 A lot of artists always scream Payola Payola. The only reason these artists get big is because somebody is paying money behind the scenes. But the truth is, there's a lot of money being paid legally as well. We know Payola is illegal, but there's money being paid legally to help people put your song on the radio, help people play your music in the club, and we're going to have an executive talk about it in a quick clip, and we'll give you the details in a further breakdown because we actually talked to this executive ourselves. My email blasts are for a select group of individuals that can properly impact. That engage, by the way. That engage. That'll provide feedback. Which is why I do for You Saw a Ferrari Simms bowling night sponsored by Warner Records. And I had the most influential DJs and taste makers in the city at that particular event. I paid for their bowling, paid for their alcohol, I paid for their food. So these are the important people that I talk to, have a group chat with them as well. And I sometimes text them records. And sometimes I do phone calls as well. So now you're getting the email, you're getting a text, and I'm calling. All right, before we play the rest of the clip, let's start right there. All right, he said I got these email blasts that go out to a select group of people, right? But then we also do these listening events and things like that. Bowling. Right, bowling, relationship building, networking, right? Where I will pay for their bowling. I will pay for their drinks and food, right? That's what it looks like on the legal side of this, right? So I'm not paying you to put the song on the radio. I'm just taking care of you. I'm taking care of you. I'm taking care of you. And some people might say that's a gray area, cool, but one, know that this is the reality. A lot of people don't think it might work this way, but this is the reality. So I want to talk about if it worth it or not, because a lot of people I saw when we interviewed Ferrari say that like that doesn't make sense to pay all that money because Ferrari talked about paying like, I don't know, it seemed like hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases. At least a couple of times when I put in the event together. Right, in certain types of events. And then on the other side is like, how and why does it work like this? So the way I see it, right? You're just influencing people. That's all, all right? We all got friends, we got family, whatever. We got people that we know. If your homie sends you some music, are you more than likely to give him a chance than anybody else? Yeah. All right, period. Even if you are as objective as possible, some people might be requiring eight for you to play their song. You might let your homie in if it's just a seven. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And this person you might really hate. So you're gonna resist it unless it's a 10 and you kind of just have to because everybody's requesting it. Yep. You know what I'm saying? That's what a DJs basically has to deal with or how that psychology works for a DJ, a playlist or anybody. That's just a natural human nature of everybody in the music industry. They're gonna go hardest to fight for the people that they are invested in, whether that's just regular relationship or something more in-depth like, yo, I literally got money and investment. Yeah. All right. Yeah, exactly, bro. And it follows the law of reciprocity, right? That's right. It says that if somebody gives you something, you almost feel obligated to return the favor. Yeah. So like, you asked me to take you to the airport. You know what I'm saying? Nobody likes taking people to the airport. Everybody hates it. But if you like, hey, bro, I'll give you this chicken sandwich, you know what I'm saying? Will you take me to the airport? I'm more likely to do it. I'm probably hungry, whatever. So I think about these events, you know what I'm saying? Where it's like, you think about the average music person who's running around all day doing stuff, you know what I'm saying? They're probably done a million things that day. And then you got this person that comes along, I was like, bro, I just want you to play my artist song, you know, eat this cool food, you know what I'm saying? Have some of this doosay, you know what I'm saying? Like, get your T-shirt from the event. Get clout from it because I'm gonna have you at this event and you're related to somebody now who's at Warner. So then you can show that off on your social media that you're moving seriously, take that back to the hood or take that back to the clubs and say, hey, I'm moving. And when you talk with artists, because we know that's what they're getting on the other end. I care about it. It's like, yo, I'm connected as a DJ. So you want to treat me right artist and maybe even pay me or something. I'm artist because I have some type of connections up ladder and people look at me as a serious entity in his career. Not to mention just the networking of being in the room of all those people that they attract. So there's a lot of value that you're getting. You know, you mentioned the law of reciprocity. You know, that's basically what Gary Vee's talking about when he says jab, jab, jab, right hook. There's a lot of jabs going in. You know what I'm saying? Some heavy jabs. Yeah, yeah. So give, give, give, ask. He not paying for it. He's just asking. Yep. And then people are more likely to say yes. Yeah, cause people can walk away and not do