two is typically make the content, step three is typically push it out, right? Now we're stepping up and becoming facilitators at step two that allows us to maximize step three. You know what I'm saying? Which is something that's not necessarily new for us but it's something that we haven't ever really made public. You have to know just to know. That is true. That is true. Yeah, we've shot a lot of content for artists in facilitated platforms that is something we'll be public about now going forward into this year. Obviously, you know, that's one of those things y'all just reach out. Y'all know the agency website and stuff like that if y'all are looking for something like that. But, you know, even greater just understand the impact of this strategy in general and how you can use it for yourself without us as well. Cause these platforms, you can hit them all up, right? Or find more platforms. There's a lot of them out there. And the big thing about it is, right? Again, it's not just social media PR, the PR run. Like, Corey mentioned something very popular. Oh, I'm gonna go to all these radio stations and I'm gonna do freestyles, right? Just interviews, right? In general, I go to all the stations in Atlanta, all the stations in New York, all the stations in whatever other markets, right? And now I'm getting my name out there. A cool thing about these platforms is although they're on the internet and they do ultimately have overlap, like they are rooted in where they're from. If you look at a lot of their following because naturally what happens is if I'm a videographer on our side, oh, I wanna start a content series, I'm gonna start reaching out to the artists around me. Now they're more connected and you can probably get people from way far reaching, far more reaching than where you were initially. But oh, like on the radar, start off very New York heavy, right? For shooters only, start off a little bit more on that Southern tip. And there's platform after platform. So the beauty of that is when you go on these different platforms, there will be some overlap, right? But then there's also a new market at the same time and both of them are beneficial, right? Overlap so I can appear omnipresence and then, right, new market so I can find some fresh meat. That's a good point that I didn't think about, right? And I think that is a good thing about these platforms taking office. You're right, it allows you to be more micro in it. The bigger markets have more of them, obviously that's typically how it works. But I've seen really cool platforms in like New Jersey. I've seen really cool platforms in parts of Texas. My homie just connected me to a really cool platform and I think they're in like Seattle or something. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, like you said, I'm a hundred percent sure this is the year where a lot of these production companies are gonna see that I have equipment, I have a love for music, I have a location or I can get a location. Why not? Or some of you that are listening in, you're gonna say, why would I wanna go on a platform that's not as big as four shooters only? And what you said is why you wanna do that. Hey, I can hit these bigger platforms to get more mass appeal, but if I wanna go in over Atlanta, I should maybe go do a platform that maybe doesn't extend beyond Atlanta, but in this scenario, isn't necessarily a bad thing because I'm here to win over Atlanta. Exactly, exactly. So the social media PR run is a real thing. Like I said, we specify like platforms in this look, but even prior to this, the way we were doing it over the last few years, when we could convince somebody to do it and doing the work that was required, is all these platforms that have any type of platform are worth going on, period, right? It's like when Golden was on Hello Yasin, something people wouldn't have thought of, but his audience, some of his audience is watching it, right? So whoever, if your audience might watch NBA videos and memes, it's one thing to be like, oh, I'm really giving out sauce, but we've been doing it for years, you know what I mean? And now, when I find it more when we put stuff out, it actually helps the market put the conversation out there, so then it makes it easier for us to convince clients that it's like zebra, now they think they bring an idea to us. It's like, y'all don't know, we put the idea out there. So I'm gonna go ahead and say, like, all right, it's more common place to think, oh, snap, I don't have to just be straight up regular music market. I could go to a page related to my niche. So let me put my music behind some of these NBA videos if my fans are in a basketball, but what about going live with that NBA page, right? It's almost like a little interview, having a conversation. There's other ways that you can utilize that platform and make it a bigger part of your run, give them a look. Now, depending on your size, we'll determine your leverage in that conversation and their willingness to do it. You might have to shell out more money or, you know, or no money, right? That all depends, but it's valuable and you can hit all of your fans. And when you see Nicki Minaj on Kaisa Nut, it's that. But they weren't doing this stuff back then. Like this, we were having this conversation before, like all these people hopping on Kaisa Nut, like he's now just a go-to stop. Like, you know what I mean? Right? The first couple of people on there were like, oh, the creative social media PR run is what we're talking about. But now, one, that's just a staple. A lot of people are going to use it because it's such a powerful platform and they understand that platform. But two, he's so big. I mean, most artists can't do that, right? So it just doesn't count. But so, but we're talking about thinking creatively beyond the people who are already a certain size and collaborating on a deeper level with these people. So we have the social media PR in terms of just go to these straight music platform pages, borrow their platform. Social media PR runs in from a standpoint of like getting on pages in general that might have something to do with your genre and knocking out a bunch of them. And then we have the cameo. I call a lot, all these cameo and one umbrella, but like the cameo style, where you're getting in directly with influencers, not just other pages, right? That was something that was pretty heavy with golden at the very beginning, like popping up in all these different influencers' videos. It was like, oh snap. I just saw, I was on Corey's page and I just saw this artist in the video of Corey. Oh snap, they're in the video with Sean. Oh snap, insert whatever other people I'm following and I just see this person all the time, not even necessarily playing their music, right? Just being involved in whatever my world is. So it's something that's really powerful and he did it on a small level, right? But let's get back to, because we just had to mention like going deeper into it so people could see how you could better utilize it, but let's get back into a question around him. The industry plant conversation. You know it rises in anybody that rises. You know what I mean? That's it as fast as you. You see success, the hate, the doubt, it must come. Now y'all know how I feel about the industry plant conversation. However, I know everybody doesn't have the conviction that I have against the industry plant conversation, right? For the all who don't know, y'all are new. I don't like the industry plant conversation. I feel like it's a distraction from the quality of music, right? I feel like it's a way to now blame somebody's success or dismiss somebody's success in order to validate where you are or aren't, right? But the argument alone is again, is the music good or not? That's all that I care about, right? So with that being said, we still have this conversation. Is it an industry plant or not? There's a couple of reasons people believe he is and I'm gonna go buy y'all's definition because I don't like this conversation by understanding the definition and why it matters. Cory, what were some key things that happened with Buddy? There was a couple of things. And I thought what you broke is I feel like you're gonna see this video coming up. You know what I'm saying? But it is looking a little suspicious, man. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't looking super suspicious at first, but the last couple of weeks it has been looking pretty suspicious. The first instance where I ever heard him being caught up industry plant is because he was on four shooters only. But as a person that facilitates the platforms like that is just invalid to me. Because to your point, if they're like the artist enough they don't really care how big you are. As long as you're willing to pay and they think you're gonna hit they'll be willing to work with you. So that was the first instance I saw. People saying like, oh, he's on his first one or two songs ever and he's on four shooters only. That was the first instance. Now... Let's do point for point. Okay. There's an artist that I recently advised to get on a platform that people might think of like that. But all he had to do was pay to get on a platform. I was like, hey bro, you should go on that platform. But he doesn't have much going on for himself. But I felt like it made sense for him to begin documenting himself on that particular page. All he had to do was pay. So that kind of goes to the argument that doesn't mean your industry plant to be on a page like this that obviously will take money. Do you know how to send an email and do you have money? That's it. That's it. Because 90% of the time that's all that means. But that was the first instance was him being on this. The second instance was of course how fast the video started to go viral. Anytime, like I said a few seconds ago, anytime something starts to move too fast, cause when we caught the video, it was at like 9,000 views. Like when our content person, I don't know what to call them. When our content person sent it to us to check it out, it was at nine approaching 10,000 views. Two or three days later, it was at a couple hundred thousand. Couple days after that, it was legitimately viral. You know what I'm saying? The speed of it made a