 What's up everybody once again is brand man Sean and this is actually my first link up with 24k golden we started a new series he's actually responsible for the name he gave it a name and was making history right here man I'm excited to talk to him if y'all don't know with 24k golden do you call it do you ever say carrot or you all say no I just 24k yeah if you ever if you all know who this man is man look he's an artist who's been in this game for four years but he has a track that went crazy on the TikTok 14 million views on the YouTube video I even checked the Spotify it is 14 million views on the YouTube video I'm sure it's crazy on Spotify right now and look in this interview we just gonna talk about how he got here he's been so grateful to offer to drop a lot of knowledge and kind of tell his story so 24k what's up bro how you doing how you feeling man good morning good good man I already told you that I like the I like the skateboard in the background you want to set the vibe of where you are right now exactly so I'm in my apartment downtown LA right now got some anime on the wall I won't show too much so we can make sure this get monetized yeah just woke up chilling okay so as a matter of fact I went ahead and checked the Spotify has 88 million right now 88 million plus you know nothing to sneeze at light work though and well I want to like before you even get into that and how that that took off and you you're at where you are right now man let's go back cuz you said you know you've been in for four years what made you want to rap in the first place so I would say I always had a passion for music it was more just kind of finding out what role I wanted it to play in music you know middle school I tried out you know playing around with with garage band and stuff like that producer stuff but I was always kind of a charismatic person I like I like attention you know I like being front of the scenes I like entertaining people making them laugh making them feel good and once I had the confidence I was like yo I should be artist and I had a mentor that had a he was an artist as well in San Francisco paper boy and he had a studio and I known him for a couple years and finally when I was a sophomore in high school he was like yo want to make a track we got the studio right here and I just kind of hop on that opportunity immediately dope dope it was a let me see so at that time cuz I'm gonna go ahead and speed up to the fact that you got that I just recently saw your the dropout of college video which is crazy so now makes me want to ask were you in college at this time did you actually go to college yeah so after high school after I graduated high school I got a full scholarship to USC for business and I was like I get to live in LA for free I get to eat in LA for free meet cool people learn some shit and and this is the best city for music so worst-case scenario I'm gonna I'm gonna give it my all and I'll leave a great school to business degree but she ended up going my way so I'm happy about that yo yeah that's crazy I I didn't expect that the full ride so you we already know that you sharp man like you already know what you're doing you smart moving throughout the game did you play any sports anything while you were in high school no I never played sports I was always like I was kind of like chubby and short until like sophomore junior year high school and I just like it puberty hit me different like bloomer alright I know how that goes y'all y'all be the worst man y'all y'all come for go for revenge with the woman everything we already know what's up man you live in life right now I can even lie yeah all right well I check this out then um but when you you went to college and then how long into college was it like no actually what was the process like you know you start making music cool and we know it didn't blow up immediately and you actually did go through a process was there any ever any doubt while you were in college like what was that day-to-day they didn't like because you didn't immediately just decide to drop out of college yes so so I've been doing music in high school from sophomore year to senior year and that was such a valuable learning experience just because it's like music grows best in the community and when you're in high school you're instantly plugged into this community of not only your school but if you live in like I'm from San Francisco so which is it's a big city in the schools but it's real compact so everyone from all the schools knows each other so basically like once I got my music popping in my school I was able to go because everyone got friends in different schools I was able to get it spread it across through there so being in college was super valuable for for my music career just because it was another like it was like another territory to kind of take over and and conquer and make my own and I already had that experience of how to promote music at school that's like you can make a whole episode on that alone right there yeah so so from being in college you know just staying consistent keep making music keep meeting people and then I made the song called bitch I go to USC and we did a video for that too all USC rappers directed by my boy Elon via USC produced by Chris Papa USC everybody USC so that kind of like made me the school's champion and everybody wanted to support my music from there but but that was that was right with with three months of being in a school at USC I had gotten a record deal from Columbia and I was like all right well this is for real now and that was in the first semester so second semester ground and I'm like damn I cannot do both at the same time so I dropped all my classes except for one so I could still have the scholarship and live here eat here and all that and then once the year was over I was just like I'm gonna take a leave of absence I