 What's up everybody, it's Brandon Shawn and this video is brought to you by Brandon at word.com because I signed myself. Now I have a very special guest for you guys today. He is a rapper and this rapper actually also works at Facebook so trust me he has some interesting things to say just in general but in this interview man I had the pleasure of meeting him at a trapezobrunch over A3C weekend and there's so many interesting conversations at that table and he was just one of the amazing people that had some really cool thoughts and insights that I think would be interesting for you guys to hear from an artist's perspective from somebody who might be working a regular job perspective and look everything in between. So let's get into it man Ace, what is up? I'm happy to hear. Appreciate you. Nice verse man, I appreciate you having me on, this is exciting. For sure, for sure man, I guess you gotta start here, right? How long have you been rapping? So many people are always wondering like how long has someone been rapping? Word, you could say that I've been rapping ever since I was three years old. I come from a family, yeah I come from a family like, you know what I mean like we thought we was gonna be like the Jackson 5 growing up, my mom had us going boys to men dances and singing, Whitney Houston notes and all that so you know between my mom, my sister, my little brother we was always writing and you know creating poems and our own songs or all that kind of stuff so I've always been in that, shout out to Dr. Seuss, teaching me my first rhymes, we just been going from there I would say like officially as an artist so I've had two stints right, I'm 15 years old I think I'm gonna do this as like my full time but didn't really have, it was just the skill that wasn't necessarily the mindset and then you know now as call me ace I've been that since 2016 just like going in right after graduating business school and just been focusing on it from a completely different perspective than when I was a high school kid from Brishwood Connecticut. Got you. All right so tell me what's the biggest difference? You talked about skill set versus mentality what was the biggest difference in a shift that you felt like you had to make when it became you know I want to pursue this as a career. Yeah definitely I would say the three biggest differences for sure you know again just the mentality I have a music business mindset as opposed to I'm just going to be creating music throwing stuff out there and you know seeing that that's definitely been number one, number two I would say just personally so whether it's just you know my faith growing in my faith in Jesus getting married you know having a full-time job yeah you know what I mean like seeing you know me and my wife combined have seen uh over 50 countries and 100 international cities being able to speak multiple languages whereas when I was 15 I was just a little kid from the hood right that that's number two and then number three my rap name man I had a completely different rap name back then we weren't even talking about it. I was going to say you know I was going to ask. My first my first rap name uh was Young Ace but then it became some else and now it's called me Ace it's almost like a full circle. You went off-pad you had some years. Yeah listen I went way off that. The prodigal son had to come back. Yeah yeah shout out to Jesus. All right all right so tell me this then man um like what when you say like music business mindset I thought that was interesting that you noted that what did that look like to you and well actually more specifically what did you observe in the game where you felt like you know this artist is failing right or or this artist or these artists aren't being successful because of that and I'm not trying to go that path. Yeah yeah yeah yeah I would say so you know. All right quick time technical difficulty but yeah what were the things that you analyzed? Yeah definitely so you know just going to taking a step back so I went to Columbia University uh got my bachelor's there uh while I went there in New York first of all I went to school because there wasn't really like that's just what I was told to do um I was the first one to uh my older sister and and me first one was to go to college first generation college students first generation Jamaican Americans I went to school didn't really know what I was going to do I thought I was going to do economics because you know be a business person whatever got a straight D in economics so I was like all right not going to go that route I'm a go complete social sciences so ended up in anthropology which was dope because I got to write my entire way uh through those classes but while I travel so much no I actually didn't do a lot of I mean I went to I mean I went back home to Jamaica and then I also went to Spain but not not like crazy traveling but that's where I actually um I created the Columbia University Society of Hip Hop aka Cush uh because that's just who it was um and you know in that process of you know just growing my craft and performing for my my classmates etc um growing our our fan base if you will we have the opportunity to open up for Snoop Dogg while he came out at Columbia and around that time is when I was like I'm gonna stop rapping I don't want to rap anymore I don't like what I'm rapping about I don't like the path that this is going etc etc so I stopped rapping for like four years and I went to business school with a mindset of like yo I'm just living a completely different life I'm about to just get a job get married do the whatever is normal thing uh and I went to go study a bar in Barcelona as I'm studying abroad I'm you know exploring all this is where I start traveling I you know I'm out in Geneva I'm out in you know Italy I'm speaking Spanish in Madrid all these different things I come back home my old homie from from way back when longtime friend is like yo do you know how to rap anymore I'm like yeah I guess but like that's not my that's not my focus you know I mean I got one more semester before I graduate business so I went to UC Berkeley Haas um out in uh California which I think is still the top 10 uh business school program in the country which is Doe shout out to Haas but you know I'm like nah that's that's not even in my purview even though I know how to do it and he's basically just convincing me because I'm telling him yo I'm about to get married I'm about to have a full-time job I'm about to have the healthcare plan I'm about to make like real money like I didn't have money in college like I was eating ramen noodles and wonton soup in college you know like I money wasn't doing that or you know music wasn't doing anything for me right um and it was just like