 What's up everybody once again this brand man Sean and I got a very special guest for you guys today that is Ruslan. This guy is an indie rapper who's built a sustainable fan base and actually has his own record label and been able to transfer some of his fan base to a new artist and is now building that artist up to be even bigger than he was. He has some business insight, some unique Spotify strategies that you actually watched the other video I did dropping that clip from this video and he has a very unique branding scenario that a lot of rappers don't have to go through so I'm excited to show you guys this interview because I know it's gonna bring him a value check it out let's hop into it and I have a very special guest for you guys today this man has been rapping for a good minute building a solid fan base and not only does he have a solid fan base he has an indie label as well you own the label is that right yes our King's Dream entertainment based in beautiful San Diego California a little boutique label I've been doing since 2014 all right all right and obviously I mean that's him talking so well brother ado is Ruslan did I say that name right you did not it's Ruslan but it's okay Ruslan man god yeah so I want to get this out the way man real real quick like I know there has to be people out there who say you look like Russ or like see Russ at all and just miss miss mistake you for us you ever got something like that yeah you know first of all as a white hip-hop artist it's always whoever the latest white rapper is so you know initially it was like Eminem Eminem this is like when I first started rapping either like Eminem then it evolved to probably like was a 2012 oh you look just like Malcolm or like I look nothing like Malcolm or not at all now now it's like oh bro you look like Russ and it's like because we're white and we have brown hair like Russ is like half a foot shorter than me you know I mean like different eyes different shape face like that's you know it just goes to show it's like it's just people want to simplify you but no I don't take offense to it I think Russ is an amazing artist I really appreciate what he's done in terms of his indie grind the deal he landed with Columbia I think it's great so yeah I'm a fan of Russ bro so I don't take it the Macklemore thing I wasn't a super big fan of cuz it was like pop rap you know I don't even understand that comparison but though I out I sidetracked this a bit but man day this um this dude has been not only he's a grind and been been a legitimate fan base he has a he's he's a Christian alright that that's and that's a very interesting place to be as far as branding and we're gonna talk about that the fact that there is this thing about being paid as a Christian rapper there's already the regular hard indie rapper grind there's a lot of things that come with that but I feel like he's one of the people who's doing it successfully no matter what stage you might be looking at it so really man I want to start here with you as far as being a Christian rapper right what made you decide that you wanted to allow yourself to be pegged as a Christian rapper that's a crew that's a great question there was nothing there was no one specific thing it was I was a Christian and I've made hip hop I didn't even know what Christian hip hop was initially I just got radically saved and had an encounter with God and I was like yo like this has to affect how I make art you know and it had I can't do some of the things I used to love to do and some of things I thought were corny you know I just naturally started doing like talking about God more you know I also had the framework like like a lot of what hip hop was to me at the time in terms of Tupac and DMX was really my first on ramp to even hearing about God in a non corny way and so I didn't have no problem talking about God in my music now as that evolved and it's turned more into a career then you discover that there's this thing called Christian hip hop and this entire world that kind of operates outside of regular hip hop but is intertwined now more and more and so it wasn't like I just I didn't have any reservations to it because this is just who I am like I'm gonna talk about my faith but I'm also gonna talk about you know becoming successful I'm talking about my family I'm gonna talk about the struggles that I've had coming up as an immigrant in the United States and not knowing my you know English as a language for a while so you hear a full scope of that and for me I don't mind attaching myself to being a Christian because that's what I am people want to call me a Christian rapper I'm like all right whatever you know I'm saying like you listen my music think it's Christian rap cool like I'm not I'm not gonna deny that because I think if people actually check for the music they'll know that it's quality and a lot of people have some type of faith background you know what I was different about my music is it's not like overtly beating people over the head with the Bible you know I'm saying like it's different it's lifestyle music and I think people that that honestly give it an open ear for the most part like oh this is dope like this is flying in a rock with it I can definitely agree with that it's not like you were beating somebody over the head with your beliefs or anything like that whenever I hear your music you have some songs where okay it might be in the course right you might be talking about God but honestly when you got people like Kanye and so you hear God so much in music it doesn't even sound like a like your preacher or anything and it doesn't really go too much deeper I mean you have some some songs where you go a little bit deeper but but generally speaking it's it's just regular hip-hop when I hear it I probably wouldn't have even thought too much about that if I hadn't seen things where you were mentioned as a Christian rapper yeah yeah absolutely and I think Kanye a chance I've completely you know like desensitized the public's perception of Christians you know like what used to be like oh that's why you know like I think Jesus walks was a big moment for Christians and hip-hop or whatever you want to call it and then obviously the chance now who's been open and labeled himself a Christian rapper which I think is very very fascinating I think it's changed the palette of the public you know like it's incorporated something different versus like if we if we flashback 10 years ago and it was like the soldier boy trap era when trap first exploded like you didn't really there was no real balance you know besides Kanye like there was no real balance now that I feel like there's more balance the Kendricks the chances the Kanye's who are more overt about their faith view it makes it it makes the public more open to it I think and that's a beautiful thing and I'm not mad at any of those guys and I enjoy all their music so hey well obviously man you you found success regardless of what people think like not you know I'm sure you want you got a lot of building that you want to do so but you're finding success and you you've been growing your fan base right now spotify here like 73,000 monthly listeners