 So we're going to get into our Rate That Advice column and I want to know of course what y'all think about it. This is from my boy Nipsey Hussle. He has some great game for y'all but there's some nuances we want to add to it on top of that and how you can apply it to yourself. So check this out. Nipsey go ahead and drop them gems. Now you should have called up your album bro. You tripped. I'm like nah because I didn't want to have a sales history. 50 Cent told me that man. He like you know years ago he like Hussle. He like um regardless of what they say you in a good space because you never sold the album. So when you go back to negotiate a deal you don't have a sales history. They don't have to top your respective sales with what they think you might do. And you from the post you from L.A. You got a big market. You know what I mean. They're going to prepare you to artists like you know what I mean that have so humans on the West and that's going to impact your negotiation. Whereas if you just if you go indie and sell 20,000 humans they're going to base your your deal off of that. And I'm like damn that's that that's good information. I never I never thought of that. So I made sure that I didn't go to retail until I did my my deal. When I got pressure always gyms on gyms from Nipsey you know there's going to be hella post Nipsey post humans Nipsey gyms to come from years and I think with this one right here first of all it has 50 Cent again. How many stories do we hear with 50 Cent drop some kind of game for people and it works and it works and one y'all need to hear this not only as an artist but then this applies in different ways as an influencer. There's so many things to break down. So let's just start here. The advice itself. I don't know personally how relevant that is today versus when Nipsey first got that advice. And I'll say what I mean by that. One, Nipsey let's just say that was 2012 or something. I don't know. Right today the industry is a little bit more aware and a little bit smarter because what he was talking about is a it's actually a bad way to judge it. Right. And the industry was notorious for sometimes being slower to judge things properly. Yeah. Right. So if you you drop these albums right what's the difference between an album and a project for the artists themselves. I'd say maybe the amount of attention to detail around it. The amount of attention to detail. How much they kind of emphasize it because it's kind of like burning to our brain as consumers that album means like oh it's about to be some big shit coming. Exactly. Exactly. It means it's something more serious. Yeah. But beyond that. Same thing. Same thing. Same thing. Same thing. Right. Now of course we can get into more details where it's like okay there might be a bigger marketing budget. But generally speaking if you're an artist that has no resources or very little resources and you're dropping all these mix tapes nine times out of ten when you drop this album and you aren't signed yet you haven't gotten any additional investment you're still just dropping the same project with maybe more attention to detail. You made it more serious. There's nothing else to truly judge it on. So that's it. That's an unfair judgment to just say oh now that he called that album I'm going to compare it to the rest of the world. Right. However the reality of the game kicks in and that just is what it is and you got to rock with it. So it's important to understand these nuances because that same thing transitions to any of y'all who are influencers too. Right. Like I remember talking with Jio and he's cool with and he was talking about how he wasn't on TikTok yet. So this is probably like 2020 when we were talking and you know helping Jio advise him on just some of the stuff he was doing with TikTok and then he was talking about all his other friends who were trying to get on TikTok and he mentioned he was like he's not trying to get on yet. Why? Because TikTok was paying influencers to get on TikTok. Right. Yeah. And he didn't know what his numbers would look like when he got over there. So what was he doing? Holding out so he can get the biggest check possible based on his footprint in the rest of the internet. Right. My YouTube followers crazy. I've been spending all this time developing this. My Instagram page is going crazy. I spent all this time developing this. But if I go hop on this new platform I have no idea what it's going to look like. So I'm not going to try to get any money after the fact. And plus you now have that leverage. I'm on the platform already. So what can you say? But as long as I'm not on that platform yet you can imagine and speculate what my numbers could do for you. So he was holding out and not getting over there until he broke red with TikTok to get onto the platform which TikTok was doing heavy when they were you know when we start hearing about TikTok crazy a huge part of it was they were paying a lot of influencers to be on the platform. So that same thing is what I think about when I hear Nipsey say yeah don't call it an album right because all it does is change the context that they can argue against. And that's what goes into negotiations. A lot of times we know the reality is you shouldn't look at this artist who doesn't have X, Y and Z resources and try to say his album should be judged with I don't know Dr. Dre's album or whoever was popping in the weather Kendrick's album right in the West Coast at that time. You should be saying based on his resources and he's performing this way this is how we should judge him but not from a negotiator standpoint you're gonna argue in your favor. I don't know other albums in the region they do X, Y and Z. So here it is this is all we can pay you based on the numbers. A big part of this advice is basically maintaining your leverage and understanding where leverage comes from on the other side of the table. Yeah and semantics and semantics. And semantics brother like semantics play a big part in it because I do think about at least in the context of what he said going back to it might be a little dated because I think today if an indie artist came into the situation and was like I sold 20,000 albums indie that today would be impressive back then yeah that would not that would not be impressive. Exactly that's why I started with that question yeah. So I do think like it could kind of flip there but yeah the biggest thing I got out of it was like understanding semantics and the way people are going to perceive things based on like what you call it right because and all it is a change of words but this is a mix site all got cool the pressure just dropped a little bit I'm judging a little as harshly or you call it an album well this is what I'm typically used to seeing happen around an album whether number wise resource wise and everything else and I didn't see these so therefore I can say you did not have a successful album right like you said the argument would be but I didn't have those resources but yeah semantics brother all of it goes back to semantics and who is who has enough leverage to play with the semantics the way they need to and bind you to that shit that's how I look at it. 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To be fair Todd Moskovitz the guy he mentioned gave him the advice that he should have dropped the album probably was coming from a standpoint of what he thought might have been Nipsey's best interest when he said that based on the way Nipsey talked about it right he didn't give any kind of bad tonality like he might have been somebody who was trying to like play him right yeah so he's probably giving him good advice but then you always have to understand the reference point of good advice right he's an industry person he's you know in the game from a different perspective of the artist right so he might be thinking to build Nipsey up and had given leverage for one thing but 50 cents like yo as the artist right and the entrepreneur type you are like 50 cents himself and you want to look at things this way all right so it's always interesting to take note of who you're getting advice from and how they're choosing to give advice because I'll recognize that as well like a lot of times when I'm giving somebody advice you know on a one-on-one basis it's like all right so what kind of advice do you want all right there's different levels or are you trying to play this game this game or that game once we understand what game you're trying to play then I could cater advice based on my understanding to what that looks like right yeah he's like oh yeah you know you're just trying to make money short-term you're trying to own things in the long term do you have publishing leverage do you like you want to tour heavy you want not want to tour at all all those things matter so like who you're talking to matters a lot um and even when you're getting well intended advice yeah you still got to think for yourself yeah yeah it's okay any of that I know real right or wrong answers right like you said like both of them could have been giving him advice from with the best of intentions that just kind of pulled in different directions based on what those people went through but I feel like I always feel like that's the biggest thing people need to understand in music because there are no right or wrong answers there's always going to be things that happen that on paper don't make sense but it happens and you know people like to point the finger back oh you said this wasn't gonna work that way or it should have worked this one it's like well sometimes it's wrong because I think we said a couple episodes ago but like most people in music I don't really know too many people that speak in absolutes like most of us are speaking from hey this is what I experienced right like this is what I went through yeah this is kind of been my path that I walked and XYZ things happen when I did ABC you know what I'm saying now I'm saying that if you do ABC XYZ what happened but this happened for me and so I think that's always important for people to like remember when just picking and choosing who the advice is coming from like there's a context of what I've been through match up with what you what you might realistically be going through right like you said like if I'm taking advice from an artist who has been in the label system all their life and I'm not an artist in the label system right it might only be somewhere that applies to me versus an artist that is in the label system I'd be like yo this motherfucker spinning you know what I'm saying like this this motherfucker genius you outside of it might be like what the fuck are you talking about you know like the things you're saying don't make sense to me and even vice versa right like there are people in the indie spectrum that might give advice that like label artists are like nah bro like that shit is not gonna fly like within the operation that I'm in and what I'm kind of building in so I do always think that's the biggest thing is like music is about combining taking all the information you can get and like piecing it together for what makes sense for you right it's like a puzzle you know what I'm saying like all right this from you make sense the rest of it don't this from you make sense the rest of it don't but together I got my answer you know what I need to do exactly that's the tool for life right there man because your ship is your ship and nobody's ship is going to look exactly the same and I always say people struggle with the fact that they got trained in a school system where there is an A there is a B a C or D and one of those is right yeah all of them ships could be right in music yeah exactly all of them it's all about you every single option can work and look maybe only one of those options works one time but damn it worked one time for somebody and they're winning and it was right for them that's the reality of how how you know this thing works but it's frustrating when you're used to things having to be this absolute right one answer and then you hear four or five different things and you're like oh this person must be wrong because this other person said that or whatever reason or this person's more experienced or they have this title in accolades and you'll be surprised at how many people who had the titles on accolades will be so wrong at least in your situation that's partially why the new crop always rises up right because they're doing what's modern to people who didn't want to get on streaming and social media because they hated that and they didn't have to do it that allow more people to pop up and they were right for that time and advice which also like reminds me first let's go ahead and rank this advice me i'm gonna say a 10 out of 10 because of what how we interpreted it yeah okay i'm gonna be the first the first out of 10 yeah but it's to me is that important though right like he had because he had all the makings right you had two different people both qualified but there was better advice also he was able to stand his ground right got this advice now i'm not going to do that because i got this other insight yeah right and was able to stick to that insight and recognize that's the best advice so it's not just what he said but also how it's presented and and recognizing everything at work i think that's a perfect example of how artists need to be able to move to find success in the industry yeah i mean i guess when you look at that way i guess when you look at that i give it like a eight give it a it ain't 10 out of 10 for me i said because only because of the situation like i said the the the number breakdown i think wouldn't apply to today i i part of me feels like if you came into a situation today with what he was talking about it might be a bit more strength behind it then right trying to give them that i agree with yeah i started with with that plot today all so i try to go for principles not the details because the details are flexible right i think the principle 100 percent applies but yeah not today and popping any artists so we're not saying so yeah let's clarify that why you said it was a 100 percent we are not saying don't call something the album all right or do call something out well i would even say that don't call something an album until you feel like you have the resources to make it appear like a big moment i would stand on that well that yeah see that's yeah that's still the same right so you're still agreeing with the context of it right but we're yeah we're saying the the way you will be judged is likely not to be exactly the same though because people have more context and they don't expect any artists to do that but know what i'm i'ma still pull it back though and say because of the negotiation aspect of it yeah nah just for that alone one you want to make it appear that way in two the negotiation leverage nah i'm gonna have to ten off ten out of ten all the way around fuck how people see it in the in the game they can't and will they will still play that game yeah don't get me wrong they will see you as a better op and i judge you harshly but they will still play that game because they can yeah all right now not everybody because you have some people who are more fair and that's probably when people you know you might get an agreement with you like all right this person makes more sense but if you let them they will use that against you yeah because why not yeah too many points to use against you not to use something against you you know you're never gonna 100 out of that yes you'd be oh you sold 100k you toured 12 cities but you only got 20 thousand followers on instagram man we can't fuck with you that's the way it goes man that's the way it goes so keep that in mind right um just put that like put that in your pocket right like just to be aware of what the other person on the side of the table has to negotiate with all right in terms of how they see you not with their own leverage but literally how they can manipulate your leverage which i was arguing with somebody the other day and it was about like the law right illyq versus social society i think legal like government right true law should be very objective and we should culturally shame people into the behaviors we want right but it shouldn't be legally inaction right yeah you know it's shame it is like a loose word kind of being tongue and cheek but like we should culture you know we know that culture generally speaking sets up a lot of the outcomes that happen all right whatever the law may be all right a lot of times we try to make them go hand in hand but now things are so different all these diverse thoughts so law can't follow it all law has to be objective right culturally we can push people to what we want to and my whole point of that was well this guy i was talking to was like well now we should make the law like this we can't make it objective like that or you can't think of it that way and i'm like if you get a lawyer they are going to tell you hey this can be interpreted to the worst-case scenario right and they are going to adjust the messaging for the worst-case scenario because even if you don't think it's going to occur all right your lawyer is going to say because this does allow for that to happen you need to eliminate that possibility will they not right a good lawyer will do that so when y'all are signing y'all contracts that's the type of stuff that they're they're looking for and you always have to be thinking about that right yeah we're in this good you know you have some people that you're just in a different type of agreement the relationship might be there but still just generally speaking you want to make sure you eliminate that so that legal conversation made me think about this which also you know comes back around when we look at contracts and negotiations it's like whenever you're looking at the whenever you're looking at the details it's like it sounds crazy to say the extremes you're just being skeptical but then the situations that we hear about oftentimes are extreme they're extreme you didn't adjust for the extreme man the extreme is possible just because it's extreme doesn't mean it's impossible yeah but i was thinking about this the other day just with going back to that whole you know no right or wrong answers you know whatever whatever it's like you could have something and be like this doesn't work 98 percent of the time and i was like damn what about that two percent you know what i'm saying what about that two percent that does work for me and that two percent comes along and there's nobody talking to them because 98 percent of the time this shit don't make sense i haven't had to think of an answer for you you know what i'm saying like talking to you put it through the situation i always think about it bro like yeah no matter how much something doesn't work there's a small group of people that will work for it and you should be prepared like move as if you won't be that person right but in the back of your head be prepared for if you do it's like going viral bro like you should move every day like you won't go viral but yeah if you do go viral you know what i'm saying you better be ready to shift gears and move quick gears 100 percent you know you don't expect to get in a fight but if you do right you know i swing back better know how to swing back