 Why does my liking, my idea, have to stop me from writing the idea? Right, right. Maybe, maybe what you like and don't like right now is not essential. So what's up? What's up? I'm Brandon Sean and I'm Kory and we are back with another episode of No Labels Necessary Podcast. You can catch us every Tuesday, every Thursday on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, wherever you stream your podcast here at the intersection of creativity and currency. And today we have a special episode talking about a few things. One, we did our very first event. So we got a shout out to all y'all who actually went to our very first live event. Also, we are talking about brand identity and why your current music and products that you create don't always have to match your current brand identity, having a lot of followers, but still being broke and why people who have followers should be able to make money. And if they aren't making money, there's an answer to why. But it's not what you think. I promise you that. Watch this to get the game. And we've got a couple of other interesting topics, but we'll just let you stay and see first and foremost, I want to get to this clip. To me, that's about brand identity and why artists should stop letting things that sound good to them. Keep them from writing the things that sound bad to them. I know that sounds weird. Okay. I know that sounds weird, but listen to the legend John Mayer. Now I'm actually at the point where I'm going, why do I need to like what I'm writing? What if I can write things that I don't even like at the moment? But then what would be the point? If you don't like it, it's because it just exists a little bit beyond your own tastes for that moment. But if you don't like it and it's a hit, then you're going to be stuck. No, you begin to like it. Oh, okay. Like that's what happens as a writer. You write something and go, I bet this isn't any good, but your tastes catch up to it. So now I'm going, I know it's a very complex, kind of twisted thought, but why does my liking, my idea have to stop me from writing the idea? Right. Right. Maybe, maybe what you like and don't like right now is not essential. All right. So first, I know it's, it's, it's getting meta beyond meta. And I think, I think that's what people need to be aware of. Who don't know John Mayer. This isn't like some record exec saying like, Oh, just write some super commercial shit, right? Or some like super commercial artists. He's known as like one of the artsy, artsiest people. Right. So he's not talking, Hey, just write some bullshit created. He's talking literally like, I can hear an artist who is searching for ways to continuously unlock the things that are blocking them. That's what, that's what he sounds like, right? Cause you even had Andy Cohen, I believe his name is. Go yo, like, well, wouldn't you be stuck in a, in a, in a spot that you don't want to be in? If you write a song that you don't like and it becomes a hit, right? So there's a couple of thoughts that are important to me in this whole conversation. The very first one is brand identity, personal identity and how people allow their current personal identity to lock them in to a lack of creativity, right? And keep them from exploring new ideas because this is what I look at it as time and time again, people's lives, they'll say, Oh, I wouldn't wear this. I won't listen to this. All right. And they define themselves by things that aren't actually them. All right. How many times have you seen someone? Maybe you've experienced this. You don't like a certain type of clothing, right? Or a certain type of fit, but then five years later, you find yourself dressing kind of like how you wouldn't dress before. Right. You're not locked into the, the, the identity, your clothing as much as we like to act like how we dress is like who we are. Maybe it's more of a reflection of who we are at the moment, but it's not actually who we are. We're more abstract, right? We're constantly evolving. And I think that's what he's kind of alluding to. So yo, I don't like it right now. My taste hasn't evolved to like this. Maybe I will never like it, but why don't I write it anyway? Now, his versions, like he didn't really speak on why he sees value in writing it anyway. I would have loved to hear that aspect of it, but like just going ahead and doing things sometimes and trying things sometimes that are beyond your taste and what your current perspective is. To me, that's those are the people who begin to evolve faster than those who stay locked in to this one way of doing things. Yeah, I agree. And I think it kind of speaks to a point we've made a couple of times where like your taste or your likes as an artist doesn't necessarily dictate the taste and likes of the audience that you're going after. And I've heard other songwriters and producers say that people that are great in those areas understand how to write things for audiences that may not be their audience, right? Like the best example I can think off the top of my head is like, let's say like Lil Yachty and the City Girls. You know what I'm saying? Like their fan base isn't his fan base more than likely, but he understood enough to be able to write something that will perform well for them within that community. You know what I'm saying? If he is, I'm pretty sure he didn't like the subject matter. Well, I'm not going to speak for him, but you know, I will be willing to bet that he didn't stand by or like the subject matter. But he's like, hey, I understand how this group of people thinks. So I'm going to write something for that group of people, even if it may not be something that I personally agree with or resonate with, you know, which I agree. I think that's a that's a sign of a great creator. You know what I'm saying? Like, especially ones that have been around as long as John Merrill, where I'm in a bad way, I can create for these different groups of people, even if I don't particularly like it. And I don't know, I feel like more artists need to hear that because I'm going through a situation right now where we got a guy, a guy we working with where he has a song that he hates, but he's been teasing it and his audience loves it. But he hates it. You know what I'm saying? Like, and I can tell like he's thinking exactly what the other guy was thinking. Like, man, if I put this shit out in the goal, like y'all keep saying it is and be stuck doing this shit forever. And I don't fuck with it. But then it boils down to, you know, back to the conversation of who are you creating music for, right? Where a lot of artists like to make it sound like I'm making music for the people until they make something that they don't like what people like, you know, and then that whole shit go out the window. You know what I'm saying? That's back to just about you, what you want to be out there and what you like. So I'm glad someone like John Mayer is the center because the other point I would