all right that's a good amount monthly especially right that's a lot of artists want that for one song but it says you have that monthly how have you been building your spotify fan base that's a great question I think understanding the algorithms in terms of what's happening with spotify spotify doing some amazing stuff spotify is essentially I feel like I don't say competing with SoundCloud but they're impeding on that space the SoundCloud was in by releasing those manatee matrix yeah and I think I think it's actually really cool so understanding the the the the actual algorithm followers to plays how many followers if you have X amount of followers and they all listen to your song the first day comes out that's going to set off bells in their algorithm and so pushing people to the spotify pushing people to follow pre-saving dropping releases four weeks you know putting a release up four weeks out telling people to pre-save it pre-save it pre-save it building hype and prep work around the release also dropping singles that then go on a project and then no single streams transfer over by using the same I I see our seed numbers I forget what those numbers are but you can do a super yeah yeah yeah I did a video about it on how to transfer your numbers from like tune quarter digital kit so I think just using the platforms natively which I know we hear about you know from guys like Gary Vee all that kind of stuff but using the platforms natively understanding what it is and if you like I got an artist friend of mine I did a whole video about this but I got an artist friend of mine who's uh he's actually my my artist older brother and he had like I don't know like a hundred followers or something crazy but his first song dropped and it was at like 70 80 thousand streams listens and it was because all those hundred followers went and listened to it they shared it and that set off bells in their system they then spotify playlisted based on their algorithm and now his monthly listeners are through the roof like I think he's got like 20 000 monthly listeners started with a hundred followers one song out that has like 80 000 hundred thousand streams and it was because those initial hundred followers went crazy when a song dropped all right great so I don't know I probably haven't mentioned this in a video but one thing that you're saying which is great and I remember sitting on um when my first introduction to really how Spotify works actually was like a meeting with people at Spotify and they were and like a few of the playlisters and they were telling me she was like they basically they listened to the well they they watched these lists they watched the numbers yes somebody might have the power to put something on their playlist but after that it's all numbers if it's not working they're going to take it off it's going to lose traction and they just say and no we don't want this on a list they want the playlist to perform but on the other side like she mentioned Khalid all right um song on a playlist the song is popping and they see literally metrics okay what's this song they might not even heard the song they just see that it's performing and then they add it let's try it on this playlist oh it's still out performing on this playlist let's try it on another playlist so what you're talking about in terms of getting everybody that follows you to go crazy on it in one period of time that's like we'll at least get that attention and I think it's great you mentioned that because I don't think I've mentioned it before and I know and I don't see too many people talk about that part with that being said I would love to hear you talk about your specific album release strategies that you typically use because you talk about pre-save and then there's a few other things I'm sure you do what do you typically do leading up to the project so you can get that boost yeah that's a great question and just to go back to the Spotify thing one of the things that's really interesting about Spotify is that I do feel like it's level the playing field so like you said if you got a hot record even if you got a hundred followers I almost feel like those hundred at an advantage because if you can get those hundred to really engage listen to music share the music they'll set off bells but what Spotify does have and this is why I feel like the level of the playing field is they check for their skip rates so if my song gets added to a playlist like we got like the blaze playlist shout out to Marty from Social Club he added a song I have called Wait it was already on some other playlist he added it's a place and he hit me it was like bro like your song is the least skip song on the entire playlist so then that set off the bells they put it on a bunch of more playlist right so that's how it snowballs and compounds because now you can't just be it's not just about clout and buzz and hype you actually have to have great music that then they can see if people are skipping over the song yeah you know what I mean so if your song is quality people aren't skipping through it maybe they're even going back maybe they're adding it all of that stuff helps and that's where kind of levels the playing field because major labels can't just be like we're just gonna buy everybody's attention because you could get on all those playlists but if that dead joint ain't knocking and people are skipping over it it don't really mean anything exactly exactly yeah I love that yeah um so roll out album roll out strategy um I I did we did for I just put out a record with my artist Paul Russell super amazing artist from he actually goes to Cornell University yeah he's he's actually from Atlanta originally uh goes to Cornell University now he's a senior amazing really really dope songwriter producer um basically what we did is we announced him as an artist with the single we started rolling out just singles we spent a few months dropping singles with music videos the singles went natively on all the streaming platforms with in the music videos obviously went on youtube we kind of built that announced the actual album with the kind of tentative release date iTunes pre-orders were actually the iTunes pre-orders had the release date and the Spotify pre-save and then we had merch through our own web store and essentially we'll use our merch pre-orders and our direct pre-orders to fund the records if you will so if we drop a record you know and we do a couple hundred pre pre-orders directly from our stuff it's usually attached like a shirt or a hoodie bundle that really funds the record that pays for the mastering that pays for the music videos pays for whatever little marketing we want to do and so that's that's something I learned from Seth Golan was like let the people fund your records a lot of artists want to come out the gate and spend $10,000 on a record and it's like you probably shouldn't spend that much on a record unless you have some type of infrastructure uh or some type of support system to at least make your money back so our budgets are kind of determined by how much people rock with him so there's certain like if I'm dropping a solo record I'll probably do anywhere from three to five hundred pre-orders directly from our website this is over like a six to eight week campaign you know you do the math on that I have a bit more wiggle room versus a new artist that I might assign he might only do a hundred pre-orders those same pre-orders we attach you know to the budget to where the money comes from to pay for mastering to to pay for music videos to pay for the merch to pay for all these things and that initial prefrontal load up of hype and buzz and excitement we give people maybe the record early if they pre-order from us so yeah it's dropping on Spotify on October 10th but if you pre-order and screen shoot me the record we'll send you the link you know two weeks early three weeks early so now people are excited about it they're talking about it they're sharing about it and it might only be a hundred people 150 people but those 150 people are super super super activated and and it just kind of snowballs and then when the record drops then there's already been some hype and some buzz hopefully really singles and there's some hype around it and uh and then you know if the music is good Spotify will use Spotify Apple music they'll usually they'll usually look out you know and and help put it on playlists and stuff like that but so how do you talk about these pre-orders just to clarify pre-orders are they're ordering the music pre-order or they're ordering like merch like you say and then the pre-orders is the bundle with the music in it both both so they're usually pre-ordering the album which we do a digital c digital cd bundle right they get the digital early and then they get the cd bundle and then we do like a cd t-shirt bundle and a t you know and then sometimes we'll do we'll even do like a cd hoodie bundle so there'll be three bundles i'm actually thinking about completely getting rid of just the cds in general after seeing Travis Scott like attached merged you know to his thing and just doing like like if you want a physical cd you have to pre-order a $20 t-shirt you know what i mean and and then pushing those margins up a bit you know i think because if it's like a shirt and a cd you can sell it for more so i think i think i might go that direction but yeah usually it's cd digital and physical then it's cd and t-shirt and then maybe there's a cd and hoodie option okay got you dope so how are people well how is in your system are you guys developing a fan base i know yours has been a sense of i mean you've been you've been in it for a minute but now you have paul russell so i'm sure you already kind of put them in a sense of a system of exposure but these are pre-orders people are actually buying stuff how'd you get to the point where you have fans who would actually buy a reasonable amount of merch from you that's a great question yeah i mean for me people gotta understand like i've been doing this for a decade plus i've only been full time for a little over three years but i've been consistently releasing music uh we was putting out stuff as a group called the breaks me and belief back in 0708 and then that evolved into us doing solo stuff that evolved into me launching the label uh i was as a part of a collectible belief and gives called dream junkie so i've been doing this for a very very long time but i think it's for me i've always focused on the depth like i think i focused on the depth and the things that have may be different how can i be different how can i stand out you know so early on when everybody was doing the you know whatever the soldier boy rap the otto tune rap you know in 0708 09 uh the lil wane era really like we was super duper boom back like we was super duper polar opposite of what everybody was doing so we have way less fans but we had more depth with those fans you know and then we did an indiegogo campaign the very first thing that kind of really popped off for us was we did this indiegogo campaign and we raised uh this is 2011 and we raised like $10,000 just doing a crowdsourcing campaign but that entire year we had dropped a song a remix song a week uh where we did uh people would email us or sec or tweet us and be like yo remix the new drake song and we do like our own version of the drake song whatever hottest song was out we'd flip do our own version of it and so we did that for a full year and then in that same year we dropped three mixtapes we dropped an uh an EP and then we dropped this album that we did the indiegogo for and so at that point once there was so much hype and buzz around it then people started coming alongside of what we were doing because they just saw the excitement that people had on a grassroots level and so then we were able to level up and uh like we had Andy Minio on the mixtape early on we had a bunch of artists kind of in our niche on that same mixtape just because they were just excited to work with us and then the album we ended up getting a look cray on the album to this 2011 it's called never arrive you still look it up i look totally different uh we had to join with with the cray we had to join with shad i don't know if you know who shad is he beat drake out for junior award candidates amazing hip hop artist he like does a thing on he actually just put out an album so we had shads so they released people in our similar niches ours that just was rocking with us dropped on the records because they saw the buzz and that then we then leveled up some more because people who are in fans of theirs became fans of ours nice and then the following year we killed it with the circuit called naka naka if you don't know what naka is naka is the national association for campus activities it's a huge nonprofit they put together these campus uh conferences where colleges go to book talent it's one of the like the biggest revenue streams for a lot of entertainers i'm talking comedians magicians so we killed it at naka 2011 going into 2012 we had like 30 college shows book so here we are these christian dudes that are playing non-christian colleges and then also hopping on shows uh you know la cray did the man up conference in atlanta that year 2012 it was like 3500 people we got to open we did like a 10 minute set he did uh francis chen uh reach life institute in la yo come out rock with us cool came out you know 1500 people stand meet every single person that wants to buy a piece of merch shake every single hand take every single picture kiss every single baby you know what i'm saying and then it's like you look up and you're like yo all my numbers doubled you know what i'm saying and then you build those relationships we were able to then go back over so then the the following year i went and did a tour with fonsworth ventley all those college shows we did in 2012 i maintained half of those relationships turned around and did like a 10 city college tour with fonsworth ventley uh and so that helped me tap into some of his eyes so there's like a lot of like intentional stuff i was doing that i really didn't even know i was doing i was just trying to survive like i knew i wanted to do music full time we was like dead we were trying to get out of debt i was newly wed and dude i was just going for it and it just kind of keep compounding and then you look up and you're like yo like i got a little following like i got a fan base and it's that whole thousand super fans right i knew i know i have a thousand people that really rock with me how can i just communicate to those thousand people that yo like i need y'all to pre-order this album i need y'all to buy this merch i need y'all to come to this show and then that compounds to locally like we did house of blues in san diego we sold 500 tickets real like hard ticket sales in san diego and we're independent you know what i'm saying we did 200 in LA i think we did like 75 in Atlanta these aren't crazy numbers but they're real numbers that that i can build on top of and then i could take a plug a new artist into you and i say okay cool i've got 20 000 instagram followers we announced paul russell within a matter of a few months he built 2000 instagram followers real followers his engagement is crazy like he's getting like 400 500 likes of photo and so 10 percent of my audience is willing to give a shot to anybody that i'm kind of putting on you know what i'm saying and and kind of compound on that and now i'm in a place where like i don't i don't need to rap for the rest of my life because i'm around these kids that are freaks man these kids john keith paul russell they're 21 years old and they're amazing like i don't know if it's something in the water or what the protein they're just so good bro like they're so they're so good and so now it's just like channeling it through them and helping build up other artists dope dope dope man this is so much time back there man so let me see well he talked about the fact that y'all got on the naka conference say the conference again naka naka naka look if you if you make clean music it doesn't have to be like squeaky clean but if you make clean music and if you doesn't if there's something to make you different if you do spoken word poetry that was our end we did hip hop pot we did positive hip hop and spoken word so we did spoken word poetry so we do a poem here and there dude that that world is amazing or if you can do like something of a novelty act where like say you're like a rapper who does magic tricks i know that sounds cheesy but like those be the things that you can really plug into something like naka and kill it on the show and and this is where like a lot of comedians got their start and i just like i just did the last one in um chrisette michelle was there you know i'm saying like there'd be there'd be like low you know like bc level celebrities that still are trying to like pop at naka because those colleges have budgets every single year that are allocated for throwing concerts and events a lot of people don't know that i knew that because i was on a college board throwing concerts and events and it'd be like you got ten thousand dollars for the year and i was like oh i'm booking auto homies you know what i mean so i was looking like a mod fourth avenue jones la symphony it's looking all these in indie underground artists and then i was like yo colleges have money i don't want to play churches that's that's kind of my things like i'm not big on i don't mind playing churches but i like playing colleges i like playing house blues clubs and so i was like this is an easy on ramp for me to build non-christian audiences like non-christian fan bases and exposing myself to people that don't have my worldview but i know that they were like my music you know so what's that stand for again for the people who are watching so they could go make that actionable for himself yeah n a c a national association of campus activities but i appreciate that huge gem you already dropped quite a few already man i want to um really get into your music for a second right so i've heard a lot of different things and it might be it might be indicative of your christian worldview or it might be indicative of just where we are in music for instance like i know your music you might you mentioned having a wife and stuff like that right that's not necessarily stuff we're hearing in 2000s right but maybe we're hearing that in 2000s christian music i don't necessarily know right so what there's that and a few other things that you mentioned where do you see music going is it just the fact that people are more open to just different type of relationships or having a main girl or a wife is that cool now or is that just more just who you are in i don't know exactly what i'm asking you give what i'm saying though yeah no i think it's both i think one bro being married is so lit like i've been married 10 years it's freaking awesome like it's it's i i have my wife is incredible like i have an amazing wife i have an amazing uh we've been able to build our life in a way where like we do we do what we want you know i'm saying because we spent time working and it's so cool to do it with somebody else and so i think one yeah like it's who i am it's really who i am like i i love being married i love i know if you saw my son in here before we got started i had to sit away just knocking over equipment uh i got a i got a son who's about to be four so like i enjoy being married i enjoy i enjoy the family life and here's the deal here's the thing that people confuse about uh faith like people think that like yo god is this killed joy in the sky he wants to take away all the fun you know what i mean and not let me do anything i'm on it and it's like no bro like god is the complete opposite like god is a loving father who wants the best for his kids and if we look at the research for um marriage if we look at the what's what's an ideal environment for kids to be brought up in what what where do we find the most contentment it's not in running around and and and having you know multiple partners and you know uh you know having promiscuous like very little contentment in that and and i and i grew up in a family where i don't know about you but like mom i was raised by a single mother i grew up you know adultery in the household uh my mother and father split when i was like six after we moved to america as immigrants so imagine moving to another country as a refugee immigrant not knowing the language six months later your dad leaves because he finds out that you know they've been cheating on each other back in russia and it was just a mess bro and so i grew up in a very very uh toxic environment russians love to drink alcohol you know what i'm saying and i don't i don't have a problem with alcohol i don't drink i don't smoke i'm super into being married i'm like the the hip hop net flanders and on on the surface like like that may look cheesy right that may look cheesy but people meet me my my specifically my my buddies who aren't following god or my buddies from that that are still got one foot in the streets my buddy like one of my best friends just got out of the federal penitentiary um two weeks ago so he's he's gonna be he's gonna be you know hanging out and helping me with some music stuff but those are the people those are the people that i care about what they think because those are the people i want to reach and those are the people that are like yo like it's so cool you get to play at churches