 Baw, what's up everybody once again, it's Brand Man Sean and today we got to talk about the rise of Pontiac made DDG as a YouTuber but not only that, why he has a legit shot at being a rapper. We touched on this a little bit in my RiceGum video, I'll put that link up somewhere but when we talk about a fact of having a legit shot at being a rapper, I want to tell you why DDG is that guy. So first if you don't know who Pontiac made DDG is, he's known primarily as a YouTuber. He vlogs a lot, he's done reaction videos, he's done a lot of collaborations, there's a lot, he's a full scale YouTuber. His primary page has 1.3 million followers, he has another page called the DDG Family which has like 700,000 followers and I gotta go ahead and say this isn't really me saying that I think in the future he will be a legit rapper, in my mind he's already a legit rapper and here's why. Yes, he started posting some of his music videos on his channel because he had a lot of attention on his channel, right? But then he got to the point where recently, you know in the last 8 months or so, he would post videos like just the promo on his primary channels that already have a lot of subscribers. Mark, why would you not do that? But then the videos will actually be posted on channels like Worldstar Hip Hop. Now it doesn't super differentiate and say that just because you have a video on Worldstar that makes you more legit than having views on your own page. But there is something that's undeniable, in December of 2017 he did his first live show and it was sold out. How many people has sold out? I don't really know. But let's just say it was 300 people. If you're selling out shows for 300 people coming to see you as a rapper, you are already a legitimate rapper. It would be one thing if he was coming to do like some comedy as a YouTuber but he sold out a show as a rapper, you're a legitimate rapper. There are a lot of people who are just artists, not YouTubers at all that can bring out 300 fans. Not 300 people that are like, hey some of this is your mom, some of this is your friends that are just coming out. But 300 people who are fans that are coming out to see you rap. And that's because DDG has some advantages and I'm going to get to those advantages that DDG has that you could also have at the end. But now I want to focus on a few things which are really the reasons I did this video. A lot of times I'll talk to artists and when you talk about the routes and strategies they have to get attention and blow up, build their brands, a lot of them will be like, yeah I don't want to do YouTube though because I don't want to get stuck as a YouTuber. I don't want people to just know me as a YouTuber. That is far from the truth. I don't know why so many people have this idea. As a matter of fact I can get why so many people think that that's a real thing. My personal thoughts, whenever someone says they aren't creating a YouTube because they don't want to be in that kind of pocket and get branded as that is one or two things. One, the person has listened to some bad advice and they genuinely fear and believe that if they become a YouTuber that they'll be stuck in that lane and can't become a rapper or whatever kind of artist you want to be. Number two, that person is lazy. You're lazy and you're just using the whole not doing YouTube thing as an excuse for you to continue to procrastinate when it can very much so help your career. Now there is this third option. The third option is it genuinely isn't for you. Now that is a real thing. If you just don't have the personality to do a YouTube video or it's going to take away from the ultimate type of brand that you're trying to have and what you desire, that makes sense. But all those other reasons, not so much. It's the same thing with cover videos and cover songs, right? If you come up off of cover videos and cover songs on YouTube, it doesn't mean that you can't be your own artist. It doesn't. I'm not going to get into the details. I'll talk about that in its own separate video when it comes to cover songs and all that stuff. But when you make a good song, when you make a dope song, you get a hit, you got a hit. It's just like Cardi B. Yeah, she's a stripper, but when she caught a hit, she caught a hit. Nobody complained about Eve being a stripper and she's one of the ghosts of women rappers. Part of it was the fact that a lot of people didn't know, so she didn't get branded as it. But once you catch a hit, you catch a hit. Now, another really dope thing that I like about DDG's story is just the fact that he still has his old music up. Because a lot of artists, they always say, yo, brand man, if I post this music and if I do high volume and I get better, I don't want my old music because people are going to see my trash and what do they think lessen me when they see my old music? People really don't think like that. Like, people understand that people are trash at one point and then they become better. DDG's second video on his channel is a music video. Is it trash? Yes, it is trash. But everybody starts to trash and that's what makes his progression so much better, the fact that he didn't take that down and you can look back at it and see, yo, he came from here to here. It makes his story an inspiration and this is a huge part of what gives him an advantage. He already has what other artists are trying to create. He has a brand that people care about, which means he actually has a level of longevity that a lot of these artists that you might consider bigger than him, better than him, don't have because they don't have a brand that people care about. His fans care about him and he can use that to flip into music. He can use that to flip into some other random things that don't even have nothing to do with music. But a lot of the artists, if they don't keep making hits before they develop that brand, they're not going to even be able to flip it into something else so they don't have that longevity and a lot of them already don't have fan bases that really legitimately care about them. So that's his advantage as a YouTuber. Yes, his music has gotten a lot better, but let's say he never comes off with a hit and he just fails in music, period. He still can continue to flip that into other things because he has that presence. The only fail he could really have is if he just gave up his YouTubing all together just to be an artist, especially if he did it prematurely before he got to a certain level of success as an artist. Because once again, that's his advantage. The brand he created through his platform on YouTube to actually connect and build that strong audience is what's going to allow him to have longevity regardless once again, whether the music pops off or not. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, look at the video I did on Coach K and Pete talking about why Lil Yachty is winning so big. I'll put that video in the description for those of y'all who are curious to see it. But once again, man, this guy has a very strong brand because of how he built his brand. And the fact that he has old music does not work against him. It adds to his story in the same way you got to see a Cardi B come up from where she was. You get to go back retroactively through his channel, see him come up. You can see what he became the valedictorian at his school and he did a speech at his graduation. Never judge a book by its cover. People told me that I wouldn't be valedictorian in my eighth grade class, but I was. People told me I wouldn't be anywhere doing videos, but I did. People told me I wouldn't be valedictorian of my senior class, but I am. You get to see all of these moments in time in his life and see that development, which will allow you to connect to him as a fan a lot deeper and appreciate his brand even more. I wanna know what you guys think. Put them thoughts in the comments and if you got a friend, that's a rapper or artist that might be having some trouble and thinking about becoming a YouTuber or all this kind of stuff, send them this video, man. They need to see it. And other than that, if you like this video, go ahead and hit that like button. If you like your mom, we'll share it and if you're not subscribed, you know what to do, hit that subscribe button.