 I've seen artists that's just stupid talent, but no business acumen whatsoever. And those are always the ones that's in the studio complaining about another artist that he's better than. But he's not realizing you're better than him from a talent standpoint, but he's better than you from a business standpoint. That's the only reason why he's excelling above you. A-Con has been a very successful artist. He's been a successful music executive. He's been a successful businessman altogether, which is why I think he's one of the best people to have a perspective. To listen to when it comes to breaking down why artists win in music and business, check it out. You have to approach the artistry from a business standpoint. You have to be not just an entertainer, but you also have to be an entrepreneur. And even when I sign artists, I make it very clear, you are in the music business. I like that right there. That's a great take. The music gets you to the business. We always hear the music business taking all that stuff, but the music gets you to the business, which when you think about it, that's exactly what it does. People are only doing business with you because you have music. You have enough visibility in your music or a lot of musical talent. So now we're doing this business in the music industry. Without that, then what are we doing? The industry, when you talk industry anyway, you're literally talking about money. You're talking about business. So the music, yeah, this is that's your entry point into this business, but it's not business being the entry point into doing music. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, I get that, I get that. The music opens the door for more business. But in order for the music to thrive, you gotta do the business. So when you look at someone like Drake, let's use Drake for instance, but do you honestly think he stayed in the business this long, business consistent, this long? If he didn't have a great business acumen? He clearly has a great business sense because Drake got great business acumen. Yeah, definitely. What would you put him in terms of rating an artist of all time, business acumen? Like new artists or just artists in general? New artists. I put in top 20. Top 20? Yeah, I think so. Who is above him? I mean, the obvious like 50 cent Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, Diddy, Akon, Jason Derulo. Older people. Let's go. I've seen artists that's just stupid talented, but no business acumen whatsoever. And those are always the ones that's in the studio complaining about another artist that he's better than. But he's not realizing you're better than him from a talent standpoint, but he's better than you from a business standpoint. That's the only reason why he's excelling above you. God damn it, that's brother preacher. Bruh. She a crazy guy, damn. The artists who are complaining about the person who is doing better than them might have the talent, but they might not have the business acumen. Which goes back to a point we always make where artists like to think that this shit is 90 to 100% art and talent. When really art and talent is like maybe 15% max. It's not even close. If you're thinking about the music as a way to get to the business, that should clearly show you that most of this is about the business. Because again, this is an industry. What's feeding people is the economy of the music industry. People aren't eating the art. They're not getting fed off of the art directly. There has to be business that gets attached to it. So you should expect to be losing if you just have talent and you're not activating business in the music industry if you're moving in the music industry, the music business. Where you should expect to beat the artist who has less talent than you. It's a talent show. Yeah. And we all know artists like that too, bro. Where you're like, you're like, man, bro, can we make up a plan to sell these t-shirts? And you're like, I'm about to go write another song. You're like, man, I know it's gonna be a banker, bro, but these t-shirts. This bank account, man, it's looking a little stiff. Gotta be active over here. We're trying to do more business so you can have the freedom to create more art. Yeah. But you don't want to do that. You just want to be about the art. And again, a talent show, bam, all day, you got it. We gonna straight develop, we gonna sing, we gonna dance. We'll do all that. And if the man who's not as good as you beats you, I'll be right there with you. Oh, ain't no way, no way in hell, buddy, should have beat you, man. You sing better than him. You rap better than him. He don't got no skills. He must have just won because he connected his mama or people think he look better or something like that, but nah, bro, you got him. You got him. But we talking about the music business. Now it's other things that play far more than just that talent. So you got to look at everything as a whole. Yeah, man. It goes back into that whole, you know, like it's cool to be just an artist until it's not, you know what I'm saying? It's cool to be cool until it ain't cool no more. Everybody want to be the cool guy. Everybody want to be chill. You don't want to be hype. You don't want to come in there energy with a Gary V energy until all of a sudden your back against the wall and you hungry. You know what I'm saying? And now all of a sudden you coming out like this. You should have had this type of energy the whole way through for your business. That's why I never agree with the sentiment. And it's really usually like in the artists or smaller artists that like hate the artist that admit they do things just for money. I get it. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I think the artist is smart. You know what I'm saying? Because I think the artist who only does it for the love of music is the one that's got to fucked up. You know what I'm saying? One, everybody else is definitely looking at you and saying dollar signs. But if you're not seeing the same dollar signs they see you already starting off on the bad foot, you know? Or you don't have to see the exact same dollar signs. But like you not at least seeing half of that to as many as what other people are saying. Like you think, yo, my bag here is streams and touring and maybe the occasional sink deal and some pub. It's like, yeah, that's a very great traditional music path. But I promise you that the people who are around you who are probably smart in you see way more dollar signs out of you than just that. That is a fact. That is a great point. Robert Green wrote a book called 48 Laws of Power. And people talk about Robert Green. There were a lot of people that were mad. It was polarizing. Oh, you're writing all this Machiavellian evil tips and you're telling people to do these manipulative tactics. And he was like, no, no, no. I'm just letting y'all know how the world works. Things that are being done. Yes, you could use these as a weapon for destruction, but you also could just be using this information to become aware of what other people are trying to do to you. Right? It takes a con man sometimes not to get con. You have to know how a con man thinks. So at the very least, we're out here having these conversations on this platform. And I know sometimes y'all might think, man, hey, y'all too on the executive side, or y'all too, y'all seem like y'all against artists. No, we for everybody doing things and getting their best out of the situation without scoring other people over. However, everybody, not just you. One, yeah, everybody, not just you. And then two, we gotta have these conversations and put them out there in this way versus just this, oh, you be Indian, you own with your masters and everything's rainbows and butterflies. And like, but if we just had that one-sided conversation, you never get the reality and never get to think and see the game like other people see the game. And that's why I say your point, right? You gotta understand how other people are looking at you. Because if you don't know how other people are looking at you, you don't really have much leverage even if you have leverage because you don't know where your leverage exists. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to make a deal with you. You care about my ability to bring out people to shows, but I'm up here like, hey, my song got streams, but if I give a bad performance and I screw you over there and you're a booking agent, it's like, yeah, the streams are kind of like a part of the game, right? That kind of give me an indicator. But like, I need you to get shows. I need you to actually bring people up, bring people out. But hey, if I'm just making money off your streams, you can do playlists and not having no real fans and it works for you, right? Like things are, you have to understand where your leverage lies with every single person. It's like, oh yeah, your personality might mean a whole lot to somebody who wants to do a brand deal with you or use you for a TV show. Like there's different points of leverage, different decisions that get made. Artists, if you don't understand how each person is looking at you and where their incentives are, then trust me, you won't be getting the best out of the situation for yourself either. Yeah, fucks. I got to interrupt this video real quick to let the artists and managers who are looking to grow know that I have a major announcement because as many of you know, we're bringing out JR McKee who is responsible for selling over 160 million records literally along with us, right? We want to meet artists in person. However, many of you guys said, I can't make it to that event, Brandon. I really want to make it. And I know that the information is going to be great because I got to see the growth from artists who went last time. Great. Well, we finally broke down and decided to allow artists to get access to a replay 30 days after the event. However, you have to buy your ticket to the event before the event. We're not going to give anybody access to the event or the ability to submit their music for us to listen to if they don't purchase their ticket before the event, before it sells out. As many of y'all know already, there's only a hundred tickets available. So you will have the ability to get your music listened to, be considered to have a free one-on-one call with me, JR McKee and Jacory. Also, be shared on our social media platforms amounting to over 200,000 followers and be put in front of our record label distributor and manager friends, the people who can help you grow. And if they want to reach out, we'll help facilitate that. So that's the quick announcement. October 15th, www.nolabelnecessary.com slash DC, we'll put the link in the description on YouTube. If you want your music considered, if you want to see this exclusive event that we're only showing in a private space, never putting out this information publicly online, go ahead and grab it before they're sold out. Peace. Because he's learned how to take his talent and maximize the business. So in business, you want to have a brand or some kind of talent that brings the eyes to you to give you the opportunity to sell it to somebody. So music should always just be, you know, a stepping stone to get into it or a bridge to get to the opportunity. There it is. Uh-oh, you being a choir singing for his freestion? She hit my spirit, bro. I ain't lost. Shit, she touched my soul, bro. Music is a bridge to get to the opportunity. That reminds me of those talks we had with Will I Am, who used to all the way, we didn't talk with Will I Am. Those talks we had about Will I Am, you know, them clips where he was saying, music has always been used to sell something else, right? Yes, your music is on the CD, but really the CD is being sold because the CD manufacturers are a huge part of it, right? And they're selling their CDs by putting your music on it. They can also sell their CDs by putting a movie on it, right? They're just moving CDs and then label owns the CDs and like all these things, right? So people are using music as the marketing to sell something else. If everybody else is doing that, you should be doing the same thing, right? And that's where people aren't, or artists aren't willing to kind of like break that wall and get through that wall is like, you really have been looking at the art as the value all this time. And it is valuable, right? Just like having people's attention is valuable. Having a TV show is valuable, but the money has always gotten made from the commercials in between, right? Yeah. All right. You are the show. Now what commercials are happening in between that to monetize the attention that you brought? Yeah, now I agree with that because I think the general sentiment is the value is in the music. I think the value is in what happens once the people listen to the music. That's what the value really lies, right? Does this music inspire this, I don't know, this sync rep to think of all these shows you could fit in, right? That's another bad coming away. Does the music inspire, you know, we've talked before about how you would be surprised at who's in your fan base sometimes. Like it could be, you know, a 16 year old kid who loves you. It could be like a fucking exec at Nike that loves your music and he or she hears it and now can imagine all these brand activations you could be a part of because the music has inspired them to think of you in that way. So that's what I think. I think the value is in what happens to the people after they listen to the music more than the music itself. More than the music? Because a great song that doesn't inspire people to take action to me is not as great as a non-great song that doesn't inspire people to take action. In my, to me, the second situation is the stronger situation. We say take action, what do you mean? Like buy things from you, mobilize around you in a certain way, inspires ideas that get spread, you know, things like that. That doesn't, I mean, that's more than the song itself because even a great song, nobody attached is it to the artist or lifestyle. It's hard to monetize it. The great song that doesn't motivate people and move them to do something is not as great as the mediocre song that does move people to do things, you know what I'm saying? That to me is the greatest situation. I see it this way. I think the economic value for sure is based off of what can be drawn from that music, right? That's the raw material. And then people go mining, right? To capitalize in one way or another but they're gonna dig through that material. You know, the music itself, the value that it brings is more so like spiritual in nature. It's like you make this person feel like this, right? You impacted their emotions but the monetization around that economically has to be pulled out, all right? It has to be converted in some form or fashion. So yes, it does have value but the world we live in, you know, the way things are set up, the way people eat and things like that, you can't do that. You're not gonna get anything from that. So yes, it has value but in that value is very high. And that's what allows people to then sell some T-shirts because of it or come out to your show and sell an event because of your music. But think of it that way. The music is an attractive thing that people wanna experience and wanna feel. And again, but you still are not selling the music. You're marketing the event and you happen to be performing your music there, right? Cause it could be another person. People go to events all the time, right? The movie theaters. I've marketed this screen time that I have. The movie is there. I'm just trying to get new people to buy tickets. If you're thinking about it that way, I'm a movie theater and I'm gonna exist no matter what movie is coming on. I just want whatever movies are gonna bring people in. The movies are literally the marketing to buy my tickets to buy my popcorn. That is it. And that's really what you're doing and you're just monetizing in different ways. Yourself, bump the labels and all these other people if you are doing music and you have a show, right? You could have thrown any kind of event. You chose to bring them in with your music. You could have tried to bring them in with some IG models or something like that. You chose to draw people using your music. You yourself are using it as marketing and that's just the bridge of opportunity that Akon is saying, man. And I love that he said that. Like this is just a bridge to something else and everybody that we know got money, money who started the music industry. Bridge to something else. Something that's not the music industry. They bridging, they Akon talk about city. We talk about rock-a-wear and Sean John clothing brands. TV shows. TV shows. Yeah, if you look at the Will Smith and the Guelotifas. Like that's what the entertainment industry is, right? That's what the entertainment industry is. Art is, again, this thing that does have value, but that value has to be extracted into something that we can use in the world that we live in. Yeah, man, we talk about becoming an Akon. You know, like whether living or dead, which I will argue 95 to 99% of artists, if you ask them, wanna be Akonic in some way. I can't think of any examples of artists who became Akonic solely off of music and their business decisions having been factored into that equation. I can't think of one. Not one artist that we might consider Akonic that hasn't made great business decisions. I could be wrong. No, no, no. You can't say that, bro. Who? We got a lot of artists. Give me three, right now. Who didn't make great business decisions? Yeah. You got to go with the old days, right? Yeah, okay, well, all right. Yeah, let me tell you, man, let's say 90s and up. Since being a business acumen artist kind of became a little more of a norm. So like I will argue near to late 90s and up. Since it wasn't all just record labels. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe Adele? I don't know if Adele does business stuff. She don't know what I can think of. But I feel like she got like a car wash or something on the back end. Yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know everybody's business and everything. But I feel like there's artists that people love that have made bad business decisions. But there's not love, but not necessarily culture I come across. Well, actually, I can't think of one, but I don't think I could say that right there. Yes, I cannot. Cause someone told me that it's in a- In private? Yeah, in private. Okay. Who's apparently broke? But I'll leave it at that. This is yet another clip from No Labels Necessary Podcast. I'm Brandon M. Shawn. I'm Cory. And we out. Peace.