lot of people suspicious. So we know, and I know what you're about to say, we know more of an algorithm thing than an industry plant thing. Cause even we've talked about the delay of the algorithm before. So it took it four or five days seemingly after it was posted to go viral, but we've seen that before. You know what I'm saying? I got points for and against this one. Okay. For him not being an industry plant in this argument, I would say, yeah, like you said, you find the right little sliver of the algorithm, things can still move, right? And he has that unique pairing, that conversational piece of looking one way and sounding another. All that's going for him and not being an industry plant at the beginning. But however, we know going viral quickly doesn't happen as much as it used to. And we know for a fact, and by we, I mean, me and you are aware. We have seen instances. We have been a part of the instances where there is one of those buttons that literally can be pushed. This is like, hey, you hear about a button being pushed and it's like proverbial. When it comes to social media, there is a real button that can be pushed where we will say, hey, company. Cause I feel like, you know, we said their name enough. People want to say what are we talking about? Like, hey, social media platform. This video is doing pretty decent. Can you show us a little extra love? And then they'll throw that thing into the river and that thing will arrive. And that just is what it is. There is, that is the closest thing to a real button being pushed where they can give its extreme algorithmic favor or guarantee a certain amount of eyes can see it. However, I'll say this since we are putting this out here, it's so, so, so amazing. How at the end of the day, quality still wins out. Because even with this feature, the button being pushed, social media platform literally saying, oh, okay, we're going to put them in the algorithm and start showing them to everybody. I've seen situations where, oh, this person got four million views because TikTok said, let's give them four million views and them comments weren't hitting. All right? Them likes, it looked like, it looked like Buddy ran an ad. Like it was that bad because it just wasn't what it was. So again, still don't get it twisted. I don't want, like, there's reasons why we don't like invalidating artists completely just because they have money or they had a labor or they had some kind of connection. I swear to you, I've seen it in 50 million ways. That content ain't hitting, bruh. It's not going to do what you want it to. Yeah, bro, like in the instance of the button, it's like, you know, like I said, does the button exist? Yes, in some mediums. But if it's bad, all you're doing is speeding up how fast or speeding up how many people will hate it. Because without this amplification, it might have took decades or millions of people to hate this song. And you made it happen in a weekend. And that is a feat within itself. The other two things that are giving him the industry-plant title is, you know, he started going viral roughly two months ago, like as of us recording this. As of a week ago of us recording this, he got a hop on the FaceTime with two pretty big artists, one being Drake and one being Kanye. And this is when it really started to be like, hmm. Now. You said a week ago or a week after it went viral? No, a week ago. A week ago as of us recording this. Like nine weeks in or something like that, whatever. So this is the argument I made pre-podcast to Sean. He told me to save it for here. Right. What I said to Sean is that I have been in situations before with labels where artists requested the support of another artist. And the label was like, hey, we gonna make that happen for you. Right. And the point I did give to Sean, like I was saying, bro, if you listen to this, bro, I fuck with you, bro. But you know what I'm saying? This is what was suspicious to me, is that I can assume, let's just take label-plant out of it. I would say he has a very well-connected person on his team that knows Drake and Kanye. And when he's able to say, hey, my homie blowing up, you should fuck with him. Right. Plausible. I've seen that before as well. And even someone like Drake has talked about, and I think Kanye too, talked about a similar situation on one close to him was like, hey, you should check this dude out. So it was very plausible. Now, I can assume that with all the industry connections that both of them have, that has to happen a lot. And I can assume that there are way more knows than there are yeses. And I can assume that I like to imagine that once a week, somebody in the industry that's friends with Drake is like, hey, bro, check this bro out. And then Drake is like, all right, bet. And then puts his phone down and takes a bubble bath or something. You know what I'm saying? That's what I feel like happened. And he don't really get to it. Kanye the same thing. So then it makes you wonder, like, hey, what about this situation? Made him take it. I will argue the music. And the point I made before also was like, well, well, Sean, well, man, he is the first