 Wow, what's up everybody once again it's Brandon man Sean and today we got to answer a question and that is how did TDE become the most important indie label in hip-hop? Now first look at this post by Anthony Top Dog, Tific the founder of TDE right here. Now I'm not going to read through all these awards but Kendrick has been nominated for a lot of Grammys and SZA has been nominated for a lot of Grammys so obviously they have a lot of success but that doesn't necessarily make them the most important so why are they so important? They've been able to find the balance between critical acclaim, commercial success and artistic integrity. There's not really any labels out there who've been able to do that especially on an independent level so how did they do it? Now in these kind of conversations a lot of people like to lend towards those business conversations but when it comes to TDE especially in this particular type of case I think it's a lot more to do with the team and there's five particular things that I want to talk about. Number one is straight up leadership and I want a couple leadership with vision because to be able to really lead people you have to know where you're taking them and that brings me to number two which is culture because to be able to achieve the vision you have to be able to build a culture that's going to get you there and I have to say that leadership and culture in my mind are the most important two aspects of building this label. Let me explain In a billboard interview between Kendrick Lamar and Top Dog titled How They Built Hip Hop's Greatest Indie Label they mentioned the word brotherhood in relation to the group four times. One time when asked about the relationship never changing or how the relationship changed Kendrick Lamar basically said motherfuckers be fighting where I hear about a lot of these groups but those cats never had brotherhood from the jump which actually leads to a quote from Top Dog earlier in the article where Top Dog said it was up to me to show them something different to lock them in my studio and make them build a bond as brothers and struggle a little bit. Now the word doesn't have to necessarily be brother or sister or any of those family words but really the reality is when you're talking about the core building that core base of a team you're going to have to have some form of bond and you're going to have to build real relationships because the culture has to be something that everybody in the group is in agreement to live out which actually leads to principles all cultures have to have some forms of principles like punch says lyrics and content those were two of the big things that he cited lyrics and content that's what they're about even when he talked about Absol and how was it like bringing him into the group he basically said he was about the same stuff that we were about when you know what you're about as a group it's easier to build and bring in new pieces that aren't destroying what the rest of the group is about and I can tell you if you build a strong culture I've been involved in companies and groups that have strong cultures legitimately strong cultures they work like antibodies in the body where if something's coming in that's foreign and it's not right they're going to attack it's anybody within the culture will be able to correct somebody else who's supposed to be in the culture and if somebody else from the outside comes in and they're not with the program and can adjust to get with the program then they get pushed right back out that's how a strong culture works so one thing I see a lot of times that's really hurting these indie labels that are just just getting started if you have this artist and they believe in this lifestyle and they don't care anything about lyrics and this person is super conscious and they're moving this way and that person is I don't know just something completely different you're at the beginning and you're trying to get the ball rolling how can you really make progress if you're spread completely different directions and you're trying to get people on the same page it's not really going to work out which leads me to number three which is sacrifice I talked to a lot of groups who say they're in groups but then when you ask them certain questions they're like oh but we're all focusing on ourselves individually at the time as a brand but that's not really how a group works there are certain times where you got to be able to prioritize certain things over others maybe that means one artist is at the forefront at the moment and all the other artists have to be able to move in unison and then sometimes there's another artist that necessarily might need to be a different who knows whatever division maybe there's a reason everybody needs to fall back but you need to have people on the same page and it goes back to the leadership with the vision that people are ingredients with and then it goes into the culture that's built in to get people there and if everybody has that culture they're moving on the same page then they'll be willing to sacrifice for the ultimate vision if they not bought in if you're not bought in then how is this really a group we're trying to be a group and we're trying to blow up or move for as a group but at the same time I want to build my brand and I want to build my brand you're either a team or you're not a team your group or you're not a group there's a lot of power in being a team because you have multiple people to direct their labor their resources and energy towards a goal but this whole flip floppy thing where there's no real commitment to being in the group you're not gonna get anywhere like that I know now it's like hey scissor has her own brand Kendrick has his own brand and schoolboy Q and all the other members they have like their own individual brands but it took time to get there it's not like when they first started off you have to build as a unit yeah you have the individual pieces but look at this this is the perfect example when scissors control was the thing popping from TDE everybody has scissors album cover as their Twitter avatar and now they're trying to push damn to be voted for the best album of the year so now everybody in the TDE has damn as their Twitter avatar all the way from top dog to Kendrick to schoolboy Q this is what having a unified vision and being on the same page it looks like with a culture that will move together a lot of people who are supposed to be teams won't even post other people's stuff or support it consistently because it's ruining their aesthetic I only post in black and white and all his pictures are yellow that stuff is not gonna cut it when we're talking about being in a team you can get to a certain level where maybe you don't have to leverage your own page and the little visibility you have but when you're at starting off to build this is what we're talking about you've got to use what you have funny enough building is number four and why use the word building of all words is building does not happen overnight building is a constant process you're adding on you add it on you got to think about the fact that TDE was started in 2004 good kid May City which is really the for real breakthrough breakthrough moment didn't come out till 2012 that right there is eight years and a huge part of building is being able to take your losses turn them into lessons and keep going because that consistency is what's gonna ultimately help you build a fan base people are gonna trust that you're still there you're building that value you're building the brand and there's gonna be some moments where you make some decisions because you're learning that aren't necessarily the right decisions and they might take a back step a perfect example was when TDE got a deal with Warner Brothers so we did it backwards he got the deal first before any buzz before any fans so we have to work backwards I got the deal now let's try to go get the people so it was just doing any and everything like freestyle and all the beats and you know just like it's trying to do anything to make a name but if the label wasn't doing anything we thinking you know they were able to take that lesson flipping and say alright now we're not about to rely on anybody these five things are all the foundation to building something real culture cannot be avoided especially when we're talking about indie labels we're not talking about a big corporation where they have a lot of mistakes that they can make and they have a lot of bureaucracy you need a small tight-knit group of people understand where they're supposed to be going they're on that same page y'all can be agile y'all can handle any situation to respond accordingly and it was because they had that stuff in play that they were able to expand and start to get scissor start to get sir Isaiah Rashad bringing new people into the culture that were able to adapt and understand the culture I'm sure if you ask those artists they'll probably tell you some interesting things that they noticed when they first joined and maybe even some things that they had to fall in line with and learn when becoming a part of TDE I can't overstate the importance of culture when it comes to some of these business tasks and things like that you can almost plug anybody else in but when you have a strong culture it allows a team to punch above its weight class which is why it's so important especially for an indie label I could actually go in do a video alone on building great cultures but we had to end this video for right now so if you like this video go ahead like that thing and if you like it in my as well share it and if you ain't subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe button