 What's up, what's up? I'm Brandman Sean. And I'm Corey. And we are back with no labels necessary. Mike tried to get away from me, but here we are catch us every Tuesday, every Thursday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you listen to your podcasts and similar shows. If you don't know who we are, Sean, Corey, we are the co-founders of Contra Brand Agency, it's a music marketing agency that helps artists get lit from ground up. And we work with the major labels, but here today, we're here to just talk about marketing and branding and business, because that's how we do it. We have fun talking about those topics. And today's episode, good Lord, do we have some fun to talk about? I bet a lot, a lot. So I want to just kick it off like this. If Jay-Z told you to quit your job, would you do it? Yeah. Yeah. Because I would assume that he either sees a vision or there's a plan, like, you know, some compensation that's coming pretty soon. That's what I would think. I mean, nobody's just telling you to quit their job, other than to be honest with you, you know what I'm saying? Unless they got a plan for you. Oh, okay. Or they see the vision in you. This relates to the first topic, by the way. We don't get there, but hold up. I got to, before we even get to that first topic, why would you quit so soon? Like, what are the circumstances? You just going to believe him? Like, whatever, you're not even working with him. He just like, you know, I don't know. He sees you in pass and y'all have a short conversation, he just still goes, you should quit that job. It depends on what we talk about. Like, if it's just like, I'm a cashier and he's like, man, what you weren't doing life? I'm like, oh, I want to be a video game designer. He's like, oh, you should quit your job. I'm like, nah, you know what I'm saying? I can't take your word on that. But if I'm like, you know, I had a game developed and maybe he played it or something, it was like, oh, this shit, fine, you should quit your job. Maybe, you know? Okay. Depends on how much context he has around the thing I'm trying to do outside of the job. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. I ain't know if you're just gonna hop. And I'm like, yo, Jay, you know what I'm saying? My, you know, my living expenses is only about three or five K a month, man. Can you loan me about 30 K to get me through even that six months? Just in case. Hey, there we go. That's a good question right there. So I want to go ahead and play this first topic and then y'all. Still that element for my career that I think stunted me because it also painted this picture that I was already established, right? We didn't have any, we had three records recorded when we did that. We didn't have any, people were all these different outlets were hitting Jenna up, Jenna Fleischman, shout out to Jenna. Shout out to Jenna Fleischman. Like she... Teamwork, Miss Teamwork made the dream work. Yeah. She's, she's, she's a beast. That's why I got that from 15 years ago. Love her. That was a model. And people, all these different outlets were hitting her up for interviews and she would ask us like, you know, do you want to do this? Like do, and I'm like, I don't really have anything to say. I haven't recorded any music. I don't know what my music sounds like. I don't know when it, when anything is coming out. And you're being rebellious about the type of music. And I don't know what... And here's the thing. That was her way too. She, she got on like, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to tell people. I don't know what to do. I know they were sitting up there like... All right, all right. So, D'Corey, do you know the moment that they're talking about? No, I don't. All right, all right. So what happened was she ended up performing on stage in place of Alicia Keys. Oh, shit. She got a major, major look. I forgot what the event was. I think maybe Alicia was, she was, maybe it was a show. I have to go back and check, but basically Alicia Keys had this slot. So there's a highly, highly visible slot. This one, Alicia Keys was like, hot? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not brand new Alicia, but like still hot Alicia mid 2000s, right? I'm here, Alicia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe early 2000s, but... And she performed in her slot. And because of that slot, obviously highly visible. And she's a beast of an artist in terms of like singing and all that. So the look was crazy. What happens after that? By the way, JZ did tell her the queer job because she was up on him and didn't, and like JZ didn't actually know that she had a job. Like you just assume damn near like, wait, wait, you got a job. He had hit her up and said, oh yeah, come out I think to this show to actually do this performance. And he was like, wait, what? She was like, yeah, I'm at my regular job. He was like, no, you gotta quit. You gotta quit that, right? And I feel that. All right, that does make sense, right? Yeah, I feel that. It does make sense. So she gets this highly visible slot. She performs her ass off and many people are aware of the JZ and the Beyonce-ish like connection to vicinity, at least more industry people. And because of that visibility, but now people are like, yo, what's next? All right, what do we do? They wanna talk about this artist who just performed this highly visible slot. So she's talking about here how I have all these interviews like set or the demand for them to be set. People like Angie Martinez following her overnight. I don't know if y'all know who she is, but she's a goat in this radio world. All these interviews trying to be had with her, yet she don't even know what the hell she gonna say. You got nothing to know. She don't have no music out. She doesn't have any way to capitalize off of this. I think she just said in that clip, like either they had three songs possibly ready or only three songs out. I miss what she said, but either way it goes, this brings up the idea of popping too early. Yeah. Know what it means to think about going viral today? That's exactly what it was. That's exactly what it was. Cause this is pre like internet the way we have it today for social media. That was the viral of that time. That was 100% the viral of that time. So this is why when people say, can I pop too early? This is what it looks like. Too early isn't necessarily like, oh, you should pop before one song, two songs, three songs, five songs, a full album. Like it's not that specific because I believe you really can capitalize off of like any moment, right? It's more about having an infrastructure and a plan. And when you're where she was like, that's when you call too early, right? Not, oh, I only recorded one song and this song happened to go viral. I believe even that is doable. If you got a studio, you can get that turnaround happening. When it's too early, like way, way, way, way too early, undisputedly too early is she didn't even have a vision for herself yet. She didn't know what her sound was, right? Like that's a problem. Like, oh, we got to record some more music. That is a problem, right? It's a challenge, right? That's a challenge. But that is a problem, bro. Like I don't even know how the fuck I'm a sound. When am I going to say on these interviews because I don't have a vision for myself so I can't give you when they ask more. I can talk about my background because that just is what it is. Like, oh, I used to, I'm from this place and in that place and I went to college or whatever, like you could talk about that but you can't give anybody a sense of the vision for who you are and honestly, many artists decide how they want to be in interviews, right? But that also relates to their vision. Do I want to be bubbly, have this personality? Do I want to be laid back and chill? Cause let's keep it real. Many people have both like multiple sides of themselves and you kind of pick what side that you want to show in your interviews at one given point of time. So she doesn't get to think of through any of this stuff. Yeah, you got the demand of the world on you right now and that shit ain't going to last. It's like, oh, yeah, I got a month to figure out who I want to be, which isn't even realistic. But let's say I did that, after that month, that moment's passed, they don't want to interview just like that. Yeah. Like we're not going to come back and say, oh yeah, that was that girl who had that one performance in one little moment. So it's such a challenge like to like be visible and then not be able to capitalize off of it. And it makes me think about when Tink, you know Tink, right? Yeah, the singer. Yeah. Like, so you remember when Timbaland, when he put out, he was on Breakfast Club and he played that joint with Rick Ross and Tink and he wasn't supposed to do it. Rick Ross was upset with him. No, I missed that, yeah. Yeah. But it was Timbaland put Tink in between the rock in a hard place. It was thick for a second, but yeah, he played because he was so excited about Tink and like, yo, I got this new artist and he even played, maybe it was a remix to his regular song or maybe it was something that didn't come out. I think it was more a remix, but yeah. Yeah, it was a Tink and Rick Ross song. Rick Ross song. It was hard, bro. It was hard. And DJ Envy pulled that old school DJ, let me get the exclusive type. You gotta blame Timbaland. You can't, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, he should have done better, but yeah, she basically said, she didn't take, Timbaland said, she wasn't taking advantage of a lot of opportunities that came with him and certain visibility because she wanted to give herself space and time to mature, right? And figure things out. And that's crazy to hear from an artist. Yeah. Who doesn't? How few people are that confident in where they're going in their own career and their ability to the point that they would turn that stuff down, especially at the age she was at that time. She was probably like 19 or 20. I might be off by a couple of years, but she was young to do that too. Yeah, but is it confidence or is it fear? You know what I'm saying? Because a lot of times I feel like it's more of the fear of what's gonna come with that. No, you're not ready. Because what makes me think? Knowing you're not ready though. It's one thing to know you're not ready and to be afraid. I think there's a nuance there. Yeah, but the audience doesn't know. And what's making me think of it is, I remember in one of the business masterminds was that when the speaker was making the argument that like, if you're a scale in the company, actually no, it wasn't a mastermind. It might have been a YouTube video, like Alex from all the videos or something, but he was making an argument that like, if you're scaling really quickly, like you don't stop the scale, you just figure out how to catch up to it and just let shit break in the process when you figure out how to catch up to it, right? And so to me, it applies to this situation. It's like, do we slow this down because you was an art song ready for it? Do we throw you into this shit, force you to get as ready as you can and then learn what we learned from that and then figure it out how to make it better the next time. So that's why I become conflicted with it. I think it's dope that she has the insight to be like, I don't think I'm ready. But then it's like, well, honestly, you never really will be ready because all this shit gonna be new to you for at least in the next couple of years, you know? All right, so that's where I call out the differences between a human product and a product to be sold, right? I think there is some aspects just even as humans, we know like, yo, you gotta get into game at some point period, right? So if it's more of fear and I'm just being afraid to get into game, but technically you do have it in you and you already, that's the problem. And you have to keep things moving and stretch and adjust, cool. But to a certain extent with a human product, there's a certain amount of development that's just not going to happen, all right? It's just not going to happen just because opportunities came and sped up. Cause if anything, I might be able to better handle the scenario, right? I might now know how to handle media and experience media and see all these spaces and games and play that game better, but I won't be able to increase the speed in which I improve the product. That's the problem. You know what I'm saying? I can't all of a sudden just have an experience. It's like, you ever heard somebody say, like it'll be a great singer or whatever, they'll be like 13 or whatever. And they'll be like, oh man, now when you go through some life. Yeah, you'll be fine. Ooh, yeah. You got that voice, but you don't have that soul that come from that place that you can only get when you get that shit happening to you. You know what I'm saying? Like that's the type of thing that we're dealing with for artists. When our business, okay, let's say sales, cause that's basically what it comes out to. Sales and the ability to fulfill and the product itself. The product itself doesn't really change that much, right? You have to just figure out how do I fulfill this GPU deliver, all right? So those are different problems to solve, right? And get behind and I agree. Scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale. Now how the fuck can we fulfill this shit? Yeah. This shit. But when it comes to, and even businesses have problems. Like I had a problem with Popeyes when they did that chicken sandwich. You couldn't get one? No, I got one. Oh, okay. Right? I got one, that shit was delicious. It was delicious. Then they ran out. The next one was suspicious. I said, this ain't the same shit. Y'all, and I know what happened. They dropped that thing. They're like, oh yeah, you know, we're going to do a little chicken sandwich, we're going to have a war. Maybe it's a test or maybe it's, or maybe we actually are going to come out with it. But I felt like it was a little bit of limited in its expectation first time around, right? This junk goes viral. Oh my gosh, there's lines wrapped