sometimes it's so dope that you're married and you ain't got to worry about your girl having a side man it's so like they think that being a christian is cool even though they're not christians because they see the fulfillment they see the joy they see the happiness and my entire life first is jesus said in john 1010 he says the enemy comes to kill still and destroy he says i've come to give you life and life and the abundance and i live an abundant full life i'm not the richest dude in the world i'm not i'm not you know the dopest rapper but i live a very full abundant fulfilling life and i think that's what we're actually after i think beneath the surface like people are after happiness and after these things and so we're just medicating whether it's like yo i'm gonna be promiscuous and have multiple relationships or or not be committed or whatever and then you see the ramifications of that you see having someone that has multiple partners and multiple kids with multiple women and well how does that work out for you you know what i'm saying like as you sell them is is it great unless you're really really wealthy and successful and so it's like i think the practical benefits of the life that jesus offers me way excel anything else that that that that i could have in the world and that even just sounds cheesy stan like in the world you know what i'm saying but like i'm just i don't know bro like i'm just happy and it just makes sense on so many different levels like logically it makes sense to me so you're gonna hear that in my music and i think a lot of people actually want that we've just been force fed a lot we've been force fed that like yeah you need to you need to see if you have sexual chemistry with somebody and try to have sex with as many people as you can before you settle down like for what actually that shows that people who have a lot of partners end up having tougher times when they do settle down they end up having dysfunctional sex lives when they do settle down like that the research is already out there you know what i mean so it's like i'm just happy bro yeah i mean i've heard a lot of things you said that aren't i mean when you talk about the research the research isn't even like religious research it's just straight up research it is what it is so it is interesting that it does reflect with the things that you believe i want to and that can lead it to whole other side conversations we might have to do something on that these days but i think that the fact that you're where you are right now is a great thing but just being someone coming from the outside especially if this was you're reflecting right now initially a lot of people are gonna say hey that's bs there'll be some people who were attracted to you but then there's some people who was like hey all right that that's bs but that's obviously because they haven't gotten the chance to see your journey leading up to where you are now right and i'm just because i'm sure you're talking about the household that you've come from there's been some interesting spaces that you've been in that just aren't that you wouldn't go back to today so i would love to hear a little bit about where you were before you really turned to god i know it's not that type of interview but i i think it's important for your artist story yeah i was in a spot bro where like again i'm here i am i'm i'm six my dad leaves i'm growing up in sandiego normal heights which at the time was like it you know it was it was very it was it was sandiego predominantly is like a very blood neighborhood you know so i'm growing up around dudes uh i'm like the one black i mean one white kid in the entire black neighborhood you know what i'm saying and so there's like there's there a lure of gangbanging there's there a lure of drugs and smoking weed in the like the the height of like 90s gangster rap you know what i'm saying so like my first concert i think i'm like eight or nine years old i'm watching snoop in the chronic and dr draig tour at the sandiego sports arena like this is like my foundation in hip-hop you know what i'm saying and uh and it was like it was it was a trip like it was a trip seeing that it was it was crazy growing up in the early 90s and so my dad left we were going to like armenian i'm half armenian half russian my armenians are loosely christians so we were going to this christian armenian orthodox church more like a catholic church but it's the armenian orthodox so my dad left my mom got you know became an alcoholic or she already was an alcoholic so she's now single mom super duper depressed the priest of that church ended up i guess remarrying my dad to my stepmom now and we have an amazing relationship i was over there last night i love my stepmom love my dad but my mom just put a lot of crazy thoughts on my head and kind of was like yo f the church how could they do this your dad left me he technically never divorced me and da da da da so so my understanding of church and god was very very dark very very negative because here's is the single mother who gets abandoned by her her husband and now the church who's supposed to be looking out for her ends up remarrying him uh on the surface that all looked messy as i got older i found out you know there's more to the story than that so by the age of 11 12 i mean i'm i'm full on in my mind i'm i'm an atheist that's i'm using that language i don't believe there's a god i don't believe there's there's there's purpose to the universe how could there be my life is a is a train wreck you know and everybody is so it was so weird everybody in my apartment complex that grew up for 33rd and Adams in San Diego California everybody in my apartment complex gets radically safe like radically converted there was my best friend's mom who was pushing drugs it got caught going to the airport with like cocaine went to jail got got saved came back the entire complex got saved because of her testimony you know what i'm saying i was the one kid that was like no that's all bs y'all crazy so literally everybody around me is saved and they're sharing the gospel with me god loves you guys you're going to do great things and then i ended up having to do i got arrested when i was in fifth grade breaking into houses i had to do community service i ended up doing the community service at their church you know what i'm saying so like but i'm still hard and i'm still hard to the guys but i'm still hardening god i don't want nothing to do with god god god doesn't exist as far as i'm concerned you guys are all crazy and then i moved to north county i got in trouble i was getting a lot of trouble i moved to north county and north county is where i live now san marcos vista ocean side the north county of san Diego county and it was a reset for me i started playing basketball i started hooping i went to a completely different school predominantly white school it was like i was in a middle class area we were still you know living in an apartment all that kind of stuff but i was all of a sudden in the middle class area and things just started to change and man my story is similar now like i met a girl and the only way i could hang out with her on sundays was to go to church with her and her family so i was like i'm gonna go to church you don't read but this church was completely different this wasn't a catholic or an orthodox church this was like a this like i guess you'd call it a vangelical church like it was like i understood what the pastor was talking about the music was fly there's a lot of cool people there and after wrestling with god for another two years and really like studying every other religion trying to understand what is the difference between christianity and islam what is what is buddhism what is hinduism what are all these different faiths the question i kept struggling with the question i kept wrestling with was is jesus god because he's either a liar a lunatic or he's lord and and i and i read a book by lee strobel uh called case for christ i read i'm like 15 16 years old reading all this stuff right i read a book called the evidence that demands a verdict uh by uh i can't remember his name but it was a huge but it was like an encyclopedia type book of like comparing every single faith and i kept coming back to that like is jesus god is jesus god and so finally it was like yo like either jesus is god and he is who he says he is and who he claimed to be or he's a complete liar and intentionally deceive people which can't make him just be a good teacher or he's crazy and he's out of his mind which can't just be a good teacher and a good prophet if you're crazy and you're out of your mind those were the three options i was left with and when i looked at history when i looked at paul when i looked at how radical the world changed before and then after jesus i was like yo he i don't cosign everything that was done in his name but he had to be who we claimed to be and i got i gave my life to the lord probably around 16 17 years old i was always doing music but then i got cut from my junior varsity basketball team so i was like well i'm just gonna do music and before i know it it just kind of compounded i was like the rapper at school and i just kept getting better bro and eventually i went to college which in hindsight i probably shouldn't went to college but with the college the internet era hit myspace hit uh you know twitter hit u2 hit and i you know i figured it out man i've been an independent musician so yeah man that's that's an interesting journey to go on at such an early age as well it was crazy man i would i definitely always felt like i'm my old soul you know what i'm saying because i was into like this kind of stuff really young you know like really into like god and atheism and all these different things you know and i feel like it gives me more balance you know like i got a friend right now who's a satanist uh and we we have some really cool conversations you know i got another close friend that's an atheist you know we have some really cool conversations about this stuff so i think it is it gives me more perspective i would say really that's what i can't even imagine what you just said right there those conversations like yeah they're fun yeah we're not gonna get into that um so check this out man you you have your own label but you're not and you are and you have artists coming up under you what do you think you feel like what does someone what does it even take to really say you have an artist under you and to actually make that artist successful when you're an artist yourself yeah i think i think a lot of artists are afraid to sign people more talented than them and so for me that's always been the thing is i'm i'm okay with uh if you look at the history of the artists that have signed um i've always signed artists more talented than me and never been afraid to give them my platform so i think one having vision i think a lot of people will lack vision you know so they they may have the mechanics of it but they just don't know what's going on in terms of like having a vision for somebody else that's even bigger than for them you know and so uh so yes i look at artists and i'm okay with people being more talented than me i'm okay with people uh you know going further than me i'm completely okay with that and so i think for me uh i think i have to start with vision i think i have to start with like not being uh intimidated by somebody else's talent and then i would say for uh having something to offer them right like i don't we don't do advances and and and you know here's 10 grand or like we don't do that you know what i'm saying because that that's to me that's the debt system and i don't i don't like the major labels for that because they you get in debt you stay in debt to retire careers in debt you know i mean that's a lot of life people don't know a lot of these major label artists are in debt to the labels and they're just hoping to recoup and then it's four or five albums later they still haven't recoup um and so i don't believe in that system so what i have to i have to figure out what is my value so one i could do so much of everything in house right we makes our own records in house we can record we have you know a professional studio in house so one i'm offering studio time i'm offering uh mixing services i'm offering video editing i'm editing video for a lot of these projects i have the dots and the relationships to find the photographer on the low to find the designer on the low to find the cinematographer the video guy on the low uh or or just outright do it myself you know mean if we don't have the budget for it i'll just shoot it myself because that was my last job before i did music because i actually worked at my church as the video guy so i could do a lot of video stuff pretty pretty inexpensive you know but i'm also even that like i'm trying to put people on to build up video guys and you know photographers and designers and so i think you have to have something to offer them and so for them i may not be like yo i'ma put ten thousand dollars on your project like i don't have that but one i don't want them to feel indebted to me but what i do have is time i have experience i have relationships and i have systems in place that can take a guy like paul russell uh and build them up within a matter of three four months build them up to two thousand real active engaged followers on instagram you know i mean and then once those two thousand hear his solo project it's just gonna spread like wildfire you know because all you need again a thousand super fans you know i'm saying you get a thousand super fans that really rock with you they'll be your evangelists not you know not to make the corny christian tie-in but they'll be your evangelists they'll go spread the message for you and so that i would say that's what i have to offer and signing people more talented than myself is something that i feel like i've always done and i've never been intimidated by that's really interesting especially being an artist so many people have that ego so to say even say somebody's more talented to add talent than them is probably going to be hard for a lot of people but if you want to also be a record exact per se have your own label you kind of need to sign people more talented i mean otherwise yeah it just wasn't work i i think um the fact that you have a label and this is the only artist that you have right now i have paul russell and i have john keith uh john keith is amazing he's an artist from uh southeast san diego uh really really dope he sings he raps he he he has the look he acts he uh he's a he's a you know a black kid with naturally natural blonde dreadlocks and he sounds like a culmination of like you know kindred and shmino and and and chance a little bit you know what i mean he's he's he's a monster he's a freaking nature like these kids so good man and yeah i because i like i'm aware that like i'm a white dude in hip hop so there's even certain things that like can work against me like the tonal quality of my voice may not sound as cool as somebody that you know grew up singing in church or grew up you know uh with african-american genetics that you know your voice just may sound cooler because you're black you don't understand like i understand all these things and so uh not to you know be using very broad strokes uh but there are talent developed meaning nurture right if somebody grows up singing and grows up in a musical household i did not uh and there's just genetics and natural like paul russell just has an amazing voice like his voice just sounds good the majority of our records together he recorded on his iphone and people can't tell the difference i recorded on for my three thousand dollar noem and he recorded on his iphone that's how good he is that's just god-given genetics right and then there's someone like john keith who grew up singing in church he grew up with with the vibe and the soul so he can come up with melody super dope you know what i mean and the black church is really instrumental for all pop music really if we're gonna go back to it take music appreciation class it all goes back to the black church i that's gonna give somebody an advantage to grew up singing fred ham and you know i'm saying singing these songs is beautiful four-part harmonies you know what i mean that's real that's real you should be in a white rapper man do you think white rappers still have a hard time i think the white privilege that white rappers have definitely outweighs whatever plight we have that's even but i says like this this is so funny to me uh so yeah like i because i'm white especially in the christian space but just because i'm white in general like i'm viewed as more safe i'm viewed as less risky you know what i mean like i definitely have advantages getting booked for shows there's so many advantages just as a white male that i have that whatever disadvantages i may have but i don't have the coolest voice so i didn't grow up in a musical household you know i'm saying oh you know hip hop is a black art black culture and so i'm trying to do a black art you know like those are those are my newt in comparison of the advantages that i've had growing up just just being viewed as a white male and i've never like for me it's been tough because i i'm my first language is russian like my you meet my dad he looks Arab you know i mean like i don't i've never really like identified what white culture because i've always grown up around black people and i'm an immigrant i'm from Azerbaijan Baku i'm a half-armanian i'm a refugee so i've always lived in this weird tension you know but uh the society that we're in views me as a white male and i instantly have advantages because of that man that's interesting to hear particularly because you have that immigrant and black kind of mix versus actually being the more traditional white but you said you still get those quote-unquote advantages this is how i personally see like it's an abridged version of how i see the game it's for white rappers right um let me know what you think about it how you agree now first you had a hard time for white rappers very hard time i mean you had vanilla ice was like the poster boy of white rapper right you know you had the beastie boys that did their thing but that was like a you know that was an outlier but then you have m&m right and at first he had his hardships he was coming up where he was and it was hard because he was a white rapper and there was already a bad perception but once he hits a certain threshold of awareness now there's an advantage right because now all these people that like hip hop music before like little white kids that they they see somebody who looks like them being a white rapper and all of them are naturally gonna flock to him then you talk about whatever white male privilege exists all those kind of things and then you talk about first mover advantage basically where he's like the first like super super like dope dope white rapper that was acknowledged on that level and then next you know you have like an icon right that's like that's how i look at m&m story is anybody who disagrees with the first mover thing it's the same thing with obama being president obviously things work against him he gets to a certain level you get a lot of advantages not necessarily the white privileged version of advantages but you still get advantages just be as far as your brand and acknowledgement being the first black president right you get a certain allure to you now after m&m did what he did and broke those plans it's weird because there's nobody who's ever reached m&m's level or close to it at to this day in terms of the white rapper side but it has opened up a door of a lot of people who kind of sound like him right but then a lot of people a lot of white rappers who are found a lot of success but it's weird because i feel like the industry's cut up into a space where there could be you could be a successful white rapper but not be anywhere a part of the main culture in terms of black culture like the want the the media you don't have to be on bt or in double excel or source or breakfast club they don't even have to know who you are like none of those outlets have to know who you are right for a long time a lot a lot of people did not know who g easy was right and it was only because i was one of my asian friends moved out of san francisco i went to a visitor and she was playing g easy stuff i didn't even know g easy was from samford like that area so now makes sense like in hindsight why she was the one who introduced him to me but um like but they like him there's so many people that exist that are winning and having full careers without the acknowledgement or the okay of the black side of the culture that typically is known from run for running right is that pretty much safe to say in terms of the white rapper perspective i know you don't fully relate to it especially well you have all these additional like niches like christians so you're living a whole another uh level hardship but how do you feel about some of those observations yeah i think i think you nailed it bro i think you really nailed it and i think to to go a little deeper on that i think that is the beauty of niches in the space that we're in where like you can find people are looking for something people are looking for themselves in the type of art they consume right so like if i if i watch your videos it's because i identify with you to some degree right like i see a bit of myself inside