legitimate viral act of the year. Maybe Dragon Kanye would just paying attention to the internet. And that's what made. Doubtful, doubtful. Before I speak on many of this, I want to know how do y'all feel about the scenario Corey painted from a standpoint of, if I'm an artist, I have a little motion and I asked my team, right? Hey, can you connect me with somebody? And then I get connected with that person and they shot me on social media or I'm collabing in a video, right? Is that an industry plant situation? I think if we go by definition, haters would expand the definition to say yes. But by strict definition, people like to use the industry plant from a standpoint of the industry is putting this person in place. So then we own one of the cogs in the machine and everybody's being tricked. That is not that. That is not, hey, the artist got positioned with this other person and had no say or thought into it, right? That is, hey, I asked, I use my resources and my resources happen to be different than yours. I think that's a little different than somebody putting somebody in place, right? And doing something like that. Now, with that being, but you know, y'all say what y'all gotta say to that. With that being said, bro, hey man, Drake though. But Drake be on Instagram all the time. Like I don't think it's wild to think that Drake saw this video. That's the fairest point that can be used in response to what I'm about to say. Kanye though. Kanye is about to put an album out though. So I can assume that he's on social media a lot more. It's okay. It's not as strong as Drake. The Drake though, like the response, like I said, I was gonna be your best response. Drake be out here skimming the internet, whether it's him or others, but he has a reputation of being on to things relatively early. Although I don't think he made as big as a pop culturally as when Drake typically hops in on situations. You know what I mean? But Drake's not been known, like he'll still hop on some situations pretty early and be aware of situations pretty early even before like the mass part of like main hip hop culture knows about him. So again, Drake plausible. But Drake and Kanye, especially when Drake and Kanye have Drake and Kanye's relationship. I don't know, man. I get what you're saying. But then I feel like that counted as your point because I can see one of them doing it and then the other one being like, oh hell no, I'm not about to let him one up me. Nah, nah, I can't see them doing it in this situation. I can see them doing it over like a random girl or something like that, but over an artist on the rise. And again, this I have nothing to do with like how I feel about the artist. This is just a argument for the sake of argument because as you've already heard me say, I don't care about the industry plant conversation, but if we go by definition, that right there having them two, Like I said, I, and once again, if you listen to it, I fuck with you, bro. It's like a third time, bro. He gets it. Cause like I was saying, like I was saying, I wasn't like when I saw- It doesn't even matter cause he's going to snip this up and take all that qualification out. It was like when, when I would see those comments, remember when Zach brought it up? I argued against it. I was like, no bro, that doesn't make any sense until this happened. And that's when I was kind of like, actually there was another thing that made me think that and that was the day the video link popped up in his bio. That wasn't that when he first started going viral. Oh yeah. No, that's, and that, cause that was before this whole Drake and Kanye you just told me that about that before the pie today. When you showed me, he had a video link. Video is just not a typical distributor that most artists think to go to. I'm not saying they're the hardest distributor to go in the world, to go to in the world. But how many of y'all know what video is? Think, think about that in y'all's head. And I know some of y'all are saying no, but y'all know what you minded masters are. Y'all have heard about CD baby. Y'all have heard about two laws. Okay, if y'all follow on this, shout out to two laws. There's a link we'll put on two laws below this video now that it's casually come up. No empire, like it's not one of these names that you think of, you know what I'm saying? So why go to video? I'm just saying, again, you need people who are on in the know. And I think whether industry play or not, but he definitely has some smart understanding people around him that I can say. And the, but I can't confirm the time because what y'all aren't aware of that does happen plenty of times. A situation like this can happen. And then bam, they pick, someone could get picked up just that fast. And it doesn't mean you can have one viral video and somebody pick you up fast in all situations. Like below Nas X situation, got picked, scooped up super quick. That was a very obvious, gonna go super crazy situation. What's going on with here? That I would scoop him up real quick. Let's just say if he had no situation, it's because you have a visual, right? There's this unique idea of