around the building. You know, this is something like, and this couldn't happen like a year later in COVID, right? Cause it had to be like 2019. Everybody's like, this is the thing, this is the talk of the town. I can't get wished for a better scenario. People are comparing it to Chick-fil-A. Many people say mine is better than Chick-fil-A. Run out, people can't get it. And then what happened? They had to stop. Yeah. Why did they have to stop though? Why would you stop when, like, why would you stop when everything is hot? When it's hot and mad? You know why they had to stop? Because they had their own version of an artist that you can't speed up. The goddamn chicken stick. God damn chickens, bruh. You can't make them hoes. You can't speed up life, bruh, unless you start going to get the other stuff. The other stuff that's going to ruin the quality too much. So now you got all these suppliers you got agreements with already, right? Yeah. And some of these suppliers are already locked down with their agreements with other people. So what happens, eventually you find somebody and what you come back. At first, I think the last time I've had it, it's improved back from, so it was great, came right back. This ain't the same shit, bruh. This tastes closer to that stuff I would eat in school. And then now it's trending back towards the right thing, right? You know, two years later, chickens have grown a little bit, right? But that's the problem that you deal with. That business is all sale fulfilled, sale fulfilled, sale fulfilled. So anytime you bring in that natural human, living element, dawg. Yeah, that's fair. I think about clients we had that we helped go viral and it's that first time going viral. Like it's a lot to do with, you know what I'm saying? Yes. And me and even bring about the Bridget, Kelly, like the difference I see versus when she went through it, like you said, like the one there was no music product there and it's much more expensive to make music back then. So it's not like you just go to your bedroom that they knock out like a quick album or some shit and have it ready in two weeks. And then on top of that, the day I think the advantage that artists of today have is they can just learn how to do that show in their socials, right? Like you can learn how to get over a lot of the initial fears or something like that by just like going live and talking to your fans, right? You go viral today, you do six live streams over the next two weeks, but in there you'll be comfortable talking to random people, you know what I'm saying? Like you'll feel a little bit better. So I think artists that they have more outlets to get the experience faster, whether they look at it that way or not. So that's why I would say even in that, it's like, yeah, there's that human element of like, this is just experiences and, you know, it probably takes us all like a good one to three months after having the experience to really process and learn how to deal with us. That's what I think. But my argument is you gonna go through that shit one way or another, either now or shit, with music, maybe never again. You know what I'm saying? So let's do why not go through the experience because I feel like I'm not ready. And like you said with Tint, like, do I feel confident up in myself to think like, I'm gonna get this opportunity again in a year, two years from now, three years from now. Or do you say, fuck it, I'm just gonna deal with it. Maybe my mental and physical health declines a little bit, but I know I just gotta make it through X amount of period and then learn from what I learned from it. You know what I'm saying? Move how I can move after it. And at least I don't have to risk this never happening again. At least I can say how I went through it. And so I feel like those are the options that you come down to when something like that happens. I understand the first option. I feel like everyone should do the second option. I think from what I understand and saw, I think in Tink's situation, I can see why it made sense to go her route. Bridget Kelly's situation, I'd probably, based on how things are wrong, I'd probably just run it up in that moment. So I'm saying, and actually real quick too, back then you could get away for like one single for a longer period of time. You could. Yeah, so she could just knocked out one and been good for like six months, at least. Yeah, see I think the problem though still there in lies, what you figure out is that gift that comes of artists that also creates that problem, right? And then you have to make a decision, a business decision. I know that you don't know who you are yet, because I don't think it was about fear of speaking with people in mental health because that conversation wasn't as trendy right now. Even that was there, it wouldn't have been like a thought, right? I think it was largely, literally, but what do I talk about? What do I say? I don't have any, I don't have a product. Yeah. Like that's like, oh another problem. We talk about fulfillment and then having issues and scaling. I don't even have a product yet. I don't know who I am. I don't, I haven't created enough of it. And then now you talk about blowing up because you did a feature, because you did a song. Like we have artists who have unfinished songs blow up, right? Or they have a teaser or cover blow up, right? And now you gotta figure out, how do I finish that out? An unfinished song is good, because it's like, oh at least all I gotta do is finish a song. Right? Now, how fast you can do that is a problem, or not. But the thing that comes with artists, man, is, are you comfortable with thinking on a longer time span and saying, hey, I'm a pop in this specific space that I don't necessarily wanna do for my career. Maybe I wanna incorporate some rock, neo soul elements. That was something that she was talking about into my stuff and figure out how to fuse them cleanly. But right now this is some straight Alicia Keys shit, right? I'm in that spot and coming up down that path. And I'm just gonna go as big as I can down that path. And then, hey man, I'm rich, I'm winning, I got a fan base and things are going good. Then I'm gonna try to hit them with this fusion and figure myself out and see if I can take them there. That's not a bad, look, that's actually, oftentimes the best way to do it, like the highest probability of taking something unique and introducing it to a marketplace, especially music is that route, right? Yeah, that's what all the SoundCloud rappers did. All of them. All of the biggest ones, right? That's what they did, they captained that space and then as soon as they got the base, they all flipped the different shit. Exactly. But many artists aren't comfortable with that idea, right? It makes it maybe feel like more of a job or creatively restricting, which oftentimes a job might do for them if it's not just whatever I want and wherever I'm feeling and the inspiration that comes from it, right? But that is the job of the industry, you are an entertainer, right? And it is a job itself. So I get that, that you might wanna delay everything based on the development of yourself and the sound and it being perfect. So I could 100% get that route, but on the side of understanding how difficult it is to get a moment. Exactly. A for real moment. Exactly. Momentum, the shit that you cannot buy always tell artists you cannot buy momentum, record labels cannot buy momentum. No, that's why they find momentum and then try to get ownership of that momentum because I could put a meal behind something and it could not stick. Yeah. I can't force it, I could increase the likelihood by putting more money into it, more resources, but if it don't go, it don't go. That's the thing about this music shit. So understanding that, how hard that is to do, yeah, I would probably try to advise personally, let's stick with this thing, all right? And just cap and get your visibility. And look, at worst, you made some money and you did, no, you got some success. You got a cool story to tell your friends and family Remember that time I was viral for like five months? You know that clip when Ray Daniels was like, hey, nigga, if you want to rap, then rap. Like this is the music business, but if you want to rap, go on the motherfucking court, then rap like that whole thing, right? Now, I look at it that way too, right? If you want to be in this music business, right? Just the business of things. Of course, ideally you have your perfect sound that you want for yourself and then you can capitalize off of that. That's the artist ideal situation. Exploit who you are to the 100%. But the other situation is, look, if you really are doing this as an artist artist, and it's because you want to do it in that way, maybe you just creating music for yourself and putting it on the USB drive, the tarot, like whatever that is, that should be good, right? Or you can perform for small audiences or you build this big fan base and it's not going to hit on a pop scale or your main fan base, but you want to do this intimate show, you can still get that off, right? Matter of fact, you have more space to get that off because you have a better life, right? You have more freedom in your life, right? But it comes from you doing this thing. So sometimes my personal issue that comes with artists and this goes from either popping with a sound that's not yours or not the ideal sound that you want to be at, I get like not going like, oh, I'm a gold country, even though I'm a hip hop artist, and I get that type of extremity, but whether it's popping with an imperfect sound by your nature or not becoming a YouTuber or any kind of content creator popping in any kind of way. My issue with that is, right now your alternative is this job that you hate. What is your other path? I don't understand like, well, why don't I at least have some level of freedom? Especially like, oh, you're funny. People love like DC Young Fly is one of those dudes. He can rap and sing his ass off. I was forgetting. Yeah, yeah, he was doing that early on, but oh, this music got popping. I mean, this music, this comedy got popping, you know? And maybe the way things are going, maybe the full breadth of the music, is it meant for, you know what I mean? Like God meant this comedy thing for him, or maybe he brings it back and he does something official. Jamie Foxx was one of those dudes. Always wanted to do, like the music was his first verse, but acting worked out the way it is. And he got it, get it how you live. And I gave him resources and things. He would strategically throw all them parties with Kaya and Jay-Z and Missy, all them stories he tells, like, and bring all those people in around and had a studio in his house and try to get some of them to record with him and do a little experience. He would strategically do that. And he could only do that because his resources that he got from being an actor, the clout he got from being an actor and comedian, and then worked himself way back into music that way, right? And his music career still isn't technically anywhere near his acting career or the height of what his comedy is. It's not, but it's so high. And that's what makes you think Jamie Foxx, like one of the, like just- I'm like a jam guy. He's broke. That's what makes him a fucking alien because his music career is very, very high on a general scale. Matter of fact, just to know, let's see what his monthly listeners are. But I feel like- That'd be interesting. Like I said, at least $7 million. You think at least $7 million? At least $7 million. Yeah, that's- He got some hits. Yeah, that's a legit number. Let's see. Modify, Jamie, if he popping up, let me know what he pops up. Oh, there we go. Jamie has- Oh, 3.9. 3.9. But when's the last time he dropped something? He may like, what, three years ago? Like seriously? Like three, four years ago? And we know how little time he's had. He's had like that hot, hot moment already. So yeah, slow jumps, city chores, blame it. So, I mean, streams is blame to have. Oh, you know what? This don't count though because his shit was before streaming. Streaming, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so this really don't even count. To have 3.9 and not really even have a moment and push and drop shit after streaming like that. And it should come in from probably majority of these three songs? That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. So his numbers are still stupid. Yeah. Are still stupid, but you have to judge it on that scale. This was pretty streaming when you got her in terms of looking at it seriously. But yeah, okay. I see he dropped something in relation to that movie. I haven't watched that vampire movie yet. Have you watched it? No, man. My grandma told me it wasn't that great and I trust my grandmother's opinion when it comes to movies. It looks like a good bad movie or like, you know, you put that shit on during the daytime while you like, I don't know, cooking or just doing something else at the same time. But yeah, the moments are so hard to come by, you got to cap when they come. Yeah. How many times have we seen that with clients where we were like, we wish you were just powered through this shit? Yes. I can make up at least like five different instances. And that becomes my thing with it is, like I was saying earlier, all of this is new. So it's going to be a long time before you experience these things and really feel comfortable with it. And so I look at it like, are you okay with learning on the fly? Because I think a lot of times, artists kind of have this idea and they're like, hey, I need to be perfect. I need to be this way for me to really take advantage of it. But it's like, one, you don't know if that shit, that's just perfect to you, but you don't know if it's going to hit the way you need to hit. And then two, brother, just to figure this shit out now and if you write, then you'll be better for the situation you're planning on. And if you're wrong and you fall out the game, then it doesn't matter anyway. You know what I'm saying? Either way, it doesn't matter. You got a cool story to tell and you can kind of keep it pushing. And so that becomes my thing with it. Cause whenever we have clients that as us, that will always be the perspective of the camera. Like, oh, like this is cool. I'm having this moment. Let me get this right before we really cap. And we're like, when is that going to happen? Oh, it should be about a month, like a month. But you might have five days to be honest with you. Exactly. Like you might have five days max. A week from now, Kanye going to say some shit, the media going to turn that way. And just like that, we going to forgot about you and don't care anymore. But the last thing I'll say on that is, still it requires discernment. And this is why the value of like a great manager and just team around you comes in handy. Because how do you identify that moment that you can't get, that you can't buy versus, this is just an opportunity, right? Because all the artists that we know successful and not successful have probably turned something down. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. And the very, very successful have turned many things down. So it's not like you're eating up every single opportunity that comes and say, oh, I'll never get this opportunity again. Timing is, it really matters. And maybe I need to do it, not off of this random thing that just popped because of my relationship. I need to do it because I'm about to come out with a project and bring attention to it, right? So I'm not going to do this radio interview this week. I'm going to do it six months from now when I actually have something to talk about. Like little things like that, they matter. Figuring and being able to discern, is this a moment, moment? Or is this, yeah, like I said, I guess an opportunity. That's the best way. But, yeah. I'm sure one of them said, real quick, one of the coldest quotes I heard on something like that was like, one of the hardest things about growing as a business is saying no to things that you know could be a good look. Oh, hell yeah. You're like, damn, this shit could, this shit here, but this is moving like this for me. I gotta let it go. Right, that's where people mess up, right? Cause it's like, it's that effort distribution and understanding. It's like, yeah, I could go over here and make this quick hundred K faster than I've made a hundred K before. Or I can take that same effort and it might take two times as long and make a meal, right? An additional meal just in that same space. But most people don't have the discipline and long-term thinking to be able to get themselves from like hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, oh, there's an op, oh, there's an op, oh, there's an op. But a lot of that comes in from lack of faith in themselves, like it's like a faith or lack of discipline, lack of... I understand how much work that shit really takes. Understanding that it actually takes to hit that level, right? And now that energy you just put over there just extended the time span for this main space that you just left to make that money back. And you keep on going back over there because you're like, oh, I didn't do it yet. Oh, I didn't do it yet. And now you might've just completely missed that window to ever hit that next level in that first thing you just left. Because it's taken too long or you've beaten yourself into lack of stamina. So yeah, it's again, this is why it's so advantageous to have great advisors and people around you because how do you know that and recognize that when there's not the person around that can tell you that? Yeah, and it's your first time going through it. And it's your first time going through it. You don't click, you can't sniff with that. You know, this is part of why we had some problems with like college students working for us. I remember I was just like, Abra, these people don't live too much life. And right now, I mean, they haven't lived enough. It's coming easy. And when we're in that moment, like they don't understand, nigga, you can't just make these moments. Like I need you to work, bro. You know what I'm saying? Like you up there, oh, I'm gonna do this. And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna stump the yard and then I'm gonna like do this and I'm gonna go on my dates and all that. You understand, oh, this is double down time because once we get to that next level, we're on that next level. And then sometimes it's five levels, 10 levels that you can go up in that moment. And once you're there, you're there. So you put in that work, you might not go to sleep for a couple of weeks or whatever. But then once you're there, you're there. It's not gonna wait on you, you know? So that's, again, that's part of, you put that, even if it's a business opportunity, you turn this shit down because of what's in front of you and the opportunity you have. Then some people don't have an opportunity that is worth doing that for, though. And that I understand. That's a whole other game. But like and subscribe, people. Like and subscribe. Please do it and put anything in the comments if y'all, if something, y'all like what we said, something you disagree with, then go ahead and put it there. And I can see if I disagree with it with what you saying, you know, your disagreement. But yeah, for real, like comment. And if you're new to this, subscribe. We really appreciate y'all and let's get to the next topic. Let's do it. All right. So this next topic. Oh boy. Now, Jacor, you brought this one up. I brought it up. Yeah. I know what we're about to talk about. Are you sure you know? It's finally here. Are you sure you know? I think I know. Let's see. You didn't expect this one. Then you're right. Sweetie. False alarm, false alarm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's the reality? Can your team mess up your life? Can your team mess up your life of your manager, your PR person? But that's just one of the topics that this is gonna like bring us to. But Sweetie had a major moment or opportunity with DJ Vlad to do an interview. But DJ Vlad said, somebody on her team said, nah, now I got my opinion about this. I wanna see what your opinion is, but let's just break down exactly what happened. So we're just gonna straight up read this Vlad, DJ Vlad. Y'all know who he is, Vlad TV, millions of subscribers. Definitely covers the music and hip hop community, especially. And he said, on Thursday, I tweeted about Sweetie turning down a Vlad TV interview and how I felt her mixtape sales would have been higher if she had done it. That tweet went viral. Sweetie publicly responded to my tweet and cleared up a few things. So let me tell the whole story with receipts. Let's get into it. So here's his tweet. It says, if Sweetie did a Vlad TV interview, she would have easily done 10X her first week sales, which was 2000 copies. At her level, that is disappointing. We actually reached out through one of our people and were told she won't do Vlad. Her loss. That's what Vlad tweeted, all right? And then, Tweety. Oh, actually, let me finish the rest of what Vlad said. When I was told Sweetie didn't wanna do the interview with us, which originated from her label, Warner Brothers, publicist, Aisha White, I assumed that this was Sweetie's choice, but Sweetie replied and said she was a big fan of Vlad TV and denied that she even knew about the request. Here's Sweetie's tweet. Actually, I've been a big fan and screen recorded one of my favorite episodes. Here's one of them. Dates on the top. So if anyone reached out, quote-unquote, it wasn't me or my team. DJ Vlad, happy thanksgiving. All right, Vlad says, Sweetie turned it down, Sweetie said it wasn't me, that was my team. Let's go deep into this. First off, that's a wild claim, 10X? 10X. That's crazy. 10X is the claim. 10X is the claim. So let's just stop right there before you finish this last thing, all right? 10X, off of an interview with you? That's what I'm saying, that's a wild claim, bro. That's a wild claim. To me, that's full of shit right there. Maybe three to five. You patting yourself on the back right there. You know what I mean? That's full of shit, but I actually got some other thoughts on that. I wanna finish this before we get here. I wanna finish this. So let's do this last bit. So we then find out Aisha White, Warner Brothers senior VP of publicity doesn't like Vlad and would never have any Warner Brothers artists interview with us. These decisions were being made by Aisha without ever asking Sweetie or the other Warner Brothers artist. All right, cool. So apparently somebody on Warner Brothers has beef with Vlad. Now there's been later receipts that have come out that seem to dispute even a direct beef with that. I don't think we need to go spend time like actually going through those like word for word, but one of the things that the PR person said was, what they offer like 10, no Vlad said you could do the interview with 10 grand, right? Yeah, he's gonna pay Sweetie 10K for it. He's gonna pay her 10K? Yeah. Oh, I thought they were asking 10K. No, no, he was saying, he was paying. Yeah, pay her. Okay, okay. So by the way, that goes both ways. Y'all should know about these outlets. Many of them, if you're in the right position actually will pay you for an interview. If you're a good, but then also many of them you have to get paid to get on. And so some of these interviews you see with people are actually them paying to get on that platform. You know, but let's get back to that 10X, all right? And then we'll get to the team. No matter the fact, the team, cause we talked about a team straight up can mess up your opportunities. In the same way we talked about, I think just last episode, literally people won't do business with you because of your team members. Some people on your team won't do business or somebody and have beef with somebody that you don't even have beef with. And you might even disagree with the beef if you actually knew the whole story. But point is, it's like, yo, you're messing up the money. You're messing up my opportunities for some personal shit with you, but this is business and you shouldn't be personalizing things in regard to me and making me miss my training just off of some personal stuff to you, right? That's the real thing that's happening with these teams where I'm like, dang, I bet the artist doesn't even know the way this manager is like turning this down. Like if they knew about this, they'd be all down for it, especially some of the things kind of like, and I've even not, we haven't experienced this to this extent, but you know how sweetie was like, I'm a fan, I got screen recordings, right? It'll be stuff like, hey man, I seen this dude in the comments and everything and da, da, da, like, or we've talked or whatever, but then all of a sudden you talk to the manager and it's like completely flipped. They're not really feeling it. Yeah, they're not really feeling it. It's like, no, I think it's you and you're trying to convince them that that isn't the way to go with the campaign or whatever little detail it is, right? You know, by the fact that artist that, so we had one artist and the artist did not, the artist was basically ready to blow up. She had a decent following, good music and she was down for the things we pitched for, pitched in the campaign or some of the things we talked about. But talking to this artist and the manager and two other people were on a call, I had the first call with them so you weren't there for that. I remember telling you about it. I was like, yo, I don't think this is gonna go because the manager has a completely different agenda than the artist. I was like, this dude, he don't make his money in this space. If you hear his background, he's just worried about basic like publishing, saying like that's where he comes from. That's how he knows how to cap. He has the artist so he can cap in that space. She wants to be a pop star. He don't care about the pop star shit. I want to cap in this space. Can I get you in these rooms? Can I get you in these rooms? Can I get you writing, da, da, da. Having that conflict is an issue. You need to understand not only the ability that your manager has, a lot of the artists get in agreements just because their manager is connected and they've made good money in these spaces and they might even get you an op in that space. Oh, if I get you some sinks and songwriter opportunities because I come from that easy, like you might have that connection because you saw some game from that art manager beforehand and I was like, oh yeah, let me let them run my full business. Maybe if y'all aren't, no, not maybe. If y'all aren't on the same page about the full thing though, then that's not going to work out. So I don't know all of the sweet story, but one, make sure that you and your manager are on the same page. It doesn't mean just because he has sink abilities and all that stuff that he should be your manager, but it also doesn't mean he shouldn't. If the full vision is the same. It's like, oh yeah, I got this one area that I've done well in and now I need to go gain these other areas or I got resources that I now need to start flipping these other areas. That's cool, but if I just want to stay in that bag and I don't want to get out of my bag, that might be a problem unless you just want to be in that bag and cap. So there's that, right? The team truly can limit what you do, but here's the problem when it comes to that, the 10X issue to me. How is he going to get it to go up 10X? Man, I guess you just sound like the publicity from it, but I also don't see his audience fucking with Sweetie like that. That's what makes me not believe it. His audience don't like Sweetie. He has enough of an audience and name and brand recognition to actually get recognition from anybody in hip hop community. As far as I'm concerned, I think he could do a mega interview. He could do an interview with any women in hip hop and still get a lot of views from it because one, he's really good at understanding how to play it in the questions, the acts and the team with the titles. He's going to get a certain level of visibility anyway just because of the algorithm and people checking his stuff out. And third, he's also done a good job of interviewing a lot of different people with different spaces. So you might not see him interview a lot of female hip hop artists, but he's done quite a few actresses, right? So I might like that actress and this female rapper, even though I don't ever see female rappers. So it's nice to see him there. So there's a legitimate argument that he has value to bring, right? But how would he actually boost her streams? To the people in front of the interview going to, that's why I was like 10X as well. Maybe two to three, maybe five, max. Damn. This is what I think, bro. This is what I think. This is Vlad. We know what the fuck Tom Vlad is on. He's going to ask some Quavo shit. Okay, yeah. He's going to really dig into that space. It's no way he's going to avoid that because that's just Vlad and also from his perspective and understanding that business model, shit, why wouldn't I? I'm going to, right? So he's going to ask some shit like that. And then, I actually never listened to the song, but I know that they say she has some bars or Quavo in her recent song or whatever. So then bringing more visibility to that moment and maybe try to find other moments in the album. So then you're going to have people going to listen just for that. At the most, that's what he could do. Her just being on a platform and not talking about any of that stuff, it definitely would not make that kind of pop. Yeah, but his audience would not like her. She is not for his audience, bro. She is not for his audience. Not at all, right? They would definitely, a lot of them would tear her up. So I think there's a lot of great arguments from a career standpoint, why she shouldn't do it, right? But she's actually down to do it. So she didn't even feel that way, yeah. She would be down to do it, yeah. So it could be an instance of the team taking like Vlad's reputation into consideration. You know, he has a pretty salacious reputation of starting shit, right? But then it's like, she already put the narrative out there, so something got started from there. It's like, y'all already kicked off the roll-off with that. So that can't be the thing that you're afraid of happening, you know what I'm saying? That's true, because if you do it, you might as well. Lean into it. Do it. If you put it out there, you might as well take it as far as it can go. As far as it can go. If you were scared to take it as far, you should have never put the information out there. Right, right, right. So, hey, but, so this is when I go to my branding problems with Sweet, though. Do you remember, it was probably like two years ago, I said Sweet, and Sweet was not anywhere near popping to the level she has been, is before she did the track with a, Doja Cat, any of that stuff, like the best friend of it. But remember, I said that Sweet was better positioned long-term than Meg Distallion. I do remember what you said. And this is fresh off a hot girl's summer shit, popping, going crazy, and Sweet is nowhere near that level of heat. And I knew that would be a weird take to have, but there's changes that have occurred since then that I feel like she's taking the opportunity away. Now, let me break down what the point was, and then why I think she's taking it away. So, Sweet had, the reason her opportunity was higher to me long-term is because one, Meg had this over-sexualized image. It's still pretty damn sexualized. And look, I understand that I'm a man. I understand that this shit could be clipped up at certain moments with some of the shit I'm about to say. And look, it get tweaked. But I'm saying this, like, I'm talking from brand perception of how shit actually works. Like, I don't give a fuck. Like, it's the difference between, oh, this PC stuff that people say and how shit actually works, right? And the truth is, Meg has had a super sexualized brand, and that's great, but it also brings limitations. And that growth from the, has also, like, today's climate actually has further legs for sexualization than there has been in any other era, right? So, it's far less limited than it used to be, but it's still there, right? Sweetie was not super sexualized at the beginning. Sweetie had her natural body at the beginning. Now, Meg has her natural body. Meg, like, these stallions is like real life for her, right? Sweetie had her natural body. Cool, like, that's what you wanna do, do your thing, boo. But at the end of the day, that to me is just like a symbolism of many of the things that she's done that have kind of taken her in an interesting direction. Like, I don't know if you remember the whole her twerking shit and people like made it real awkward. Like, it was a whole meme. Like, why are you twerking? You trying too hard? Yeah, yeah, like, they don't feel that she's authentic in many ways when she started off, it's like, yo, I'm this girl, I went to college, I'm not, you're never gonna see me with, like, barely any clothes on. That was like shit she was saying at the beginning, right? And with that actually comes a lot of advantages to have this brand as this naturally beautiful girl, like, bad as hell, but not necessarily, you know, you show stuff, but you ain't necessarily like selling sex outright. And your music comes from a different space and place and you're keeping this college girl kind of like as a part of your brand. Like, her brand naturally fit a certain section of girls that weren't being tapped into, where she first popped off. The natural pretty girl. No, I'm not saying not the natural. I'm not saying the natural pretty girl, right? Like, because that's a pretty girl's love, but in some way, she represented a girl that you weren't seeing at first, right? You went to college, it was like a little bit more corporate, right? It was like a corporate chick that gets lit. That's where she was coming from at first. That's a void to feel. And I never seen anybody feel that void actually, right? You always got the street chicks and you already got the, like the, I'm a bad bitch. Those are the main two, right? Then of course you got the, like, a woman who's like truly a rapping rapper and all that kind of stuff and you respected for all that, right? But we know those only, they don't even get the level of visibility that they should. But bad bitch street chicks, those are like the main archetypes, right? She had the ability to be a corporate chick, right? That gets lit. And that is a, bro, them corporate chicks, they really get lit though. Like they really, if you know them, you know them, man. You know, these girls who have a regular life, you know what I mean? But they love to turn up. So she had that space, but it seemed like she leaned towards a brand that people never even saw her for and truly thought was authentic. People are already like, oh yeah, okay, she's cool and all, but she's not like from the streets or like a scammer, like for real, for real, like the city girls, right? She's not on that shit. So there's a level, a certain set of like black women, like with more of a hood background or like inclination towards that. They're just like, ah, you try too hard. That's just the reality of the brand and perception that's out there, right? Yeah, yeah. So it was like, you're not going to convince them. And your actual background, there's like, oh, that's true. You're not that chick, which is fine, right? It's completely fine, right? People already like was looking at her as one of the most like, just like straight up beautiful. And this is kind of like, again, do what you do, do what you want to do, but it's kind of the fucked up thing. I got daughters, right? You got this, you got, bro, bad as hell, women making these changes to their bodies young, right? And I get that there's just pressure, especially in that space in the game, right? And it's just before it's like, oh, this girl, or this person has a problem, they're trying to fix it. It's like, it ain't no problems. Where are your problems at? You get what I'm saying? Especially that young, you're like, almost too young to have problems, but so it seems like all these pressures of the game took a whip, made her strip away her things that made her unique. And now she's caught in this place that she can never win fully because, yeah, you gotta fake butt or whatever, but you're never gonna be like the thickest, like that type of sexual girl. You had the advantage in that other space, right? Yeah, you might make music that might do decent in a more hood-ish crowd or space, but it's never gonna be, it's never gonna feel like Glorilla. You know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? It's never gonna feel like the city girls. You know what I'm saying? So you're taking away your advantages, but her aesthetic, her brand set up the way it was, she was so brand friendly, like corporate friendly, which so like you can see her easily from like a nightgown, not a nightgown, what's the word? Like a evening gown, cocktail, like all that type of stuff. You can see her move more in that world easily the way everything was. Cause again, what type of events do corporate chicks have to go to, right? Like you can see her in that world. She fit that perception. So then from corporate sponsorships and that things that you can navigate, she had that ability to touch that space that some of these other women couldn't touch or they couldn't touch as authentically as she could. Yeah. I mean, I think there's another big piece to it too. There wasn't that then. And that is the brand influence of marketing. Market wasn't as lucrative then as it is now. So I think the, well, maybe not. You talking about what, 2018? Yeah, well maybe not as lucrative, but yeah, but she, it wasn't as lucrative for her. I'm just trying to get the timeline. All right, so 2018, 19 and then, all right. Yeah, so it's like, I think now she's moving in a direction of more so being an influencer who draws music more so than a rapper who does influencer things. I feel like probably the last like 4 million of the people that learned about her probably learned about her through brand deals and different influencer things that she's done probably not her music. I would, I would make that argument. And so I think if we're looking at it from her lens, it becomes like, yes, like, do I continue to beat myself into this space that where I am unique and is helping the music go, but then when I come over to the brand world, the brand's on everybody. You know what I'm saying? The brands are lucrative almost everybody. You know what I'm saying? If we could get the most amount of people paying attention to your thoughts. Maybe we can you for the niche in the beginning, but long-term one as many eyes as possible. What gets as many eyes as possible on all this shit that we're doing, the other side of it, you know what I'm saying? Look, I, no one's going to get everybody, right? Yeah. And a bigger everybody, honestly, like we want to be real with it is like the white crowd. Yeah, 100%. Right? Cause it's just more white people, right? And then these other crowd, the non-hood crowd. So that's why so many people get caught up in that rocking our place. Oh yeah, I'm a, I'm a hood artist. So I'm just coming from a street or someplace that has black authenticity. If you want to go to that space and then you start moving in other spaces because I'm trying to increase my market share. And I think we use that sell out argument, right? People sell out, all this person selling out, but people don't quite understand, you know, from a fan standpoint or a consumer standpoint, how limited just your category is, right? Being just a female rap artist, a male rap artist. And I'm in the street rap category, right? I'm in the conscious rap category. People don't understand how limited that market share in that ceiling is, all right? So then you move into these other spaces, other spaces that people consider sell out largely, like we just keep it simple. We just say the white crowd, right? White commercial, that's what we're calling it. That's bigger. Her doing these things and catering more towards this audience was not gonna necessarily increase her white market share, right? So like that corporate market share, like she could still grow her fan base without catering. And it's not like she doesn't have any black hip hop audience. She had that. I felt like the major brand moves that got made or some of the brand moves that got made might have made her cater more towards the part of the black audience that was never going to accept her in that way. That's what I'm saying. So it's like, it's a losing game. Anyway, go to where you can get some more. That's my problem with her situation. I see opportunities that got lost. And look, you know, again, it goes back to Teja's own, because if you just wanted to do that, you just wanted to do that. You just wanted to look a certain way, have make certain type of music. That's besides anything that matters from my side. I'm just talking about from a strict brand, your business entity, and I'm trying to maximize you and exploit you as a product, which is the reality of what artists are from that side of things. I feel like she missed out and made herself more comparable to a side of the game that she cannot win in when she had a space that she can win. You know who didn't do that? Doja Cat. Oh, yeah. Doja Cat had her issues and the racist comments and all that whole thing. She's like, hey, I need a, you know, I've grown and I didn't mean that stuff, whatever. She said all that stuff, you know, asks for forgiveness, but she never let that turn her direction completely. And I'm going to cater to these people who are never going to accept me anyway, because I made those comments and the ones who weren't going to accept her, whether she made those comments or not. You're like, y'all niggas in like movie anyway, you know what I'm saying? Why am I trying to appeal to you? She did, she really was like, hey, bro, I would love to stick over here with you rappers, but it's possible she's calling my name. Yeah. Let me go over here. Right, now I don't think Sweetie had the ceiling musically that she did. But again, I'm talking about Sweetie's potential as a brand juggernaut who was there. Like her, she's a personality. Her YouTube is done amazingly. She has one of the best artists, if not the best artists YouTube I've seen. She's one of the first artists I've seen doing like a serious funnel. You remember that, what was it? Like the Hottie University thing? That whole funnel I sent you back then, bro? Crazy. Bro, yeah, so, and I feel like that's probably could even be more maximized. Like she just has some really unique opportunities that I feel like she's not taking advantage of, but like with that being said, Vlad, hey, bruh, if you were gonna 10X her sales, it would have only been on some fuck shit to probably, that's a wild number to just throw out there, but I know fans will hear that stuff and believe it easily. But hey, to be fair, 10X is- 20,000? Yeah, 20,000, like 10X isn't as difficult a mountain to climb when you're starting from 2,000 versus 100,000, you know what I mean? So maybe that's why he's so confident. Maybe that's it. Yeah, it's so much in that conversation of the album sales, bruh, it's been an interesting week. Cause it's just, I don't know, one I feel like she shouldn't have did a surprise rollout. You don't have the, like you were just saying, you don't have the brand strength to get away with that. I need to be convinced sometimes to listen to your music, right? Not in the bad way, like I like the weedy, but sometimes I need to, I need to, you know, I need to sit with a couple of singles before I decide to go give up 30 minutes, you know? But yeah, it's so much for that situation. She had one of the greatest opportunities, not only from all the brand stuff, I felt like that's my best friend. I felt like that was perfect for her audience, like the audience that she should be focused on, that whole track and that whole direction, that whole imagery, every, go, go, feed the woman, feed the woman, and that specific woman, the not, the more commercial side. So maybe it makes it difficult to when you don't see a space for you, kind of like when you talk about brand opportunities not being as lucrative, like, you look at the old YouTubers like, dang, you know, I'm just doing this for fun, trying to work in Hollywood at some point though. Today you got people like, why would I go to Hollywood? Cause there's so much money on this YouTube shit and they go on like, now I gotta deal with other people and I could just post it and be in my room by myself. So some of that stuff does make it harder to like just like thug it out and say, hey, I see this really unique car space. I'm gonna really, really like carve it out and spend time there and not go towards these other opportunities, but you gotta see it and really know that for yourself. And you know, maybe no one looked at it that way around her. Yeah, but that's how I look at the brand stuff for her now. Like I really would think the being a brand influencer has to be more lucrative for her than being a music artist. Like at this point, 100%. And even just thinking back to that phone, I remember it cause I completely forgot about that, but I mean, that was like 2018. So if we're assuming, I believe she probably racked up at least 100K emails phone numbers during that time, right? Had four years of nurturing them, four years of figuring out her monetization funnel with them, right? Four years of figuring out where products and other shit they like from her. She's probably had one of the best artists to brand influencer flips in the last like, if we exclude Travis Scott, I would say that last like four or five years, you know what I'm saying? Since she been in the game. And so now I just think it's like music is one of those things like you do it to maintain the image of what your core thing is coming in. But all of this is really just an attention flip for all this other backend shit. So yes, my, maybe my album only sold 2000, but it created this conversation that got me over a hundred million, maybe a billion plus impressions across everything. People are talking about me. Now all this shit has been funneled to my real moneymaker, which is my merchandise and my products, my no convincing McDonald's to give me another sauce or some shit, you know what I'm saying? And so then it's like, you can't really say she lost in that situation. If you're looking at her from the perspective of a music artist, yes. You know what I'm saying? If you're looking at her from the perspective of a business, no. I don't know. I don't think she lost. You still think so? I don't think she lost in an absolute fashion. She's losing the narrative war. I think she lost her biggest ceiling. She lost her biggest game. It's like, it's like when I talk about these new artists and we'll be talking to them and they'll get to a million streams or go viral and then they'll like sit back and relax, right? Now I realizing that that shit could have did 10 million, 20 million, right? I think she's going to win regardless by like a regular person's standard, even a typical career artist standard. I think she's actually gonna, like, she gonna make some money. She gonna be good money-wise. So I don't have any issue there. I just think her ceiling could be even higher than it is now. You think her ceiling was much higher as a music artist and as a brand influencer? No, it's not. It really a music artist. Like, it's, nothing I said was actual song related. Right? It's all more her brand. I think she's more limited brand-wise than she could have been. Perception, but the narrative from the music and everything all comes together, right? So what she represented is something and could have leaned into representing is something different than what she represents now, which isn't even quite clear anymore. Like, what exactly does she represent? You know, we know we had Dang, Kareesha and what's, JT? JT, yeah. You know what I mean? And JT, we know they're scamming artists, right? Those girls, and then there's gonna be the natural arc of them becoming more mature, but still being where they from, right? Meg, highly sexual, right? In the lyrics, but she has some bars to lean on to when she wants to. But her problem is still, is going to be trying to find, from an overall narrative-wise, where's the other substance? I don't even wanna say other substance, but just what does her arc look like? It's hard to find where her arcs- Where do you go when you get sick of this? Where do you go when you get sick of this, right? Like, how do we understand you deeper than just like these sex bars and sexual image, right? So that's part of a potential ceiling. She can find a way out. Maybe there's something I don't know about her that she can lean into. The anime stuff is not gonna be her thing, right? She's never gonna be fully that, right? But she might have something. So it's not like, that's a beautiful thing about branding. Like, if you know enough and you can navigate and make shit happen that people can't see. She got a whole medical center thing. She said pretty publicly that when she gets closer to the enemy, she wants to open a medical center. Yes, she got that, yes. Stuff like that, right? There it is for her. Like, I'm trying to think of one more. Womanars. Where they gonna go? Because of that brand? Somewhere, like, you could give it in their camp, right? That level-ish, that what you could say or maybe appear and then what the evolution out of that space looks like. What is the narrative? But again, like, sweetie, where does she sit? You know where Meg sits right now. Bump, like, okay, yeah, we know the medical center and things can evolve, but you know where it sits right now. JT and Young Miami, like, we know where they sit and you can even start to see the evolution that's gonna take place. This is gonna be natural. Where does sweetie sit right now? Who does she have on lock? Because who you have even musically and you're representing for, that's a representation of who you're gonna take into your next space, right? So that's my problem, like, there's no clarity in where she sits right now. We know where Doja, let's just put Doja in there. We know where Doja sits. Just like, poppy-pop, you know what I mean? I can rap and all that stuff. She can rap for real. She's about to start making German house music. And she has the ability to do that because she's popped with a... Alternative twist. Alternative, hyper-alternative and artistic. That's where she sits. Again, where does sweetie sit? Man, that's a good question. That's what I'm saying, like, that's all, that's all. But yeah, man, that's one. Now, talk about streams and, what? And record. Now, now we're gonna... And the lack of authenticity. Yeah, now we're gonna get to that other topic. Fake streams, fake streams. We know, we know that it's a thing and it's been a thing for a long time. And recently, some artists were exposed from having fake streams, all right? So let's bring it up. We'll just bring up the academics post. Many of y'all have probably seen videos about this, but I promise you we're gonna add some additional insight, obviously, from what we do, because we're in this for real. So, Atlantic Records is under fire after fans discover blatant view-biting and bot comments on their artists' recent music videos. Don Toliver, Lil Uzi Vert, Roddy Rich, and A Boogie. Let me be clear, Atlantic Records is never gonna be under fire from fans. I don't care what you say. Fans can talk that talk like, there's no real heat coming from fans or Atlantic Records. Not at all. Like, it's nothing, it's too distant. Some of these indie labels, let's just say, if something was going on with the Migos Lil Baby and QC, they could feel the heat, right? Atlantic Records ain't feeling the heat, right? It's just not, right? Like, as a matter of fact, they have some of these indie labels in place so they don't have to feel the heat. They don't deal with that stuff on that level and fans don't understand, there's no identification of it enough, so. Anybody gone break? They don't care about this. Yeah, anybody gone break. That's for real. It's like getting in trouble the day before Christmas break, they don't care. Oh, man. So, you got Don, right? Yeah, he have you bots. One of these comments, and it's pretty obvious when you look at it, you can see all these comments that are all these emojis. We know what it looks like. A lot of emojis and fake stuff, you also got like the foreign comments that becomes a thing for people and the foreign comments could be real foreign comments or they could be fake, right? One way or another, but I don't understand them enough to know, right? The very least you know that this ain't popping in America, so it's either fake or it's- Hitting somewhere out of nowhere. Yeah, it's hitting somewhere and they're running ads to foreign space and run up some numbers. We know that's a thing. Now- And also you have to look for the overly optimistic comments. Those are also a song. Overly optimistic. Overly positive, like this is great, bro. Oh yeah. Yo, this is amazing. Keep it up. Yeah, it's optimistic, but it's so basic and no substance is general as hell. Amazing, good stuff. Hey, this is fire, man. Hey, they don't know about those yet. They don't know about those, right? So there's a couple of things that come from this. A lot of people are surprised. I don't know why. Yeah, I was just about to say, wow. At this point, bro. All right. And by the way, you know, Don, Don Toliver, Captain Jack, there's some people on that Travis Scott video we got talking about his box blowing up, acting like Travis would never do box. Why would he ever have to do box? Travis sold out. Yeah, who is this guy? I don't trust this guy. And this guy is nobody. It's like, oh, that's his ex manager. Well, he's ex manager for a reason. Well, actually his ex manager got rid of Travis. Well, still, you don't know. Like, look, let's keep it clear because people don't get that context with us, but we always talk about it. But let's actually at least say it on one episode. We view bots different than y'all. Yeah, much different. Like when we talk about somebody having bot, we're not talking about it from a positive or a negative. Jacory in that episode literally said like, hey, man, look y'all, might want to find somebody in your team who could flip something like this, right? So it's not like we highly encourage bots for every artist and every moment in time and we need to have real, but there is a legitimate part of the game that bots have a function. They help. They have a function. They have a small piece in the phone, in the overall picture. Yes, they have a piece. So let's talk more about that because if you're a brand new artist, you're working from ground zero. Many of y'all have tried to work with us and I have bots and we'll be like, nah, right? Why? Because it makes it hard to see what the marketing is actually doing. What's in effect? You might see your streams going down. No, your followers going down. Even though the campaign is gaining you legit followers, but you're still losing all these followers from your old shit, right? From this fake stuff that was never real in the first place. So it makes it hard to see. That's why we don't like working with those people. If you can have a managed expectation, we actually will take you and say, all right, you understand because you got this fake shit is not going to just pop. It's not going to start moving. It's the things we can't tell you because we can't see it. Exactly, it's the things that we can't tell you because the data's muddy, like all that cool. That's a huge reason. Why does it not make sense for artists ground up because it's fake and now you literally do that. Create an environment where we can't trust what's going on. You don't know what's real. You don't know how many people are going to show up to your show. You don't know how many people would sign up for an email or stream your song because all of this is fake. That's why bots don't make sense for most of these artists and that's why we talk about it from that side of it. But the other side of the game, look, man, a lot of times to keep doing business, you gotta get creative, you know what I mean? Like that's all that's going on and getting creative because there's multiple things that they're trying to accomplish. And I can't say for these artists specific situations why they're doing bots on their specific situations. But let's just go through some reasons people do bots and they actually can make sense. Some of them are still like, it's a tough situation to be in. Let's talk about one of the toughest to me. Maintaining an image that's outscaled the actual fan base of performers of the music, right? Yeah. So earlier, you talked about Sweetie, you just said Sweetie still doing the music to kind of like keep that thing moving and then flip it into everything else. And that'd be the sole reason she might do it going forward. Well, that goes to the LeBron analogy I use, right? I know I need a win in this category. I keep playing because basketball is my main thing. Keep the main thing, the main thing. But while I'm in this main thing, a part of my brand is being that nigga. So I gotta stay that nigga or close to that nigga. I gotta at least be one of the niggas. If I wanna keep leveraging my brand the same outside of space and if it gets too rough, I need to just like flip fully and move on, right? That analogy plays on a lot of these artists. If I'm on this level, part of my level is being a level seven artist instead of a level two. I'm popped, I'm official. I have buzz. I need to maintain as much of an image on this level as possible while the music catches up. I know this is a problem. These teams that have that issue, they know it's an issue, right? And I need to figure out how to maintain as much of this image as possible until the music catches up in reality, right? Just like that gateway drug type shit, man. It's like, or it's like the stripper, I'm only doing it to get through college, you know what I mean? Like, hey, I'm only doing this shit till I get a real fan base. Like, I'm just trying to do it. Like, you know, this year I'm doing 70% box, next year I'm doing 50% box, next year I'll do it, 20% box. Oh, shit, I got a real fan base, you know? That's a legit thing, right? Some people are in a set scenario where they're trying to figure it out that way, right? Because the brand hit of barely having any streams is too detrimental, right? That's one scenario. That's a tough decision to be in. That's the hardest one to be in for sure. Legitimately, that's the hardest one to be in. Usually a lose lose. You get found out, you lose. If you don't do it and shit, don't go the same, you lose. Yep. Yeah. And my biggest problem in that scenario is you're still in a spot where you don't have the fan base that you require for where you are and the energy spent on bots takes away from the energy that can be spent on finding out the right solution. And I know we don't think that, right? I feel like we could do all these different things but there's that switching cost and that lack of creativity that gets taken away because you know you have your out, right? We gonna have these bots versus forcing ourselves to maybe figure out how we can flip the narrative and maybe just come out with the fact that it's not like where we want it to be. I'm not saying to do that. Like that's not a straight advice. I'm just saying a different angle, right? Or we need to run 10 more shows than we usually would and really tour the hell out of the country or we need to figure out how to get our artists in these different positions in collabs or get them in these YouTuber videos or whatever, right? It keeps you from being creative or limit some of your creativity when you have bots a part of it. Again, this still me not saying don't do them at all but that's why sometimes I even like especially when it comes to creative stuff. I like to have someone's fully focused on that. It's like, all right, maybe I got to work on these two things or you got to work on these two things but then we have one person who's the eyebrow, all you need to do is be focused on how can we creatively solve this problem. Right and you run the risk again and lost in the sauce. Lost in the sauce. That's what I'm saying. You have to have somebody who's dedicated to working on the real thing only and that's their only focus. Because if you have that and you got to hold them to that standard. It's like, yeah, I know I'm doing what I'm doing bro but I'm not supposed to be still doing this. You got to find a way up out of this thing to get us out of this game. I'm just fighting off some of these villains but we got to open the fucking door to get out of this building. So there's that, another scenario which is why this bad thing isn't gonna go away and it's not about y'all. Fans are so self centered bro. It's not even always about y'all. They're not trying to fool you at all times. Sometimes they're trying to fool other industry people. That's the biggest one. It's like, no bro, I need my label to see these numbers. So if you're a real fan, you would actually support me getting these bots because if I get this amount of streams, my label's gonna give me the rest of this budget and now I can do some more marketing. Like sometimes it's about shit like that. I got to hit milestones. I got to unlock the rest of my budget and I can't unless I hit this number in a specific period of time or I'm trying to get on like a Grammy or improve my case for something or corporate appeal. So it's not even industry, but I'm just trying to make sure that I have this amount of streams. So then when I talk to this guy who doesn't know shit about the industry and music and doesn't understand my fan base, if I can at least compare my streams and explain myself using some artists that he knows, I can say, oh yeah, well here's an idea. I remember talking to a guy about black, right? Matter of fact, we had a client that was biggest fuck themselves or whatever that he knew because he was older, he knew Macy. Oh, okay. So Macy Gray and he knew her because he was, he was in his 40s, but he wasn't a super music head, like not at all, not even close. And but he knew Macy because Macy was Macy back in that day and he was younger than two. And then I was taught telling him about black. It was just a conversation or whatever. And I was like, oh, I saw black say that he was interested in crypto or something like that or figuring out the NFT or metaverse space in his own way. And he was like, who's that? Well, I was like, black streaming-wise is bigger. I had to use that type of a comparison so he could understand how like significant he was. Now granted, Macy's streaming numbers, again, her real numbers are pre-streaming ever existed. But still, him not knowing much, I knew that that would do the job, right? So sometimes it's shit like that, that these conversations are happening for. And I got to tweak my streaming for that type of stuff. It's so many scenarios and fans always think it's them over trying to fool them or increase her. It's not about y'all all the time, like just to keep it real. So maybe you should find out why. Hey, maybe some of the artists we put on y'all, like, hey, educate y'all fans like, hey bro, we about to do these streaming things. Now if you don't want me to have to do these streaming bots, you need to stream my shit three more times. Or a matter of fact, we're gonna do it both because this is our goal. I need y'all to help me get there. We gonna buy it, we gonna triple play it and y'all only play 30 seconds of it, but you're gonna do that shit. Like maybe it's something like that, right? It'll be funny if an artist did something like that. But the bot situation is far more complex than people actually give it credit for, which is why we ain't out here like, ooh, so I got bots. Like we exposing them. We about to do that in the title because y'all motherfuckers only click on shit like that, but that just is what it is. Yeah, Brian, I think you said something important earlier too about like wearing the artist's journey to do it, right? And so I think what artists have to understand is that the bigger you start to become, it becomes more of a battle of perception than real fan-based building, right? So like someone like Uzi, Uzi isn't trying to make new fans, you know what I'm saying? Like probably 80 to 90% of rap fans knows who he is or know who he is. Now he's playing a game of perception. You know I exist. Let me, while you were with these numbers, so if you didn't go check me out because of whatever reason, now you want to kind of fall in line, right? Building a sheet mentality. Like that's the bandwagon effect, right? Like music, snowballs, the more you can make people feel like they're missing out because it looks like other people are enjoying this, the more people want to join in on it. So there's that aspect of it. And you know, going back to the beginner artists, like the boss don't make sense to you because nobody cares about your perception, like, you know? And so it's like, who are you bragging to? There's no real people that you're bragging to these things about. But the other thing I was gonna say too is that but at this point, numbers and even the bot conversation to a degree are all a part of the market rollout. You know what I'm saying? So like I said, those milestones, hey, we need to hit 10 million views by this date because the day after that we want to put a marketing budget or some PR around the narrative that XR has hit 10 million views in two weeks. There was like, I think it was like, one of those videos you seen, the Blackie speaks to the Bob Lam video, he talked about six nine was doing it, right? Like six nine, well, it wasn't with boss. He was talking about with YouTube ads, but still it falls in the same conversation. He needed to run these numbers up within a certain timeframe. So the narrative could be, hey, I ran these numbers up in this timeframe, right? Oh, I got 10 million views in 24 hours. Yeah, I had a hundred million streams in a week, right? Like that becomes a part of the marketing. And sometimes I think now even the bot conversation is a part of the marketing because the only genre that really, the only genre of fans that really seem to care about botting is rap fans. If you pay attention to that, when the conversation about bots, Justin Bieber, for example, it was a conversation about bots around, maybe not the last time, but one of it, but those of his fans are not give a fuck, bro. They do not care. When the conversation about bots comes up around rap artists, bro, the whole community loses a shit. Bro, hip hop fans are the most critical. Most fickle. Most fickle, the financial potential is more limited in a lot of ways. Hip hop is a tougher genre. 100%. It's tougher genres, not just because of all the business of it, but literally the fans themselves. I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, it's like, I can't even cheat like the other artists because y'all won't let me get away with it like their fans are letting me get away with it. You know what I'm saying? Like Justin Bieber out here, there was one point where I remember me and my homie Sam, we were looking at, because he had brought it to me. He was like, bro, look at Justin Bieber's top streaming cities. And there was one country, I can't remember what country it was. I remember it was like Jakarta or something. Something like a small country. And it was like Justin Bieber streams from that country with equivalents. Like every person in that country streams like a hundred times or a thousand times or something. Like every person in the country is like, nobody's batting the eye, bro. You know what I'm saying? Nobody's batting the eye. Don Tolberg is six smiley faces in a row. That shit news by the end of the day. Yo, bro, it's crazy, man. Because hip hop has, there's no other genre I think that has the level of demand for brand music to life congruency that hip hop has. That type of authenticity. It has to be, you have to represent what you actually talk about in that way. Everybody else gets to be an artist. And that's kind of part of the difficulty of this whole situation where they're like, yo, let our protect hip hop and black music. When they're saying, you know, you don't use this shit in our court case. I think that's a tougher conversation than meaning want to actually acknowledge. But like that wouldn't be so if we didn't demand so much authenticity or people to speak in certain ways. So yeah, like hip hop definitely has a tough and kind of like how you mentioned sort of the Babylon video. He talked about, what was the thing he said? He said if artists knew, they would stop. That was one thing he was like, I wonder if Don Toler knows. And I fucked with, first of all, I only discovered them recently, you know, like maybe like the last week or whatever. So I fucked with your videos, but I'm Babylon for real. But if you want artists to win, I mean, if artists knew, right, they would, do you agree with that? Let me just, let me see that. It depends on the caliber of artists. Like there's a certain subsection of artists I think would care. We work with artists that care, you know what I'm saying? They're super anal about, you know, it's the box. You know what I'm saying? Is this what's going on? No, it's not. Look at the numbers, right? What level do those artists tend to be at? If we're considered 10 to be, let's say top of the mainstream, Drake, let's say eight B bottom of mainstream, I don't know, Givian or something. I think artists between a one and five really care about it. Exactly. And that's when you should care about it anyway. Cause you're trying to build something real. Yeah, exactly. Like earlier it's like the focus of that stage should be about real fan engagement and making sure that there are people that if you do decide to stack fake engagement on top of it, there are real people vouching for you. Exactly. That's what it is, it becomes your defense mechanism. It's that insurance. It's kind of your fate. Real people going to show up to shows, you actually can make your money, that's cool. Real people make the fakes of believable. You know what I'm saying? When there's a fan in the comments and I, he didn't buy streams, I listened to this shit a hundred times a day. That makes someone that doesn't really understand the situation and go like, well, maybe this isn't bullshit, right? Or like you said, if the conversational line is, yo, Don Toliver bought all his views on this video and then the next day Don Tolver posted a video of a sold out show when you can see real people in the crowd, it completely changed the narrative. It makes it either less believable to people who aren't really paying attention to it at the end anyway or people go like the Travis Scott video, right? Like you can go to that video and look at the comments. What are people saying? Hey, it doesn't matter because he's selling out shows, he's selling merch, he makes great music. Those are the things that artists have to always remember, bro. Fans care when that shit is trash or it doesn't look like it's providing any real world benefits. Because at that point it's like, why are you doing this? This shit clearly isn't working for you. When all of the other dots connect, nobody cares. That's why nobody complains about Justin Bieber doing it. He was a great artist, you know what I'm saying? It's like, I don't care. Bought it up, bro. Just keep putting out good music, right? Same with Uzi. People saying, oh, like the I Wanna Rock song. That shit's a hit. Nobody cares because everybody likes the song, you know what I'm saying? People only care when the other elements of the artistry are subpar to trash. If everything else- I feel like you're trying to trick them over that. Into locking it, yeah, exactly. Even if you always trying to trick them, that's just this entertainment business. Entertainment, the show business, that show, not the in front of the curtain is all tricks. Lights, camera, action, effect, but people don't wanna feel it. Yeah, yeah, bro. It's like, for whatever reason, we just wanna see it. We don't wanna feel like we're a part of whatever you're doing to kind of drive us out. We just wanna see the end results of it. Meet you at the finish line type of thing. Lie to me, but don't let me know that you lie to me. Keep a secret. Put your phone on D&D. So that just becomes like the weird conversation around the whole bot thing. Or at least to me, it's more of a conversation of who is allowed to get away with it. Yeah. And like I said, you between a one and a five, you are not allowed to get away with it. Don't even attempt to get away with it because people like us are gonna find out. At this point, bro, it's not a hard spot, boss. Especially the smaller you are, the easier it is to tell if you're using boss or some type of artificial inflation tool, software thing, right? And then, like you said, shows are the great equalizer, but if I pull up, I remember going to this one event, this had to be pre-pandemic. It was for artists that had just got signed to a label. And they were like a new signing. You know how like labels that have the whole like, yo, come on, watch my artist perform and all the industry people come out, but it was supposed to be like a mixed bag one. So it was going to be industry thing. And then like fan fans were supposed to be allowed. I remember the artist at the time, like two, three million streams, I mean monthly listeners, couple million streams, pull up to the show, nothing but industry people, no real fans. First I thought it was an industry thing. And like somebody was like, no, it's like a couple of fans are here, like you started sending people a couple, maybe like four or five people at the stage, fucking with them and shit, but nothing real came from it, bro. And it's like, yo, that artist is at a stage where, because now I'm in the venue, going back and looking up the numbers. I mean, is this right? You know what I'm saying? You're gonna look at her Spotify again. Nope, they're right there. 2.3 million monthly listeners down there on the Instagram, 400K, whatever it was. Now marketing brand kicks in. And I'm like, no, I need to do some deep dive for this shit gotta be fake. Start going through my resources and tool bags to figure that out. Start sending fake followers, start seeing certain playlists on it. And I remember walking into my friend that invited me to it. And I was like, bro, they already fucking up. This artist ain't even in the game long. They're already fucking up. She's like, what you mean? Like fake, fake, fake, fake. 30 people here and 28 of them are industry people. Oh, and those other two are probably plus ones. Yeah, yeah. And even to Atlantic Records Defense, I wonder if that bottom, they're smaller artists the same way they're bottom. Cause I mean, the headlines are to come up with Uzi, the entire of it, right? Artist's way it will be believable for people that don't care that much. Planting the game. Are they botting up the artists that they just signed last week? Hopefully not. They smart, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But probably. Hey, well, there was another take that I wanted to just though, Bobby Lam had talked about the YouTube ads, right? And how it's more believable to do that on YouTube. It is easier to do that on YouTube because like he mentioned, all right? We've seen people do. You can get those streams pretty easily by throwing some money behind it. And then you get the comments. You're actually making those streams more believable. That's the funny thing about it, right? If you just run ads, people don't believe it because it looks fake to people which artists complain about all the time. Like early on, especially when we first started running YouTube ads was like, oh man, they're apportioned. They don't, they look off out of whack. So then you get some fake comments. It actually looks more believable, funny enough. It's just that these fake comments are just so violating the bag. That's the issue. Man, y'all didn't do anything to labels but make them say, hey, bro, we gotta get better tech. Like to do it better. It's not gonna stop the training. Y'all start going to Fiverr for our box. Hey, exactly. Find us a sweatshop somewhere and people to just comment for real which there is a site. I remember, I was trying to remember it before the pod. So, but no, there is a site out there that you can actually get real people to make comments. Yeah, you can pay them like a couple of cents. Yeah, I can't think of that. It's in my notes somewhere. I figured out and you'll bring it up on another episode or something. But, because we've been able to at least defend ourselves against the YouTube thing by breaking down the numbers of what it looks like for YouTube engagement for ads, right, normal engagement, viral engagement. And I know like, well, us, typically, we use like the view ratio to tell right. So, the formula divide the likes by the amount of views you got, whatever their percentage is that you like to view engagement. So what we would always see is like, if it's between one and 3%, they're probably running ads on it. Yep. It's between like, let's say they're four to like 7%, that's about typical engagement for someone that's not marketing their music whatsoever. Like 10% of hires, like that's just going viral or always having some type of a moment whether because of the marketing or something else that's kind of happening outside of it. Right. So, looking at Don Talbersville, if you go do the math on his, he's at like 1.3%. So, probably running YouTube ads. They're just buying the comments pretty much, right? Like you said, to keep up with the perception that it's coming from this ad. Yeah, it's going to look crazy that you got 10 million views and 4,000 comments. We know it's real. Yeah. You know it's real. Right, because Don Talbersville at this level probably understands that type of stuff to some degree. I would think, you know. So, you know it's real. I know it's real. Everybody that works in the industry probably has an idea of where it's coming from and knows it's real. They don't know who doesn't know shit about that shit. The fucking fans, bro. They don't know shit, bro. The fans don't know shit, bro. And they're going to look at you and go like, damn, Don Talbersville got 10 million views and 4,000 comments. This motherfucker falling off. Yeah. Fuck him. Now I'm going to listen to Yeet, you know what I'm saying? Like, because Yeet and shit, it's real. And it's whatever, bro. And it's like, like we say at that level, perception and narratives are more dangerous than almost anything, bro. Like once that snowball gets going, bro, it's a hard thing to stop. You know what I'm saying? Try to get behind and stop. So I was like, label's looking like, hey, before we even give fans the chance, you're going to bother this shit up, you know what I'm saying? And I think Don Talbersville is probably in rollout mode, bro. So they definitely don't want that narrative going out. Uzi's in, you know what I'm saying? I got a hit movie mode, right? Made sense. Roddy Rich just dropped the album. I mean, the album release mode, right? Post release mode, right? So they're doing it in situations where I could understand why they're doing it. You know what I'm saying? Like if it was just like some random one-off release from any of them, you know what I'm saying? It's like, why not just see what a marketplace is there for them right now? But they're all in position to push things like Elise, other bigger things or it's big for them. So I get it, you know what I'm saying? Like we have to protect the narrative around the artists. We have to protect their reputation to their fan base who are, like you said, already fickle as fuck. And fickle, don't understand shit and love to push a negative narrative. That's the sad thing about the rap fan base, you know what I'm saying? That's their bread and butter. Why would I put my investment through that? You wouldn't. Cause you gotta protect the investment, man. No way in hell, man. So that's, that actually makes me think about one thing Blackie speaks at, shout out to Blackie. You know, you my guy. He said, if you want your artists to win, you wouldn't engage in those fraudulent tactics or any fraudulent tactics. And to that I have to say, it depends on what you mean by fraudulent, you know what I mean? Cause there's a perception difference between somebody who's like a fan and somebody who's actually in the industry moving and they understand all the pieces. I don't know. Do you remember, it wasn't the flake gate. What was the spy gate? You remember spy gate? So that's the New England Patriots. There was this big thing that, yeah, they were recording people's signals and figuring out what the play was about to be called, right? So people came down on them real hard, really ruined the reputation of them. And people always, whenever they win, like to point to some potential cheating because of it, right? But Tony Dungey, known around the NFL as like, the sweetest guy, a coach, but never like race his voice. You know, like in football, like that's what sports will be cursing and a super Christian never raising his voice, got a championship, paid a man in. He even came out and said, look, man, everybody doing something, they just got caught, right? Everybody doing something, they just got caught. And some people will say, like, if you don't bend the rules, you don't want to win, right? Now, and that's just the reality of the game and music. Now again, what do you mean by bending the rules? Who is going too far? Are we bending or are we breaking? Right? Yeah, we grew up hearing no break the rules. But if you bend in them, you probably win it. You know what I mean? Like, cause that's when we look back at all the merchant fans, everybody's very aware of the merch game and how people have created bundles and use. Look, that actually is a rule. And I'm actually using the rules. I'm bending the perception of it because it was meant to state one thing, but, hey, part of the interpretation says I could do that. Why not do that if it's gonna put me in a better position? So, you know, I think it's a lot grarer than people give credit for it. And when it comes to the reality of how artists have to move to win. But, but yeah, you know, look, quote unquote, fraudulent tactics or tricky, clever tactics is just a part of what it takes, especially at that level in particular. Yeah, what did a sucker used to call it? Black hat marketing, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Black hat marketing? Yeah, it's like, like, to go back to it's like, we're not for or against it. We don't do stuff like that, you know what I'm saying? All of our, we don't use blocks. By the way, why does the bad should always have to be black, you know what I'm saying? No, I feel it. I feel it, bro. Why gotta be a black hat? Black hacker, he got it from hacking, right? Okay, okay. Black hat and white hat. And the white hat are the good hackers. I don't know why we all go, you're a bad shit, you know what I'm saying? All right. So, I don't know the conversation. But it's like, you know, we don't do it. I know marketers that do. Metmarkers, that's a part of that thing, you know what I'm saying? We don't do it because it goes against our philosophy. It's not a part of what we wanna fit into the artist building infrastructure, right? Cause we're usually more focused on zero to sevens, you know what I'm saying? So zero to sevens is like, no, we're not doing that shit. You gonna fuck me up, you know what I'm saying? I'm doing that shit. But I do understand, I do get it. Like I just, that is what always gets me about this conversation is like, you gotta understand the context of when it's being done, if it makes sense. If it didn't make sense, yeah, you're right. Like I said, if anybody from a zero to like a six, maybe seven, really zero to five or maybe six or seven did it, it'd be like, what the fuck are you doing? You know what I'm saying? Stop, you're hurting yourself for longevity. But if you're already at a 10 or nine and you know, you've been building your fan base for years and you already know you have a fan base. It might not be as massive as people think it is, but you know it's 20, 30, 50, 100,000 people