the thing. I've done that before. I went to events, been winding down and be like, mm, you know what I'm saying? Still ain't for me. And most of the people in that situation are respected because they know, you know, so I can only push so far anyway because of the legality of a lot of this stuff. You know what I'm saying? So it's not like all the parties are involved at least at the level that I'm pretty sure Ferrari is talking about. All the parties are involved, know that there's the yes or no option. They know what's going on when they get there. They know what you, when I get an email about coming to an event, I know what they want. You know what I'm saying? I know, they want the posts on the story. They want the look. They want the something to come from that, right? But everybody involved knows that. And to your point about the DJ thing, I never thought about that, but DJ's whole careers are literally built on being the first to know about something. You know what I'm saying? Well, I wanna say it's built on it, so a large percent of their career, their clout, what keeps them pushing is the fact that, you know what I'm saying? Hey, I was onto this artist long before anybody else was, along before the rest of you, music consumers knew about it. And here's the proof. I was at the listening party. I was at the event eating a sandwich while listening to this single that now you're hearing everywhere. You know what I'm saying? And like that goes a long way for the DJ's career to your point. So I mean, I know we're gonna get into it deeper with this clip, but it's very red and I view those situations as a loose situation for anybody involved, you know what I'm saying? You got a free meal and some cool points and a good look that you can flip to your point and I possibly may get my artist more exposure. Right, y'all let us know. Do y'all think that's cheating? Do y'all think that that's still paying, right? How do you avoid, if we say this is a relationships industry, how do you avoid someone, how do you avoid someone not being influenced by your relationship? Isn't that why we're doing it? But this brings the same question, right? Where it's like regular dating, right? Some people look at, yo, I've treated you respectfully. I've taken you out for meals or we went out on these dates together, right? As a deposit of relationships, that's supposed to bring more returns. Whatever that return looks like to you as an individual, right? Now, some people say, oh no, like you're not paying for it directly like a prostitute, if you pay for the man or woman you're on a date with, if you are paying for the meal, y'all are having a nice time. Some people say, well, I'm paying with my time. My time is worth X amount of hours. I just went to a two hour movie with you, right? That's a great area for the people who feel that way. Mentally, right? So it's like, when are we paying and not paying in some form of fashion, you know what I mean? In these relationships. And I think that, again, it might be the great area, but it's also the reality. So if you, there's no way to avoid that law of reciprocity, Corey just mentioned. There's no way to avoid having a relationship and being impacted positively or negatively depending on what that relationship with the person is. In the industry that, I don't even say overly, but really, really, really, really, really, really, really values relationships. Really values relationships. We gotta take a quick second because we have some big news. If you like the marketing, branding and music talk that we do in our content, you have an opportunity to meet with us in person and get the real deal information about how we are currently moving in the music industry, blowing up artists that we can't put online. So if you wanna see myself, Sean, J.R. McKee, give you marketing, content and branding advice. That's absolutely guaranteed to help you move your career forward. Then you wanna make sure you check into this event. It's gonna be super exclusive. We're only letting in 60 people, not 61, not 62. So if you don't make it, then, you know, your best bet is to hope that we do another one. So if you wanna make sure that you're one of those 60 people, go to nolabelsnecessary.com or check the link in the description if you're watching this on YouTube. And yeah, hopefully we see you there. Back, so, like, you know, y'all make, y'all give y'all thoughts on that, but I wanna finish this clip before we add some more. But the great thing about you is also that you send out music that you deem worthy. Thank you, that's another one. Somebody can't just come here and say, here's five grand, please send out my music. I'm gonna say no if I don't like the song. Exactly. My issue with a lot of DJs is they don't have that filter. There's no quality control. So there's a lot of bullshit. And there are people in this industry that sit back and wait to see what comes from those people and then they go and start targeting those artists because they know those artists are spending money. That I do agree with. Cause over the last, what, I started paying attention to, like, the DJ. I was on a couple DJ pool emails when I used to manage the artists and like that's when I started paying a lot of attention to it. And you wouldn't notice that for every, like, five good artists that came through that, every, like, 10 shitty ones that you could tell probably paid for, like, a placement on this email. Which I do think devalues the entire process, right? Because if I'm getting invited to events, actually that's not even taking it to me. If I'm a person putting in the work to create this type of event or to milk these relationships this way, I need it to be believable across the board. You know what I'm saying? Which means that when I send the artists, I need them to look believable. I need them to look like there's motion. I need the music to be at least objectively good. You know what I'm saying? Maybe I don't like it, but I could see it being good to someone. And so I think when you're pushing out low quality work, like, that's what starts to devalue the whole process. Because now it does feel like just anyone can buy their way into your entire relationship or into this entire process, which we know maybe is true for some individuals. Like, there are people who are like, hey, you can buy your way into my relationships. You can, they're like entire, just look at like influencer agencies, for example. Like their whole business model is you buying your way into their relationships. You know what I'm saying? From a sense. Yeah. But we also all know as music people that there are some people who shouldn't be able to buy their way into your relationships. Not only because it will, you know, devalue your opinion and what you push to those people, but then also, you know, they don't really qualify for the entire process to work anyway. You know what I'm saying? It's like if I go take a artist who just recorded their first song on a MacBook mic, and then I charge him a thousand dollars to see them to all the top DJs in the land. I did my job. You know what I'm saying? I did what I said I was going to do. And then my relationship was a little strange with these DJs, and they're not going to play your shit anyway because it sounds trash, right? And then the whole process was, was it wasn't a scam technically, but it was a scam morally. You know what I'm saying? So I agree with her. I agree with her 100%. See, I'm going to fight for DJs on this one because everything that you said and what she said is true. It does mess up the quality control aspect of things. But in an industry where there's so hard to make money and how do you ask somebody not to do that? Yeah, you're right. Yeah, that's true. Like y'all aren't paying me as DJs. These clubs aren't paying me that way. The artists are struggling and saying they're not making enough money. How are the DJs going to manage their entire career off of strictly quality control when they're at a certain level? And I think what everybody does is they go lesser on quality control as they come up. And then people ultimately get into a position where their quality control could be so tight because they have such a brand. They have financial independence. They have all these things to leverage and then begin to look down on where they came from because you knew most people. There's some people who had these Cinderella paths or just different paths that allowed them to manage that a little bit differently. But many people with the stressors of their lives versus the income that they're getting paid now and trying to make their way through it, they let a little bit slip in. And I feel like between a lot of DJs in the culture act by now at this point, just like probably an unsaid, unspoken thing where they just know, all right, yeah, this is that one. You just keep putting it. I could just imagine. I broke out to get his bag. Yeah, me and you were doing the exchange after a while. Like, well, you know what it is, you know, like, all right, you know, he had to get his bag, you know, do your thing, bro. Like, you know, I'm not fronting you as long as you keep the majority of these, right? I'm not going to be so harsh on you, but if that starts becoming 50% of these things are trash. Yeah, and we all talk. Yeah. And I didn't think about, like, I didn't think about that point. There's a good point, right? Where it's like, all right, there's no, it's not like there's an institution here making sure that I get paid either way, you know what I'm saying? So what's my real incentive to always do right? You know what I'm saying? If there's no higher power holding me to that and then there's no monetary gain to be attached to that, right? And then actually, now that I think about it, you're right. I would just, I'll take this out of DJ, just music service people in general, marketers, DJs, designers, you know what I'm saying? They all do that point, right? You start out being selective because you want to prove the people that you can do quality work. Yep. And then you get the audience from that selectivity which allows you to be more broad and lower quality control, right? And then you start making more money and then to your point, you start making all that money and then you go back to being selective because now you have the income to live out. I never thought of it, but you're right. It is damn near the exact, because I'm even thinking about like, even us to an extent, you know what I'm saying? There were points where we had to pick up some campaigns and we're like, man, I don't know, but you know, the business gotta keep moving and then sometimes you're wrong and it's nice to be wrong sometimes. That's the other part of it too. Sometimes you don't like the shit if someone else works here. It's my luck that, yeah. And I think us as marketers is like, well particularly us, you know, like marketers should probably speak this way in general, I think, but like us, we're very clear sometimes with people who ask us, it was like, this song isn't for me, but I might not be the demographic, right? Yeah, exactly, yep. I'll be very, very hard if I'm like, yeah, but I don't think this is for nobody. But I could still be wrong, right? We've all been wrong before I heard a song that we don't like, and it goes crazy. Everybody knows a song that's popular that they don't like, right? So even that's not a smoking gun. So even when we become more selective and have more quality control, it's just us being in a luxury position to only work with shit that we like. Yeah, exactly, which I don't think people would get there, like the artist community, a creative community in particular always pushes for that. But like you said, it's a very hard thing to stand on because if everybody only still in the stuff that they just like, the win rate will go down. You know what I'm saying? I'm not gonna name it, but I can name a couple clients, you know what I'm saying? And I'm trying to talk about this, bro, before I have camera, we have clients before, I was like, I don't like the music, but that shit is going, millions of views, you know what I'm saying? I see fans in real life rocking with it, and it's like, if I would have been like, nah, we can't work that because we don't think it's quality because we don't like everything, we would have missed out on it when the opportunity. So it's like being that selective decreases the win rate across the board, you know what I'm saying? It's like music is, for lack of a better term, casting a wild net and seeing what sticks, you know what I'm saying? So I might have 20 people, maybe out of those 20s, five, I personally believe in, but I think the other 15, at least meet the benchmark for me to try. And then a lot of times, you know, being the ones you didn't even think about, that go anyway, you know what I'm saying? Like you might be wrong about four out of five you thought. So you got one win out of that. And then three more of your wins come from the 15 that you just took just because they met the bare minimum, you know what I'm saying? And it's like, how do you tell someone to step away from that? When that is damn near the model that most services in the industry go by, like everybody from the labels down to the graphic designer, you know what I'm saying? Exactly, bro. Exactly, man. So yeah, I mean, I get the idea of quality control. I don't, you know, the Payola thing, I think it's just a reality. Like, all right, you got the real direct Payola and then you have the other version where people look at this great space and still call it Payola. But I think that's just the reality of life, right? Yeah. Like everybody wants to work with people they like or at least get some level of benefit from. Like you can't run away from that. Like people are gonna spend time in those places and then they're gonna try to benefit people who are benefiting them. And if you're not, then it's gonna go against that. It's the same reason they say artists, you know, connect with people on the radio and like do these interviews, be cool with people on your way up because you don't know how things might go when you're less hot, right? They had to play you because you were so hot. The world was playing you and they look like haters or they lose your job if they're not playing you. But now, oh, I got a choice. You not as hot? Yep, people won't even notice if I don't do it. They'll notice if I do, but they won't if I don't. Exactly, how do I feel about this person for real? So, you know, this version of payment, paying for your time at a bowling alley, to me is akin to paying a playlister to listen to the music and they can't guarantee they'll put it on the playlist. They'll put it on if they like it. Like I paid you to listen. I didn't pay you to put it on the playlist. Yep, exactly. You decided because you liked it, hopefully. You know what I'm saying? And we were talking about it off camera, man. I think that will solve the issue of every DJ out there because DJs and radio personalities are the only ones that really still get held to the whole payola thing, you know what I'm saying? I get it, there's a lot of influence there, but they're really the only portion of the community that gets like backlash when you learned that they're taking money for their service. I feel like every DJ, because radio promoters can't really do it's a job type. You really, y'all kind of stuck, you know what I'm saying? But DJs, if I was a DJ, I would call myself either a marketer or I would call myself a curator because at that point, if you tell people, like, hey, you're a DJ and I'm a marketer. My job is to bring music and marketing to these people at these parties. Now nobody bats an eye, are you a DJ? No, I'm a curator. My job is to come here and curate the musical experience of all these patrons that have decided to participate in this event tonight. You know what I'm saying? And nobody bats an eye. I mean, I feel like that will solve so many issues, you know, because they just literally changed their title. Yeah, no, that's a fact. That's a fact. DJs do get a higher bar for real, for real. You know, maybe depending on which room they're in, they call themselves different. I'm with that. We'll see if any DJs take it. If y'all are watching DJs, you know, drop your opinion and give it a try, test in a real world. See how I go for you. Y'all welcome. Other than that, this is another clip. We know label's necessary. I'm Brian Manchin. And I'm Kory. And we out. Peace.