like, dang, you have this rapper and he sounds like, oh, I just, I wish I mentioned this earlier and I know people are gonna not be listening at this point. I'm gonna get to something that y'all need to be aware of that makes this campaign so much sweeter. But like he, I see the vision, right? And it's not just about being viral. When you have a vision as an exec of what you could do with this artist, right? The next five, 10 moves that you could make with this artist. Oh yeah, let me try to scoop this up. You get what I'm saying? Like that'll happen in a second. Versus let me just see if this is gonna stick. Let me see, like I need time, you know? Cause I don't have a clear vision of where we go from here. That takes time. That's a lot of the thought process in the exec side. Now, what I forgot to mention, that's gonna run this back. Y'all, I think you have any more industry plant like debate to make on this? Cause I don't wanna like stop that conversation before I mention this other thing. No, the last thing I was gonna say, at least regarding the industry plant thing is if he is an industry plant, then I think that we have to give kudos to the industry cause the people are always complaining that the industry isn't pushing talented artists. No man, we can't do that. We got to bro, we got to. We can't do that. If he is an industry plant, then whatever label or A&R or to your point person thought of vision, then hey bro, need a raise, you know what I'm saying? Hey man, no man. These people useless, bro. We can't do that. That would reveal the hypocrisy too much. We can't say that labels don't do shit for people and we don't need labels, but then blame artists for having labels and that's the only reason they blew up. All I'm saying is two things can exist. You can on one hand say, hey, I wish the industry would push more quality artists and on the other hand demonize quote unquote industry plants. Hey man, like I said, it is hypocrisy to say, oh, this artist only blew up cause they have a label. Then on the other hand, labels don't do shit. So y'all gotta pick a side on that one. But look, here's a really, really, really, really, really great part of this whole campaign. It's so beautiful. What we failed to mention is, y'all heard that little high pitch voice at the beginning, right? Singing the song, go back to the beginning if you need to hear it, but also listen to this. I might just call and catch a play. Same song. And this was posted October 18th, 2023. The video that went viral was posted November 24th, 2023. All right? That's a month later. And if you listen, if y'all remember what the original one sounded like that one we played earlier on, that was a higher pitch. So this artist didn't have that high smooth voice. He had that lower voice. And that lower voice actually sounded a little give-y-on pitch too. That's not his like straight voice either. Neither of those are his straight voice. But if you get in your marketing bag and we do this all the time, we've seen many people do this. Oh, let me change the pitch and make it more viral. People like that sound in that vibe, right? I can see somebody saying, oh yeah, this is like, catch a play. Oh, that sounds cool. This sounds, Doby has good feedback. But what if we pitched this thing up? And when you look at the fact that it got pitched up in the same video that he decided to dress like this, right, that look, cause he don't really do that in his other videos. That's not as looking as other videos back then. He don't even have no shits that he don't got his more R&B vibes. So the video that he decides to make his voice a high pitch using an effect, he also dressed as a rapper. And as you pointed out, then you look at a caption that blatantly calls out, does the face match the sound? Yeah, yeah. Well, there is one thing I do want to say real quick cause I really feel like this video gonna go and I don't want niggas to be on your ass about this. But both of these parts are from the same song. It is? Yeah, so like majority of the song is the high pitch version and then like the last 30, 40 seconds of it, it drops down to the, you know. Even better. So you're still right. They chose to focus on that part. That's the important part. Yes, that is the important part. I didn't specify that it wasn't the same song, did I? Or something. But I'm glad. I appreciate you got my back. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you got my back. Yes. But like, yeah, my point is the part that got played and amplified here was different than the part that got amplified earlier on. You know what I'm saying? And they knew, right? You thought about it from a marketing standpoint that are, how do we contrast this and to the caption? And here was the argument, right? Was were they just in their marketing bag? Jacory started to go look back at their last captions to judge the quality of the captions for your shooters and determine whether or not, like, oh yeah, they just did it like that or they were told to make that the caption. Y'all can go do the for sure only page and come to your own conclusion if the copy is as strong. But I think that spurred