 Can you be as big as Drake as an independent artist? LaRussell has an opinion, you know, we're going to talk. He was going label meaners and I used to ask them, do you think it's possible to be as big as Drake as an indie? And we used to get a lot of doubt and like, I don't know, you'd have to go through this, this, through this system. And it's like, if I got here, independently, I can only get bigger. You know, I know what I did to get here. So if I do it times 10, that means I'm going to get a 10,000 multiple in my growth. If I do that times a hundred, I'm going to get a hundred times multiple. So yeah, I definitely believe so. I mean, I'm here and I'm completely independent. You feel me on this platform. Most of the people who come on here have a label behind them. It's part of their PR rollout, the press, but we don't have a label behind it. I got some thoughts on this. And I don't think you can be as big as Drake independent in today's climate, in today's climate. But that's also because we see independent differently, right? Partnerships, et cetera, independent of a major label and be pretty damn big. I think that's only going to grow. You're going to be able to get bigger and bigger, independent of a traditional major label, right? Cool. But if we're talking about the nuances of the relationships and things that have to be in place, the type of partnerships that ultimately are going to have to be in place, you're still going to need to to move in a very, very similar fashion. You'll just own a lot more than a Drake does of his own vertical. You might have that team of, again, content, your own distribution or something, somehow, whatever that might look like. But I don't think you can be that big. I'll get into some of the nuances. Why? And say, if I want to hear what you think before I go deeper. I think somebody will be eventually. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. Because that's a today's climate. That's what I said. Yeah. All right. Yeah, because it's like, we're just now starting to see the effects of people. What? Rest, start, prison and independent things. We're like, twenty, seventeen, maybe eighteen. Yeah, yeah. Right. So we're now starting to see the offspring of the people who were listening to him and paying attention to all those kids and younger artists that care another pair of attention to rest. They're all, you know, now adults, you know, now further along in their careers. And we're starting to see a lot of them move and take this type of stuff seriously. We're going to make rest the line in the stand and BR and AR. I think so. Who else could it be? Who else could it be? I don't know. I don't have a specific line. I just I just thought that he was getting out of the independent conversation. That's all I feel like mainstream for a lot of music artists. Because now 100 percent. Yeah, he was the he was the first one to like make it tangible, right? Like, I'm going to show you two in court statements. I'm going to I'm going to talk about this. And I'm going to show you the example of this generation for sure. And he he set the tone in a different way on a on a whole other level. And he made a point of making that sign. I'm not taking that from I just want to see what your thoughts were. You know, I got to kind of throw something. I get it, man. I don't look like I give it a rest on that, man. Because he made that I think there were people who talked about it, but always sounded like really like corporate, really stuffy. Like it was different. Like like watching like Russ on like an Instagram live stream. Like, oh, yeah, I see how my tone goes. We just like it made it feel more tangible, right? So now we're getting people who are in the era where they grew up on that. And we're starting to say a lot more arts care about that. Put it into practice. Now, the thing that I think makes it hard for indie artists to compete with major label artists is usually two things. It's typically, let's just say resources, manly capital, but just keep it at resources and then infrastructure, bright light. Infrastructure in a way that's like different, right? So like the rest about the point like, hey, I'm on Breakfast Club. A platform is typically, you know what I'm saying, used by major artists and I'm here without any type of major backing. Like we've known you can get on these platforms. If you are connected to the right people, right? If I go hire the same publicist that I don't know. J Cole is using. It's possible that I could get on some of the same publications that J Cole is getting on, because at least this person has access to that, right? Well, I think that's how it's typically looked at. What might not be considered is one, the way of the relationship from the other side, right? So if I'm a major label and I'm on the Breakfast Club, I'm probably tapping, the Breakfast Club is probably tapping in with the major labels. See how it was up there. They should come out the same way. The labels are going to be continuing to tap into the Breakfast Club to make sure, hey, shit is hot. So when we're ready to send people your way, you good, you fucked with us, right? When you're an individual, and you're not tied to a major corporation, you don't usually get that same level of treatment from your partners unless you were massive, you know what I'm saying? You tell us with Spotify, these different platforms, probably reach out to her every quarter. You got some shit coming up, what are you thinking about? I would think they'd do that. But if you like someone that's even, not even just small, just say like three, four steps below her like that. You might not be getting those same types of reach outs all the time, right? So I think that becomes the part that makes it hard for artists to get to that level. It's not that you can do it, it's staying top of mind and then maintaining that level of infrastructure where you're keeping up with all these different partners and things that you need to pretty much your machine, right? Like your machine's got to be activating, keeping up with that for a long period of time. It's taxing, it's exhausting, it's expensive, you know what I'm saying? And that's the problem, yeah. Let me take a quick second to say if you're an artist trying to blow your music up or if you're a manager, a music professional in general, trying to help an artist blow their music up, I have something that's a game changer for you and it's completely free. As you may know, we've helped multiple artists go from zero to hundreds of thousands of streams. We've helped multiple artists go from hundreds of thousands to millions of streams, chart on Billboard, GoViral, all of that stuff. And we've now made the way we've branded multiple artists and helped them go viral completely free step by step in Brandman Network. All you have to do is check out brandmannetwork.com. You apply, it's completely free, but the thing is we're not gonna let everybody in forever. So the faster you apply, the better your chance of getting accepted. Brandmannetwork.com, check it out, back to the video. The problem is not just can people have access to my music today, right? Can I go direct to Kim Selmer on whatever part of my vertical, the music, the touring, the merch, whatever. It's because of the relationships at hand that mix music, such a partnership heavy industry. And that's when we get into the blur line between independent or just independent of a major label, right? So for me, I think it has to at least be acknowledged when we had these conversations, the economics of relationships, right? The way that for people to naturally move and their incentives to put people in the room that they're connected to, put people in a room that they can trust. Why can they trust them? Because they might be connected to them and their incentives are in line. They have a similar agenda, right? Where they've been brought in through somebody else that you trust, right? So once we talk about at scale, not make more money than Drake. I believe the wrestler, if that's his ambition and he has the way to do it, he can make more money than Drake ultimately, right? And not even necessarily just to use it, cool. Are we talking about bigger and being a superstar in the same traditional sense of superstar? That's a whole nother story, right? And look, by all means, go down route. Cause I'm not even somebody who desires that type of energy and like facial recognition. So it's a little different, but that's what you're going for in terms of superstar, be as big as Drake in that way. I think it's, you have to acknowledge not just big, not at home, all right? Not just big, you know, domestically. So in the city, not big in this nation, we're talking about big around the world, facial wise, not just more money. We're talking about facial branding, right? Consider the big artists and then how do you get into all the spaces that allow for that? Yeah, yeah. Right? Like, oh, and how do you continue to do the R and D that's required to continue to stay old time over time as an individual entity that doesn't have a lot of those same partnerships? Cause that's extremely difficult. All the R and D that we get from running our agency, right, but then also maximizing that to all these other streams like touring R and D, right? Let's just say NFT, R and D, whatever. You know, there's so many different categories. It's hard to truly master all of those things alone. So I want to be like discouraging or hating against the idea of the indie artists being big. I just think when we talk about specifically the facial recognition, traditional superstar box that we think of at the moment, as we both agree at the time it's hard for me to see that occurring without some partnerships that would make me personally say, you're not indie, indie. You know what I mean? So that's the way I think about it. Yeah, I mean, no, that goes back to kind of what I was saying earlier, like why don't, I think it'll happen. I just don't think it'll happen anytime soon because we are now in the era where we're watching artists attempt to do it. Yeah, so that means we're watching in real time, you know what I'm saying? Not even just rest, like we're watching major label artists leave their label in an attempt to go indie, right? We're watching artists pop on platforms like TikTok and YouTube and things and choosing to stay the indie route to build themselves out. So like we're watching in real time, artist trying to figure it out. Going back to what I was saying earlier, it's not enough of them to talk enough about infrastructure because you mentioned something, right? Even thinking about like the level of Superstar, right? Like you have your local practices, you have your regional practice, you have your national practice, like I don't think there's enough artists yet talking about what that entire pipeline looks like. You control that pipeline looks like because there's not enough of them that understand it yet. You understand like these artists that we're watching in real time are gonna be the ones that maybe four to seven years from now, like we've watched enough of them go through it. They've talked about enough to the same degree of the rush though and now artists coming at that time maybe have a serious chance of competing and making that happen, right? But I just think like we're in the guinea pig era of indie artists and like there's a lot that comes with being the first person to figure that path out for other people. Exactly, I think this era will run into problems and say, ah, that's why I didn't get there because I didn't have this, but then be able to teach it to the next generation. For sure, they're gonna do it, right? Exactly. Maybe they'll do it, but I still just because of the scale and the amount of humans involved, right? It's hard to do it independently, right? I think a better way of positioning it to me is I think there will be a day where you can be massive without losing your freedom in a way that you would lose it before. Like you have more control of your business. You can do shorter term deals. You'll have a lot of leverage without being tied up and without having to do it the old school way, which was I'm gonna go through the system and then by my way out of it and be free that way. Cause there are people who have done that. They're big and they're quote unquote free, right? I don't have ownership of all their stuff. I think technically Michael might've did that in some ways, but then again, this is where we get into the other part of the game, right? You get that big, you're that much of an entity and you're not tied to any other entities. Do people even want you around like that? That's a different game, not being a big company. Multiple people, multiple stakeholders that are keeping it all involved, partners, right? Being a single individual who has all of that power or invisibility within an industry that's built different. See man, now you got into some deep conspiracies, you know? I'm just... I know, you're right. I ain't dissagree on what I'm saying, that's where it gets to the other side of the game. Right, look, and I'm not even trying to tip toe way over on that side of the pond, the dark side of the pond, even just strictly business and competition and not even getting into the darker stuff. It's like, well, people are gonna make it hard. I don't think people realize how much there is a overall industry instead of to keep things how they are as much as possible. All right, like I'm a major label, you're a major label, there's another major label and we're all competing, but then when we see, oh snap, there's something coming to disrupt us, we're gonna try to figure out how to make this shit work, you know what I'm saying? Band together. Band together a little bit. It's just like, I can't remember which label, but I'm sure the majors fell screwed over a little bit by the first major who did the fixed deal with TikTok. Because they were all holding out, everybody wanted, hey, I wanna get paid per stream, essentially, right? And one did the big lump storm and that set the tone. Once you got that precedent, the other ones kind of got to fall in line, right? So it all affects them, how the industry's moving, how artists deals are set up, all that stuff. But right now, what do they do? They figured out a way to have these distribution companies so we're still connected and y'all can feel independent. Yeah, you get more freedom, but I still got a leash. You know what I'm saying? Still got a leash. Oh, I invested in Spotify, you know what I mean? I'm trying to get as much as TikTok as I can, but TikTok got a day, that's a different animal right now. Oh, I'm invested in what Spotify has, the CD Baby. Yeah. Oh yeah, Indie, but Spotify, I got CD Baby and major labels in Spotify. I can't remember if the majors are still completely in Spotify. I know that they had to sell off a little bit or something like that at one point, but like things, look man, the people in a certain space and that benefited from the industry being in a certain way, they're not gonna let it all go out. Like we talked about when Drake was up for a new contract and Drake could have left being completely independent and Domino effectively that would have had. Yeah, like it was incentive for me as a label, Drake signed to you. Hey bro, how much you need? You need 10 mil to make sure Drake stays deal with the ad on top. I'm like, don't be cheap, bro. Come on, go ahead and make that. That's what I would be like, right? Just to keep the climate the climate. Yeah. So I think we also underestimate that as a whole. It's like, the industry only money always wants to keep the old environment, let's put it that way. And then new money tries to fight for it and then when new money finally figures it out, they become old money when it keeps the old environment. You know what I'm saying? It's an interesting paradox that we're in but what I see in major labels history, they've been very good at buying time to figure out a new program. Right? It's like we use these rights to slow people down so she can't innovate too fast. We can throw copyrights and we can sue you. We can take all your music off your platform or not let you get music in the first place. So buys just enough time for us to figure out, oh yeah, we want to be distributors and we want to invest in this company and this company and this tech so you're still in business with us anyway. All right, so I don't know what that new thing is but the new thing that they're really trying to be, they're thinking less about independent artists individually and more about the AI music shit. Oh, how can we make sure that doesn't leave us, you know? So I don't know, it's an interesting argument about can you be as big as Drake? I think we generally agree that it's not, it ain't with that five years thing. Let's say that, let's say that. I'm telling you, we're looking at our new young superstars like between 22 and 26 right now so it's around when they hit May 30 with Stars in it. But one of them, I think, I don't know who. What type of genre do you think it'll be? Probably pop or rap. Yeah. Maybe not. I think pop. You think pop? Yeah. Pop or Latin. Maybe rapper or Latin. Maybe Latin. Oh man, I'm glad you said that because the one person we didn't talk about was Bad Bunny.