 Again, and that's why I want fans to know, loud and clear. I'll look through the camera. Y'all are the reason that the music industry lies, period. Because you want to feel this thing that has nothing to do with the music. You want to feel like you discovered the artist, right? Do you remember how artists were marketed back in the day versus how they're marketed now? I got to lie to you and pretend like I don't have a record label. Because you want to feel like you're supporting this person who doesn't have a record label. I'm discovering them from ground zero. They don't have any resources. So now I got to dress, you know, I got to dress in this dingy outfit. Then I got to go home and put on in my nice car and eat some caviar in my motherfucking hot tub. But then I got to leave the house and then put on this trash ass outfit again. So you can feel like I'm struggling. That exists now because that's what fans desire now. But you remember what was happening in the 90s? Bigger than life. Bigger than life. Being signed actually meant something and fans actually gave people clout or looked at people better for being signed. That was an emblem. That was a symbol that you made it. You were doing something. So you know what? That's what we talked about back then, right? But we can't change the business. You got to get the artist signed or whatever as early as possible because that's where you get your returns. So I got to still do my business the same. I just got to change the face, put on some different makeup because, hey, now y'all like the eyes like this, you know what I mean? Now you like this kind of mascara. It just is what it is. That's why we live, bro. We have to make it feel organic. We're going to do all this work to make it feel organic just to make sure you listen to it without your bias. That's all it is. Otherwise, people wouldn't care if something came up on an ad. And be like, do I like this or not? I've discovered a lot of music that I like. And I don't know if I've ever told you this. I discovered her from an ad. Oh, really? Yeah. And it was funny because I was early to her. I don't know if you remember. I dropped the music video, not music video, YouTube video and everything on her. But it was from an ad that I discovered her. And the whole silhouette, all of it was dope. And there's been a few artists that I discovered from ads. Nobody, I don't think that's been as big as her. But it doesn't matter, bro. It doesn't. And maybe it's easier for me to not have that sensitivity because obviously that's what we do. So we're going to look at some type of marketing and have like an appreciation for it in general. Like, what are they doing? Is this working? It's nice. Oh, yeah. They don't play. We're seeing it completely different. So we don't have that bias because we're just studying it in general because that's part of what we do. But man, yeah, I hate these arguments where people spend so much time trying to tear artists down because they, as if they actually care about the artist and the art when it has nothing to do with the artist. It's about you. It's what you want to feel personally. That's all it is. And what reason do you have to disqualify them for? Because it's funny. I think there's like an invisible checklist that kind of comes up that I wouldn't have thought about if we didn't have this conversation. But it really is like the first thing you look at, or I'll second something, look at that. Is this person man listened to by other people? We look at monthly listening account. Yeah. Go to Instagram and see if we got some mutual followings. You know what I'm saying? See all of my homies from whatever, follow them too. I'm gonna ask them how you feel about that. First thing you look for is do other people listen to them or do anybody I know listen to them? Right. And I feel like third is that, is this an organic person or is it some bigger corporation trying to feed this person to me? You're looking for signs, you know what I'm saying? Trying to see the label. I don't know every fan thinks that deep. I'll be looking like that. You know what I'm saying? That'd be the third thing I'll look for. I think people have that. The label attached or not, right? Yeah. I get ND's or just you. Then you go through and look for like other social cues. Oh, he wearing this one clothing brand I fuck with. Yes, I'm a fuck man. Oh man, that dude, man. He lame as fuck. He wearing, you know what I'm saying? I don't know. Timberlands with the long white socks and I don't fuck with that. So, you start looking for like these invisible alignments to say you should listen to this thing or not. And I think that's what makes that argument or I'll say it's so hypocritical. I'm not saying it should stop. I just think we all do it naturally. Yeah. Like it's nothing you can do about it. But it's only an issue when it's against you. As for what ours is like, if a fan is like, yo, I listen to you because actually great, actually I just make it a personal example. Like I've told you before, I've had people be like, hey bro, like I want to work with y'all because like you black and you got locks. You know what I'm saying? And I'm like, all right, cool, bro. Whatever gets you over here, I'm with it. You know what I'm saying? Whatever makes you spend the money, I'm with it. That means I have to assume that somewhere out there, there's a person that's the opposite of that. I'm not going to work with you because you black and you got locks, right? Or you know what I'm saying? I have to naturally assume that. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So, it's like to every, you know what I'm saying? There's always the opposite to whatever, bro. Like whatever thing you're kind of discounting people or people at discount, you put the opposite of it. You might fit one archetype that makes a whole group of people want to rule for you and vouch you and that might be, but you might fit three other archetypes of other people for why they shouldn't support you and take it up for you, you know what I'm saying? Right. And it's like, there's nothing you can do about it because people are diverse and weird and we like what we like, you know what I'm saying? So, it's just, that's to me which is what makes the whole argument so hypocritical. Yeah. And I know we can't do anything about it, but you know what I'm saying? It's going to be here forever, but that's just, it makes it so, so, so hypocritical. Now, you make a very, very fair point. And then the one that you said about looking at, are they being pushed by a larger entity? Most people don't do that. I think people who are, I'm talking about consumers, right? A lot of people who are artists in the industry, they do that, right? So, we almost don't count on that. Yeah. But there's a level of fans who do care about that stuff, right? But that's the deeper and that's the, that's the deep, more deeply invested, that's a smaller portion of the whole. Yeah. Most people don't think to care about who they're signed for, by who's related to them, any of those other details that are just like technical music industry. How long have they been in the game before they blew up? Like they'll hear about those stories, maybe if they're a fan and they care about the narrative. And this is why I had a problem with industry playing when it first started popping up, because less because of the term and the fact that, again, like if you really understand marketing and whatever it actually takes for an artist to be successful, you don't really give that much credence. But less about that. It was because, obviously, so many artists follow us, right? And I see so many artists having all these conversations and looking down upon people for meeting the industry plant, quote, unquote, argument, you know? And it just felt like this weird, classic thing that started to go on and you're hating on this person and you're trying to find why this person shouldn't be successful, but the worst part about it is finding out why they're successful and you're not. You're finding all these reasons and excuses and I don't feel like that does anybody good, all right? So it's like you are hurting yourself by constantly saying, oh, this person is successful just because they have this, just because they have this. Meanwhile, you're not looking at the game for what it is and figuring out, well, how can I get this? Or understanding that a lot of times it doesn't happen as clean and clear as we think, right? It just doesn't. Not even close. It's not even close, man. And as a matter of fact, a lot of times they clean it up to make it look and feel like that because that's a better story than the actual story. This shit was a lot uglier. So it was like being the industry plant is actually a good way to look at things sometimes based on how boring this shit actually was. You know what I mean? So, but it does damage to me if I'm in this profession and I want to be one of those successful artists to constantly always be thinking about this term, this thing that's separating and this is why people are big or not. When my focus should not be other artists and their type of success, my focus should be the fans, all right? Like I would say all the time, you go ask a lot of random people out there what the industry plan is and they don't know what the hell you're talking about, right? I would ask my sister, I would ask my girl, I would just ask some homegirls and other people who are like they don't even know. So you're saying Russ is an industry plant, some people who are, say that about Russ, right? And it's like, well, you look at Russ's fan base, a lot of them definitely don't even, never even heard that term before. It's more out in culture now just because it's been pushed and it's been longer. But it's like you're spending too much time wasted on something that has zero contribution to what your actual career is and you're comparing yourself and looking at something that has zero ability to make you blow up, which is another artist's fan base in their story. You're the inspiration maybe, but like we know the effort all comes from everybody finding their way to build fans. There's so, how many artists that have hella artist fans in the industry? Everybody know they're dope. A lot of people in the industry know they're dope. Love it, all that person's so talented. Matter of fact, hey, what I can say is, hey, come write this song for me and my artists, but you're not going to have a show of us. So it still doesn't matter. All the industry can be your fan. But until you pop and have the public fuck with you, it's not the same. That's when then the industry becomes like a benefit on top of it. But you still need that core like, oh, now you can leverage the relationships. Now it looks really dope to have this extra love from all these people who have a name for themselves. All these other like things become a matter, but there's people out there who are, they're at these little mini shows that have all these dope people in the room and they get on every showcase or they end up in just all these rooms navigating there, like whatever, whatever, but they don't have a fan base. Like that fan base is the thing that changes everything. So it's like the more time you spend convincing and pandering to just what's happening in the industry, the less time you're focusing on the thing that's actually going to make the respect you. And then once you get too old, the industry doesn't look at you the same anyway. We talked about, oh boy, being 31 and they're like, the labels are like, I know you got this song popping, but you a little too old, you over 25, man. You six years past gone. So 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 going to 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. Yeah, man, it's crazy. It happens. I don't even tell you crazy things. The industry plant comments usually come from artists that don't understand it. Because like you said, I feel like you very really hear industry artists saying it. I guess one, because they're all technically industry plants at that point. But then two, they have an understanding of just because you have this entity behind you does not mean you're going to be any more or less successful than the next person. And so I think it's artists who don't have a view into that side of the industry that assume like, oh, this is still the magic ticket. You're in a better situation than I am because you have XYZ label behind you. But how many label clients have we worked with where like, if we didn't know the label wasn't working with them on paper, they wouldn't have looked any different than the indie clients we worked with. Like if I just looked at their applications and skipped past that part, everything else about them on paper looks exactly the same. Only difference is this client doesn't have a label entity behind them. This client does. And I even tell artists in that situation, the only difference that they have between like the only real leverage point they have over you is that if an amazing moment were to happen for both of y'all, they will build the cap on it a lot faster. That's the only advantage they really get over you. Like if it hit, if both of you would have hit the same day, they could probably have somebody moving around it within the matter of days where it's like, you will take your while to build the infrastructure and learn what you need to do and so on. That's the only benefit they have up until that point hits, everything else is exactly the same. Yep, yep. Why do y'all think artists are spending all this time complaining about the label not doing shit? Because they not doing shit, brother. That first part you got to get popping yourself, right? And then, like Jakoria said, they can accelerate, they can help you fall in line. That's why the industry plant shit is like the new Illuminati, bro. It's like the excuse to take away and deduce your level of success. Yeah, bro. That's all it is. Man, that's why I always account for like, the conversations we get as a marketing agency. I always try to think about it like, are these artists don't have the same conversations with nearly as many people as we have them with. So I can get it, right? When you're a marketer, man, this is the way y'all out there. But when you're a marketer, nobody sees you as a threat. So they tell you everything. You know what I'm saying? Like, I know some shit about some shit. It's just like, man, why are you telling me this? You know what I'm saying? Oh, just a guy to run your ass. I ain't no threat in this situation. I can't do nothing. So you hear things and I remember, man, this was a long time ago, bro. No, man, not long, maybe like a year ago, there was one guy to reach out to us. I don't know if he ever hit you, but he had DME. So I kind of want to say that, but I just remember this guy on paper, like just walking me through all the people he's connected to and showing me proof and all this shit on paper, bro. Shipping out of here. Real life, nothing. And you know, you get so desensitized to it. I feel like the more you work in music, it's like, bro, everybody knows about this one. So I don't even, when people are like, I don't know such a thing. I'm like, all right, bro, all of us connected to at least one or two. If you've been doing a long enough, you connected to somebody. So that's why I say, like I think that whole industry playing argument, when I hear it's usually only an argument made by artists that I can tell don't understand nothing. Cause I'm like, bro, you're saying that this person had that advantage, but this artist might have been signed to this deal for five years and it just took them a year forward to start seeing the advantages that you're talking about, right? But the first three years, they were going through the same grind, you were going through. And they had to know all the things that you were complaining about. They also had to deal with, but they still figured out, right? Like there are artists that are in the system that figured out, just like there are artists outside that the system who figured out, just like there are artists in the system who don't figure it out, just like there are artists outside the system who never figured out, right? So it's like, that's the thing that gets me about the industry playing. Cause I think it ignores the core, like struggles that every artist has to go through. Right? There are some things that don't matter what type of artist you're like, you're going to go through some very specific struggles and issues just cause it comes with, it's like, no job related issues. And I feel like it's like you're trying to like disregard that part of it because they have a seemingly better situation than you are. We're in reality, but I've talked a lot, some laborers would be looking at our indie clients, the complete opposite, right? Like they ain't got no deal, but he doing shit like that. That's crazy. He free, you know what I'm saying? He just woke up to what you mean? Like y'all had the campaign start on Tuesday. He just had the idea for it on Sunday and it happened like that. Like, yeah, he cleared the invoice on Monday, we was kicking things. Right. So like the grass is always green on the other side mentality. I feel like both sides have against each other. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And it's just weird being in the middle of it. You know what I'm saying? You're like, yo, you're wrong for so many different reasons and you're wrong for so many different reasons. So I'm both attacking each other about the whole issue. Crazy. About nothing, man. About nothing. It's... Nothing that fans care about. That's the part. Yeah. Nothing that fans, especially once you get to a more commercial scale, none of them care about. You might have some when you're smaller, first movers pay attention to them little details, but once you're out there, out there, nobody's thinking about that. Nobody's trying to check for where you came from. Like my thing is if it were true that having connections meant you were going to be up, that having money meant that you were going to be up, we wouldn't ever have rich people who lose their parents' wealth. Right? Like still a certain standard in maintenance. Now it might be an easier start, right, when we talk about wealth. Might be easier because that's a lot more objective, right? But when we increase that difficulty, is music, right? The arts and actually being good at that and getting convinced to be able to be your fans. How many kids of people who are famous are not popping and actually make music? It's a lot of them. Period. Like we looked at Russell Simmons, not Russell Simmons. Rebyn Run, his brother. The two sons, Diggy and Jojo. Both of them have the same dad. Diggy did a lot better commercially, right? Yeah, at the moment. Same, Jojo had nowhere near that. I never heard his music outside of him recording his music on the show. I'm just saying. Like so it's not just that resource pool. Like this is the same resource pool. Now let alone all the kids out there of celebrities. It doesn't even have to just be an artist, right? But we're talking that's artist specific. We could be a basketball player son. So they still got money. They still got connections and friends into music. All these things exist. Yet they aren't successful in music. Like it just especially them. Oftentimes a lot of them dabble because they have the riches to take that chance and actually look at it. Like for when you see it around you, you know you got the connections and I don't. I can't say. Yeah, exactly. Studio right there. A real official studio right there. So I don't they don't have to deal with. Hey, I got to still work this regular job. And like, you know, of course there's certain situations. I don't want to say that about everybody, but like it's more real and achievable. It seems like to them probably versus somebody who's, you know, don't have the money. So I need to spend time getting to like money money. This music money takes too long or have no idea how this stuff happens. But still, even with that being said, the percentage is so small for every Jaden Smith, as you point out, every shoe. Who's who somebody else actually did? He's one son. You know, probably a minute. Christian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who else? Um, I mean, Willow, you know, Willow. It's in the Jaden Con. I mean, that actually might be the best. Yes. Conversion rate, you know, saying from a family. Two out of three. And one didn't even try. Shit. Yeah, exactly, bro. That's two for two, as far as I'm concerned. And I play there's others. I know. Oh, that's definitely others. I think like young baby Tate's mom was a famous singer back in like that. You know, there's somebody who also like choir like that. I have a homie. He don't like people know things. I have a homie who's like that is a famous rapper. And like, or he's not famous anymore, but he's famous of a period in time. And it's like, he's quietly moving through the world. He don't really talk to people about that. I don't happen to know because I just met him one day around. Like, oh, you show that bro. Like, what the fuck? But it's like, they're out here moving. But it goes back to us being put in situations where we get to see that, which is why sometimes I understand. Right. Because like I said, we've met these people. We talk to these people because of nature of the job. We have to almost overcare and even pay attention to people. We haven't met that are going through things, right? It just comes with the territory. So I do get it when the average RSI meet doesn't have that same level of context to put two and two together. So I know, bro, I haven't worked with in the RSI struggling. I've worked with label RSI struggling. All y'all got the same issues, but you don't have it. All you know is you, you know what I'm saying? And maybe like your one or two homies around you, some clips you sing on, you know, TikTok and Instagram and shit. And that's all you got to run off of. But right. So I get that. And I take it into consideration every time I think about how annoying it is when artists kind of argue about that. I'm like, bro, it's such a dumb ass argument, bro. Like that none of us care about it. Cause like you said, the music is the great equalizer. The music centers, everything. It don't matter how much money you got, if they don't like it, then I can do for you. On the reverse side, y'all don't matter how little money you got, if they like it, shit, you keep going. It's not gonna work out for you. You know what I'm saying? Like, cause that's, you know, magical shit happens when people like the music. Hey, for real magical, that's the best way to say it. Real magic, bro. You like it like, damn, man, I can't explain this shit, but it's working. So let's keep running with it. Like when people like the music, things will start to happen for you that didn't even don't even sound possible. You'll hear us say things. So we have to even in the network, sometimes recant things we say. It goes like, oh, on the bounce of probabilities, this thing doesn't make sense for you. But if you are one of the lucky few where magic shit is happening for you, it's gonna, every marketer or marketing advice you've ever heard is not gonna make sense to them. It's gonna, it's gonna be showing things and doing things to make you go like, damn, Sean said when this is happening, this shouldn't happen, but this is happening right now. So yeah, you anomaly, bro, because people like the music. When people like the music. Not just like, that's like that special level too. Yo, they love it. Yeah, it's like, it's that special, special love, right? Yeah. Like, I always remember there was one year where we had this one artist. And I always tell people this story. That was an artist we were working with where, I mean, we couldn't spend more than like $4,000 on her across like four or five months. This was when prices were much cheaper. You just need to throw it out there for people to start putting math together in their head. But so, and I always remember looking at like, damn, we spent like $45,000 on her. And she was having things happen for her. I mean, we had a couple clients that time that maybe spent double triple her budget. One even getting close to the same result. With double triple the span. And it was crazy because it's like, bro, like her shit is like 500 X. You know what I'm saying? If there's a little ass ad budget, this person is like, you know, like 10% respectable growth coming out of it. Like nothing bad, but it's like, but it's not this shit over here. And it's like, the only thing we could reduce it to was like, yo, people really love this music. People think this music is cool. You know what I'm saying? People love it, man. And that actually makes me think there's there's different levels where some songs can be activated, right? And the higher it takes for your song to truly be activated in culture, the worst song is, right? And we're not talking about like just really, really bad music. So like just cut out really, really objectively, just horribly bad music. But let's think about some of them songs that were, they would have never been a hit if it didn't have a record label, right? On a massive scale pumping a lot of money or it wasn't dropped by artists who was already really big, right? And it still didn't do even what that artist is used to, but it's still got a lot of love, right? Those are like the worst of the best. Yeah. The further you go down though, right? Let's start at level zero. At level zero, it's one of those like, yo, this is uneniable. People hear it and it goes, right? So that's the super magic. Then you got some stuff. They just need a, you know, level one, level awareness, right? They might take 5k or, you know, we just throwing some numbers out there, but that just helps give some example. Like, oh, this one takes 5k and once it gets 5k, it's going to go. But that doesn't mean just because you're sounding it 5k, it can't go. It might be a 10k song, right? It might need that much to take off and then go crazy. And sometimes it's another thing. It's a weird part about music too. It could be a song that takes 5k to take off and you'd think that means that this is a bigger song than the song that takes 20k to take off. Some songs, right? It might take a little bit longer for it to hit the way it needs, but it's still going to be bigger than that song that pops earlier, right? Because there's just some unique elements, right? So, for instance, this is my example, just because this is one of the most recent examples for me personally of songs that, the moment I heard it, it just goes crazy. Glow, Rilla, FNF, right? I'm going to keep pushing the agenda, man. I actually went deeper into your catalog. I'm in love with it even more. FNF, right? The moment, I heard it, the moment, the right crowd here, is it? So, you can't just go play this for George Straighten. I don't even know why I said George Straighten. You don't even know who George Straight is. I don't know who George Straight is. Right, he's a... That's crazy that I even said George Straight. Like, go play this for, let's just say, I don't even say Taylor Swift, because I feel like it has some crossover over there. But let's just say some super gospel Christian audience, right? You can't go play it over there and expect your grandma to hear FNF and it goes crazy, right? But you play FNF for the right audience and the more accurate it is, right? Also, the less money and effort it takes to get out, right? Yeah, yeah. Bam. You have that track. But there's other music. Bodec Yellow, I'll go back to there, because we were rushing that recently. Bodec Yellow, because we were rushing that recently. Bodec Yellow has a far higher ceiling, right? Obviously, we know what it did, but FNF could not get there, even if it wanted to with all the money that Bodec Yellow had behind it. If it takes all that, the effort, some of the same people, it couldn't do what that song did, because there's a limitation in terms of who it's going to connect with. The language is a little bit, you know, for some crowds, right? Her delivery is going to really resonate with somebody who's from the South like me, right? More than some people from other spaces and places around the world. So for me, my Southern Black ass is going to be like, oh, shit, I know what this is. I connect with this shit. Like, oh, like, I know what time it is. Somebody else might hear that shit. And they might need the rest of culture to let them know how much this moves, right? Yeah, they convinced them. They need to be convinced, culturally convinced, right? Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this clip, then you should watch the full episode of No Labels Necessary that it came from, and it's going to really blow your mind. Check this clip right here.