out there that fuck with you. Like I said, now it becomes a battle of perception. You were more than likely not playing the game of new fans. You were playing the game of perception. Hell yeah. And that brings me to Bobby Lam also said, is it profitable to use bots? All right. You're doing all of these fake streams. Are you actually gonna get the return of your money? Because I paid $2,000 for bots to get 200,000 streams. That 200,000 streams ain't gonna give me $2,000. Yeah. All right. Is it profitable to use bots as a music artist? Maybe. If you ask him that question, you should not be using bots. That's what I say to that. All right. Because it's not about that direct ROI at all. You're not looking to get your money back from streams. And you're looking, we talk about the brand perception. All right. And that flip, oh, it might get me this 50K commercial. It might get me this 100K commercial. There's all these other things that bots are used for and the people who are using bots at the level that are supposed to be using bots, they're not trying to make stream return from their bots. It just doesn't, that's not the game. Now, are there windows of opportunity where you can profitably use bots at the beginning or at least use bots in a way that makes sense at the beginning of your career? There's spaces and places, but those are rare. It's not a general advice that we would give to anybody. Yeah, nobody. Yeah. Yeah. Right. If I see it, if I log in your R's for Spotify, not happening though. It's my turn to blind off. As long as you ain't tripping on me about it. Cause I do think about that one R as we had, like a long time ago. The one that we about to fire that be this to it. You know what I'm saying? But like, for those of you out listening, we had this R as we were working with, and they were faking the hell out of his streams, but it was crazy, like there was one day where I remember they forgot to, I guess they forgot to read up on whatever they read up on. That shit just tank and then just shot back up like two days later, right? And I was remembering the conversation. I'm like, yeah, like why isn't this moving like this? We're an artist that's doing 20,000 streams a day. And it's like, did you forget who you were talking to? No, you're not. We see the numbers, brother. And that goes back to what I was saying about not getting lost in the sauce of the bot traffic, which is why I also think smart shouldn't do it. Not even because they're not playing the game. Well, I think if you're probably like a three to five, you're starting to get into playing the game of perception. Right? Like zero to two, not nobody cares. Three to five people starting to care. It's not even about that part. It's more about you start to believe the bot traffic too much, but you start talking to me crazy because you're getting 50,000 streams a day forgetting that you just paid them a fucker for 40,000 of them. You know what I'm saying? Couple of days ago, it was like, hey man. So that campaign taught me a lot. When he said that shit, well, whoever said that said that, bro, I was like, nah, they fucking with me right now. This ain't real, this ain't a real conversation. Yeah, they don't believe this. Yeah, and it sucks because I liked this PR lady. She was so and she was well connected, actually managed a legit artist on one end who was like a legend in his niche, but at the same time, when people get in the box, man, they they they get lost in the sauce so much. They, like you said, they they forget the position that they're talking from. It's like, I told you that we are going to have to build some real stuff. We only do the real stuff. We don't do the bots, right? And if we did bots, we would let you know this is what we're doing. There's a real business in that. Like it's not like a look at some point, I'm not even saying I'm going to never create a bot for myself. You know what I mean? Like we might do that, but then the clients would just know that. Yeah, I struggle with it every year. Yeah, I know you do because you'd be like you'd be bringing it up. So it's just about manage expectations. Hey, we're working on the real stuff right now. That's this is what it looks like and this is the expectations that should come with it. If we're doing the bot things, we will be doing bots with the clients who understand that game and that I wouldn't be doing bots with artists who's working ground up and now they're going to be like, man, what happened? No, we're very clear expectations. You know what this bot thing does? And we got you so you can hit your numbers bet. We don't do bots. So don't expect that shit to pop cool bet, right? There's two separate conversations. So people get lost in where they are in that equation at the time. And then the part that I hate is when they look at the people who are giving them bots as people who are doing a better job. That's what will get me is I'm going to go back to them because when I was with him, my numbers were popping. We got 50,000 streams before it all. Yeah, but don't bring them expectations. Over here, you know that we're doing something different. So that is what it is. That was definitely our greatest situation like that. Like that. That should have taught me a lot. There was some other faux pas that happened in that window. So it broke even. I think something we never talked about in the podcast but I think everyone should look into. I don't remember the guy's name, but there was a guy, I think it was during the pandemic that got caught up for having the streaming form. And my deal board made a whole deal about it. His business started booming like fuck after that, bro. Also it was a learning moment for me because that was back when I was learning, oh, that's a bad, you know what I'm saying? I know you're good, right? But that taught me so much. I was like, oh, he probably lost, let's say 60, 70% of maybe his small artists, people that were thinking about it. He probably wasn't going for anywhere, right? Every industry artist that was looking for that. Oh, for real? He has an infrastructure to do this. He's doing it for this artist and this all. Yeah, let me get in on that. That makes me think, bro. Like if you got bots and you're doing bots and you're wasting your time just scamming young, like upcoming artists, you think you're scamming these upcoming artists, you are scamming yourself because there is real money for people who do bots. It's one thing. So this is how the person who is like, hey, I'm in scamming mentality, I'm just gonna have bots. This is how your life should be set up if you are just trying to maximize all sides of it. I go out for the industry. I have this front in presence though. So I might get some inbound business and requests from artists who are on to come up who really probably shouldn't be doing bots. And I take that business because it comes to me. But I'm not out here heavily trying to go at that audience, I don't even care about the audience. Really, I'm trying to go to the industry because that's where the real money is and I can build the relationships and I can deliver every single time. You know, my whole thing and struggle that comes from certain types of marketing is just like, you can't guarantee it, right? Any real marketing, you can not guarantee in music. But bots, I can guarantee you these strings and that's my favorite type of product. Oh, I just gotta push the button, 100% customer cat satisfaction every time. So if you got a bot farm, man, you are wasting. If you are just hitting up these young kids who don't know any better, go get the real money and then let some of those other, people wanna come up, come in as they may. Yeah, by the time they wake up today, expecting to get a consultative business advice for bot farm, they're saying that ain't on the internet, right? No, I don't think anyone's ever talked about it from that perspective. How to do a bot farm? Yeah, bro. Well, not how to do it. How to do it smart, I think. Oh, how to do it, how to do it smart. How to pick your target audience for your product. Yeah. Cause, yeah, man, that just be the biggest and I think people can take with them and be like, once you hit a certain level, everybody doing it, so it only becomes shocking until you hit that point. I've had conversations with people before where like, like I said, back in 2020, 2019, early market, Coery, I was very against bots, you know what I'm saying? Cause I didn't understand the way it fit in the funnel. And I always remember this conversation I had with this pretty successful label owner. I don't wanna say his name, but it's pretty successful label owner here. And he's asking me about doing like playlisting for one of the artists. I'm talking about how like, yeah, we don't believe in it because it's bots in there and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And I could hear in his voice that he did not give a fuck. Like, yo, all this, you know, holler than dial, you know what I'm saying? I'm for the people and for the real bullshit. We not looking for that, bro. We looking, we looking for this other shit. Do you have this other shit or not? No, we don't. All right, well, we're not working with y'all. Damn. You know what I'm saying? What you're telling me is you can't give me the guarantee that I need. Exactly, exactly. So you say, if I give you this, you don't know what's gonna happen. No, no, I don't fuck with that. But I already got a real fans. I don't need real fans. I need bots, bro. I need numbers, not people. I need numbers, nigga. Like, that's what it is. That's exactly what it is, man. So look, yeah, we're probably gonna have to do a bot farm one day, man. Didn't just tell y'all about it. I've been wanting to do that, bro. I want to do a YouTube video where we started a bot farming document the whole process. That shit will probably go. Well, look, I'm talking about like do it, do it. Oh yeah, no, I understand. Hey, we got a bot farm. This is what we do. We ain't gonna tell you about any of our clients this shit. That part is ironclad. Y'all wouldn't know about none of the clients. But, oh yeah, we got them. All of those clients are super confident. We don't even brag about them on the case studies. Don't even brag about them. You don't even see case studies. You don't even see any remote connection to it. Because again, this is the reality. And it's the funniest thing about, you know what I said, just how people think from their own perspective. It's like, oh man, exposing the spot farm, right? And it's like, no, that's marketing for the people who actually want it. You know what I mean? Like that's marketing. You think, oh man, good for them. They got taken down. It's like, now I'm glad they're being exposed. No, not being exposed. They're being exposed to the people who are right for them. That's what was happening. It's not an expose like you think. And honestly, this always, I say this again and again, artists. A lot of times, when I talk about the scamming people that are like that, that's one thing, right? And who don't have their business set up in the right way. A lot of times y'all will make comments about people's business. And it'll only, the only thing it does is and identify you as somebody who's not qualified for that business. It's like when I've seen comments for people be like, oh man, you know, these people are too expensive. You know, we've had that comment about our stuff before. Like, oh, that shit costs 3K or whatever or 1500 or whatever. Like they'll just thought whatever number we were at the time. And then they'll think they'll be warning other people. It's like, well, you've never done business with us. And based on your comment, you don't have the money which means you are not a customer. So I'm glad that our funnel did exactly what it's supposed to do. Like we built the funnel to repel people like you. And you know, price is one thing. But there's so many parts of the funnel and so many aspects that you build out to repel the people. So a lot of times, look, I'm on the internet and something don't hit. I'm like, hey, it must not be for me. I'm not like judging and saying, you know, it's one thing for between a clear scam and a, you know, I'm not the customer. Yeah. I'm like, oh shit. That car costs that much money or that. You know, like these people are paying $20 for a bottle of water. It's like, hey, maybe it's not for me. You know what I mean? People are buying and they successful. Somebody keeping his ad running. Somebody keeping his ad running and it keeps running. It keeps running. So that money must be coming in. So, you know, and I think that from a market standpoint, especially you kind of have to think like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like just see beyond yourself. That's why I love about it actually. And if you're bad at marketing, you probably can't see beyond yourself. Yeah. The best you can do in a marketing aspect, if you are like completely self-centered and can't be aware of these smaller elements is self-promotion. Like if you're someone who can like talk and like just like that self-promotion, you can be really good at that without understanding marketing for real, for real. Yeah. All right? But that's about it. You can't, especially if you have to do it for somebody else, right? You're not gonna be able to connect those dots the same. Yeah. And everybody doesn't have your own talent and that way of doing things. But yeah, man, I think you're right. I don't think no one expected to buy from Concentration. I definitely expect to go that direction. But there it was and here we are. I think we know we got these meetings today. So let's go ahead and end it out right here. Tuesdays, Thursdays, no labels necessary. We here, if you haven't liked it, if you haven't commented yet, please like and comment under the video. Show us the love. Subscribe if you haven't subscribed. Every bit of it helps and that's gonna keep us doing it. You don't want us to stop. Keep on subscribing and liking and commenting. With that said, this is, oh actually, I reversed it. I'm shy. I don't cover it. And we out. This is no labels necessary. Peace.