didn't really even drop out I could go back whenever I want in the next 10 years okay okay interesting like so how did you because that's that's fast I didn't expect that quick of a turnaround and you get signed so how did that and I was after the USC song though right yeah but but they had already we had already started talking about that before I dropped the USC song was that through somebody like paperboy that kind of that connect or did you already like or did you have a mindset of going to talk to people like I want to get signed at some point so I'm gonna go find some people and kind of get on their radar but you just didn't expect it to happen that fast well at this point in the beginning of 2018 I dropped my song balling like Sharif and like learning from you and a lot of other people I was like all right let me see how I can market this online and this was the first song that I really created a thorough marketing plan for so I was submitting it to blogs I was doing all that and it was starting to get a bit of buzz and I remember a DJ booth this writer Herschel Pandia he tweeted out an article called the stigma of SoundCloud rap and he talked about how artists shouldn't be judged for the platform they put their music on they should be judged for the quality of their music yeah that sounds like Martin Luther King I got you and at the end of that article he was like yo if any so-called SoundCloud rappers want to send me your music I listened to at least 45 seconds to it and as soon as I saw that on Twitter I sent it to him DMed him followed him and kind of just forgot about it and two weeks later he did a follow-up article saying I listened to these SoundCloud rappers music here's what I thought and he's like out of all the songs he spoke about Bond like Sharif the most highly it was like yo I would be surprised if you never heard of this kid 24k golden again and D.A. Doman D.A. got that dope he saw that article and he reached out to me and this was before Taste and ZZ and those songs he was it was like maybe a couple months before but we started building a relationship he thought I was super dope and then his shit started to pop off so he um when record label started coming at him for you know we want you to be an A and R we want you to do XYZ he would tell them about me and he told Barry Weiss who's the head of records which is a subsidiary under Columbia and Barry was super excited and he played in the Valentino song and from there they were like yo we need to sign this kid immediately like yeah they just try to get me like that and everything worked out in the right way okay yeah I could imagine if I heard that song I already already knew what it was and it was crazy about that song is that we always knew was gonna be a hit like I literally wrote that song probably two years ago it next to my computer as a senior in high school and when I recorded it I stepped up to the booth the engineer flow he was like yo this is a hit I was like yo this is a hit and I ended up saving that song it didn't it didn't release for a whole like a year or a year and a half after I actually wrote it because I knew it was such a good song that I had to put the right resources behind it mm-hmm all right so you wrote it and you recorded it immediately and didn't release it late or you just kind of like did you re-record it when you decided to release it or did you record it back then no we got it mixed again but that recording I can't even I probably couldn't even record it the way that it's recorded now like my voice cannot do the same things that it was back then so that was a blessing like that that's that I was a little bit more with a pre-puberty type you remember me of course you already had puberty but you hit it like four or five times I don't know what's coming exactly yeah and it's crazy well before we get off of anything like college related especially because you did mention you you you move throughout high school and you move throughout college using what you learn about high school there's so many people that are in those environments and don't realize while they're there there's so much value to it and they need to leverage it what are some tips or some of the things that you learn in terms of how to navigate and leverage and maximize the education environment so I think a lot of people that that do music in our in school they don't want to be known as oh that's that soundcloud rapper or whatever you know and because at first some people are going to talk shit because you know if you're in high school at college you're probably not at the peak of your music making abilities right but the key thing is just to know who you are and know that if this is what you want people are going to see people can see you as whatever you want but it's more about what you see yourself as and the confidence that you bring to that and focusing on the people that do support you and people that do appreciate what you're bringing to the world rather than the ones that don't so I would say number one is to own it you know be own own what you're doing and then uh number two is like tell people about it don't be afraid to self-promote shamelessly like when I was in high school on valentine's day I took this picture right of me shirtless in front of the mirror flexing and it said uh it was like it was like it was like one of those like mean valentine's cards I should have put I don't want to valentine I just want valentino I'm gonna do that for this year's valentine's day but it said that was before the song it said uh I love you almost as much as I love myself and it had hearts around and it just had my soundcloud link all over and I used my school's free printing and I printed out like a thousand of them bitches and was just passing it around in school so everyone at school immediately was going to know who I am and even if that doesn't mean they go and click on your link or go follow you on instagram them knowing who you are and knowing that you make music is so valuable so that was a big thing in college I made these uh stickers that were based off those little those little uh porn ads like this ugly son of a bitch is fucking super hot bitches or whatever I made it I made it this ugly son of a bitch is respecting super hot chicks and I put my face there and I threw those up all over the college campus and eventually it just kind of became like well known like oh that's the super ugly son of a bitch that's respecting all these hot chicks and he makes choir music like you just got to keep going hard being consistent yo I mean so the things that I love love about what you said one of course you're that owning it and not being afraid because everybody has to overcome that hurdle you're not getting where without it but the way you market it I talked to so many artists and when it comes to marketing it's so disappointing the lack of creativity that they use in their marketing you know what you did in high school what you did in college the approach to the valentines and the whole porn flip like actually created something that's that's worth talking about like that part is is huge because again as long as they have you in their mind they know who you are that's step number one you don't need them to love your music the moment they get to know you like that's it's like a relationship like oh what's the rush don't move that fast but yeah okay you know who I am bet and I think a really good point to make is like you can't just copy what I did and expect the same success because the way that you market has to be authentic to your brand and me I'm a funny guy I'm a ladies man or whatever and that that rang true with my marketing people could tell that from talking to me they see it from the things I posted on internet and then they see it in real life like finding out what your brand who who you are as a person and who you are as an artist understanding yourself is key because from there that's how you build on all your marketing plans that's how you build out your music and all that stuff yeah I mean that right there that self-awareness I feel like a lot of people don't necessarily have and they're spending so much time or I always say you know of course I talk about branding a lot and marketing a lot but I always say you can't start with that stuff you're listening to so much of that stuff that you're trying to create who you are based on these hacks and tricks it's like no you got to figure out who you are so then you can you and then apply accordingly the things that make sense for you like that simple so the fact you got that self-awareness is big because everything becomes easy after you actually know who you are you know I mean yeah that's what's up um Valentino tell me a little bit more about that song though like how did how did like get more into the creation process how'd you come up with that idea I mean that's a that's a that's a hard flip by the way like that that's that's one of the things that for one is obviously is just funny then people already feel how they feel about Valentine's Day and then girls are always like this is the this is the perfect error for that when they like don't give me love give me a check city girls and all that kind of stuff like this is the perfect error for that so how how did yeah how did it come about man so so I mean I was on that two years ago like literally two years ago before everybody all these rappers were wearing Valentino and all these k-pop stars were wearing Valentino just because personally I'm I'm very into fashion so I've been hip on Valentino a minute ago and that kind of just goes along with being authentic to yourself like I like fashion I'm kind of a fuck boy I've been told so it's like combining combining the two of those together and just and finding inspiration wherever you go like it was it was around Valentine's Day so Valentine's was on my mind and I was just like I don't want to Valentine I just want Valentino and I was like well that that that line right there that's like a punch line that's a tweet that's an Instagram caption that's that's a shirt you know that's that's a slogan basically like Valentino could use that theoretically for a can for a Valentine's Day campaign yeah it's that good it really is and it was just like I don't know bro there's there's a lot of times these moments are random inspiration where the stars align it's just like this is what we're gonna do and it ends up working out really well okay so you you kind of mumbled it to yourself of course it was obvious when you when you figured it out and and then you said I need I need to record this immediately like when you wrote everything because obviously that kind of created the idea of the song did you just then fill in the lyrics special for that or did you think about a relationship how did that go so I felt uh once I had that line I I was just going through YouTube beats and kind of like figuring out because back before I signed and moved to LA pretty much all my songs were off YouTube beats so I just kept finding one until I found one that I was like you know this is hard and then I don't want no Valentine I just want Valentino and I don't know just line by line writing it keeps saying it over myself it probably took like an hour or two to write but it was worth it you know it's just like a lot of people think that being a artist is easy you could just go in freestyle whatever and then you're gonna blow up but this this is this is a work this is a job this is not even a 9 to 5 this is a 12 to 12 25 7 25 8 like like job you know your whole life is a job so so it's just putting the due diligence in to to make sure that your writing is solid your delivery is solid your performance is solid that's real have you have