never have guessed John Mayer will have this, this train of thought. You know what I'm saying? Exactly. Exactly. I think kind of what you alluded to is the fact that being able to write from different perspectives, being able to think from different perspectives is really powerful. Clinton Sparks mentioned this in his interview that we just dropped last week. Y'all will check that out, but it touches on why I think as a marketer, like that's what we're doing constantly, right? The best marketers can think from perspectives that don't necessarily resonate with who they individually are as a person, but you're able to analyze the audience, see, understand how they think and then speak to them in their language in a way that feels authentic to them and triggers the things that, you know, match their whole being. So I can only imagine as a writer in the same way that sharpens your skill set as a copywriter, right? Or a marketer creating messaging. It only does the same thing for an artist, but I think artists kind of, I don't know, they get caught up in thinking that that'll take away from who they are. But if anything you should look at is I gained a perspective, but then I'm bringing it. I'm going to bring it back to my shit. Yeah, because it expands where you are, bro. Like when the world learned that Lil Yachty wrote that city girl song, true, that shit was crazy. Like it just made me think it made me think so differently of him, right? Like I was like, man, I never would have guessed up until that point that Yachty was even capable of writing to that point. But now because of that, now that I have that information, I view him so much differently as a writer and now over time is he's gotten, you know, writing credits for different songs and then he's out there more as a writer. Like it's it's built up that respect that he has now in that community. That's one of the biggest ways and signs of respect it seems like people right for other people and it's successful. Yeah, because it's like, I mean, I think about from the arts perspective, it's like I'm asking you person that's not me to speak for me to my and then one is, you know what I'm saying, like different audiences. Like who was the guy you were showing me? The OG. I can't think of no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Is the OG R&B songwriter, but you were showing me that he wrote like a big rock song or like a pop rock song. Man, babyface, babyface, babyface up. But was it Lincoln Park or whoever the was it Lincoln Park? I think it was down time. You ready or not? That group, whoever they were, bro. That would pull it might have been them. Like whoever they were, but when I learned that about him, I was this nigga's genius because I know for a fact that this is not his demographic. Nowhere near. But he wrote one of the biggest songs ever for that demographic. Yes. Despite his own background, his own personal taste, the types of music that he makes and that speaks volumes about his level of creativity and his genius when it comes to that shit, bro. Cause like, you know, cause I do think that you bring up this point a lot right where a lot of times artists let creativity stop at their own music, you know what I'm saying? But I think it is a flex to be able to show your creativity through somebody else's art. That's a huge flex because it's so many barriers. It's like, how is the person going to perform it? How are they going to feel about it? Can I write something that feels authentic to them that also speaks to like, it's so many barriers to having something come out of that process and be good that when you do it and it's for a group of people that isn't your group of people. Like I can get like, you know, back to Yachty. Yachty wrote a hit song for like Playboy Cartier or like Yeet or something. I'm like, okay, that makes sense. That's basically speaking to the same group of people. But the city girl shit, I'm like, it's a group of people that you're not talking to. In that interaction, you were still able to write a hit song. The babyface shit, bro. He's a group of people you're not talking to or interacting with. But you can still write something that that the vessel can do authentically and the audience connects with. That that shit is another level of genius. It's like when you get to that point where it's like, whatever I touch is creative. It doesn't have to be this version of creative that fits a box of, you know what I mean? It's like, nah, just whatever I do, bro. Like you're going to feel it. You know, that's how someone like Kanye kind of like moves, right? Yeah, everything he goes into is going to be it's going to be that this person says something interesting. K Roosevelt said he spit in real game here that a lot of people probably don't understand. Sometimes you write, create something and hate it initially for various reasons could be personal insecurities could just be a little ahead of his time. Yeah, it's a great point. Same reason when you go back to like the clothes example, right? You just might not be comfortable wearing that at that time, right? Like I'm not comfortable wearing this when the rest of the world isn't wearing this, right? Or am I comfortable wearing this when the rest of the world is wearing this, right? Depending on how your insecurities are set up, right? And your identity is set up. But now I can I can I can wear this like, damn, I'm not somebody who would wear hats or whatever. Hats I feel weird like people looking at me next thing. You know, like hats mean like a normal thing you wear. That's how you should feel about mesh t-shirts. Really? Yeah. See, then I got started working out, man. Got a little muscle. It should look good on me, man. Exactly. It all of that shit is the same. That's funny. That's funny as hell. And the point to what was the personal insecurities, because we've talked about it before with content. We're like, I know for a fact I've made videos. I'm like, terrible. I don't fuck with it. Let me put it out anyway. And then the eyes like this is the best thing you've ever made, man. It's so much game. You just like it goes back to the point where sometimes even though you were the creator, you're just wrong about it. And that is OK. It is OK to be wrong about your own art. Hey, exactly. Yeah. Like, I mean, it's like, because what's the what a pain are you following? It's just you might be right about the fact you don't like it. Yeah, you're wrong about the world feels. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I want to look up something real quick. John may or see what his monthly listeners are going to make a bet on what it is just before you look it up. All right. Yeah. What you bet? Seven million, ten dollars on seven million. Bro, I was going to go exactly seven million. You know, let me see. That's crazy, because I was going to say seven. Fifteen. We both wrong. Damn, it's crazy. We both wrong. I just had to check it out because someone said he writes music that almost nobody likes. I'm like, that's that's just not a fact for for John Mayer. He's not. I'm not listening to every John Mayer song, but you know, you got to put respect with respect is due. I know why I thought John Mayer was bald. I don't know why I thought that I don't know. Yeah, I don't even know who I don't know who I'm thinking of. Who am I thinking of? Who's the other soul for white dude? Other soul for white dude. Yeah, the other soul for white dude that black people love. There's two of them. Yeah, bro. Um, who's on Travis Scott album? I think I was John Mayer on Travis. Was John Mayer on Travis Scott? James Blake. There we go. James Blake. James Blake. There we go. Oh, yeah, they're completely different types of soul. I would say black people probably like him more than they like John Mayer. Yeah, 100% in terms of like hit the culture specifically. That's the white Frank ocean, man. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so one of the most important things that artists have to realize if you truly become a brand, then everybody that buys from you no longer has to be a fan. I know that sounds mind boggling. You have people buy from you who support your career, who support your movement that aren't even fans. But the truth is regular businesses do this every single day. And that's how we had this realization that we then began to capitalize off of with our artists. And if you want to see this for yourself, I'll show you for completely free. If you go to www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash monetize, you have to put in www. And if you're on YouTube, you can find it in the description somewhere. So just go there and I'll show you the massive paradigm shift that we had that allowed us to start to help our artists monetize their audience way faster while increasing the amount of people that they can monetize at the same time. So basically a lot more money, you know what I'm saying? So check it out. www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash monetize while it's completely free to check out back to the conversation. All right, let's get into this. Having 2 million followers but still being brought. I had 2 million followers and I was working for somebody else in the shoe store, right? To the world, I was popping. But to myself, I was lonely. I was broke. I didn't have money. I was super popping. I was getting a million views and most of y'all out here, y'all compare y'all lives to the people that y'all look at on. Oh, I don't want to talk too much. Am I talking too much? Go ahead, man. You guys compare your lives to the people that are on social media getting millions and millions of views. But I always want one of those people that had 2 million followers. And I was broke. I was lonely. I didn't have a team. I had people that believed in my craft. You know what I mean? So he touching on a lot of different things. This is what I want to bring it back to. If you have 2 million followers and you're broke, most people will say it's because your followers ain't real or they follow you for no reason. Maybe. I think the more important thing is you don't understand sales and marketing. Yeah, 100%. If you got 2 million followers, all right, the false idea might be, okay, yeah, they're trying to follow me just for who I am and I'm just going to drop something around my name and that's going to pop, right? Or I should be able to get invited out to shows. This person is an influencer, by the way. He's not an artist. But the important thing is if I got 2 million people watching me, I'm able to say, well, fuck me and my ego. What type of people are following me? What do they like? What can I sell them at a profit? How much money do I gotta spend? How much money do they have to spend and then sell them something accordingly? And I think that's the bigger problem when you find these people who have these audiences that are legitimately getting the views. I'm not talking about fake views, right? None of that stuff. Legitimately have 2 million followers, legitimately have views. I think too many times the public figure, whether that's an artist, an influencer, a comedian, whoever, right? They'll build these audiences for whatever in ways that aren't exactly planned out. And when it comes to money, right? You don't have to be broke, but because they think, well, this is all around me and they only look at monetizing in a typical public figure, I'm a celebrity type of monetizing. They fuck around and still end up struggling when they don't have to. It's no way you should have that level of attention because we've had far less. We still got far less in terms of we don't have 2 million followers, right? But knowing what your audience likes, what they see value, and then how do you sell it through proper sales funnels and things like that? That is the real thing. People just start messaging to these folks that are just like, oh, yeah, man, that's because your shit ain't real or you ain't popping like you think you are. Yeah, and I give him the bin for that because I was actually at this revoked conference where he was talking about this. And I don't know if that's short, yeah. This is the same one that Coach K-Clip came from. This was that revoked conference. And I don't know if it's in this clip, but I remember in that talk, he went on to basically say exactly that. Like he realized like, oh, like I wasn't really thinking about my audience as like consumers of a product because I didn't have a product. All I had was like these funny videos I was doing. And I think at the time he mentioned he was getting ready to like open some restaurants and do a couple of things to be able to start. I know, I thought I was angel. I was like, oh, restaurant, man, you know. Yeah, but I was like, but at least he was thinking ahead to that, right? Like, all right, I do need to start actively thinking about what am I going to sell to these niggas? Because that is usually where it starts. So most RSN influencers, what was weird about it to me hearing him say, and this was a different time. I think this clip came from like 2020, you know what I'm saying? So this is before, you know, all these like influencers, all the different platforms started kind of like educating and training influencers on how to monetize, right? And then we're in that era with the platforms I want to pay you. So that'll gladly teach you how to make money off your audience. This is before that. I thought it was wild because I'm used to hearing that from an, from artists like the whole like, I didn't think about monetizing my audience. So I don't know how, but I usually influences on top of that. You know what I'm saying? Like they usually, they usually very, very much on top of that. But like I said to his credit, he was one of the early ones that kind of was, you know, I look at like him and like the Shiggy's and all of those influence about them, but that were the sacrificial lambs for the influence of the data to learn how to do better. You know what I'm saying? Man. See, I don't even want to give people that flag, leeway no more. Because like people really don't be the first these days. Like they'll, like it's so much history of people monetizing in different ways. The problem is they might be the first in that way during that time. And all of a sudden nobody gets educated until the corporations decide to make education a part of their process. Right? Like the education becomes popular. So it's like, if you're, if your success is always dependent on the institutions deciding to educate you, you ass out anyway. Yeah, I agree. Cause this was also around that same time. I don't know if you remember that was that girl that was going viral because she was a big influence and she thought it said this. Yeah, it was the young white chick. She had two million followers, literally about exactly. And she couldn't sell 26 shirts. Yeah, that's what it was. So this was all around that time. This was all the same time period. And so I don't know man, I think, like I said, like I do think that that 2018 to like 2020, maybe early 2021, well, no, I would say 2018 2020 group of influences, bro. They were the ones that had to kind of fuck up. So the ones that they could learn from it. Cause now today, bro, it is very hard to find an influencer that's not at least attempting to sell a product. You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying they're all successful or making a lot of money, but they all at least understand that, hey, once I hit a certain number, I gotta at least start trying. And that number has gotten way smaller. Like I feel like back then they felt like they couldn't monetize until they hit a couple million. I see influences that like 8,000 followers, you know what I'm saying, attempting to sell shit. You know what I'm saying? Like to your point, like we don't have a massive audience, but we sell products in events and things. So yeah, I just look at it like that, bro, this was the group of people that had to fuck up. So the rest of us could be like, I'm not about to be, I'm not about to be sending that 2 million followers and not making no money. We were just talking with an artist a few weeks ago. And I don't know if you remember, he was getting flown out to New York by a startup, right? I would assume he got paid five to 10 bands. Somewhere around that or whatever. Cause he was dealing with outside of the music industry. He was a private event. Probably closer to 10, 20 bands. I don't even think it was a situation where he would have finessed. I think it was going to be, it was a situation where he got an offer and was like, oh shit, I didn't know this was possible. That's what it seemed to be the vibes, right? Yeah, that's true. But like that's what it really looks like when you have a certain level of following and he didn't have a million followers and you are reaching enough people, there are people in your fan base that will pay you thousands. All right. If you have a hundred thousand followers, like real followers and you're doing something and you're an artist, there's somebody you can get to pay you thousands. All right, Adrian, right? One point we're gonna drop a conversation with him. He was doing college shows, doing like at least 3,000 per show, right? That's already thousands just off of that, right? But the people who are doing weddings, private parties, like some people are just doing like fan meetups and almost, I don't wanna call it like a, I was gonna call it like the boyfriend and girlfriend experience because there's, I don't know if you know like, in Brazil, that was when I first heard about this, like them doing like the prostitution boyfriend experience thing or girlfriend experience. I heard about that. It's not like just a straight transactional, it's hey, it's almost like an escort but it sounded a little deeper, like I'm gonna clean, yeah. It was really like an experience, right? But I digress, I'm not gonna get too deep into that. But like, I don't wanna say that experience but let's call it a friend experience. Where you have a certain amount of your audience out and like y'all do some normal cool thing, we're gonna go to Disney World together, right? I gotta tell you something about that shit. Like things like that and people wanna be a part of your group because you're creating an energy, you're down and you're just a camp counselor at that point, right? Or you are an event promoter but like there's so many different ways to flip and get people to pay. And if you have an audience, again, now that's if they care about you in that way. Outside of that, there's still specific products that you can bring attention to. Like let's say, oh, people are using me to advertise deodorant a lot. My audience really seems to love deodorant because maybe I'm working out or something like that and a lot of dudes are following me checking out my workouts or whatever. Maybe I need to drop my own deodorant brand. Crazy. You know what I'm saying? Paying attention to the advertisers because that's all Amazon does, right? It's like, oh yeah, we let all these individual contributors sell on the platform. We got the data, we see that, oh, they keep running it up, right? So now we need to drop our own Amazon basics version of it, right? That's the store version of it. That's what the stores did traditionally. Oh snap, we need to have our own basic toothpaste, right, the Walmart toothpaste. You can do the same thing as an artist as an influencer. Oh man, this type of brand seems to keep paying me. All right, that same brand keeps coming back and they seem to pay other people in my demographic. Maybe I need to drop that. Maybe it's not my music or my show or something like that but there's something that the people who are watching me are interested in and I can get them to buy. Yeah, and I think too that goes back to just talking to your audience, paying attention to them as people, you know what I'm saying? Because all of those answers come from doing that, you know what I'm saying? To your point, and we say this a lot, where as artists and creatives, you just get used to seeing numbers, right? So you look at the video and you just see a thousand views but you don't know that one of those thousand views is a tech mogul that's willing to pay you 10 and 20 K to come out, you know what I'm saying? Because you're not putting certain things in place of where you can extract the information from them or even just get a chance to talk to them. Like I always think about I have a homie as an artist and I remember one day he was on like a Twitch stream and he was about to get off and one of his fans came in and I was like, oh no, like I miss you, like he was like, yeah, I'm about to leave. I mean, if you want me to stay, just like, no, don't add a little bit of money. I might hang around for another 10, 15 minutes and that fan dropped like 500 on the spot. It's like that. Like how long will you hang out for this? He's like, oh shit, man, I can probably stay another hour. You know what I'm saying? 30 minutes, you know what I'm saying? Just because you did it. But it's like, I don't know. I don't feel like that same interaction would have happened if that guy was just like a lack on the beat. Like it took him like talking to them directly to even learn that, like I remember talking to them. He's like, man, I didn't even think my audience had that type of money to spend. I'm like, probably not all of them. But you know, you don't need, you don't need a sum. Exactly. Some of them got, you know, good jobs. Bro, like when artists be looking at their analytics and they start seeing that shit skew like 28, 32 and they be like, man, my audience is getting old. I'm like, I see money. These niggas are stable. They got nice, you know, at least decent to nice jobs. Bro, like I'm seeing, I'm seeing stability and opportunity here. Thanks. But yeah, I don't know. I think it just goes back to bro, just like talk to your audience, man. Like, you know, get to know them. You got to. And let them know that you are taking money. You are open for shop. Yeah, thanks. Like build that relationship with your audience. I think every artist, especially who are like moving indie, like for real, for real, every artist should have a way for people to reach out to them and make some sort of offer for private events. Yeah. Right. Just make it available. All right. Like that's what I think the Russell's doing good is, I don't know if he has this particular, cause I know he has an offer based system, but it's around things he's curating. But I feel like because he lets it be known that he's taking money or he's built off of his fan base and there's always this transaction, I feel like if there's somebody who has a company or a wedding or whatever, some type of private event and they're a fan of him, they would feel comfortable enough reaching out. Yeah. And they would think that there's a chance that they would get an answer. That's all you need. Like just have a form and be like, hey, if y'all want to reach out to me for private events, just let it be known that it's there. You don't have to push it all the time. Leave it in like your LinkedIn bio along with everything else there. And you know, somebody's gonna reach. You might only have one or two of those a year depending on where you are, who you are. But one, you do it. And then two, when you do it, you know, try to make a part of that deal that you can let people know you did it. Yeah, but it's crazy, it's crazy you set up. And I do think this is mainly a rap specific issue, but we're as fans, so used to the artists telling us how much they don't need us, that you don't even think about doing something like, I would never think to reach out to certain. Like for example, I would never think to like, reach out to a little baby for a private event. Cause it might hit our black man, it's nigga making so much money, man. He probably ain't gonna look at this. Like to your point, I probably can't even get to him. You know what I'm saying? There's no form, no easy, I don't know who his booking agent is. But then someone like LaRussell, who is kind of constantly pushing that narrative of like, I wouldn't be here without the people. You know what I'm saying? Like that pushes people to want to spend money on you. You know what I'm saying? And so I do, like I do think it's like, mainly a rapper issue, but I think the bigger and the harder it starts to get, the more they start to kind of put their energy off. I was like, I don't really need y'all here. You know what I'm saying? Like it's nice that you are here, but I don't need you. I'm making all this money over here, over here, over here. And it's like, but they don't realize that to your point, like you're shutting off certain opportunities for yourself. Cause I look at really any type of entertainment brand as you like slinging hope to your audience. You know what I'm saying? And a couple of different types of hope. Like hope that your life might be better. You know what I'm saying? Hope that things around you might get better. But then also hope that we cool. You know what I'm saying? Like we friends, you know? And there's a certain level of benefits or things that I would get from this relationship. And so many people cut that dream off for their fans. And they wonder why they ain't making no money. It's like, bro, they feel like you don't need them. They feel like you good without their money. You're not, you know, to the point we had earlier, not presenting things to them, for them to be able to financially support you. And you're killing off the dream that they could, that they could get to you if they wanted to. It's like, all these things lead to a drop well. You know what I'm saying? Bro, so remember this? When Beyonce got paid $24 million. Oh, that was like last year. Yeah. All right? So, oh, that was like, they're giving more information. But she did $24 million for a single show, a private event in Dubai. Correct. That's probably a whole tour. Fex. There's a lot of people's whole tour, right? So why is this something that you can learn from? Number one, you do these private events. Once you do a private event, you let people know you do private events. Show them that I did this, right? Don't even worry about what you got paid because maybe you didn't get paid something that you would have loved to get paid, right? But one, you're showing an advertising of people that you're open to this. All right, so now when more offers come in, then, hey, now you can pick. Like, oh snap, okay. And I know what the price is. Well, that's level two. That's what I'm gonna get to. That's what I'm saying first. That's what I'm saying, if the price isn't crazy, you just let people know you did it. It's like, you show I did this and whatever, and now you might just see what comes in after that, right? But then, yeah, once you start making that kind of money off of it, now you let people know what the price is. Like, you're creating value in the marketplace or showing people your value and you're probably gonna attract other people who got that type of money knowing, oh, snap, I could get Beyonce if I had 24. I mean, that's a, now we're at a crazy range, right? But like the Ubers of the world, remember her and Jay-Z got like, or maybe it was just her got like equity and shit before, right? People in that level know that, oh, I can get Beyonce for my private shit. And all I have to, I just have to obviously figure out a way to come up with whatever type of money. But a lot of people, not all the people, most people don't, but there are a good amount of people who got this kind of money. So now you're talking about $5,000 for a show or I got paid $50,000 for a show. You can let people know these things and don't worry about your price being stuck in one place. Like, that's for people who are afraid of confrontation. It's like, yes, that last show was $50,000, wasn't the next person just says $50,000 in a year from now. Be able to communicate that the price is going up. That just is what it is. That's a natural part of the game. So sometimes people get afraid of advertising, cost or what they did something for it because they get afraid they won't get locked into it. It's like, no, you need to build the comfort or have your manager. Like that's just, the price is always, hopefully always going up. Yeah man, we all at this point are familiar with the phrase yesterday's price is not today's price. You know what I'm saying? Everybody understands that going into any transaction with anything itself and maybe like a Walmart. The only place that becomes the issue is if the prices start to go down. Because you just have to maintain whatever you were supposed to maintain. Yeah, yeah. So like let people know every artist should have some open communication that this is possible, some way that this is possible. A simple form makes it easy to, like, look, now you know where they are. Let me just go check and see if somebody's submitting the form today or whatever. You don't gotta do a back and forth. You can let them know, you only expect to hear back from me if it sounds interesting or whatever or we can't manage all the requests, whatever you gotta say to push them off. But just having that there, I'm telling you, anybody who does that, they're gonna end up, you're gonna end up with a lick that you had no idea was coming. Yeah, bro, that's like when I think about R&B singers, I never get why they don't. If I was an R&B singer, man, I would have a form to sing at weddings and intimate shit, but that would be my product from exactly easy, bro. From day one. Sing at your proposal, like all that time. Your anniversary dinner is, bro, it's such an easy hoop, bro. Such an easy at least, I don't know, I don't even wanna put a price on it. People are spending $100,000 on weddings easy, like frequently. Yeah, that's crazy. I know multiple wedding people who do weddings and most of her weddings and one of the girls I'm thinking about are all like $100,000 budgets. Man, that's great. I thought you could get a wedding done for like 20, 30K, man. That's what I'm saying. So, going on a five to 10K for a special proposal from that type of person who will do that, it's a doable thing. They are out there. Her did somebody's wedding. I can't remember who it was. But matter of fact, I think it was this girl's that I'm talking about. I think that's how I saw. One of my sister-in-law's friends or whatever, like I was looking at her page, I was like, is that her singing at the wedding? And it just seemed like, and it was just such normal people. I was like, are these people connected? I don't know how it happened. You know what I'm saying? But like, it's possible. It is possible to like just, if you wanna have somebody at your wedding, look, go ahead, shoot your shot. You might have the bag to make it happen. Cause you never know, like these artists might be hurting worse than they really look like on the front end. But two, on the other side, if you let it be known, you have enough attention, it is possible to land some of these higher ticket events for yourself. Very, very possible. Now, with that being said, let's change directions. Ghost riding in hip hop, is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Whatever you feel, why do you feel that way? I'ma play a quick clip, interview clip of one of the most renowned. Prolific. Prolific, infamous ghost riders due to unfortunate events. But, you know, maybe he says they are fortunate. Quit Miller, check this out. It's really taboo, you know, to be a collaborator with a rapper. It's tough, man. It makes it tough to be like proud of your work and tell people about your work when it's like it causes this bullshit. So what you're saying is, hip hop has a different set of rules than every other genre. For example, Michael Jackson did not write thriller. What people miss out on is the fact that hip hop has become pop. And at the end of the day, when you're talking pop, you're just talking about the best, biggest records that you could get, who gives a fuck, you know, about how you get to it as long as you get to it. That's a great point. Very, very good point. Somebody else added a differentiation between hip hop and rap in the comment section, which I would like to acknowledge. But the key is this. Hip hop started in a place or gained a culture early on of we're bad and like, it's me versus you. So obviously if it's me versus you, I need to be the one who wrote my lyrics, right? It's almost cheating, right? If it's not really me. And I'm saying I am better than you based off of my lyrical ability. I would be like, I'm better than you because I had enough sense to go get somebody to help me, but you know. See, that's that new age shit, man. It's wrong with your kids, you know what I mean? But once you talk about what he said, the place in music being pop music, now that aspect of it, it should be able to have both, right? I feel like the freedoms truly are when both can exist, right? And you just know what that is and you know what this is. And just leave it at that. So I get his point and it does suck. It's harder to be proud of your work when it has such a stigma to it. You should be like, yo, I just did this shit for Drake or I did this person, that person, but it's invalidating that person. So we can't even, you know what I mean? We can't even advertise it in a way. That's interesting. Yeah, but I do think the sentiment around it has changed a lot since. Oh yeah, for sure. It's more pop. Yeah, exactly. I was watching this DJ Academic stream where he talked about how it was crazy that Meek Mill basically ruined his career over a point that nobody cares about anymore. You know what I'm saying? Like we've evolved. And like I said, but he might have a great point at the end of it where it's like, I do think it's the difference in the mentality between like rappers and just, I guess none of the rap artists were, none of the rap artists are usually like, hey, whatever I gotta do to get the biggest song possible, that's what I'ma do, right? Whereas like rappers are typically stuck on the point of like proving that like they can do it. You know what I'm saying? Like proving that they can do it. They saw them. But in any industry, in any sport, because music is a sport, like it's very rare that you see like one person carrying the whole team, you know what I'm saying? Even someone as great as like a LeBron, he's teammates, you know what I'm saying? Like to help him shine and be as great as he can be. The guy at the interviewer brought up Michael Jackson. Like I said, but Michael Jackson's one of the greatest artists ever that didn't write a lot of his biggest hits, you know what I'm saying? Like shout out Quincy Jones, brother. Quincy Jones was the magic man with the pen for him back then. So that's what I always think about whenever I hear artists kind of bring up that point. Like now I'm like, yo, you got writers or producers or people now I produce my own work. I engineer all my own stuff. I write all my own lyrics. I do all my own cover art. I do all my own video. And I'm like also you don't want to make it. You don't want to be big, bro. Like it's no way. I don't say you don't want to make it. I just say who cares. You don't want to make it. I just say who cares and what's the impact. Like it doesn't matter if the product isn't great. You can do all those things, but what is the end product? That's what I care about the most. Like what did you produce? And you could be the producer, right? The person who ties all these things together. It still needs to represent your taste. You can decide I like those lines. I like those lines. I like this beat. I like those beats, right? Like you should still curate. But yeah, like all this, I did it all by myself. That's meaningful at a, again, like skill for skill. Artist for artist, craftsman level. And I think that's the, you know, you're a rapper or you a artist, right? Yeah. That's the differentiation I feel like there is, right? I agree. You made a really good point. Like I don't think artists, artists. Oh, I want to say artists. Some artists and rappers I think definitely don't look at curation and executive producing as a creative skill. The same way they look at it, like writing their own stuff as a creative skill or, you know, producing or whatever as a creative skill. But I remember, man, one time I got to sit in the room with Sahada Prince, who like is like, you know, writes a bunch of stuff for Kanye and like into Quinn's point, like he's very open about it because Kanye has built the brand where, like we know it's 30 motherfuckers working on his shit. So his people can freely walk around and talk about how they write for him. So you get a lot of different perspectives on it. I remember he talked about how like, when they write stuff for Kanye, it'll just be people in the room. It might be like 10 different laptops set up and then Kanye's just going to each laptop and then like looking at, you know what I'm saying, like the lyrics, what they're working on and be like, okay, I like that. All right, let's change this a little bit. I'm like, bro, that's a skill. You know what I'm saying? Like that is a, it's almost like conducting an orchestra, you know what I'm saying? Like just because I can't play the tuba, doesn't mean I don't know how to tell the tuba, the tuba player to give me what I want. You know what I'm saying? And it takes a lot of work to be able to even guide somebody through that process. You got a bar then, bro. Like, you want to be a rapper or you want to be an artiste? Well, Chirante just sent in a clip. Chris Brown talking about what goes right in. Let's play this right here. I never discredit writers who write on my album. I got hella co-writers and we do certain shit, right? Describe us. It's just like this. They can write it. Who gon' sing it like me? So today you might write some beautiful shit that it gets overlooked because it don't sound good, but. Okay, so one, he looked, he looked gone and everything. He looked gone. He was enjoying himself. Yeah, that shit on the chest. But like, the, I look at it the same way in rep though. Yeah, 100%. I was just about to say that. The farming is a thing, like Cardi B, I'm sure she has something that goes right or just something like that, but her voice is a unique voice. Her approach and the energy that she hits it with, it's the same as well. When it was just that super bar, exactly what you're saying mattered, that aspect of the culture. Cool, but when we're talking about hitting from a song level on a pop scale, not just can you, what lyrics can you rap? Performance is just important in rap DJs. Yeah, that's what I keep going back to where I do think sometimes artists don't respect the creative aspects of all of the elements that make a good artist. Cause you know, I've heard that same sentiment. Like he just said, people think like, oh, you wrote the word, so why aren't you lit? And it's like, well, there's so many different factors that go into it. Like I don't have the same brand that they have. So this song might not work for my audience. I don't have the same voice. I mean, I have the same resources behind me to make it go like all these things that made sense for me to give this to Chris Brown or give this to, you know what I'm saying? Whoever you giving it to, man, what? Hey, that first comment threw me off. I'm not even gonna read that. God, look. Yeah, but I don't know, I just always look at that, bro. Like artists gotta respect all aspects of the process. Cause we keep just the harkening, I think that's the word, harkening on, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, just the lyrics are, are we just gonna keep acting like the lyrics or what make the song? It's a component of it. But it's maybe 20% max. There's a comment right here. Someone said, the reason why Kanye isn't considered one of the top MCs, I have my thoughts on that, but I wanna see what other people are saying. I don't need writers. I might bounce ideas, but I only come up with some shit like this. I was probably saying Kanye said that most cap people think he's one of the best good Lord. I mean, first of all, that first comment, in fact, I don't need to rise my balance. I think that was like from his graduation era or maybe late registration, but artists not allowed to grow and develop and change their minds, you know what I'm saying? Kanye makes good music. He shouldn't be on anyone's MC list. Is that like a shot at rap as a whole? Nah, Kanye stands by ways to make exceptions for him wrong. He's listed as one of the best artists. Huge difference, see? There we go. It all rolls came back to what he said. Yes, he isn't noticed as one of the best MCs, but like that doesn't have to matter to you. If being a MC specifically is what matters to you, maybe you want that respect and for all means, like build that credibility, build that skill set that looks like everybody has their community that they want to be accepted by. So cool, do whatever that is. Personally, but in the grand scheme of this shit, like none of it really matters. Nobody cares. Nobody, like yeah, generally speaking, like the masses are not going to care about whatever your niche thing that you care about. Like, so when we just talking about music being an artist in general, it's just gonna come down to impact, right? Like what's best as a whole? Cause there's a lot of great rappers who don't have great songs. Yeah, but what did Jay-Z send that one song, bro? Lyrically, what? Lyrically I'd be Common Sense, but then I, or it's lyrically I'd be like Tile, I'd be Tile Kuali or Common Sense, but then I made like 10 mil. I have it around like Common Sense. It was something like that, bruhs. Just like, no, I could do this and I like that. I do. But y'all don't really want that. Like y'all say I do. I don't really want that. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, again, there's always gonna be the purest in each category, whatever that looks like. There's gonna be some people who are like, oh yeah, you can sing and these other people can't sing, why is she more popular than you when she can't really sing as good as you and you can hit the note so technically, all that exists. So what are we fighting for? Like that was like, all right, are we talking about career? Are we just talking about massive impact? Are we talking about bigger songs? All right, or if that matters to you the most, don't complain that the rest of the population doesn't care. You shouldn't expect everybody to care. All right, this is just what it is. We all got something that we don't, we care about in the rest of the world, don't. All right, now this one, it's a switch up. Man, that shit crazy. Yeah, this one's interesting. That's gonna fuck a lot of y'all up, man. That ain't even gonna lie cause it fucked me up when I saw it. So we hear about these record deals. And I think it's nice every once in a while for the artists to get a sense of other deals in the entertainment industry and what some of these other people go through. So I'm gonna play this clip that's talking about how Disney changes show titles so they don't have to pay nobody. It's what they're doing. Let's play the clip. They have this role where they don't have to pay you 100% of the WGA rates for three seasons. So that's why every three seasons they reboot it under different names. It's like Hannah Montana Forever and Sweet Life on Dax. They have a deal with, I don't know if it's the unions or if it's the IMF, but they had a deal where the first three seasons of a show you get paid 88% of scale. So it's 88% of minimum wage pretty much for the crew. And then the idea is you work on a show, it becomes popular, you go four, five, six seasons and you get 100% and whatever that is. But then by the third season, even if the show's popular, they reboot it as a brand new show. So we were living Maddie for the first three seasons and the last season we was living Maddie Callie style. Oh my God. It's technically a new show. So they can go back to paying you like shit. Yeah, exactly. It's in our contracts that we can't renegotiate unless everybody decides to renegotiate. Very smart lawyers over there. And they're making us come out of this. That should occur. We'll leave it at that. So a lot of times when we had these questions about how shows are moving, how come this show hasn't come back after this season or why did they switch it up so drastically? It's always coming back to the money, man. It's always in business. Sometimes you just don't think to think about it when it's not your space. But yeah, if y'all missed what he said, so there's a rate, I think he said WGA is some sort of rate that they receive and throughout the first three seasons, actors do not get paid 100% of that money. All right, but after season three, those numbers start to slide up and you get that 100%. So what do they do? After three seasons, they kill the show. But the greatest finesse of all of this is they reboot the show basically as the same show except with a different twist on it. He just said, living Maddie or something like that. I'm not familiar with that show. Living Maddie is the regular show. Oh shit, I love this show. Living Maddie, Maddie, Callie style. Oh, why do they randomly move to California or something like that? I remember, I think about some of those old shows for some reason, the first one that comes to mind is like Saved by the Bell. Like Saved by the Bell, they were in high school and then all of a sudden they went to college or sister, sister, they were in high school, then they went to college and then I think they might even did after college for a bit, right? And it works for the storyline cleanly, but now I'm seeing that it probably, you know what I mean, has some other elements to play it as well. But one last thing, because I saw this in the comments, I want to be clear to mention this, even if it wasn't as prevalent for shows way back in the day, it seems like they said, Zack and Cody, the sweet life of Zack and Cody is when they first made this a thing thing, Disney. And after that, they just started saying, oh, snap, we need to scale this across all the shows. Yeah, that should work. Yeah, we need to get this across all shows, but hey, I got to put this somewhat on y'all because they said if everybody comes together, they can renegotiate. See, and that to me is where the evil genius lies, because like I said, everybody has to renegotiate, which includes whoever the star is of the show. Usually the star of the shows don't have an issue, but what's ever going on, you know what I'm saying? They're probably, I don't know if that's getting 100% on the right, but they have so many other things going on. They're like, no, no, let's let this shit, you know, rock the way it's rocking because I'm good. So now as Disney, it's like, yeah, we put you in a fucked up situation, but you only still in this fucked up situation because Zack and Cody don't wanna change nothing. Now they look like the bad, well, not them specifically, but the show looks like the bad guy, right? They start getting tight. Hey, bro, Disney's different, bro. Niggas be thinking music, niggas be thinking Aleutian Grange and all these music industry execs. Oh, yeah. Different, bro. Nah, bro, Disney, bro, different, bro. Disney's gonna do it from so many angles right now, but at the end of the day, Disney is gonna figure out a way to be straight. Hey, bro, exactly, bro. Disney, I mean, I thought they probably, I thought we gonna look back like 100 years from now. Somebody gonna make like a documentary or a book on like all of the most fucked up entertainment practices and who pioneered them. I'm willing to bet Disney pioneer, at least like 80% of them, bro. I'm willing to bet so much money on that, bro. Crazy. I would be surprised. Well, hey, y'all, that's it for today's episode of No Labels Necessary. I'm Brandon Shaw. I'm Corey. We out. Peace. Appreciate you for watching. If you like content like this, you'll love seeing our music marketing strategies that we use as an agency to actually blow up artists to millions and even billions of streams that are available for free at nolabelsnecessary.com and the cool part about it that's gonna really make you love it is we don't have to be all entertaining and add all this fluff just to get some views that we do on YouTube. We get straight to the information. There's play by play in courses that give you a breakdown of every step that you should do to get success. And you have the ability to have communication with us. We get on live talks, a lot of cool things for members and it's free just to hop in. So check it out right now at nolabelsnecessary.com.