 What's up everybody, once again, it's Brandon Shawn and the topic for today is the importance of getting down into the trenches and giving yourself certain experiences as an artist because of what you'll learn from it. And you'll see what I mean when I show you this clip from a very special interview I had with a guy by the name of Johnny Two-Phones. He's an artist, you'll get more about him later, but he's really starting to build his true own cult fan base. For now though, let's just show the clip. When did this happen? Did you have it when you dropped the O or when did the habit of getting a manager coming to the play? Right now, I have a manager, but I'm still the one who's in control of everything. Nobody's really like, I wanted to say a manager more. Like I'd say a manager, it's just rough, I'm not told I'm a manager, but it's like we're kind of at the same, we're working the same, we're working the same route right now. Nobody's really like, oh, I'm Johnny Two-Phones manager. Just like, no, we work with Johnny. So my advice on that is always be in charge, always have control over everything. Like the show we did, I headlined at the upstate concert hall this summer and the piece of paper I got from them says Johnny Two-Phones sold 703 tickets and they wrote reviews just so I could show it to other venues when I go to them like, hey, this guy's about his business. He handles everything like from top to bottom. I was in charge of that show, radio promotion, flyers, all that. And like it was the most annoying thing I ever had to deal with. Like I had to deal with all the artists. I had to deal with all the BS, all the bullshit. But at the end of the day, I learned how to run a show. I learned how to book my own show. I learned how much I need to be paid. I learned how much I'm worth. And nobody like, I got taken advantage and I didn't know, but now I know from that mistake, like, okay, well, next time I'm not doing that, we're doing it this way because I know the way now. Why do you say you got taken advantage of? What do you mean? What happened? We sold 700, I sold 703 tickets, like all of us together. But for the most part, it was like, I was ahead of the line of the show. I was like, you know, it's my show. So it was me and Swathley's down show. I'm sorry. But we sold the 703 tickets and only I got paid about 1.2K. So it was like, we didn't get completely taken advantage, but 700 tickets at $20, a little bit more than 1.3K. So it's like the money situation. So now when I go to a venue, I'm renting it out. I'm not going through promoters and no, we're going through us. Guys, so you went with some promoters, the promoters brought the venue and they brought you in and let you do all the marketing, basically. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Very familiar with that. It's not the artist's fault because in our area, they're so scared to bookrap that they like took advantage of us because they knew that there was no other way to do it. So but now I have that piece that says I sold 703 tickets. I performed at the Palace Theater in front of 3000 people. Like I kind of got a little leeway mind. You know what I mean? I got some people behind me that are like, no, he's fine. His fans are good. They're not fighting like, you know what I mean? Like if you're trying to book a rap show, you can't bring like everybody wants to be gangsta, but you can't bring that. Like they're not, no venue really wants that. Like 6ix9ine isn't booking the same places as like a calender. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's not, it's not how that works. 6ix9ine is losing out on so much money because all that BSC brings. That right there is something I hope you guys hold on to because it's really in line with one of my personal philosophies. A lot of times I believe in just going deep into the trenches so I can get a feel for things myself. And once I'm in there, I start to learn certain things. I can see how certain things connect in a way you can't see when you're up there at the top just looking down on things. You have to get into the trenches and when you're there, you'll be able to move on and elevate into different positions, but still have an instinct and a feel for the things on the ground. And it'll be a more accurate feel versus just thinking you know certain things and hoping that they work out. You'll be able to move far more confidently because you'll remember what it was like when you were there. So try putting on your own show. Try hitting up a booking manager. Try managing your own marketing campaigns. And that way you not only get a feel for how certain things feel and some of the reactions, crowds or audiences might have to certain things you do, you also get an idea of how long certain things take. Because when you hire certain people, they try to BS you and say it's going to take two months when it really should take two days. You'll have people try to charge you way more than they really probably should be charging you to do it. Unless you're just doing it for the convenience or they're super great at what they do. These are all very important things that you can get when you pull up your sleeves and get down into those trenches. But I would love to know you guys thoughts on it. Tell me about some of your personal experiences and how being in the trenches has taught you things that you didn't even know that you would learn when you first started to do it. Other than that though, of course, as always, if you like this video, go ahead and hit that like button. If you like it, you might as well share it and if you're not subscribed, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe.