 Every time when I work with artists, I'll challenge them and say, hey, let's write a song with 40 or 50 words or less. I did it with Coyla Ray. I just did it with Sweet. I did it with everybody. Like, it's a challenge. A four-time Grammy-winning producer broke down the psychology of making a hit, the full formula. And artist reaction to this clip revealed a huge gap in the perception of how artists think music and the marketing industry work at large. Check this clip out. Understanding psychology and understanding human behavior and understanding all these things go along with making hits. The reason why I say do 40 words or less, because it forces you to write songs for the general masses. Right. It's saying a song should be 40 words or less. It's crazy. All right, it's crazy. Because you got to write songs for people that don't speak English overseas. So it's a secret. See, there's staccato or legato. Staccato is choppy. So that's if when I say the rule, yo, if I can't play it with one hand on the keyboard, it's not a hit. Which means if you're doing too much or singing too many runs, if I can't play on the keyboard, yourself is just fucking. You're not thinking about human behavior. Because a human really got one throat. If you can't whistle it, it's not a hit. Right. You know what I mean? It's like common sense things that you got to really pay attention to. But it's the fine line of keeping it simple but then having some swag. So I'll usually tell writers, the first eight bars is if you can do whatever you want. It's your song. The first line got to catch my attention. It should have some space. It's a conversation. That second eight bars. You're breaking it down. We'll get to the second half in a second. But just this part right here alone. Because a lot of artists are giving push-butt. But let's start here. Eric Bellinger, for y'all who don't know, he's a pretty clouded songwriter in music. He's done some stuff. He's out here. Wrote plenty of here. You know what I'm saying? And he said in the comments section, talking of this, dude, you taught me the art of studying and considering human behavior early. And it's been one of my greatest advantages. Wait, Eric Bellinger just said it to this guy? Yes. That's crazy. So you talk about a cosine, a testimonial. There it is. You know what I'm saying? Like so for y'all who want to shit on this in the comments, which we're going to get to the shit, I think people need to understand that all of this shit is tools, man. It's a tool. It's a way to look at it. It doesn't mean that you need to give up any of your artistic expression or thoughts at all. And you can't be an individual. But he used the key word. He said selfish, selfish. Let's read some of these comments. One guy said, or maybe the audience just needs to evolve. This mentality is played. If you want to say the general masses ain't intelligent, just say that. Well, we do have some data that says the average reading level in the US is a sixth grade reading level. We also have some other stats that's away from that, let's say, seventh or eighth grade. But the point is. Middle school. Hey, yeah, we middle school, all right? Which makes sense. Middle. That's average. I don't know if that's a coincidence or not. But that's where we are with it. Now, what does that mean? Yeah, you can create music for yourself. Great, right? However you feel, get your expression out. If you get it out to enough people, you're probably going to find some people who can resonate with how that feels. Congratulations. But when we're talking about what touches the most people, it's usually going to have to be simplified. But that doesn't make it bad. That doesn't make it no quality. The best shit is the stuff that can be simplified, but high quality. Those lines that say a lot, but it only said something simple. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, not 100%. I don't remember who we were talking about. Matter of fact, I think I wasn't with you. Somebody recently referenced a line or whatever. And I said, oh, another version of that line is when Lil Boosie said, gas tank on E, but all drinks on me. That's a very simple line. Yeah, it evokes a lot of emotion. But boy, it says a lot. You know what I mean? You know exactly where that is in life. It's like, hey, bro, I'm broke, but I'm still about to live that shit up like I got it. I'm on that type of time. So any line, any communication that's simple and says more is, in many ways, complex in and of itself versus you need 50 words to explain a simple point. How many times would niggas be like, yo, bro, that was a 20 minute video. Y'all could have just made that shit a minute. And I could have got the point. We don't even like when teachers or anybody takes forever to get to a point. So now you want to act when we talk about analyzing music, the fact that you barred me up makes what you did better. Yeah. That first comment you read, bro, I've talked to that person before. The actual person? No, not that person, but like that metaphorical person. You know what I'm saying? Why can't everybody just change? Mm. Which at its core is a very stupid argument. It's like we're expecting millions of people to change around your one sound. Does it happen? Yeah, for the people that make the hit song, we can get it to that point. And then audience taste moves around what other people seem to be liking. So I don't know. I hate not that person, but that person. And this is like we're going to play the rest of this clip because it's really valuable for y'all to hear. Remember this four-time Grammy winner and also obviously inspired people who wrote some Grammy-writing songs and song as a song and hit after hit himself. And I'm sure there's more to it, more people associated with him like that. Human behavior is a way to view the world. Like he used the word selfish. I love that he used that word because it's people's propensity to be self-centered. Like people are usually in their own bubble thinking about how they perceive things, how they consume things and think that that's reality versus the other side of the fence. And when you're thinking about sales, right, what do you have to do if you want to be a great salesperson? You got to be able to understand what the other person might be thinking, what they're going through. You can try to like bulldoze through and those people will hit a certain point. But after a certain level, you got to really have some level of complexity so you'll be able to understand people and how to communicate in a way that taps them. If it's a product, what do you do? You have to understand people. And the worst thing to do is try to, one, have to educate because that's expensive. I have no idea that I have this problem. So you got to educate me that I got this problem. And then the second thing is to try to solve it in a way where it doesn't fit my behavior at all. You know what I'm saying? It's Jesus. He met people where they were. He came to the streets. He didn't wait and say, are y'all not in the church? Like people need to come to the church or they need to come to whatever existed at the time, and now you can get this sauce and this teaching. Y'all don't get it. Came down to them. That has reflected everywhere across every industry and every scenario. You have to go with the motion. You know what I mean? Use that to then hide the medicine in the candy. And then if people trust you, they mess with you enough, like you alluded to. Now we can take them to the promised land. Now we can like introduce them to some stuff. Like we like Kanye's example. Sample, sample, sample. Ain't no bigger example of meeting someone where they are than being a sample king. Now everybody rocking with me, I go 808s and heartbreak. And then I go my beautiful dark twisted fantasy and then Jesus and like, but he had to meet people first. So it just depends on what you want to do. Like Kanye wanted to be like the biggest. He's always spoke like and pretty much gave that energy. I want to be the biggest and I want to impact the most people. So I have to connect with people first because I actually care about people and my position. Yeah, that's the part I think that, I guess clashes with what artists think, right? Most, I won't say all, but most artists like to say, like, hey, I make the art for me. Right? That's nice. Yeah, that's exactly, that's nice, right? And I do think that's the sign of either immature artists or inexperienced artists because to your point, the artists that typically become the greatest artists. Yeah, maybe the core of it is that they're doing it for themselves, but eventually they do realize they have to do it for the people, right? Because the people are the ones that consume it. Like you're not gonna buy your album a million times. I don't think, you know what I'm saying? You're not about to stream your shit a million times. You're not about to download and do all this stuff. All these things that people are required to do in order for you to be successful in this thing. And so I always think that's one of the biggest disconnects between not even just music artists, like artists in general. Like I'm talking all of them, bro. The visuals, the film ones, anybody that considers themselves an artist in whatever medium, a lot of them think that way, right? Like I'm doing this for me, which I think is a great, a great intrinsic motivator, you know what I'm saying? But it's not the reality of the industry that you want to be a part of. Not if you want to live off this shit. If you just want to make it, you know what I'm saying? This is your hobby, cool. Like do your thing. You don't have to care about what other people think. But in my opinion, the moment you decide I want to live off this thing, I want to do this thing as a career to replace all the other things I want to do, you are now in the position where you have to care about what other people think. There's a reality you gotta deal with, right? You can always make music for you and just get that out and not put it out, right? It's just for you. It's in your bag. But once we're talking about putting it out into the world, there's some level of connection that it has to create just to fund your career. It has to connect with somebody. Yes, somebody, yep. So if those people don't exist, how can you make it? So prime example, if I'm from Decatur, and everything I'm referencing is streets in Decatur, and I'm barring them up and I'm doing it eloquently. Even somebody who appreciates high level bars won't necessarily be able to connect with me because it's too arcane, it's too specific to the area that I exist in. So you don't get the references. You don't get half of the analogies that I'm making. So how can you connect, right? So okay, maybe I can simplify it to somebody. Maybe, but I'm talking about Georgia, right? Or Atlanta is connected with more people. I'm talking about a U.S. and politics and things that more people have more reference to. It's obviously gonna connect with more people because they get it and it's gonna take less time for them to connect and that's the bigger thing. Yourself is if you think that other people have to have all the time in the world or they should be taking time just to consume and deep dive into a rap song or pop song, whatever it is, let's not get it twisted. Music is a luxury, you know what I'm saying? People be having lives and a lot of y'all we talk about like y'all do it for the non-fancy and non-upper class people which I want people to have upper class level of luxury and time to consume your shit. Like, bro, I'm on the way to work. I'm on the bus. I got kids. I got, you know what I mean? People are living their lives and again and again, especially the ones who say they got a message. If you have a message and this message is bigger than you, all right, and not your ego, don't you have a responsibility to make sure that message is seen and heard by more people and understood more importantly. If that message is that important. I feel like a lot of artists act like they have a message. People don't get it and they use that to build their ego and be like, yeah, no, the game didn't get me. They wanted to block me out. That's one thing I always appreciated about J. Cole because he felt like he had certain levels of message and things he said. And then, you know, he tried to do the, what's the one song on the basketball court in the video? He considers it the mess up. That's funny, I said the mess up. That just sounds like a J. Cole thing. He talked about it and let Nas down. Oh, God, Lee. Anyway. I'm sorry, J. Cole. Boom, boom, boom, boom. You got a good thing. Oh, yeah, okay, okay, yeah. Wait, he don't like this one? No, he didn't like that song. That's crazy. Yeah, XC. That was crazy. Yeah, that was him trying to see the game, read the game and then find a formula and then create. And he created it from that space. And it worked. And it worked, right? But then, you know, even though it worked, he referenced it and let Nas down and all this kind of stuff. But like the fact that he was trying and then, you know, the people who try and they feel like they have a message and they willing to like get outside their comfort space instead of just say, hey, everybody got to figure me out, I respect that. And the ones who try, like every big star, even the ones that we respect, their artistry had some missteps. J. Cole had less Nas down. What Jay-Z had, what was it, Life in Times? The one where he felt like he tried to go to pop or whatever. Like Prince had some moments. Everybody got some moments. But even the argument creatively, how do you creatively say that you've explored if you don't find those boundaries where shit go bad a little bit? It's not all supposed to be good. So like, I don't know, I feel like artists, like there's so many arguments against, like really just changing and connecting with people. But if you look at Tupac, Bre was not that complicated. He said a lot of shit that was simple, but it meant more, I'm not a killer, but don't push me. You know what I mean? Like, come on, like that line alone, like Tupac got, what is it? There's no way I can pay you back, but the plan is to show you how to understand. It's a lot of emotion in that song. Talking about your mom, no way I can pay you back with the plan is to show you how to understand and the depth of understanding and showing that you understand how great that can be. So I don't understand where people feel like, this guy right here is like, one, the complexity of lyrics, barring people up, one, that does not necessarily make you an artist. Matter of fact, there's a formula to that too. They just be sounding like everybody too. It's like, bro, you just copy in the rap-itty-rap formula. Who cares? You know what I mean? So you just copy in the conscious, like all the conscious people say that, it'll make you different, you know what I mean? So if you got a message, bro, you got to translate that and make it simple and then figure out how to like the Bible, what they translated that thing and how many languages now, nah, there's a lot of bullshit that went into those translations, but that's not my point for anybody to say that. But yeah, bro, like people, like artists, I think it is great that we, it's a double edged sword that we like feed in this energy to artists like, yo, gotta be about you or like your expression, find your individuality. We pump up that side. But on the other side, we have this dynamic where we require them to be able to see a bigger picture beyond themselves too. And I feel like they feel that conflict because they get fed both messages, mostly that you, the artist, you so unique, be you, do you only and don't think about anybody else. All right, but when they start, if you look at all their heroes, there was a little bit more to it than just that. People say and sell the story that, oh, it was just unique, but that's part of the story. That's part of what we do, the marketers. It was, these things are all thoughtful, giant, Randy Warhol. Like these people were hackers, they thought like the Jay-Z's, the Kanye's, the Picasso's, all these people were like Salvador Dali, all the elements, they lean in to specific shit. They know what they're doing. The ones we know about, we know about them for a reason. Let's talk about the fact that most artists fail to understand that it doesn't take forever to monetize your audience. We had an artist literally begin to take off and make $20,000 from his brand new audience in the same month. But how is that possible? It's because we're in a new era, baby. Yes, you want to continue to build a relationship over time, but the first time you make money from your audience can happen today if you understand the new age music marketing funnel for artists. So if you want to hear about this approach and how you can apply it to yourself, I made a completely free video to watch at www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash monetize. You got to make sure you put the www or if you're on YouTube, you can find the link in the description and check out how we help monetize artists for completely free. I promise it'll completely change how you see things. Yeah, that's why what he said about the, even the making it simple for people in other countries where I was like, that's pretty genius. I've never thought about it that way, right? Whereas like, it goes back to what you were saying, like you're making it selfishly for you. You are still technically making it for a bubble because there are other people, ideally there are other people like you. Like you're trying to attract a specific person, right? So you're making it for that group, but it's very rare that songs made for like one specific group become hit songs, which goes back to the other point. If that's not what you're going for, great. Lots of artists are successful that stay in a niche and they work the hell out of that niche, right? They work the moment, they work the hell out of that situation. But the moment you decide like, I want this shit to be bigger than big itself. I want this shit to be as close to it as possible. Now you do have to think about how can I appeal to a broader range of people. I have to take my shit off of this one street and then get the whole city to know about it and then get the whole state to know about it and then get the whole country to know about it. And at each of those levels, you're dealing with different types of people. Yup. Who care about different things who are interested in different things, who are entertained by different things. And it is your job as an artist at least the one that wants to reach that level to understand that. And I do think it selfish to be at least that type of artist you said, right? An artist that claims to want to speak to the people and not feel that way in some sense. If you're just one of those artists like you, I'm just in this shit to make money, get my bag and do my thing. I feel you, I respect that and I understand. But to your point, if you're an artist that's saying that, hey, I want to touch as many people as possible, I want to impact the lives of as many people as possible, then you have to think about how these people think and consume music. Because if not, then you will never reach these people. Yup, yup. And some people do have the benefit of just doing exactly them, finding enough big enough of a base and the rest of the industry who has these huge, far-reaching superstar artists, that creates space for those artists to be the opposite. Yeah, it's like a Tyler. Yeah, like a Tyler. Tyler's probably the best one and it took him a long time to do it. But you can't have an industry of Tyler's, right? So you need those, you know what I mean? You have to have all of these elements and I think you even have to appreciate if you're aware enough, you gotta appreciate it. It's like, yeah, I'm kind of only able to be me and fuck up the house because somebody gonna come around and clean that shit up when I leave. You know what I'm saying? I'm a rebel, but I'm a rebel with them boundaries, no key, that's what you know what I mean? So let's play the rest of this clip before we forget. Second A-bars, write as if you're writing it with your audience. So that second A-bars is my part. So my part better be simple as fuck. It better have some space. You maybe you should tell me something to do it could be a command, it could be all these things for human behavior that makes people wanna love your song cause every A-bars we get bored, understand it? Every A-bars we get bored. So another thought that came into mind, I referenced that earlier, Einstein basically saying, if you can't explain it to sixth grader, you don't understand it. Again, what that means is, you got all these people who think they're so smart, speaking all these huge words and they take an hour to explain something that could be said simply in a minute. And a matter of fact, when they finish explaining stuff, you might still not even understand it. And then they almost use it as like a banging on the chest or ego thing is like, oh yeah, they don't get me. You know what I mean? Like, oh, they're too dumb. It's like, nah, bro, you actually aren't smart enough to explain it simply. Yeah. That's the reality of it. Every great teacher can take some complicated shit and make you walk away feeling like, oh, I can go start a job in this shit today. Exactly. But after that, they might fuck around, make that shit seem too simple. Yeah. Give you too much confidence. They be like, hey, if you think about it yourself, it's like, yeah, when you explain some stuff that's new and you really don't understand it, you take more words and it's like, you trying to figure that shit out. And when you get it, you just say like one thing and then people be like, dang. So like, but let's get into this guy. So he says, it's all types of complex music out here, people always saying, right for the audience, gotta be simple, easy. That's what entertainers do, create artificially for other people's enjoyment. Tell the people who get ripped off for millions of dollars just to be popular and in debt to continue to do this. Some of us are pioneering so we don't really want the audiences to be encouraged to think music has to be simple to be a hit. See, that's where you're fucking up because no one's getting audiences to think that something has to be simple to be a hit. I just think this shit. It's human behavior. It's just the, it's literally the fact. And that's why people try to go against things that are just fact, it's the current behavior. It's like, if everybody's literally walking like south right now, the fact is they are walking south, period. And if you try to push them forward, come up behind them, it'll be easier to get them to go a little faster. But if you're trying to push them north, like you have to go up against something and it's way hard to make it happen. Like it's no different than that. So for him to say, what do you say again? Like pioneering, if you say pioneering to be a true pioneer, typically means that you aren't gonna reap pop level rewards, right? The people who see pop level success usually are pulling from pioneers. You might be a pioneer of being the first person to introduce a certain sound on a pop scale, but you usually didn't create all of the sounds that you're pulling from. Yeah, all right. I think the answer to that are usually a lot of the best pioneers we see. To the point you made earlier, still did something to capture people's attention first and then they kind of walked them down that path. Right, exactly, exactly. So yeah, to say audiences need, like no one's making audiences think it needs to be simple to be a hit. The fact is the most people can connect with something that is simple. That's all it is. It's like by the time all the things that hit more people, they happen to be that. Audiences don't think about this shit. Well, and I think that's, I was telling somebody earlier today, like people, we're in this bubble, us as artists, music professionals. And a lot of times we'd be thinking shit that's not really like a common thing and we overstate its importance just like the common example that really made a hit for me a few years ago was that industry plant conversation. I always be like, yo, bro, like people don't even know what the fuck industry plant is. Well, fuck it, do not care. You got these super first mover fans that might know about it and care about it a little bit but you can go right past them and have a beautiful career. Ask your mama, your daddy, your cousins and all these people who aren't in the industry to the same degree. If they even heard of the industry you plant before and if so, what do they think it is? They probably don't even think has anything to do with music. Just be real. So like, I mean, you know, it's the one, like, bro, y'all overthink stuff. I'm gonna see if there's one more good comedy that might expand the conversation in a different, different direction. But let's see. Pete Kizzlebeat says, and that's the problem. Everybody want to dumb down their music. Okay. Man, the argument makes me feel like artists forget about B-SODs and EPs and projects, bro. It's like, this is one out of, I mean, if you lucky hundreds of songs that you eventually will pull out, bro, to your point. J. Cole's sell out-ish songs don't take away from the songs with the message. As a matter of fact, there are more people who hurt the message because they came in through that door, you know? And I think that whenever I hear an artist complain about doing kind of like walking both paths, it makes me feel like they're not as creative or as good at this as they think they are. Because the best artists, I think of almost every generation have been able to do both sides of it. I can go over here real quick, make some shit. I know everybody gonna fuck with and kill that shit. And I'm gonna go back over here and talk to my people. Yup. And they flip flocking back and forth between those sides, depending on what they're on the career. Hey, I want to hit song right now, so I'm gonna go do some hit song shit. Right now I just feel like talking to my people and putting out what I want. I'm gonna just go do this. And to your point earlier, sometimes there are artists who they built up enough of this over here that it crosses over there. But it's not the reality of most artists. And I think even the most successful artists know that. You know what I'm saying? They know like, if I want to make a hit, I gotta go do some hit shit. Or I could keep shooting my own shots and hope something crosses over. But if it doesn't, I'm at least okay with that. Yes. Yes. Which is what it comes back down to. It's artists who want to hit song arguing against what it takes to have a hit song. It's crazy. How do you define a hit song? A lot of people like it. That's it. Literally that's it. All the elements and all these things that people think, no, it has nothing to do with that. He's just saying this gives it more opportunity for more people to like it because people can understand it and connect with it. It has to connect with more people. Now be played by a lot on Spotify or any of that stuff. It has to connect with more people. Now, this brings me to another goat that has an idea in this conversation. Steve Jobs is quoted for saying, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. What is he talking about? Because he's not in this music game. He's alluding to the fact that refinement is actually the most difficult part, right? To create the raw material just to come up with the product, just to come up with all these new sounds and things like that. It's actually easier than to refine and bring all these things together in a simple delivery that packs the punch. You know what I'm saying? I have one punch that knocks you out versus 5,000 non-quality punches. But they different though. You know what I mean? People ain't seen that punch before and nigga ain't got punch in the back of the knee before he ain't seen that. You know what I'm like? Like, bro, you gotta just simplify. It's a lot of work. Like, we know you start something new. You learn a lot in the beginning, but then it'll become great and greater than the greats. It's a lot of refinement that goes into that and it's just those small incremental details and that's simplifying all the stuff that you thought mattered at the beginning, getting rid of things, cutting the fat. And then that's the simplicity that's left over. So it just happens to be we are creatures of the universe. There's physics where there's certain sounds that do certain things to us. There's certain words that do certain things to us. I remember a guy who was from the church and he came up, he wrote for groups like Broke Boys to Men and all that stuff. And he talked about, you know, they wanna make you cry. You know, there's a certain chords that they can run up on that organ. And like he knew like what to play during that offering time to make you feel like giving up an offering. You know what I'm saying? Like there's all of this stuff is deeper than just the superficial conversation of dumbing it down in the way that people talk about. It's like all of this is triggering. Just like music can be used to literally heal you, vibrations can be used to literally heal you. We're complicating it, but like it's there and it is what it is. So learn what it is so you can better communicate what you say because if you go to a different country and you're trying to communicate something to somebody, what do you do? You learn the language. Music already has a language. This shit ain't new. Maybe you need to actually learn the language instead of trying to create something that's already been done. I don't got nothing to follow up with that, man. That was beautiful. Hey, I don't even know where that came from, bro. Hey, that mean guy, I really went to my artist. You're speaking to your brother. I really want you to get that message off, bro. That was crazy. Hey, I'm Ray Benshaw. I'm Corey. We out. 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 going to 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.