you got crazy with the performances yet have you do you feel like you're in a space where you're good or you got a lot of growth you want to do no I'm very happy with my performances especially for the level that I'm out right now because I've been performing since I was a sophomore in high school you know I was doing that school I was doing free performances I was doing the performances where you had to sell 25 tickets or else your ass was paying 500 to open up like all these all of those experiences combined that's the shit that nobody wants to do everybody wants to be at the big stage at Coachella going crazy everyone wants to be at the top of the line for rolling loud but very few people want to to put in the groundwork that it takes to get there and for me I think why I've been so successful is because I love the process I love the process of getting there and every day is just a blessing to be able to wake up and do what I do I feel you man I like to hear that because one thing that I think about when I think about those shows you mentioned where you even had to sell right I know a lot of artists they there's a lot of negative feedback right a lot of artists don't like that people ask me is it worth it blah blah all the time and everything isn't necessarily worth it as a direct marketing ROI or something like that but you can't look at everything that way especially when you're not at a level that justifies it but that process still it builds character it builds hustle it builds understanding of those small parts that you I mean now like it's obviously that it's obvious that you got to work at you understand the game and you research and then things like that so like that kind of stuff it is it's extremely important as far as that process now I gotta go back to this because you mentioned the fact that you found that beat online the youtube beat now this is a situation that people they fantasize about I want to do I want to get I don't want to get this beat or should I get this beat because this might blow up or I believe in this song you actually got to be it actually blew up what was that process in terms of did you actually buy it or did you just I only got the money I'm gonna record and I'm not gonna even buy it and then what did it look like that like in the background like where you did it wasn't too much trouble and all that kind of stuff when the time when the actual blow up happened honestly it was a very very smooth process I I think what I did was I got a lease for the beat first um just an untagged lease so I could record on it and if I because I didn't plan on holding it for as long as I did it was just something in the back of my head they kept telling me not not yet don't release it yet so I got the lease and I put I recorded on it and honestly it was just kind of hoping that no one would buy it before I did and in my situation it worked out because you know once once I had the label and the management they were like all right we need to buy this beat immediately and hopefully no one had bought it I gave them more money than they were asking for it on youtube just like to be fair you know because everyone knew it was going to be big and you don't want to be the guy that that that paid $200 for a beat right and then the song goes on to make a million dollars because it's like it's just not a it's not fair and you know I believe in fairness everyone there's enough bread for everybody to eat so I got lucky but I would say for for people in a similar situation like first you got to be realistic for yourself a lot of people think songs are going to be hits that aren't going to be hits you know like you got to think what what is it about this song that is going to make it a hit is the melody so so crazy that it's infectious and everybody that listens to it can't help but sing along is it a concept that's never been done before and so crazy that takes it to the next level is is the delivery something that hasn't been heard that's going to catch up people's ears is it is it good for tick-tock and you could there's a dance challenge associated with it if it doesn't have at least one of those things it's probably not going to be a hit and you're probably going to be fine not buying the beat or just doing the least but but you'll know if it's a hit if you're honest with yourself and and yeah gotcha who's whose decision was it to get on tiktok with it um honestly I think there's a woman Rachel from digital marketing and I had been doing some stuff with trailer before I still do stuff with trailers sometimes but they they were like well there's this new app coming out and they're getting like a hundred million new 100 million 100 million new like users a month we want you to go on here we think you'll be good at it and we think your songs could go so they put all the songs on there and I had done a couple videos just like not really understanding what tiktok was or how to grow on that platform but just using my song and they didn't really do anything but people like the song Valentino and I do do some some miracle it it got the right people that the right creators that needed to see it saw it and the song just kept going and going and going and I caught on that it was starting that it was gonna blow up at probably around like 12 000 videos because every time every hour I would refresh it every day every hour I refresh it would be another thousand videos every day another five thousand videos ten thousand videos so once I started going up I was like I'm gonna I'm gonna make my own tiktok account and I'm gonna continue using my own tiktok account and just make videos for my songs for other songs funny videos pranks whatever just so that like people would know oh that's the Valentino guy and we want to follow him because he made that song so now people fuck with me not just my song and now I could promote whatever song I want on my own tiktok I got like 650 000 followers on there now and a couple much but you know a lot of artists don't do that do that some people they'll never want to be on tiktok just because they feel like it doesn't fit their brand or whatever or they're going to be super late to when when everybody's there and it's obvious for them but even now like a lot of artists who are moving now and getting songs blow up on there they're not thinking about yo I need to actually create content I have a hard time getting artists to create content when we're making their songs take off because it's like okay yeah I'm happy with the results that I'm getting over here it's like no you need to do what you said right you go from hey I like this Valentino song to hey here's that Valentino guy all right and oh I like that Valentino guy yeah next thing you know this Valentino guy has another song and now you know you're just 24k golden you know like like they're not willing to take it through that process while it's free and easy and you have something recognizing of that you can be recognized for like when what was your experience as a content creator on that side of things did you feel like it flowed naturally for you or was there a kind of like a few a period of like bumping your head and having to figure it out uh there was definitely it was a learning process you know luckily for me I just turned 19 in November so I'm at the age where where I think it would be easier if I was in high school because it's like organic everyone's using tiktok and now people are using tiktok at my age but it's like it's still it's it's not a platform that we grew up on like we're not being introduced to it at the same top excuse at the same time that we're introduced instagram or twitter so it was a lot of just watching videos just always being on tiktok and just letting my brain like soak it up like all right what is doing well what is on my for you page and then also reaching out with tiktokers like you think tiktokers don't want to meet meet up and collab with a rapper like take most tiktokers are just regular people that that that blew up or that wanted to do social media and for me like being a rapper is like the coolest thing that that you could do basketball players want to be rappers man fucking brah the patch wants to be a rapper like everything your rapper like yeah so so I leveraged that too to to collab with other people that were more familiar with the platform and that could that could give me knowledge about how to best use the platform too so so steady learning researching yourself and then leveraging other people's knowledge and flipping understanding your position so I think one thing that I think that's going to help you win big brah is multiple times out of this conversation I've heard you have self-awareness about your position at the moment and then that allows you to flip it to the next point right yeah right because a lot of people don't understand being a rapper is a thing being a having a certain stigma well listen I use stigma that's with that negatively but like having a certain perspective that people view what you do us even if the numbers aren't there there's still this idea like there's some I don't know let's just say like jet magazine or essence magazine right it's not a popping magazine or something to this day but a lot of black people used to you know that was popping in the day and if they asked me to do something even if their name isn't popping just because I have that perspective growing up and understand what that might look like to my family or something like that right it's like just for all other types of reasons understanding the position of where you are in the brand like you can do a lot of things that might not seem to be justifiable because of how people see you versus the the regular landscapes I think that's real I don't know to me that stands out man that you were able to kind of figure that out as far as like hey I'm a rapper these people are still normal even if they got more followers than me or whatever right that that makes me somebody to them so um like all right you mentioned Triller which one do you like better kick-talker Triller um why I honestly I like how Triller is so easy to use in the sense that all you have to do is load up a song make three videos are you dancing press shuffle and you're good and I think that that makes it a lot easier for people to use you know they're recently monetizing views and videos on Triller so there's more incentive for artists to come on there and get their songs blown up because they'll make money off of it but I feel like the community on there isn't the same as the community on TikTok like with TikTok it's like it feels more of like a social network than than Triller does in that sense but I think they're both great platforms and I do use them both it's just different different pros and cons to each one got you got you and when you say it feels more like a social network you're just talking about the level of engagement and and how it spreads yeah and how there's there's a TikTok community you know there's a community of TikTokers that go link up and collab there's TikTok drama there's TikTok true true on Triller got you got you I mean to me that's one of the reasons why I'm bullish on TikTok in the long game right I mean it's not that the other apps don't have their home benefits but at the end of the day it just comes down to where our people and where's the most interaction going from a business standpoint like because that's where the money's gonna go but um all right dropped out of college bro I got it like that was a wow that's video that blew me man um that that was it was weird that that video feels like it could have been throughout multiple eras to me like when I was probably I might have been in middle school or elementary school I don't know if you know that song Stacey's Mom Stacey yeah yeah that reminds me of that video except in a completely different fashion but just obviously dealing with the mom and how that came what was it like recording that video and that experience and then what was the feedback that you got like what was it the feedback that you felt when you first dropped it I mean just when uh so Nick Jondore Nicholas Jondore he directed that one he wrote the treatment for that and when I read that treatment I was like oh my god this is like this is like viral material right here like every every every kid in school dreams of that one hot teacher you know that they had right and then everybody probably also got a story about one of their friends that had a super hot mom and it's combining the two of those together it's a teacher and the mom and and it's like the way that they shot it was like very like grady bunch like knock them in the middle kind of feeling and and again it just goes back to that self-awareness like I wouldn't want to do anything that I didn't personally like or think was funny and like I'm a funny person like that's that's part of what my brand is you know so so I knew that it was perfect it was super fun shooting everybody was very nice very very chill very like it was just a good time it was fun shooting it and I think that really translated across the video too like when people watch it they laugh they have fun and uh that is like to to date that's my that's my like most viral video in terms of how fast it grew it grew and the numbers that it has I think it's at like 6.5 million right now and it's been a little over a month whereas that's half of the views that Valentino has in like a sliver of the time so I think that's going to go on to to really go up especially once you know we do a genius uh interview for it and all that right right hey I look I'm not surprised man when I am surprised I was wondering if you had actually like did that concept through and through because it's so on brand for you right that that was a magic parent right there how that came together that seemed like I was like oh yeah this is like he probably just I don't know was fucking around and came up with this but but it's cool like I think like like it kind of goes uh another important thing is having people around you a good team that understands what you're going for and who you are you know like with Nick John Dora he did the games on your phone video too which is completely different but it's in that it's on it's on brand you know it's it feels right for the song it feels right for me and having people around you that are better than you at what you do or at what you're trying to do you know I'm not a screenwriter I'm not a director I'm not a videographer but Nick is and he's better at it that doesn't mean that we're not going to incorporate my ideas I'm not going to have feedback but it's just understanding what your weaknesses are too and bringing the people around to compensate for those got you yeah I got you see back to back to the self awareness once again you mentioned the the dropout video in a month blew up to where it is it's still doing numbers that actually made me think after you dropped Valentino or actually yeah how long since you dropped Valentino did it take to get on to tiktok so I think uh after six months after dropping five to six months after dropping uh the song we put it on tiktok and then a month or two after that in and august is when it started blowing up all right so it took only about a month to start well all right when you say started blowing up is that like that 12,000 video range yeah around there yeah so it took a month to get the ball rolling and now it's at 860 something thousand videos so it was just like what was really interesting though about Valentino compared to a lot of other songs is the um the crossover rate from tiktok to other streaming platforms because you can look at a song like lottery uh k-camp that's the renegade renegade uh I know it will whatever like shit right yeah right so that that song has over 10 million videos created to it on tiktok if you want to Spotify it only has 12 million plays because people are are using that song not because they like the song so much but they like to beat to dance to for their videos so it's important to know like what how's your song going to be used on tiktok you know like it every every every sound has a different purpose and not every sound is blowing up because people like the song necessarily yeah man that's key because what I find from tiktok campaigns you're just doing them tiktok you'll have those different ratios the beauty is is going to expose period the song even if they like it just for the beat it's still going to find that ratio and you'll get you know you can get a lot of legitimate views but if it's very much so just for the song and everybody's hearing it and they're thinking about the song first then you'll see those wow ratios and numbers obviously Lil Nas X had more stuff start to happen later but you know obviously he's at the billions with that video and there's only 1.1 million have I think videos created to it on tiktok which is less than a kcamp video yeah so like that ratio definitely but that's any marketing period right like I can be with one artist and I'll run an ad for him and I might spend $500 and the things start moving like crazy and then another artist I might spend $2,000 and they're like yo what's going on and it's like yeah people just don't like it you know what I mean and that's the and that's the difference sometimes right sometimes it's the audience but sometimes it's just like this is not the song you might need to go back and then go get another one and try another one so yeah that's that's a huge observation that I don't want artists to get to the point where they feel like I could just put any song on tiktok and it's not a genre thing though it's not a genre thing it's a very specific it's a song to song judgment that's what I find yeah yes like I remember yesterday I was with some friends and there was this new dance whatever song starting to grow up and it was basically like an EDM jazz song like like I had never heard anything like it before but people were doing this little dance to it it was the the videos were starting to go up it was becoming the trend and I think it'll probably blow up within the next three or four weeks or so and it's just like Valentino is not an EDM jazz song and Old Town Road is not Valentino you know all the song which is not falling which is not love songs by Cash Page it's like all these songs are very different you know it's or it's not Roxanne you know it's just it's just finding that it's like it's like a like you could turn the dials whichever way you want and different combination of turning the dials are going to give you that same result of having your song blow up I understand and I know that sucks to hear for some people because the thing again and again about music industry really is life in general is the fact that people get trained in school to think that it's A, B, C, D and I can copy your paper and I'm gonna get an A too it's like no I'm music you can copy somebody else's paper and fail that's just the way to set up and then you can have completely different answers and then win too just like you said those different combinations so that's that's cool to see you understand that do you think there's anything you have in the chamber that you might run back to tiktok at some point I mean at this point we're putting every song on tiktok right now and me me me having leveraged my own account to to where it is right now gives me the ability to try try things out without having to spend money on influencers right let's say you somebody has 500,000 followers you're probably going to be paying them at least $100 per video to do something to your song right and if you drop a project with eight songs on it that's $800 and let's say multiply by however many influencers you're trying so for me it's like I can try songs over and over again with different trends different challenges different types of videos and see what happens so I think drop that a college the song is blowing up right now on tiktok it's got like 8500 videos 8600 videos and it's like 100 new videos every single day steady steady and then my song City of Angels is starting to blow up too on tiktok it's like maybe 1300 videos right now a little more slow growth but people like that song a lot so I expect that will have its moment when the time is right so yeah I like that man that well yet again another benefit of actually creating a profile and figuring out what that looks like for you even if you're not you got personality and all that stuff at some point though like the mysterious artist who actually takes the time to figure it out we'll figure out a way to how to be mysterious and popular on tiktok it's all gonna happen yeah yeah just a matter of time who um who are you been inspired by by the way as far as music goes um a little bit of everything bro like I have such a such an eclectic taste and I think that really shows in my music too like if you listen to the drop that a college EP every single song on there is different I got like rock songs I got R&B I got pop I got banger like just like like they dropped out of college was like distorted bass just straight rapping shit so right now what I'm focusing on is finding my sound more and when I think of artists that like in that are in the same direction of where I want to go I'm thinking the Post Malone's I'm thinking the Drake's like kind of crossing and towing the line between hip hop and pop in the same way that that Drake toes a line between hip hop and R&B but I like to incorporate other influences too from different styles of music especially rock music got you I can see you playing off a little bit of uh Drake in that brand stuff too since you're talking about you a fuckboy yeah I mean it's kind of funny though like well I remember uh Justin up as as Drake for Halloween like in eighth grade I had like a fake beard I glued on some bushy ass eyebrows and that was before I even knew that I wanted to be an artist but I definitely just look up to him in the way that he was able to he's like a black and Jewish guy I'm black and Jewish too that that used to do acting I used to do acting too like commercials and she has a kid so it's like I see myself I definitely look up to him a lot so what city are you from by the way I'm from San Francisco a city that has kind of been because the Bay Area has pop and music sound but like there's never been an artist from San Francisco actually the city that has done what I've done like it's kind of crazy to think about and at 19 years old I'm the biggest artist that ever come from my city the big that sounds like a big statement man it is it's true no other rapper from San Francisco has done what I've done all right so now this makes me wonder are there like some area specific nuances that I don't know about not being from San Francisco because like if you think about Atlanta where I'm from you know it's oh no but that's really Decatur and that's really Clay like all that kind of stuff so when I hear about artists like E40 and Too Short and what's his name what's the I don't even want to wait what's he do he's regular what is it what's the white guy's name G easy G easy I was gonna say something else yeah that's what I was gonna say that yeah okay yeah yeah yeah so those artists are they not from San Francisco no they're they're from the Bay Area I think G easy from Berkeley or Oakland E40 from Vallejo Too Short I think he's from like Oakland or somewhere else in the Bay Area too but that that because of because of gentrification and show like that you know people have been pushed out from San Francisco like my family we've been living there for for like 15 my parents have been living in the same house for the past 14 years 15 years so we got able to be locked in on rent control and stuff like that but a lot of the the culture has been pushed out of San Francisco just for techies and shit because reasons out of our control so there wasn't really a big music scene in San Francisco proper like the city of San Francisco but Oakland Richmond Vallejo Antioch Pinot all that stuff like like that's that's really the Bay Area sound but out of San Francisco there hasn't really been anybody except me me and Larry June we're like the the biggest two right now Larry June what kind of artist is he he like he's more rapping I'm more melodic okay got you got you all right interesting to just put me on to some education man yeah but yeah well I I'd never thought about that whenever I thought Bay Area I was always thinking San Francisco not realizing the differentiation between the two and and one thing about one thing about the Bay Area is that it has a very distinct sound like you could tell if an artist is from the Bay Area by the way that they rap and and one thing that I was really conscientious about excuse me conscientious about was I didn't want to sound like everybody else because you're not going to get different results by doing the same thing so I was just like I'm gonna try my completely own thing out and it ended up working just because people I think were excited to hear something different that they haven't heard before but make sense make sense oh you definitely got something different and you definitely I mean music stuff is popping and I see I definitely say something else popping off with you on on tiktok what's your favorite platform as a as a whole by the way just as bum bum as an artist just as a regular person when you're just on a platform to just look at content yourself probably like tiktok or twitter tiktok or twitter yeah I feel like instagram has kind of become more like a resume a business card like rather than like I'm just trying to look at funny memes or funny videos yep man it's so interesting you said that because that's so I tell people all the time tic not tiktok instagram is the new website yeah right like that's all it is so it's not dying like in the same way when social media happened you have social media but people still had their websites for a while and then facebook did its thing and that died out like these other platforms I feel like are gonna be the ones tiktok youtube is always has it has its unique space right twitter but people are gonna be over there to engage but you know run ads like facebook instagram is your website your resume and I can run ads to it but I'm not going to expect anything to build organically off of my instagram anymore it's just that simple it's just like it's just like the home base now like everybody comes to the instagrams you want to if you want to stay in touch or stay in the loop about this certain person or the certain thing and if you really like them then that's when you go follow them on twitter that's when you go follow them on tiktok subscribe to their youtube watch them stream on twitch or whatever it is yeah yeah and the funny thing about it is I felt like when tiktok came it actually used a lot of people's mind and anxiety because people started to get into this like this trap on instagram what do I post what do I do I gotta have this perception I'm building all this out where on a platform like tiktok it's like do whatever you know what I mean you don't have to worry about being judged as much twitter is kind of the same outside of worrying about the media digging up old quotes and stuff like that yeah you don't have anything like that to worry about do you no I didn't really start using twitter until uh like like seriously start using twitter until like like posting twitter on twitter until like the past year so all of my all of my like it's all like controlled controlled ignorance not too wild very wise very wise all right cool man well hey I appreciate you linking up again man it's been dope to talk to you and really interested to continue to follow your eyes because the what when was the first time what was that that wasn't even what maybe it was a year ago or even like eight months ago the first time my DMD was uh 2018 I think like summer 2018 yeah so the the the black and white you know what I mean the day and night of what could happen in the year and obviously hearing the hustle of 24k like I'm so glad you you see on two things if I have to take anything away from it like hustle self-awareness like those two things and how you win it like I think you're a model for a lot of artists in terms of not just that front base and stuff but the actual person how they move so I'm really curious to watch where you go branding wise if you flip into other industries you got personality so I feel like you are yeah but yeah I'm interested to watch the plans man do you want to you have anything that you want to leave people with bro yeah make sure everybody out here follow me on tiktok at 24k golden follow me on instagram at 24k golden and make sure to go listen to the new dropped out college dropped out of college EP because you're gonna find at least one song on there that'll be your favorite song your new favorite hey once again everybody this is the very first link up linked up we're gonna get the actual title you know specific but this is the very first one 24k actually got me on this one we were on something else not going to tell you what the other name was but once again y'all have a great day like this video if you like it if you like it you might as well share and you not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe button