 T-Pain breaks down why you should never listen to the advice of another artist. And that ruffles some feathers, but let's watch the clip and then break down why what he's saying may be true or jacquerie case, why you might be lying. Any advice for aspiring artists and music? Stop asking artists for advice. That sounds mean as shit. But I'll tell you, anytime an artist or producer gets into the game, that door closes. And if I would have listened to Scott Storch, Snoop, fucking Bonecrusher, or the many artists that came before me, if I would have listened to them people, I would not be where I am today, I swear. Breaking this down, he's gonna go in a little bit more detail, but a lot of people advised him to make some changes to his music that obviously ended up him being successful, auto-tune, et cetera. But before we get into that, I wanna touch on the point that he said that I think a lot of people are missing. Anytime an artist enters the game, the door closes behind them. I almost think about this like a video game or one of those type of hunger game movies, like Divergent type of vibes where it's like, all right, we need a new super creative counterculture artists or something like that. Bam, that super creative counterculture artist enters the game. We have that template, that space is taken. No more. No more, now we need another thing with this particular sound. And what happens is a lot of times people will copy that sound, copy the vibe of an artist that entered the game, but the door closes not in the sense that there could be no other artist that finds some level of success with it. But nine times out of 10, you won't find anywhere near as much success and you'll be under that artist's shadow. So you're gonna have to go find the next door with your own sound, right? Which should be something that doesn't hurt artists. Like if you're going from a true creative standpoint, like, yeah, I should wanna find my own sound, my own way of doing things, but that is a really, really important thing. On that side that, yo, artist enters the game, doors closing behind them, so you can't go their way. But on the other side, when he's talking about asking for advice and getting advice from those people, artists are giving advice based on their path and their door and that doesn't apply to your door. You're coming in from a different way. Yeah, now that's me. I mean, we really could have ended the video when he said stop taking advice from artists. That could have, we could have rapped right then and I think the point would have still gotten across. Yep. And I don't know if he, well, I guess he did mean it that way because you're right, he did break that point down, but no, he's right. Like artists are some of the most terrible people to take business advice from. I think, not business advice, that's kind of fucked up. Personally, it's like, all right, let's go, it's all about that long list of what you said that shit. Music career advice, right? I think that, so it's a couple ways I look at it. It's like the artists that are usually the most willing to share a game usually aren't like the most culturally relevant. We've seen that change with like people like Russ and like the T-panes of the world starting to become the ones giving advice. So now we're starting to enter an era where like culturally relevant artists are giving advice. And I wouldn't even count T-Pain. Not that he's saying not culturally relevant, but we know the hot T-Pain was the hottest of hot T-Pain, new in the game while he's still fresh and on the rise. And most relevant, because now he's solidified in a different way. But it's like, wow, your door isn't closed yet. It's closing behind you. Are you giving that type of advice? Yeah, exactly, that's a great point. We usually see artists start to give advice once that door is closed. And it's like, well, yeah, of course you would give advice now. You don't really view the people you're giving advice to as competition. So you feel a lot more privy to rising the tides, you know what I'm saying? And because the door is closed, you could just get fake brand equity. Yeah, actually, that's a good point. But they love him because I'm giving them the game, but I know they can't give it anywhere. Yeah, exactly, but I can guide you to it, but you know they're gonna get in here. So what I gotta worry about. And so it's like, there's that aspect that I look at it. And then, you know, if we talk about successful artists, right? The pinnacle of artistic success and a lot of artists' mind is getting themselves to a position to where all they have to focus on is making music. So now, if we have to assume that majority of artists want that, right? Then we have to assume that some of them actually achieve that. And usually the ones that achieve that are the massive stars, you know? You know, I could imagine that, not saying they necessarily are completely out of the loop, but I could imagine that if all Taylor Swift wanted to do all day was make music, she could do it, you know what I'm saying? And nobody would bat an eye, nobody would care. So now you are artists be you hungry, you just left Oklahoma to go to the Big Apple to chase your music dreams. And you run into these music artists and you have questions for them. And they don't know what's going on because the things that are relevant to you at the stage, yeah, they haven't had to deal with for three, four, five, six, it was in seven, sometimes 10 plus years. It's a whole new cycle, a whole new game by that time. Yeah, so it's like, you start thinking like, man, like they gave me no advice or they gave me terrible advice. And for them, they're thinking like, I didn't even have the issues that you're talking about. I don't have to worry about that. You asking me questions about marketing, I got a team for that. So that'd be a better question for that guy. You understand that my head of my marketing or something like that. Or blogs were a thing when I start moving. And now you talking about this TikTok stuff or even crazier. Yeah, I started popping in 2020 on TikTok where everybody was inside for the pandemic and TikTok was fresh and giving everybody views. Man, you talking about 2022, it's only two years later. I mean, TikTok's still relevant, but my hype and the way I'm moving is a little bit different. So the windows are even shorter today than ever, but let's let them finish. And then we're gonna, there's definitely some more that I think artists need to understand about taking advice in general, but especially artists that I've observed. Stop what you're doing. We gotta interrupt you to let you know you can win $20,000 by submitting your music to tulost.com slash collab for the crown. We're looking for the best songs and we're partnering with Tulost. So if you think you got some great music, if you think you got the goods, go to that site, tulost.com slash collab for the crown, check out the instructions for the contest, win up to $20,000 and make sure you put in no label when you create your profile on Tulost so you can make sure you get three months completely free. That's tulost.com slash collab for the crown. And again, when you sign up, put in the code, no label, all one word, and you will get three months completely free. Go win that $20,000 because you know you got the goods, you got the talent, you just gotta make sure you submit. Peace. Scott Storch told me to not use the 808s that I use, still to this day. And that's the same 808s I used on Kanye's 808s and Heartbreaks, which made a monumental album, which made like the reason he said that he even did that album was because of the 808s I use when Scott Storch told me not to use them. Snoop Dogg told me that auto-tune shit was a gimmick and it was only gonna last for like one or two singles. All right, first of all, shout out to whoever that was who just walked by humming in the background like they don't care that he's shooting a video. It's probably like his wife or something like that. That's hilarious. And then the fact that he pulls out this big old wine bottle opener is also wild. I thought it was an immersion blender. I thought he's blaming them shit. I think that's a wine bottle opener. Let's play it. Stop asking people for fucking, do what you like, bro. That's my advice. Stop asking people for advice and do what you like. I don't know, bro. I thought it's a hand blender, Angela. Amen. I like my option or your option versus the other options that it could be. I mean, yeah, I'm gonna say it. But no, he ain't gonna work that out right in the middle of the video, is he? I ain't gonna be here. But like here's the thing I also know it's about listening to the artist, which is similar to what we already talked about, but it's on a shorter time horizon and it's more specific. You will see, and we talked about this before, you will see an artist blow up on content and be like, ads don't matter. You will see an artist blow up on ads and they're like that content thing, no matter it takes too long. So artists will always have bias towards a path that they've blown up and then misadvise other artists, not knowing that you had unique qualities that allowed you to blow up in the way that you did, whether it's your charisma, whether it's actual timing, whether it's your resources, your friends, the way you live, whatever, right, that allows you to move in that way. This artist doesn't have that, but they are perfectly positioned to take advantage of this other strategy. So you have to understand what your positioning is and then speak to somebody. Maybe you need to speak to multiple people, right, if you're just completely lost to try to figure out what's gonna work best for you at the end of the day. Yeah, I definitely agree with that because you already said it, but that's what makes it so hard with even trying to advise or culture, even talk to sometimes artists of that caliber because you're not wrong but you're also not right, you know what I'm saying? It's a weird middle ground to be in when they're wrong and right at the same time. And then even weirder when they go translate the wrong right information to a lot more people, you know what I'm saying? It's like, whoa, hold up, bro, like you said, you were a very unique case, you know what I'm saying? And your situation might work for like four other people max, but the majority of the people that might be taking your advice might really need to go this way, you know what I'm saying? And I definitely think we see it a lot. And I mean, I go back to it, man, because you mentioned sometimes windows, clothes, or things, man, we've been real, man, thanks to the internet age, some artists pop off and don't even understand how they got there, you know what I'm saying? Like I've met, and I don't even mean that in a malicious way, like I've literally met artists, seen artists, they be like, yo, bro, I just woke up one day and my song was in a meme or some shit and that shit started going viral and here I am, but then you come up behind them and ask them, yo, how did you get on this? I woke up one day. I appreciate those people who just be like that. Some of them will then all of a sudden just act like they got the game to give you, knowing that they don't know how they got there. Yeah, and that's a big one, bro. This is music. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not understanding how you got to the destination that you got to. It is not necessarily okay, but it's understandable, you know what I'm saying? Because it should be happening, but yes, that's a great point, but when you try to sell it to people or rebrand it as a strategy, then yeah, that's when you being deceptive. Because it's like, some people need to hear that sometimes. As much as we try to make everything seem well calculated and it was the result of some brilliant strategy or some brilliant mind, sometimes artists need to hear like, hey, this shit was kinda luck. You know what I'm saying? I don't really know how it happened, but it did and I either capitalized on it in a good way, which is why I'm still here, or I did it, which is why I'm no longer here, or I didn't really understand what I did next, but I did it and I got lucky again, and that somehow worked out. And then I got lucky like two more times in a row and here we are, you know what I'm saying? Some people need to hear that, bro. That's the truth, man, because that's what I always say, that there's so much advice or there's so much posturing that happens in the music industry that hurts upcoming artists because it makes them think things are harder than they are or it makes them think that everybody hasn't figured out perfectly, so then they begin to think everything is them, right? So, now I like that. I love getting artists to say that, or at least it's like, yeah, I don't quite know how this happened exactly, but this is what I was doing. I was posting all the time, so then you can maybe pull something from there. It's like, well, he say he was posting all the time. He don't know what he happened, but he said he was posting all the time. I talked to some other dude, he said he was posting a lot too. So maybe I just come to a conclusion to post a lot, right? But yeah, definitely don't act like, if you don't know for sure, you got the game, you got the answers, and give somebody some advice that is going to get them to commit to something that you don't even know is right. That's it, let's leave it at that. But artists, what do y'all think about taking advice from another artist? Actually, one more thing. I gotta say that taking advice from artist is great in some ways when it comes to just learning about what they did. I only wanna say taking advice, learn what they did. If I got my music 30,000 monthly listeners, it might be nice to learn what they did and how they got there. However, there's people who work with artists who have worked with artists and helped them get to 30,000 monthly listeners, 50,000 monthly listeners, 60, 100K a million, right? And knowing just how to get to 30K is different than speaking to someone who has seen every single stage, right? And I think that's something that we get as a benefit that artists don't get because they are working on themselves, which they should be, by the way, right? And it's them maximizing their path where us, because we're working with different types of artists, in general, in our case, right? Completely different genres and spaces and places and then completely different levels, it allows us to see more where we can see patterns where all you're this type of artist, this is your strengths, these strategies are gonna make more sense for you versus if you're talking to one artist, again, which they should, by the way, all right? They should know more so about what they did and what that works for them, all right? But that's going to limit exactly how they may be able to help you unless you happen to match their exact pattern. But if you match it too much, like T-Pain said, door be about closed anyway, so there's a catch 22 there. Artist, now, for real, what do you think? Managers, marketers, all of y'all, talk to us other than that, this is yet another clip from No Labels Necessary, I'm Brandon Shawn. I'm Colby. And we out. Peace.