yo everything sounds the same but as I was telling him all these different things he was like yo those are all the more reasons to rap because you would actually then bring a unique voice and you'd be something different you'd be able to stand out differently you would actually be more relatable to kind of like the common people that aren't you know just out there trying to chase a dream because people chase dreams in different ways sounds like iPhone whatever and so as I'm finishing my last semester of business school for me I started thinking about okay well if this is a product right if music is a product if me as a brand is a product then how do I create this you know how do I put this together what does it mean to be a musician in 2016 when I'm out here in the Bay Area and you know it's it's not like I'm at UCLA I'm not at USC and so I start thinking about this from the mindset of entrepreneurship just like my friends that are you know learning how to pitch to vcs and create a product and all these different things I'm like okay well then let me think about it from that mindset so that's when I started reading up on a lot of these books and getting into those resources to think about it from the perspective of a business I already knew I could rap that was like a non-issue I wasn't trying to learn how to make that it was like yo how do I like did you read ah man I got I got a bookshelf right here let me see if my poor little eyes can what's actually dope is that I've had these books for quite some time I just never really understood them as a kid and now I actually understand them but it's like uh how to be your own booking agent um guerrilla marketing 101 the truth about the the music business music business 101 this like really large anthology about like music loss uh concert and promotion the artist management these are like billboard books let me see hip hop wars you know I mean how to be your own booking agent what do you think about that book I haven't read that book man I I love that book that actually it the reason why I've been able to like book my own shows and get to the point where like I'm headlining my own shows is largely because of that book it you know at the end of the day and this is something that I definitely took away from a lot of the books that I read is that all of this is doable if you just put it in the work and be willing to and be willing to put in the work yeah exactly you don't need to have like the shiny stuff most people don't want to see where reality is because there's a lot of artists that are making this image and doing all these things to to fluff it and then you're trying to chase what these other people are doing and you can't figure out how you get there so you start to cheat the game not realizing you're actually doing what they did because they were cheating the game in the first place and it becomes a cycle what you're just saying yes no hard numbers every everything you just said is exactly what I've been fighting against for the past few years because that mentality of like let me try to be like them and da da da da I know if I have to cheat my way I'm a cheat my way that was that was the younger me that was the pre-business school me that was you know whatever and you know given you know those things that I talked about that's like gotten me to where I am it's like look yo like I'm doing this because I desire to I'm doing this because I have the desire to create a business but like I could also stop doing this and from a financial perspective be very fine right so like I'm not doing this to look like I have something that I don't I'm doing this because you know I believe I have a a viable product that I've been able to prove year after year after year people want this and I've been growing it in my own way and sure it takes time but I'm willing to understand how to run this business in a way where eventually it will scale and that you know that curve we those that understand like a scaling curve is like all right there will be a point where like it will become unmanageable I'm kind of you know I'm kind of like at the cusp but right now it's like okay what is manageable for me to do and understanding those behind the same things actually makes what you see on the surface a lot more palatable you know so I totally hear you it's like you know when you learn that and I'm thankful that I you know I took marketing classes I took operations like I work in marketing operations I do strategy I used to be a consultant at a top four consulting firm like I've worked with Fortune 500 companies all of that stuff so I see how they run business so why do I think that just because I have a talent you know I should just chase cloud and like hope like there'll be some type of infrastructure that's not how it works people hide the fact that it's supposed to be or get confused that it's all just business because of this whole mystique of creativity that we create yeah it's like no man like yeah structure has to be there you have to be to create something sustainable it has to be structure I don't care how creative the thing is you have to do great business to even create space for creativity all right so that's a bar yeah for real man like it's interesting I was just uh watching this other Byron Nala interview because I watched his breakfast club interview I don't know if you've seen it but yeah I saw that amazing bro yeah amazing so then I watched his other interview and he said talked about building his company and going about these processes and switching from being talent to business person but we're just looking at the game differently and he said um he so the first show he did was called real people right okay and apparently this is like the very first reality show right but except it wasn't you know obviously it wasn't all the bs to today right it was a different perspective yeah but he as obviously like 1970s maybe 80s or whatever being black he was being paid less than his co-workers right I think he said first year you made like 1k why his co-workers were making like 7k or something like that okay and every year he got a raise but like on the fourth year he basically demanded for that year his fourth year to at least make what everybody else made the their very first year right wow it was that much of a disparity that much of a disparity and they told him nah you're not worth it right and what he said was um because his mom was his manager as well so one he said he'll never be in a position where someone would tell him or his mom how much he's worth and he's not worth right and um and that's when he said he flipped it from being show business to business show because he said that's what the actual business really is it really is that business first and then show he's like all this creativity and things like that yeah that's that's that's great you want that but usually to start the business and get things popping and even be around long enough for things to pop you got to have business in the first place right so I thought that was interesting and it was what made me um and I just saw it so it's like fresh in my mind yeah yeah yeah thank you yeah nah I'm gonna get I'm gonna get that link from you later I definitely want to double tap into that as well that's I mean that's it I it really hit me and it and it hit me it hit me a lot harder once I started to get my hands dirty and really experience it right so being in 2016 not really understanding I mean at that time I was just recording like one off track just like getting the groove back right like greasing up the wheels I ended up meeting Shaun T who produced um uh he's a you know Bay Area super producer out here he's done a lot of stuff with like Mr. Fab and uh feeling myself by Mac Dre and things like that and so got you I was thinking like the Shaun T from the workout videos nah no all good um and so when I connected with him he was like yo he really encouraged me to like put together like our first project that we did together so that in 2016 that was my first man dude I was I was at consulting doing a merger and acquisition uh case working 100 hour weeks and I'm dropping this project and like literally leaving at 5 p.m on a Friday to set up for my release party at the door and and getting you know my wife and and my homies are at the door like man in the booth and collecting tickets selling pieces all this stuff and I have to like transform from like consultant back where like no one knew I was a rapper to like now I have to be a rapper and like literally being on the ground to be like okay this is my first experience right show it went well like I thought only 30 people was going to show up over 100 people showed up cool what worked what didn't work postmortem I you know connected with my wife what worked well all right now let's let's double up let's figure out how to do this better right and that's literally how it's been like no one I'm just now at this point where it's like yo I need a team like other people around me are saying you need a team from people that I meet you know in the industry outside of it it's just like because you I'm one of those people where it's like I'll learn how to do it myself like I have a recording studio like I said I've been making music for a while so I'll record myself I do my own artwork I'll figure out you know how to use adobe suite etc etc but there's only so there's only so long that you can wear all the hats as you continue to go and now I'm like really at that point I remember you and I were talking about that right like it there comes a point where you have to scale and the way this scale usually is um you know doubling up the the the human resources um that's really where it right and so like building those partnerships with the right people where it's like hey I need help with you know uh reaching out to uh media channels I need help with um reaching out to these venue uh these talent buyers and these venues and coordinating with their schedules four months out while I'm simultaneously working with the producer and it's like I can't produce some own stuff and we're like all these different things but you know you you appreciate it more I feel like there's no it's not easy don't and I you know I work in social media like don't don't buy your your followers because then your engagement rate is going to be trash like .001% like it's better to have a thousand followers and have a crazy engagement rate you know working for 200 300 likes than to get that same amount but you got you know hundreds of thousands of followers you don't look good yeah man most of that is ego man at the end of the day that lack of pay like lack of patience and ego those are the things that lead to people cheating the game in those particular ways but the weird thing is you know of course you can't lie to yourself so it just is what it is you know young jeezy young jeezy got that line and trapper died his life the grown man got to lie to himself to turn around and tell the same lies to his fans busy world rappers and fantasy land you know shout out to young jeezy clearly yeah well I tell people young jeezy influence me they don't understand they don't see it they don't see it they don't get they be like hey you grew up on a on like a tall live and I'm like yo I appreciate what that means and I respect tall live like entirely but like I actually like growing up like I said you know like I was a little kid from that they've changed you know you can't judge now check this out though because I like everything I'm hearing all the work you've done obviously just because of what you've done in terms of even insulting and things like that you have work at the built in right because you're used to working more than a lot of people can there's a lot of people who say they're hustling and all that stuff and they've never hit 100 that hour a week right they they've never even hit a 40 hour a week some of these people right because they're cheating so much on a regular job it just is what it is right so like I think it's interesting because where that's led you and so many people who get to this point is they actually get pushed into needing to build infrastructure to scale the team and all that stuff where there's a lot of people who are looking for that stuff too early so again before we get off this subject I want to hear you just say a few specific things for you that made you realize you need a team just like two things yeah um when I so I have I have a to-do list and it's pretty long and this is just one of them and I wake up in the morning in the midst in the midst of my job simultaneously crossing off stuff off this to-do list on a hourly basis and I'll go to sleep and my desire is for this to-do list to be shorter then it makes me feel happier it makes me feel like I've done something I've been going to sleep now and the to-do list is longer than when I started every time yeah every time you know the work you know my work is is is growing you know I'm doing well on my job shout out to that not worried about you know anything right because I'm ensuring that my stakeholders there are satisfied with the work that I'm doing there and simultaneously I'm ensuring that my stakeholders in the music era like my my fan base my supporters etc are also being satisfied that comes with a lot of different things and so the fact that I can no longer just go to sleep at 2am and be like wow I've done a lot instead I'm going to sleep at 2am like oh my god there's so much to do and I gotta wake up early and then go back to work that's number one um number two uh you know so my last my last project airplane mode that hit the billboard chart like the itunes chart and so um I'm I'm thankful I'm thankful for you know my supporters that really enabled that to happen uh because obviously I can't do that myself it's not like I'm buying a thousand copies to make that happen so uh though though some do that's that's neither in or there um but um to do that again and again to say okay I want to I have a fan base growing in let's say Atlanta okay getting a show in Atlanta and actually like building that uh presence while also doing the same thing in Dallas while also doing the same thing in this growing base in Toronto while also oh hey there's people hitting me up in Tokyo Japan saying that they you know love my music um to say okay I've done I know how to set up a show in the Bay Area now let's just do that in all these different places that's an that's an entire job that like that's literally an entire job simultaneously you know that's going to need media around that right if I if I show up in a spot I would love for local media in Atlanta to know that this guy who's performing in Atlanta you know this is who he is but to do that in all that's another literal job it's like to to to do these things it was dope in the context of like Bay Area it was dope in the context of like you know leveraging like who I know in the areas and environments that I'm in but like I can't be everywhere at the same time um and you know on top of that like more people are coming in right you have to respond to more people you have to uh you know all those different things like these are all literal jobs like to do marketing is a literal job and so while I know how to do all the different jobs to do them all successfully and the way that they need to to to be done um at scale it's just not it's not feasible not in the current situation that I have where I'm like I literally have two jobs I literally have two jobs yes hey man I get it I mean and that's a real part of the process having to give that stuff up clean yourself off some of that crack of I do it all myself you know it is it is crack you know because short term is more self-gratified but it's detrimental long-term once you get a certain threshold and you actually have to become comfortable not being the best right on your team in that area which is a weird thing when you're someone who has done a lot of things and even have the capacity to be really really great at it however you're saying I'm going to be great at this and that's a discipline right because this is my role I'm going to be a monster in this spot so I need to find somebody who has the capacity to be great in that spot and let them surpass me so I don't have to focus on that at all because if I get somebody who's not as good as me right now I'm just looking over my shoulder trying to correct him and now they're ahead of it yeah 100 percent delegation is very very tough um especially when you don't trust the people that you work with and there I you know I I know of cases where I work with people and they don't deliver anywhere close to like satisfactory um and then the question is like do I you know I've I've had an example where like you know I'm working with a videographer person falls through I'm like you know what I'm just going to put together my own music video like I've had to do that I've had to be like hey I'm going to you know this person offers to help with reaching out to media you know does a subpar job I'm like whatever I'll do it myself and you know triple up quadruple up over whatever they were able to do right like I've been in those situations but I've also been in situations where like hand something off to somebody and then they kill it they like create something that I would have never even thought to do because they they are 100 focus they're determined they're willing and so it's beautiful right and so you can't you can't let the it's like basketball you know what I mean like if you're gonna be a ball hug because you don't trust your teammates I mean at the end of the day you're just gonna exhaust yourself out right uh you have to let your other team try uh of course there's like a whole pre team process of like choosing your teammates so you would hope that the people that you've chosen you've vetted them out already but then after you've vetted them out like let them shoot the ball if they miss they miss once they make it you celebrate them making it right you if you are in a coach position you help them get better and you just play the game like you're it's not like I make every shot that I take so I should treat that same level of mercy and grace with my team members getting there instead of being like oh I'm gonna do because at the end of the day especially if you're in a a growing business like if your business is really growing um then short like celebrate the work that you've done but now that means that your responsibility is not just to grow it by yourself but to bring other people with you that also believe in your mission that believe in you because you've invested in yourself and then go back to what you were saying earlier like don't don't ask for people to invest in you too early like if you haven't even shown that you can invest in yourself and make something happen like it's a lot like you can't blame people for being like hey that looks dope I want to be a part of it it's not necessarily just because they want the shiny object although a lot of people do but it's more like hey I see Sean's commitment in what he's done what he's built for himself I want to be a part of that I want to see how I can enable that to grow even further by leveraging whatever skills and experiences that I have and bring that to the table like people get attracted to want to hire or sorry to interview for a company because they've seen what other people have done for that company already and so you have to be that person and invite that like it should be a blessing to be like hey I need more people oh but I've like proven something is dope enough that other people actually want to come so that's that's where I'm at where it's like okay let me like talk to these people and I'm like getting the team together right now it's going to be 2020 is going to be fun hey man I'm all there I'm right there with you right now man um but it takes patience right um yeah now how'd you get on the billboard charts talking through that what was the name of the project yeah what was your planning like for the release right how did you even build your fan base like I'm asking all the questions this is really a preview right stay tuned because he's going to talk about how did he build his fan base what project it was was the roll out look like right but we can bring it back to initially how did you build your fan base yeah uh my fan base so when I dropped this project it was in March 2019 and like I said I started getting back into music in 2016 so the fan base that I had was a three-year fan base it didn't didn't happen overnight and one can argue that I'm still growing I don't really believe that I'm still growing I love everybody that supports me and I believe that you know I've been building those relationships nurturing those relationships since I started um and so to even be in a position where I can say hey you know let me at least shoot for it didn't know if I was gonna make it but let me shoot the shot um but then reach out to my fan base to say hey this is what I'm shooting for this is my goal if you can help etc etc and then they did it I mean glory to god you know I'm very thankful but that so my fan base you know as far as how it's been growing um you know just constant constant one-on-one engagement I would say that's been my strongest asset for sure is um not just relying on a social media post to make you feel like you are actually engaging with your fans so is this in like the DMs this is like DMs messenger phone numbers in-person meet-ups emails like for me what I did was I started with family and friends like immediate friends first so when I started uh it was at UC Berkeley um and so you know not every not everybody that is your friend or your family member is going to like you as a rapper and you should accept that right you should accept that's just life it's okay don't don't you know cut them off and be like oh you're not family anymore that this is gonna happen uh but you start there you figure out like who is going to like you as a friend and as a rapper uh and then some might actually like you more as a rapper than a friend go figure uh but you know you start there and then and then you bridge out right so like you drop something and you ask them to share it you know you they it's just a slow build right slow grow um by the time airplane mode was set to drop it got I I was aware that it wasn't just my friends of friends that that knew who I was it was like friends of friends of friends to the point where like I didn't really have a connection necessarily with every single person that was aware of me that liked me that considered themselves a fan at the very beginning was like oh I know by hand who's my fan right um anyway so getting up to when I decide so around this time last year my unfortunate past away um and I just got into a moment of disbelief um a need to to cope and figure out how to basically go on with uh the days because I didn't want to do anything anymore um I I appreciate it um a couple months before that uh my mentor had actually timely told me to not just rap about the stuff that's good and positive you know rap about any like anything real um just to continue to grow within my like authentic uh brands and so as just a way to cope I was like okay well let me write about these thoughts that are currently in my mind the first song that I wrote was hope you hear me uh which was the within the hour that my aunt passed away and it was really just me talking to and reflecting on the life of my aunt um within those next two weeks I was just writing non-stop um the producer that I worked with j.dot he had a bunch of beats that he was sending me again just like coincidentally that just ended up being the fuel that I needed to keep writing and keep writing and then I ran out of beats and I was like send me more he sent me more I kept writing and I was like send me more to the point where he's like I don't have anymore but like I have to make new beats right now I don't have anymore um but that was just my way of coping and so by the end of October early November it was like okay well you know I have these songs what should I do with them and I uh so I read uh articles from DIY musician the CD baby blog um pretty regularly again going back to just constantly learning and staying abreast on you know music tactics marketing etc etc uh read about uh believe was uh Tai Tai Tai and Shannon Curtis um how they've hit the billboard chart and I was reading you know what did they do to do it um how did they think about it and I remember with Shannon it was something like it it only took our 250 album sales to hit like hit some part of Nielsen charts or something like that and then for for Tai he set out to do a thousand or I don't I don't remember if he said I can't remember because the exact number that he set out for but um you know the results for him how he hit the billboard chart I was like oh well if that's what they did that if that's what they did in order to do that uh me analyzing my fan base and analyzing what I was gonna go for I was like I think I could do that uh at least let me try um and so you know convince my engineer convince my producer convince my wife uh let's try it and um that's what even like put into my mind that it could be a thing by that point it was November-ish mid-November uh and I set it for March so I had about three I had this project for like three months uh and I decided to drop the reason why I chose March was because uh my mom's birthday is on March 21st and so when it dropped it would be on my mom's birthday um as a way to you know symbolically be like for her for my aunt etc um so the first song that I dropped from the project was 515 and that's also when I started the um pre-order campaign and just even taking an additional setback like how is I going to hit the billboard chart really the the thing that I learned from those two articles as well as just understanding how billboard works is that if you basically your first week sales is your first week sales plus everything that you've sold before the day of your release and so the more that you've sold before the album drops the more that gets added onto your first week sales um and so I was like okay well if I have two months to to you know get where I need to go and and and not only uh communicate this to my fan base but also see if I can meet other people and build new fans and also tell them about what it is that I've been doing which I I did right like I was going to Berkeley I was talking to people in Portland you know I'm connecting with people that I know and I'm like hey you know ask your friends like convince them etc and there were some folks man like really out there like recruiting their friends and being like hey you know my homie like this dope artist my brother etc like you know I remember my sister she was like every single day like on social media at her job you know on the subway like just really pitching being like hey help support this independent artist because his message is dope da da da da da da da da da da um I will say that I think what helped for me um you know one the fact that the fan base already existed two um I thoroughly believe in the product that I put out like you know if you hear the lyrics you you definitely feel like you know who I am uh and I really try to bring that level of authenticity and just the experiences and perspective that I have into my music in a way where folks can really resonate with that you know I've had people even before airplane mode I've had people say wow your music really helps me you know get through my day I've shared this with my cousin who's contemplating suicide like all these different things so I was already like invested in the the music in the product itself and I'm very much like yo once you hear the product like you'll like it you know I mean just like taste and see that it's good and then the rest will follow so already had invested and they were invested exactly right and so it wasn't like I was trying to you know sell chicken nuggets and call it gourmet food so I feel like the product really has to like stand on itself regardless um and yeah in addition to I mean like I did do advertising but not not crazy I mean something like this to ask people in 2019 to spend money on an album it's not for the casual like observer like so these were hard album sales I didn't even I didn't even I didn't even print out now like streams now like digital well so I mean digital CDs is like the hardest of CDs in the U.S. these days yeah that was hard there there are some people that probably would they probably thought they considered themselves my like fan maybe they still do who knows I'm not gonna judge them but they were like no I don't I don't want to buy the CD and for me I was like you know it's less about the the CD right because you could still you know stream it apple music whatever whatever it was about the goal and and what the goal entailed and for you know my my fans my supporters they understood that and they were like yeah I'm willing to help you hit this goal I want this artist to hit this goal not I'm buying this so that I can listen to the music and I think when it comes to somebody that's like either a casual listener or like doesn't know you at all like if you're a stranger and I'm like you know the guy on Times Square like trying to front off the CD like no no one wants that and like if anything they'll just stream it when it comes out so just even getting people something to activate around exactly rally around exactly another thing that really helps so that's why advertising even though I did it it did not help to sell the albums it just helped create an awareness if anything especially due to the targeting it was really just for my fans that already are aware of me so that they can and and then they're you know just their circles just to keep them in that mindset that like this is something that's taking place these advertising these advertisements wasn't for like creating new fans to buy my album like that just doesn't even make sense like if it was an awareness campaign it would be more like you know my music video dropped like just listen to that right just be aware because people are going to stream whatever and then if they're really curious and they'll see like oh there's a campaign going on and I would share on a daily basis you know hey Sean thank you for buying my you know pre-ordering my album you know and I'd call you out and every single time right and just create that proof that yo like people are actually out here doing this you've been following and you haven't done it yet why haven't you done it yet and so that definitely happens that definitely helps and then another really big thing that helped two more things one was uh just like the the the re-followings repostings my mind's everywhere yo it's after work but uh I had a I had a uh pre-release uh album pre-album like to pre-sale yeah yeah pre a pre-album release uh party oh and in order to enter you can either buy a ticket or you could pre-order the album um and so there were some folks there were actually some folks that I met um that were my fans that I've never met before um and came to the party pre-ordered in order to get to the party and and you know introduced themselves to me and was like yo like I love your music I'm so happy for you da da da da da that like blew my mind but there you know there were examples of those and then also like you know my fans and supporters coming through and then bringing their friends and their fans and and their fan uh to to do the same thing and and I've made it so that pre-ordering the album was cheaper than buying the ticket so it was kind of it was just additional incentive you know to be like yeah but I want to see what this is about right yeah I gotta make things make sense yeah so just to be clear right so is this all for iTunes that they're purchasing so I had three places where folks can purchase uh Bandcamp uh iTunes and um and my website and if you ordered it from my website you could also do a bundle of like getting a shirt as well um yeah yeah um I want to I want to touch base on that you're you're bringing up a dope point so I want to come back to that the last thing I want to say so there are three things it was um you know creating the proof of concept in the one-on-one engagement with my fans it was the pre-album release party and then it was also uh Casual Fridays so I've been doing episodic content basically around the same time that I was like yo I'm gonna be creating a new album at the time they weren't connected it was just another way for me to like do something in the state of mourning and so um you know Casual Fridays uh a concept that one of my homies was basically just like yo you know how to freestyle like content is king get in front of a camera every single week and just freestyle and so I've been collecting words from my fan base on Instagram with uh basically just content to freestyle at the end of every single Friday been doing it for 48 episodes I got through four more to go because I'm trying to just get to 52 do it for a straight year and just have to be a story but anyway as I was doing that around episode six or seven is when I started doing you know my airplane mode uh campaigning and so then it became you know this is something that people are watching every week let me wear my airplane mode t-shirt let me mention how far along we are in our progress to potentially hitting the billboards and then it just became another vehicle my own media to be able to communicate what it is that I actually want to happen and for you know people that would just kind of stroll onto Casual Fridays it was just another way to create awareness in a way where I didn't have to pay for it um so those three things really did help to get to your point about like how to get the album I honestly don't even know if I could do this twice just because they're like iTunes is phasing out right and at the time it they never said they were going to do it but at the time it was kind of like common sense it was like yo you're making it so much harder for people to pre-order an album like if you I had the iTunes pre-order link but if you clicked it it would immediately bring you on your desktop it would immediately bring you to apple music and you had to like scroll down to the bottom of the page like below the fold look for a uh you know see also in iTunes click that and then you'll see the pre-order option no one in their casual right mind is going to do that and even like the most devoted fans struggled with that and then on your phone it was even worse you click it you click the link it immediately brings you to the apple music app as opposed to the iTunes app so that created some friction um in general just the fact that I had three different links for folks to choose from I created a super link but at best it took like seven clicks for people to get to that point of purchase and so you know you want somebody to depart from their money in a quick way and you got them like doing seven loops yeah and so it's just like like you know glory to god I'm thankful that I got you know you know whatever milestone that we we ended up getting but it's like that was hard that was not that was not easy in any way shape or form it probably would have just been easier to sell physical copies but uh there's a rule about like you can't sell the physical product until the physical product is actually out and I just did not have the wherewithal to think about how to make that happen I said I was like nah yo like and nah nah and it's just like it's already hard like yes CDs can be souvenirs I would actually prefer to have like a vinyl I feel like vinyls are more of a suit or like cassettes or like more of a souvenir than a CD CDs still CDs a little yeah CDs are a little bit too current it's too current like it's current enough to be like I'm never gonna use this I'm not I'm not even gonna put it up on a wall where it's like a final oh my gosh like yeah I won't even take the plastic off like it's different anyway that you know hopefully I like answered you know a bit of just like the thought process and um the way I went about it yeah I think there's a lot of things for people to pull from from that where did you chart on the billboard by the way the billboard hip hop r&b album sales chart number 50 oh no I think it's like 50 out of 50 hey man but that's cool that I mean there's that there's when you recognize there's a system right this system has rules and you just have to play that game if you want to hit those particular things right and just like how you talked about when you decided to take music seriously and you look that it's a business because the business has games let me go learn to build the rules of that business all of these are systems that have their own games and if you have to win at one then you have to play by those rules in some form of fashion right and I think a lot of times people's confusion where it looks like somebody went off path and didn't do the norm but they were still successful and they're still making money and doing their thing in music is all about yo they they really broke the rules and they were still successful but those rules that they broke really aren't the rules of the game there's that perceived game that people like the popular you gotta do this stuff you gotta hit these charts or you gotta play you know be standing next to these people be at these award shows that isn't the actual money game the business game has completely different rules that people usually just don't talk about right so you can be one of that and you can seem like you're doing something offbeat but you're playing by economics the economics says how many fans do I have how many tickets can I sell how many people can I mobilize the other stuff right is like how many followers do I have whether they're real or not because people can't tell right how many like you know all these things that could be gamified and not really give it a true sense of the the the true one-to-one value right it what's what's the word that I'm looking for I don't know but like you know when it once things get online right it's scary because it can it can it can skew it could it becomes far more abstract versus real value to towards what is actually worth and what you actually think you're saying because just like what's telling is making a comment right the the web the web is an equalizer so if you see these comments and the things that make people mad if you actually knew who we're making the comments we have this natural ability in the real world to create credibility and to truly measure and judge I if if you're talking shit to me and you're a 14 year old kid then I'm like all right bro you know what I mean like you're 14 and talk all your shit right but when it's online and you don't know this person is 14 this person is 20 this is an old lady right this person is very successful what they do this person is just angry and sad and you don't know any of that stuff right it's just equalized it's all the same and we lose that judgment it affects us different and I think artists or just people in general that are trying to build something right they that is what skews the data between what's real so all that just just to go back to I appreciate the fact that you can like deduce from all that BS like and see what the actual system is and know that you're actively playing that game at the time and being cool with it's like oh this is what I want to do now that I'm going to do this it might not affect this but I know that it's not going to affect this I'm doing this because I'm trying to get to this goal right and now I'm going to do this now I'm going to go play that other game and obviously as you get your team right you'll be able to play all the games at once at some point right yeah exactly exactly then then we can have fun because trust me there's like a jillion ideas and and hypotheses that I've yet to you know experiment on but that's you know you really leaned into one of the points that I also wanted to share with your community which is just don't don't don't be afraid to experiment you know don't be afraid to just try new things like if anything like I try my best not to listen to what people tell me to do like the the the common norm I'm like let me figure it out like I'm a hard-headed learner my wife will tell you like I'd rather walk into the fire and be like wow that's hot than not walking to the fire because someone told me not to you know if anything like you know I wouldn't be doing I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if if if I was listening to other people like other people tell me like yo there's there's only plan a you you don't need a job like jump off the deep end and and eat ramen it like fam I gotta I gotta I got a whole human being the support you know like and I've been I've been homeless before like that's not cute and I actually don't think that you have to be a starving artist in order to be successful I think it's wise to uh you know have money in order to make it takes money to make money there's always a startup cost before you get to any type of revenue and and this is a business business costs money like you know companies spend money to market and promote a product that they know works not that they think works that they know works so if you believe that you have a product that works but you have no money to even get it out the door you don't got no money for like mixing and mastering and and like copyright costs like I don't understand I mean that then you put yourself in a situation I mean frankly right like I don't I'm not like trying to seek for a deal to like pay my bills that are done I understand how people can get in that predicament where like when you're starving you know a cracker looks amazing you know and it's like I'm not I'm not trying to be a starving artist I want to be a successful artist and understanding what that means and success for me is honestly being able to do what I love to do and not have to worry about you know the means to do it um and for me money is not the end it's it's a means and and I want I want the business to be sustainable so that way you know I can do all the other different things that I'd want to do in that right and so like I'm making money from it now it's not paying all my bills um but right now I've been setting the foundation to be like okay well if I want to scale and get to that point where things are actually now I understand how to do that and so to your earlier point it's like all the experimenting you know again what it's been three years it's been three years and and and this is just this is me toying around like how can I how can I uh get a blue check on instagram without you know faking 45 000 you know what I mean like you know how many people like just hit me up to be like did I buy it like no I didn't buy three years of blood sweat and tears that's that's not that's not what I did I didn't buy like oh is it because you know you have this job or that job no it's because I'm I'm literally doing the work like if you if you can prove that like I mean honestly all the stuff like after hitting the billboards right like then that's when the press comes in like reaching out to people and people want to talk but then also like I'm just being a real human being with them and so I'm talking to folks and they they actually appreciate the story that I have to share and I appreciate them for taking the time to listen to my stories um you know I'm doing Instagram ads and then a DJ sees my ad and is like yo I love the content that you have I love the message that you have I love the quality of the video I want you to come to Portland and be on my uh podcast and I want you to perform at my show and now me and DJ Cliff are like real cool homies I've been every time I've been in Portland it's because of him and in that community out there I've been growing out there like all this is organic all this growth is literally just just just putting myself out there and doing the work and so there's I there's no short if you want the ownership there's no shortcuts if you are just trying to you know be you know be on everything I have no interest I'm so used to being the brochure kid growing up you know I mean on the smile say cheese pull me out of class so I could take this picture like I don't care like being on the cover of a magazine and so I'm less concerned about just being everywhere I'm more concerned about just having a dope sustainable business with real social impact that people like and want to share and that's what's been happening and so I just want to take it to the next level love it bro love it man um and that one thing where you talked about when you're broke a cracker looks good listen October 28th every single year that's Zambu listen that's Zambuki day okay let me tell you about Zambuki Zambu me and my homegirl we uh uh uh we was making we were so broke at Columbia University of all places right Ivy League school can't afford lunch we would make these these like amalgamations of sorts like pasta with hot dog and beans or you know uh we would we would uh we would put cheese on the bread and put it in the microwave we thought we was making grilled cheese we was making melted cheese sandwiches but it's soft bread soft bread it's gonna throw some hot sauce before you you gotta put the hot sauce in before you put it in the microwave you know oh man and uh we just one day we was like yo we gotta call these Zambu keys we gotta give these names so that when we like yo we want a Zambu we know what we're talking about and so literally from this this shout out to my home girl Kimmy aka cadence but um leaving like every single year I had a note of that like in 2012 like Facebook reminds me every single year like you know Zambu keys or whatever and so it's just a reminder for me to be like yo like I know where I come from right and you know I'm the allure like I'm not trying to hit the lottery with my life like there's a way to build I mean you look at you know Nipsey you look at E40 you look at Master P you look at these folks that have built their own businesses I mean like shout us to the model of entrepreneurship and independent and I live in the bay like entrepreneurship is literally all I'm surrounded everywhere right and so you know I gotta have that same mindset too and I believe I can and therefore I'm doing so love that man looking we're gonna end that here make sure you tell everybody where to follow you it's gonna be on the screen but I'll yeah yeah yeah not bet uh call me so you can find me uh uh IG call me it's legit uh because I'm way too legit I'm trying to try to be like you because I sound myself because I'm way too legit uh Twitter same thing Facebook same thing YouTube just type and call me it's just three words you know it's like a tribe called class it's like verbata and yeah that's that's about it dope man I appreciate you once again everybody of course this video is brought to you by brandmannetword.com if you like this video go ahead and like button if you like it your mind's well shared and if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe button