 How do you go from regular indie artists to tens of millions of free views and making thousands of dollars on your album in less than 90 days? Today, we're gonna talk about an artist that did exactly that as a part of our second case study of the year, breaking down what happened, why it works, and how you can copy it to do the same, maybe even better. I'm Brand Man Shine. And I'm Corey. And this is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary. All right, all right. Today, we got to talk about an artist by the name of D1, who has made a bit of a fuss over the last few months. A bit? A little bit, a tad, a tizzy, you know what I mean? And there's three sections that we got to break down because I think a lot of people are going to minimize this too. Yeah, you make some noise or you go viral, but how do you capitalize off of going viral? So we're gonna talk about the press, which is the attention. We're gonna talk about the music and we're gonna talk about the money. All right? All right. And how does this tie in together? So let's just break it down first for the people who do not know D1, how he got attention, all right? And then we'll get into all the elements of why certain things worked, et cetera, et cetera. I wanna play the clip. They're disappointing grownups. That's what they are. It's the old Gs in hip hop. It's the ones that's 40 something years old. And man, I hate when I see these gray head clout chasers who still talking about, and I send my young boys to come and wet your whole block up and da, da, da. And they still glorifying this. I look at what a Jim Jones, you could do better, brother. I love you too much. I love you too much to not be honest with you. Rick Ross, you could do better, brother. Meek Mill, you could do better, brother. I love you too much not to be honest with you. Are you the face of prison reform? Cause I held, are you the face of prison reform? Or are you sitting here on your new song with Ross talking about getting somebody murked? All right, we're gonna stop it there. And please again, do not diminish this to just going viral and calling a few names out. Yes, these elements are there. We're gonna talk about that for sure during the press segment. But how do you translate this and make this matter? And you'll be able to do this in your own way as we talk through this episode. But this headline reads, D1 and Rick Ross engage in heated argument over charity and harmful lyrics. So obviously calling people's names out directly like that. It's always gonna bring a little bit of attention. Yeah. A little bit of attention. And he's made some strong statements, right? That many agree with for one. But this statement got to Rick Ross. Let's play a little bit of what Rick Ross said. Just again, this is for the context for people who are gonna be like, what are y'all talking about? Cause we see on the episodes, man, can he play the full clip? There's no music in these. Aha, we can play, we can play. You can do better. I gotta see you do better. Wait, wait. Boom, man, whoever you is until you feed the kids where you from for 20 years straight. Don't question, Rose. Ross is going on his rank. Trying to say, hey, man, I'm me and you ain't doing what I'm doing on my level. It don't matter if I'm contradictory or not, in your opinion, none of that stuff, right? He just, he's shilling them off. However, as you mentioned, Jacory, Rick Ross didn't get quite the response. He probably expected it from that. A lot of people were on D one side in this argument. Y'all heard the arguments that D one made. Essentially quit being contradictory. Y'all are encouraging negativity in the music. Y'all are encouraging murder and things like that in the music. So with that being said, polarization, one calling somebody out, creating some level of controversy, creating some level of beef. Rick Ross actually responded. So you can go back to the tried and true strategy, like call out somebody who's bigger than you, get a response, and that can elevate you. Rick Ross really doesn't have anything to gain in his conversation, right? Just to be real, especially when the conversation is what it is, he can only lose because people then begin to scrutinize, well, why are you acting a certain way? There are some contradictions there and now you're being watched more closely. So then if you respond in a way that dismisses it, it only validates what D one is saying in this case. Yeah, yeah. And people start charity clocking, right? It starts being like, how many turkeys have you given up, you know what I'm saying? How many haircuts, you know what I'm saying? Or kids have you sent to school. It starts, you start playing that game, which is a dangerous game because there's no number of charity that makes people happy. Right. I mean, when you are as rich as, you know, Rick Ross would like us to think he is, whether it's higher or lower, whatever the number he's making us believe, once you hit numbers like that, there's no real right or wrong, you know what I'm saying? In terms of like, how much you can do. And this is the thing about this, right? When something like this happens, it's on you to make sure this gets seen. Yeah. This is what D one does so well. You go to his page over and over again. When these types of moments happen, he makes sure he mentions it on his page. Yeah. He posted on his page. He's the media platform for the media platform to get to it. Yes. He is the media platform before the media platforms get to it. And in the media platforms posted, he's going to post it too, which we'll get to that later. But I want to mention one more key moment out of all this, because with Rick Ross saying what he said in response, you know, now people are really beginning to talk to it, talk about it. And Joe Budden also threw his name in a hat and responded as well. They had a quick conversation on the podcast. You can't be on one side of progress and be also a detriment at the same time. I love his message. I just don't like how he did it. Why? I just think that he can get that message out without naming a name. I mean, it is the fence. I don't think the message goes out. Yeah, it is the fence. I don't think we'd be up here talking about it if you didn't name a name. I think that general message has been one that a million people have said. So like they go on and go on. There's most people are actually pretty much on D1 side, Joe Budden's calling him a cult chaser the whole time and dismissing it, feeling how he feels. But this is a beautiful, beautiful type of polarization that you wanna create where there's a topic that you can get your side riled up, right? There's gonna be two sides regardless for this to go. There's gonna have to be somebody, some level of opposition, right? And a lot of times in these super polarizing moments, you have two parts of opposition and it's almost 50-50 split, two sides going super hard. But then there's rare moments where it could be a 80-20 split. And D1 was working with a 80-20 split, right? Where you're actually speaking for the people in a way, right? Something that many people agree with and the opposition is really just the people who have a stake in the game trying to defend, right? There's some people that might just be hating and they wish it was them making the statement. There's the person that you are speaking against. So of course they're gonna oppose and then you're gonna have a few people who are defending for whatever reason. That's their homey or whatever it is, right? So when you can find specific moments and not saying that he did this personally or like all out of like, I'm strategically picking this topic and these people, I'm not even saying he did this. All right, these moments like this, sometimes these moments actually happen organically as skeptical as we can be as marketers, right? A lot of times these moments might happen organically whether he just brought it up in conversation or you can plan it. But the point is when it does happen, all right? We can talk about why it works to the level it does or why it doesn't. And this works so well because he had a lot of people on his side. He want that as the up-and-coming because if it's 50-50 and you're a indie artist who really don't have that much of a name, you're gonna get washed out and suppressed. Who is this guy? Who is this hater? All right, same reason Keith Lee was able to come up. You had all these people like, who is this? Man, don't nobody care. Why does this man have any power? Like you hating on the city, da-da-da. And all these people like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Keith Lee is right. Atlanta restaurants do be trippin' and whoa, whoa, whoa. Keith Lee, like if you watch his videos, like he had already had a built-in audience, right? So although he was new to this other space, he already was coming from something, had a little bit of support, which D1 already had and had a level of track record of speaking on these topics in this way. And then on top of that, all right? The topic that came up, right? The topic of controversy was something that a lot of people already agree with. You spoke for the underdog. Yeah, yeah. I think the other part of it too is he put a name on the bullet, right? And so I think that, I guess it's really for artists who can send themselves, they have a message when they speak out on things or in their music. The issue I've seen a lot of times with artists that think of themselves that way is that they paint the enemies to be like this broad, unimaginable enemy, right? So it's like the best example I can think of is how many artists have we heard say like, oh, let's tear down the corporations, like we should be against the corporations, but then you hear that as a fan, you're like, well, there's a lot of corporations. I'm not necessarily against all of them, you know what I'm saying? If we're being honest, but then you look at, let's say a more specified campaign, let's say like when Kanye was attacking Adidas, Kanye dropped faces and names, you know what I'm saying? So you knew exactly who you were. Kanye dropped faces and names. LaRussell, right? He talks about the industry and all that stuff, but then he has moments where he'll speak on specifically, like the rock nation deal, that was a bad deal, or whatever, he mentioned that specifically. I remember when Russ was like coming up and going raging against the industry, he would speak out on specific publications. The biggest example we got right now, guess what it is? What'd you about to say, university ticked off? Nah, but that is another issue. That is another issue. Kat Williams called out, that interview was not a day anywhere near those numbers if you didn't call out multiple notable figures. It's like we as the people are wondering like man, who is this enemy that's causing you so much? Or what? Yeah, what? It's too much left to the imagination that specificity allows us to see it in me, attack it in me. If you told your team, you know what I mean, shoot the ball and nobody knows where the hoop is, but if you say that hoop, like that's us, right? Or that's where we're attacking, that's the enemy, now I can clearly visualize and you know, and you can get them riled up, feeling more hate, you can make them feel like they can analyze more and decide for themselves and then build the same sentiment. But if it's just general, it's like yeah, everybody knows that there's some they out there that might be against you or the public, it doesn't allow it to land the same. So that's a really, really good point. Yo artists, there's a lot of distributors out there, but if you want a distributor that will take you seriously, not just look at you as a number, then Two Loss is the platform from you. I'm talking about helping you beyond just putting your music on all the DSPs, that's what y'all are supposed to do. Two Loss actually helps you with your money. I'm talking about whoever's a part of the song, dealing out the splits easily, or more importantly, helping giving you an advance so you can actually create what you need to, whether that's studio time, whether that's your music video, but helping you get money to help fund your career, and most importantly, a lot of these distributors don't really help with the playlisting and things like that unless you are a signed artist, you have some kind of serious deal, but Two Loss has that ability as well and some of our clients, when they switched over to Two Loss, they've given us shining reviews. So check out Two Loss at TwoLoss.com and make sure you put in the code NoLabel. Again, that is NoLabel, N-O-L-A-B-E-L and let them know that y'all came from us. It's completely free. Make sure y'all let them know where y'all came from. No label. Let's get back to the episode. Like I said, it's something that you don't typically see in music and we've talked about this, right? Like it's a very known thing in music of you don't wrestle with the powers that be either because you may be affiliated with someone that's affiliated with them. There's a lot of six degrees of separation of music and people don't want you to make their friends mad or make their business partners mad when you look at someone like D-1, right? Who's industry adjacent? You know what I'm saying? I'm sure he goes in and out as he needs to but he's not like a industry, industry artist. He's legit indie, yeah. Yeah, he's legit indie exactly. So I was like, I don't have to, yeah there are social repercussions that we've seen but I'm not as worried about the detriment to my career because of this which is what we typically see with artists who do have messages. Like there's too many power players at stake for them to truly speak their mind against it. So they're relegated to speaking in hypotheticals because like they were to say, hey, this executive, this label is who fucked me up or this ad rep or this corporation is who fucked me over then. Like that could ruin so many other things for them. You know what I'm saying? And not to say he didn't think about that. You know, I'm assuming most artists who do make these type of statements have to think about that type of thing but you know, like I said, he's afforded the opportunity to be in a position to where like, you know, like I said, he's been doing this for years, he's been speaking about things for years. So it's not, one, it's not weird to the audience to where it can be misconstrued in a weird way. Yep. And then two, it's like, all right, well, if I've been operating outside of the parameters of your operation anyway for the last however many years, like I can only be so afraid of the backlash here. Exactly, exactly. And this is what creates the reality as well and which is why we say things like this can happen organically. He was consistent with his message before, as me and Jacory talked about, but even in this moment when he was doing multiple interviews, every interview he wasn't going around talking about Rick Ross, Jim Jones, and Meek Mill. There were other interviews where he might have mentioned some other people and examples that they just didn't bark back. Rick Ross barked back and then that just gave it another level of attention. And he had other situations where he was just talking generally. So this is something, a message that he's pushing consistently. And if you want to grow off of a message, I think it is important that there is some level of authenticity that people can look back to because you just made this switch and you turned your life around today. And now all of a sudden you calling everybody else out. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, who are you? Which D1 talks about. He said that I, he said that he went to his homies funeral. I think he spoke at his homies funeral then on the way home, he was listening to his own music, his own music. And the music was basically speaking death and destruction. And he was like, man, this is toxic music. I'm making toxic music. I'm making the poison. And that was when he started to have that shift, right? So he speaks on that. Now, if he went out at that moment and started talking Rick Ross, Meek Mill, Jim Jones, then he'll be like, yo, bro. Yeah, come on, man. Like I know you had a little epiphany and all but it took your tail. But no, he had that moment that was a while ago, obviously. And he's been talking this talk for a while. So do know, if y'all do want to come from a certain direction, create a track worker if you really want to build up on something. Cause it also allows new people who come in to come go through your past and then say, oh snap. I really liked this person because I see these messages no different than when some people found out about Nipsey. Unfortunately, when he passed and then all of a sudden, they start seeing all these videos of him speaking certain messages in the past cause people will be like, man, this guy was so positive. And so you'll see one video. And then all of a sudden they're like, man, there's a whole bunch of this guy like on this type of vibe. This is crazy, right? So you want that, especially in moments like this, if there's going to be some type of enemy, particularly if that enemy is another person. It's a little easier when the enemy is an entity. And that could be a whole another game but you don't want to create an easy way for the person to just call you out. They can just be like, ah, this is some fake clout chasing stuff. Yeah, exactly. That's what happened to the person he was going against, Meek Mill. I think that might have been what maybe preference to start the conversation was Meek basically, you know, speaking out against certain things. And then that kind of like, whoa bro, like, you can, like you said, you're not really the right person for this message. You know, like cool. The motive behind it seems to be pure and positive, but we're not so sure of the messenger, you know what I'm saying? And we've seen that in a couple of different instances that were even like less pressurized and something like this. Like Meek went through a similar situation when he was talking about label contracts and everybody was like, bro, like you the same person that years ago was all for this shit. And now that you're not in it anymore, you know what I'm saying? You got complaints and like, that's a very real thing, especially as an artist with a message. Like, if you have an audience, people are looking for contradictions. Regular fans love finding contradictions the messaging of people bigger than them because they can't wait to prove to themselves that you've been just selling them a lot this whole time. Like, and that's the one thing I tell every artist, bro, fans can't wait for them to realize that they've been right about how fucked up of a person you are. Like they're looking for any instance to show them that, you know what I'm saying? And the moment there's a chink and you're messaging or you're an armorer, there's something that can use to detract away from it. Yo, you telling me to stop doing drugs like you didn't post a video a week ago if you smoking a blend, bro, that's crazy, like, you don't say, who are you? Don't you better than me? And that's what we get into the second level of this, which is still on press, but paid press. Okay. So when you have a moment like this, the moment your name is mentioned or mentioned by a celebrity, right? A notable name. Go time. It's go time. Paid press, paid press, paid press. You need this moment remembered in time. Document it that you were mentioned with these names. You won some award from a notable publication or a notable entity like, oh, because D1 had the NAACP award for whatever it was. I can't remember what it was, but bam, gotta mention that in press, right? Oh, you got called out by Rick Ross, gotta mention that in press because now you're building just some level of not just visibility on the fan side because we're gonna talk about that and flipping that, but also for people to look you up, the business and organizations that don't know who you are. It's great for this moment for sure to keep feeling the fire, but a year from now, two years from now, when you're doing dealings with people who missed this moment completely to be able to see something like this, document it and to see that, oh, he was relevant enough for this really big rapper that I do know to mention, right? You essentially, you are making sure that you submit yourself in their legacy. Because the other artists is for sure not going to do that, you know what I'm saying? The other artists, especially in most of these situations, I mean, I don't think that Rick Ross was actively seeking to kill the moment, but we can't act like he would have carried if the moment died off, you know what I'm saying? That would have been great for him, you know what I'm saying? It would have took him off the fire. So it's like, there are these things where, like you said, hey, I can position myself to where five years from now if somebody Googles Rick Ross, I come up in 10% of those inquiries because of how big of a moment that I've made. And you know, when you start to publicize things to that degree, just like what happened with D1, is other people start speaking on it and then the moment starts to become bigger and bigger and more cemented in it. And if you would just let it be the flavor of the week, you know what I'm saying? Like the conversation of the weekend. You know, we also live in a time period where things are almost not real to people unless they're documented on something outside of social media. Yes. So it's like, hey, like I saw this on Instagram, which was cool, but it's different when I see an article about it on CNN or I see, you know, our generation music making think pieces about it or something like that. You know, it starts to hit a lot different to the consumer and their brand. They're like, oh, this is a much bigger topic of discussion or bigger deal than I may have initially been led to believe it was. Yep, it really matters. It really matters. And I don't know, man. I think this is so beautifully done and it's a perfect example of when to get PR because artists ask about that so much. All right, when should I get PR? And we say stuff like, well, when you have something that can be talked about. All right, well, this is something to talk about. So it's a very clear example. Like I said, you got mentioned with the name of another brand. There's a notable story there. That's all it is. If there is a story there, not, oh, I dropped an album and nobody necessarily knows you yet. So that isn't a story. Beyonce dropping an album is a story because people know and care about Beyonce. There's a relationship and it impacts certain things, cool. But for you, like what is the story? There could be something completely interesting. You could just be on your merry way a regular day as a rapper or a singer and then you see a cat in a tree and it's stuck and you save the cat. That's actually kind of a story. If you know how to spin it, rapper saves cat. You know what I mean? There it is. It's a little bit of something. It might not be the biggest thing you want to attach your brand to but it is something that you can tell a story and will be interesting and clickable in other spaces. And then over time, I mean, just another point of reference as you build your PR space. But there's other stories as well. But like that's an example of how it really can be something that if you want to create a story that doesn't have to like wait for hopefully Rick Ross or somebody to respond or some big brand entity to give you an award or anything like that. You can create little moments, right? Or pretend moments have happened to be in the headlines but you just have to understand what that looks like. And we're gonna do another episode. Next episode is actually gonna, we're gonna touch on some of this ironically. I got a clip for you. You gonna like it. Okay. But so that's a tease for next episode. Make sure y'all watch that. But let's move on to the music, all right? Because you could do all this stuff. And what does it matter if the music doesn't move as an artist? All right, you are an artist, right? A lot of artists worry about that. Oh yeah, it's going viral and they like to just point at somebody and just pretend, oh yeah, that's not impacting the music. They're not that big. You look at D1's streams. He's at 83,000 monthly listeners. I know for a fact he's been higher. I've seen him in hundreds of thousands before. But guess what, doesn't matter right now because you know where he switches focus to, especially for this period of time, selling direct. So that's not what we're measuring. We're not measuring his streams in terms of music success. We're measuring the sales of his project now. That is not something that is completely revealed. So that's not something that we can talk about, but we can talk about what has been put out there. $1,000 for my album from the hood to Harvard. That's what my man, Wall Street Trapper, just paid for, yo. I'm beyond humbled. I am beyond grateful, you heard me? And that's why I'm allowing my people to name their own price for this album because streaming services could never, you dig? So when people value your heart and your art, they show up in a whole different way for you, man. Thank you, I'm on Harvard's campus right now. You feel me? Yeah, the album just dropped today from the hood to Harvard, available at D1Music.com, you dig? And man, look, God is great. All right, that's all y'all need to hear. That sums it all up, Bansky. Little quick ban. So direct, one person paid $1,000. I'm not sure if any others have paid, but I know there's been a nice little amount of sales just from what I'm seeing and what I'm aware of. So how do we get here? Hey, just wanna drop this quick mention. If you're looking for help in blowing up your music and your career as a whole this year, at the beginning of every year, we open up to find new artists that we wanna work with and continue to grow throughout the year, which has resulted in many of the big moments that you hear us talk about. So at this time, we've opened up where you'll be able to see how we approach things from ground zero. Digging into your brand identity, translating that into content, advertising and full-blown campaigns that result in streams and real fans. And it's only $1 at www.nolabelsnecessary.com I'll put a link in the description below. But beyond that process, we actually have ways to speak, get to know you, watch you grow throughout your process so we can lean in and offer extra advising on how to navigate what you're going through in real time. So if you want some real help without having to sign your life away, check it out at www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days. Either way goes best of luck to you and your career. Let's rewind for a second because we're gonna get to one of the most important parts of why he was able to do this for this project, like financially, like get people to pay direct, like skip streaming, especially pay numbers like a thousand plus. We're gonna talk about that explicitly. This is a perfect example and y'all are gonna need this if you want to get people to buy your stuff, not just an album you selling off of streaming, but just your merch and whatever to support you to this level. But if we rewind a little bit, this album from the hood to Harvard, like he mentioned this, this is perfect within the narrative of all this, right? So he already had this plan to drop this project. He didn't necessarily know that he was gonna go viral or Rick Ross was gonna mention him, but there was a couple of things that he did have control of and this is what you can focus on. One, he knew he was dropping an album, right? And the name of it from the hood to Harvard, there's a story already there. He was doing that part right. The name brought a story, it evoked emotion, it provided a narrative for him to then talk about whenever he's talking about the project, whenever he's been interviewed about the project, right? And he had a real backstory, like, cause he literally went from the hood to Harvard, he won some award or like fellow from Nas, what was it called again? Harvard has a Nas based fellowship that he won. Right, a hip hop based fellowship. So he won that and he dropped the project basically titling it while he's there on campus. He was dropping it while he's there on campus. So he's already thinking great from a marketer standpoint. I'm gonna drop this with this narrative while I'm actually on campus. So then I can do videos on campus like what he was just said in this video. I'm actually on campus right now, right? So he already probably had that part planned, right? Great, perfect, love it. But then on top of that, he as a person who's dropping a project, planned, going on a PR run, right? Like I'm gonna do my interviews, podcasts, random small podcasts, the big ones that I could get as well, I'm on those. And this is what most people slip up on. I work with so many artists, they all wanna get interviews. Biggest platforms is possible, you know that. But you know what most artists don't have? Something to talk about. Exactly, that's it. You didn't even need more than one guess, because you know, because you know. Oh man, do I know? Having something to say when you go on these platforms is how you maximize these platforms. That's what got this entire thing rolling. He had a platform himself, but he got bigger platforms than other platforms, had something to say when he got there, had a consistent message that he took. Every single place he went, maybe used different examples, but he had a conversation for people to agree with, disagree with, begin to feel something about him and be attracted to him. You don't go on these platforms just to be like, oh, what was your backstory? Where are you from? Inspired the music. Yeah, like in the talk, nobody wants to hear about the music honestly. They wanna get to know you in an interview-based platform. This is an listening party. And most artists don't know what they would say in an interview. Yeah. All right. Yeah, it's a lost art, a media attorney man. It's a lost art. So you have to figure that out, like period. If you go on a platform, what is the primary talking point or two? Maybe three, because you might wanna have a little flexibility when you go from platform to platform where they might lean in a little bit better. You know, some platforms aren't good for certain conversations, but what are the main ones that you wanna represent and push in that moment of time and then go from there? So have something to say is huge. Yeah, I think the other thing too, I just noticed, and I don't even know if he meant for it to be as meta as it seems to be. But I'm thinking about the type of people that the viral message would attract, right? Like typically the type of fans that are attracted to the message of, you know, poison and hip hop or, you know, they feel like the music is being pushed to control certain narratives. Typically those types of people are very anti-industry. Yeah. They're traditionally very anti-industry people. So that's why I said, I don't know if this was intentional or like you said, just was a nice added benefit on top of what he already planned. But it's like, now I've amassed this large group of people who are anti-industry. This is the perfect time to launch a direct to fan platform because a lot of these people are probably looking at this like, hey, I don't wanna support you through the platform that's supporting the same people that are purporting the message that we've both seen to be against. How can I make sure to support you directly, you the person that has the message that I agree with and make sure that all my dollars are going towards amplifying the thing. Cause that's what these fans are saying. Hey, I'm giving you this money because I like your message and I know that in order for this message to keep spreading, you gotta live. You know, so I like to say, I would much rather give you the full thousand and then you ideally go spend that money amplifying this message we both agree with rather than me giving the money through Spotify. And not only do you only get a 1% of that, but the rest of that money is going towards amplifying people who I don't agree with, who don't have the message that I wanna stand behind. So I was like, like I said, I don't know if he got that medal with it, but I see that playing a part in this. So it's a couple points there. And we're already bleeding into the third, which is the money. We're gonna touch the money specifically, but then you talked about the industry. And I think it's a point that people should like bull on, stew on consistently the industry. Most people are anti-industry, right? Even if they don't know it, think it actively with the right talking point, you can get them to be anti-industry because most people just the way the masses works out, are not in the end crowd when we talk about successful business infrastructure, right? So going back to the Cat Williams, he didn't just call out people, he positioned them as people of the industry. And I'm outside this thing. I'm torn, like touching the people, seeing the people, I'm in the small town, giving money to the small town, supporting their programs, et cetera, et cetera. And these people are keeping me out. How dare these less funny people keep me out, right? That's the positioning that he had. This one yet again, right? You're talking about the industry. And now these people have been gated. It's like, you didn't even know, man, you just walking. It was like one of the movies where all of a sudden like a gate pops up or something around you. And you're like, you Rick Ross, like in gate pops up around you, it's like, oh snap. What is this? And like, this is like the industry bubble gate. It's like, dang, I was just having my life and everybody was in love with me. Next thing, you know, this is gated between us. And I just look like I'm of cross defense. Guarding the industry is like, oh, and now everything you say get twisted into a different lens. It's like, oh, now he's defending the industry. Oh, of course he would say that as an industry person. He's pushing their agenda. Like that one small little thing is easy to get people to switch that way. So like from a PR standpoint, I probably would have been like, hey, Rick, Rose, like, oh no, man, we want to, and he really didn't stay on this one. So he might've got that, like, or just tested the, saw the temperature himself. You know what I mean? He's pretty savvy after he made his initial response. So very much so anti-industry is going to work like until the end of time. It just is what it is. But the last thing with music, he continued to drop like social media freestyles during his time. Reminding people that he's an artist and it's talking about some version of his message or something that's at least congruent where you're not like, oh, like he's talking all this stuff and then he's making some kind of crazy, you know, murdered, kill, kill, toxic song himself. So he's reminding you still again and again that I'm an artist, this is what I do. This is, I do make music. Not necessarily everything from the album and pushing the music is just reminding you what I am. And that's a good thing in these types of cases. I feel like when you have this type of momentum, you can have enough emotional support where you don't necessarily need to be like, all right, now hear this song so you can think this song is so good. I need to go over to the streams or in this case, buy the project. No, you just want to let the support like drive the sales for you. So don't necessarily give them anything off the project. Just remind them that you rap and you can rap. Just remind them that you can sing and you know what good music is. You know, you have the talent. But let them really hear what's up when they go and see what's up. Yeah, yeah. And I think it ties to, until another point we've made in this same topic, right? When you have a moment like this where the attention from it may is bigger than possibly any like artist moment you've had, then it becomes really important for you to place things, place things in view that let this new audience know that you are a music artist. Because he could have very easily after that just been posting talking head videos every day and taking more of like a social commentary route. And that would have been completely fine in this instance like that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that but it would have aided to the goal of getting people to the music because there would have been this vast new group of people who would have just seen him as a commentator maybe eventually have made their way to the music but they would have seen him as a commentator who makes music versus he's taking the steps to make sure they know that, hey, I am an artist who has comments to make about things that's going on. It's more of the reverse, you know what I'm saying? Like I said, and neither of those are necessarily right or wrong. Like I said, if he had decided to go hard or live in the other direction, I don't, I don't, it would have been, it wouldn't have been bad with a different goal attached to it pretty much is what I'm trying to say. But as an artist, like you gotta think about that. Like if I'm getting this moment that could possibly be bringing in way more eyeballs than any artist moment I've ever had has contributed for me, your next step needs to be thinking about do I lean into this? And I make this thing, like the new me, like this is now the forefront of my brand, right? Or if that's not where you wanna go, you think about like, okay, how do I as quickly as possible set pieces in place that make sure these people know what I am when they get here? Because it doesn't stop. Exactly. At 100,000 views or something, if you got a true viral moment, you can assume that this shit gonna keep moving. So there's never a wrong time to implement that. I guess except at the end of the viral moment. Um, you know, when it is literally too late. But that to me is where my brain goes when clients start to go viral. I was like, all right, bro, like around something that's not music focused. It's like, all right, bro, do you want to lean into this? None music thing that made you go viral and we represent you around this. And if you don't, then we need to start thinking about what we're gonna do to make sure these people know that you're a music artist. Sir, again, like I said, a moment like this, when you have people supporting you heavily for an adjacent message, not necessarily just hearing the music, you're going viral for something else. All right, don't let the music get in the way at the moment. You remind them that you make music, but if you drop project music all of a sudden and try to push that heavily, you start to get people thinking, do I like this? Is it worth X amount of dollars? Okay, emotionally, off of pure emotion and messaging, I would have gave him $1,000. But I heard the one song I heard, I wasn't feeling that, that wasn't a thousand. You killed some of my emotion, you know what I'm saying? I was about to say, it's like we often hear about the message overshadowing the music, you never hear about the reverse. Sometimes the music does overshadow the message. Yes, sir. Sometimes you don't hear about it. For a reason, people make that quiet decision and you don't know why or what happened. So that $1,000 went to $200, you know what I'm saying? All right, or $50, or whatever it is relative for that person, a stream or something like that, a like, something like that. And the worst part about it is the other nine songs on the project might have kept that emotion high. It just might be the one you chose or the part that you chose, right? You just don't wanna get in the way in moments like this. All right, so rollouts look different for different moments. And now we get to the money. So we already mentioned that someone paid him Wall Street Trapper, shout out to Wall Street Trapper. I've heard some good podcasts from him. Pay him $1,000 for the project. So directly on his website, by the way, I looked at the breakdown of the website. Looks like he's not using any of the platforms that allow you to do it. Like some artists sell direct platforms. He put this together through like a Wix SquarePay space type site, one of those type of situations. So you can figure out these types of sales situations in different ways. He's doing a pay what you want for people who kind of missed that. So he sold for that amount. With that being said, he also sold a book in his period of time too. It was like a children's book. I don't know when he wrote it or if he had released it and it was like putting it back out again. But the name of the book is David found his slingshot. So David found his slingshot. If y'all don't know that, but D1 is like rooted in like Christian hip hop first or like he wears his religion on his sleeve. Every single song is in out there like, hey, God, God, God, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, you must need to be a Christian. But he's very open about his religion. So he has a lot of people who are Christians that follow him and a lot of his values and the way he speaks, even in these interviews are like from that lens. So then you have a book, right? Along that adjacent interest of the audience that you are building. This is the stuff we talk about all the time. What do you have beyond the music, right? Or merch, that's just again, the music. What do you have in terms of a different interest that makes sense to sell to your audience? For him is this, for somebody else it's something completely different, right? And who's the thing that, what's her name? Sexy Redhead. Remember she had some crazy stuff. We never talked about it on the episode. It was like perfume, either perfume or lip gloss. Something like that. Yeah. And it had like crazy names or something. It was like, I don't know if we can say it. You know what I'm saying? I do remember it was wow. Explicit lip gloss or explicit clone. Yeah, yeah. That was around the brand that she had built. Like this raunchy brand or things that were kind of humorous. Like the reality is like her bars or the songs and the titles and things like that. Part of the success of those are people are almost having fun as if it's like enjoying almost like a joke at the same time, right? So noticing that she didn't go like hardcore. Oh, this just has to be some kind of sex driven merch or. She made a goofy. It was some goofy. It's goofy. It was like a goofy name. Like that little bit of insight, right? People can mess that up. Not knowing exactly why they're there. Not, oh yeah, they're there for this box. Nah, you want to know exactly why they're there. We're here for the humor and the fun of it all. We know that we're kind of inappropriate type vibes, right? Which again leads back to him and his adjacent version. All right. We're telling the stories. It's something about the youth. He speaks a lot about the youth, by the way, and his brand as well. And whether it's in the music or talking topics like this. He was like, hey, the rappers are misleading the youth. It wasn't just like A. Rick Ross is being a hypocrite or Meek Mill or Jim Jones is being a hypocrite. It's like, what is the influence that the OGs and others are having on our youth as well? Like he had some other videos. I think he talked up, he mentioned Lotto and some other women and talking about the young girls. All of that stuff. So understanding, again, the messaging that you have and then also understanding why people are there, specifically what version of the topic. Because every topic has subtopics within it. What version of the topic are they going to you for? So you can capitalize on that. And yes, he has sold books for those of y'all who want to wonder. All right, oh, did he sell music? Yes, he sold music. Did he sell books? Yes, he sold books. And this is where we get into the key. We talk about somebody spending 1,000 plus, all right? We talk about people doing similar things for artists like LaRussell who sold direct. But we also know a lot of artists who are selling direct and are not seeing those numbers. We've seen a lot of artists with way bigger streaming numbers not do the numbers they have in terms of selling directly. Because that's a different thing and it's coming from more than just am I buying because you're an artist and the industry is bad? Let me be clear. People don't care about that. Like the regular normal citizen for the most part does not care that the industry sucks. Your pay isn't what it's supposed to be enough to then just buy your music at a high rate. Yeah, because you got to think, man, the average music consumer, no matter how much you complain in their head, almost all music artists are millionaires. Yes, one is that your job looks fun to them. Many of them would love to be you in their opinion. So like that's and it's not they don't care at all. It's just that is not enough. They might buy one time or they might spend a little bit. But what's getting them to spend $200, $500, a thousand, $10,000, especially in one pop. If they have it, that goes back to the brand identity. That goes back to you representing something that they want to support. Not, yo, I like his music, his music is dope. Cool, but I get so much music for free. It's hard to just say I'm gonna pay a thousand. It's like, no, this person represents changing the industry the way that they've brought out their narrative or this person represents a message that holds Christian values. I'm a Christian, right? This person represents just the black community and like getting rid of this toxic messaging, right? Like there's so many things that he stands for and represents for a lot of the people who are following him. So they're supporting more than just that. They want, I think you said this earlier in this episode, like they want to support that message for it to keep getting fueled. They're basically funding the idea. It's like a thing, it's like a thing kind of in the sense. That's all it is, right? Or crowdsourcing, right? So when you think about it that way, what do you represent? What is the identity? Are you saying something that I would love to say or I would love to hear more of? So you are my talking piece, right? You are my mouthpiece that can spread the message and you have a platform that I can. He's saying everything that I wish other people would say. Yeah, it's like, it makes me think of when Rumble came around, right? And it was really early in Rumble's career, people were worried because they were like, oh, all these, all right, you know, speaking to personalities or hopping on the platform and gaining all these supporters really quickly who are spending money. And I remember looking at that thinking like, man, that's not really the platform's issue. It really just shows more so the dedication of the people like, hey, I'm willing to follow you to the ends of earth to make sure I can support you. And your message gets heard whether you overhear you over there, you know what I'm saying? And so I think we're so used to seeing that in other artistic mediums and not really music. One, because of, man, it's very red as you see. Like an artist that even has any sort of mainstream semblance just like completely booked the system like it's not. Even though we see a lot more of it, I want people to know it's still an anomaly. You know what I'm saying? In the grand scheme of things. It's like, yeah, we've seen 10 artists in 2023 do it, but how many artists make music? You know what I'm saying? Don't get your corner of the algorithm twisted. Exactly, like it ain't all roses and activism out here, you know what I'm saying? Like, we've been honest about it. But you will, if you speak it loud enough, you will hit that corner of the algorithm that does think it's like that. And you can just continue speaking to those people and maximizing those people. And you know, at the end of the day, man, we've said it, at least from a marketer's term, the best way to be successful is make a small group of people happy, you know what I'm saying? If you can continue making that small group of people happy, you'll be okay. Yes, sir. And I want to mention, because I did go deep in brand identity in one of the Saturday episodes. So if you all could check that, I will put it in the description. EJ put that in the description somewhere, but I went a lot deeper in brand identity because every version of brand identity is not, like, hey, you are my mouthpiece and you're saying something that I would love to say. All right, some of that is I'm in deep depression and you serve that level of depression, right? You make me feel better to listen to you, whatever that looks like, right? People have different versions of that. There's multiple, or you have a political group that you stand for that I love. Like, there's different versions of brand identity and I go a little bit deeper into that, not the full, like, one to four, well, four hour workshop that I've done on brand identity, but I touch on a lot more of the elements. So if you're interested in seeing that, then we'll put it in the description so you can check out for yourself. But last topic to get us out of here on all of this, building outside of the music industry. I think this is a great example of what it can look like because D1 is us a professor, right now. What is it? Tough? Tough university. Tough university. And I think he might still be doing something with Harvard, but yeah, he's teaching that tough. Right, so, and if you look how he moves, a lot of the stuff he's doing is just like regular people stuff. Right, and that's another thing, too. He's been a teacher, like, I know he, and you go back and look at earlier in his career, he was a teacher when he first ever popped off. I think he's kept some type of teaching or education-based gig, even like his artistic peak. You know what I'm saying? Like, he was always still on the ground level, and that goes back to what we said earlier. Like, you can be someone that's new to D1, like, kind of like Joe Budden, and I could understand how it's suspicious if you just heard about him at that moment. But for people that have even had, like, a small semblance of who he is for the last couple of years, like, it wasn't anything new, you know what I'm saying? Yep. It was like, you said it was more surprising that it went as big as it went, but it wasn't surprising that he spoke out about it, you know what I'm saying? That's it. And which just goes back to me saying, like, you know, it's not necessarily always planned, but if you're consistent enough and your message is pure and authentic, at some point, all right, it'll get out there and get heard by the right ears, but more importantly, how we talked about that little bit of change that specificity does, who things get hot a little quicker. So if you aren't, you know, seeing the traction you wanna see for that message that you have, whatever that message is, think about specificity. Yeah. Help me visualize, like, I'm reading a book. Let me see the details. Yeah, and I think too, it's important to think about, like, social climate, because I even thought about this when his moment went, right? Like I said, I think a large part of what made the messaging go was Meek was in the new cycle for some hypocrisy before then, and I always wanted, like, man, if he had said what he said, like, a week or two earlier before Meek had said what he said, would this have went the same way that it went? You know what I'm saying? True. True. And then of course there were just, you know, I mean, there's music-based tragedies every year, but I mean, this was post a couple of them. So then you started thinking about, like, man, if he had said this at the top of the summer when shit was all, you know, fun and peachy keen and, you know what I'm saying, shit was going, would it have hit the same? Probably not, because the public's head was in a different space, but you give it time, you give time for life to happen and, you know, events that may support your case or, you know, even go against it in another case you're trying to make and then the public attitude changes and then your message makes sense. And there's also a public sentiment of, man, this music is too toxic right now. There's a lot of conversation about this. He's not the only one saying that in general. There's a lot of people saying rap has to change and this is why other genres are winning. So, and rap is going down, is rap gonna die? Like there's all those conversation and it's coming from some of the energy that he spoke from. So, yeah, like you said, timing really matters, but the point is you can really build outside of the industry and he's just yet another example. Yes, you can have some people who might be a little bit more industry friends, people that you get to know. As you begin to grow in this space, you know people and those people go on to do different things and have different positions, but you don't have to necessarily be of the industry where your entire infrastructure is reliant on a major label or just a traditional way everything is set up on, right? So, and the people who are connected and control everything and you can't say anything about certain groups and all of a sudden everything falls down. You don't have to be tied into those systems. So, let that be just another bit of encouragement that people are willing to support the regular people. However, you know, it's hard to make that happen if people don't know more of you, right? They'll know what you stand for. Why am I paying for you when I get most of this music for free anyway? I agree, man. If you look like every other cereal box on the shelf, you know what I'm saying? Like what I'm searching around for. Facts. And this is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary Podcast. I'm Brandon Shawn. And I'm Corey. We out. Peace.