the argument for not necessarily industry plan or anything like that. I think it's just the importance of the marketing thoughtfulness that went into this. And this is why I say people don't spend enough time, right, on the front end. All right, they get into spending their money and trying to get on these platforms or just create videos. And what if he just came wonder looking and sounding like how he normally was looking and sounding and posting? That wouldn't have hit, all right? But just for a little bit more thought on the front end, for the exact same amount of time, he got an outsized return. Like, that's what this marketing bag is, right? And that's why we help artists go farther with less money. When we do get in a situation where we help artists, because, you know, we can't take on that many campaigns. So when we mention us, the fact that we do this, I wanna make it clear we're not advertising for y'all to like just to hit us up and be here. A lot of y'all are aware that we've had to turn down very, very, very many people over the last six months. But I mean, I think you hit the point, man, because, you know, we talked about the V's video where he talked about platforms like this, or Corny, or, you know, not useful. And, you know, as us doing what we do, we run into that same argument. I don't wanna go on this platform like so many other people go, right? And the argument I made with a client before is this mic that we're using right now, and it sure as some 7B, it's probably one of the most popular mics in the world. Thousands of people across the world use this microphone for whatever they create. But the difference is they all are creating different things with them, right? Somebody could come by the same mic and not be able to do a tenth of what we're doing with this exact same mic. Not the mic. They use it exactly. I look at these platforms the same way. Are there dozens of artists that go on four shooters only in front of the block? Yeah, of course. They got a business. They gotta do what they gotta do. But how many think about it as intentionally as they, or he seems to have, and how many of them think like, hey, what is my best, how do I give myself the best chance to stand out on this platform and not be one of those artists that people look to and say, hey, he just got on it like everybody else did, and just did exactly what everybody else do. But y'all. You got anything you wanna add to this? No, I think this was good, man. I mean, I do want people to know that this is purely speculation. We ain't been able to talk to bro. Hopefully he sees this and then we're wrong about some stuff he corrects us. And if we're right, he just leaves like a flame emoji. If you're ready, bro. No, you're the flame, write a flame emoji if we wrong too. Cause he just like, appreciate the attention, you know what I'm saying? Like, to be clear, like outside you saying speculation. Like, we weaved in and out of things that weren't necessarily related to him too. So just not to confuse people like, you know, like we were talking more about some situations. We were explicitly aware of some stuff happening as examples, but weren't expanding or like, we know more about his situation and now we're kind of like subliminal. It wasn't no subliminal. This is just a fun shit we do with damn near everybody. When we see something moving and we like it, then we like to discuss. And this is just that conversation on footage. So shout out to Four Bats. Your music's dope. Hopefully, you know, you keep it coming, bro. And other than, go ahead. Yeah, nah, let me say this real quick too. There's going to be a lot of people that caught him post viral moment. They may hear this and not believe us. And I wouldn't say that all though. Once again, this was speculation. We were in a very unique position where we called him right before he blew up. We posted him on another necessary page like two days before he started going viral. So we saw. Oh yeah. Y'all might think that we were part of the campaign rollout. We weren't. Yeah, we weren't, yeah. Like we said, our content got showed us to him. Thought he was dope. Thought we should post him. We were like, all right, cool. Posted him. Our posts started doing abnormally well and that made us go back and look at his shit. And we noticed his shit was going viral at the time. And like I said, I remember when Zach dropped that video and it had 9,000 views on it. That's how early we were. We were there. Back to the point though. He had not had the viral moment yet. We posted him. We did. We would not have posted him if we didn't think he was dope. Our content guy wouldn't have posted it. I'm gonna send it to him. If he didn't think he was dope. Like it was all off the pure like, oh yeah, this is dope. Like, and that's it. And we didn't expect it to do the numbers that it did or whatever just because we were still building a page, still building a page out. So yeah, a lot of great points. I hope y'all take this stuff to heart. And other than that, this is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary Podcast. I am Brandon Shawn. And I'm Corey. And we out. Peace.