of you and so therefore i think that's how a lot of it works and so i think you you you talking about that is a testament to also just where we are with technology and where we are with culture we're like i'm not even murders on hip hop the x didn't this thing called hick hop where it was like country confederate flag hanging white dudes rapping and i just like this weird you don't say like yeah but i think that's where we are as a culture so that's cool that that that's dope you know what i'm saying but i think the tough part for me is that i think there still has to be a level of reverence for like bro this is black culture this is black art like i'm white but i'm a i'm a guest you don't say like you have to be respectful of the space like you have you have to have some type of framework and foundational understanding and i think some white rappers uh aren't don't display that you know what i'm saying some some whether it's like iggy azalea and just you can just tell she just kind of did see she doesn't understand like what this is you know she does no context of culture or uh you know a kid like blozane saying that um tupac is boring you know what i mean and it's like bro like no no no like you don't you don't get to make a social or musical critique of tupac ever like that's just just just be a rule like white rappers can't say anything negative about tupac ever you understand like so i think i think that's the that's the the disconnect like you know yeah it's interesting you you mentioned that little xanthe i didn't i didn't even thought about that comment before that he made because i kind of just dismissed it at the time but just to think of the fact that he he's already younger and then he doesn't relate to any of the he does he he doesn't understand so to judge what he doesn't understand it's just weird that his team even let him say what he was saying i feel like me trying to like dissect the beatles catalog like bro like i'm so far removed as as a 16 year old like i'm so far removed from the beatles like okay i like a little you too you know like a little cold play i don't understand the beatles and what the cultural nuance and the significance was of what they were doing back then like yeah i so i'm just gonna be like oh yeah they're legends they're icons next question you know yeah exactly one more on this subject right post Malone is like the biggest white rapper right now quote on quote um but i mean how do you what's your view of post Malone and the way that he's moved throughout the game yeah i think post Malone is freakishly talented i i like i like his music melodically i think he does really cool stuff i i think it's even more interesting how he came up i don't know if you saw the whole like he would he moved to la with some uh youtube the video gamers you know and and so i think even the way they try to tell that story this rags the richest story like ah like he has some homies that were doing youtube full time living in a mansion and he was living with them so when he got ready to do music i feel like there had to have been some type of outlets and platforms for him to get on even if it's just building relationships or blogs or whatever you know whatever was popping at the time um so i think his story is interesting in the way they use technology and youtube to get on is is fascinating i think you know what i would agree with him honestly in that i don't think he's a rapper like i've never saw him as a rapper i when i first heard him i was like oh this is like this is like t pain you know like this is like this is like that way like like this is like a white t pain i don't think t pain is a rapper you know i'm saying i think t pain is a singer that makes hip hop you know so i think t pain or post malone is a singer that makes hip hop you know and so i agree like yeah you're not really a rapper you know uh but i guess those lines are getting blurred i think some of his comments in terms of just like genres and all this kind of stuff but i think i get it but i think it's like bro you you you want to make diverse music dope like you want to you love country dope like i'm not mad at any of that just don't like just don't come into the space and poop on hip hop like don't don't don't poop on this culture you know what i'm saying like i just feel like we should be as white males like we should be the most empathetic and the most white males in hip hop we should be the most sensitive the most empathetic towards the plight of black people if you actually understand what hip hop is like and i'm like bro i just told you like one of my best friends just got out of the feds like he did 10 years you know what i'm saying before dad he did five he spent his entire adult natural life behind bars i'm well aware of how the system works i'm well aware of the revolving door i'm well aware of like so it's like i'm so humble and empathetic towards the struggle of black people how could i ever say anything sideways or weird about like black culture hip hop culture and be like oh well no there's no more john you know so i just think some of that stuff he said is just i don't know i think it's in poor taste at the least okay yeah i think i definitely agree with everything you said i think my biggest thing when it comes to post malone is there's a disconnect somewhere between maybe the things he's saying but then because he might say all these things about branding and i don't want this type of a lure i don't want to be a rapper i don't want to necessarily be even hip hop but when you look at i don't know who who did um branded him and brought his image about but it wasn't him i'm pretty sure it wasn't him it was a team around him he was branded as a rapper or deep hip hop imagery wise like if you look at him when he was with the video gamers the the short shorts the goof he was goofy he was like the stereotypical goofy white guy that white humor all that stuff nothing wrong with it i watched tv like plenty of shows and stuff like i laugh i thought that was funny too right but then you look at him almost like instantly he's this other image with the braids the goals and he's the like he's that image so once you start to speak down on that culture and you see this instant change it kind of feels like i don't know it starts to feel like you don't appreciate a culture that you're moving and that's why people say stuff like culture virtual and things like that obviously he's talented nobody can deny he's talented and being talented and making dope music doesn't necessarily it doesn't necessarily mean that you have a great perspective on what you're doing or how you go i think i think it's the team at universal republic i think the label that he signed to like he may say like i don't make hip hop but it's like bruh like they're branding you as a hip hop you know what they're doing i think they know what they're doing i think they know what they're like i mean he even started talking different to be real but like it's it's very clear so somebody has to make that decision and figure out how they how they want to get them i mean obviously music is so good that it's i weigh in a lot of those other issues so it's so relevant but i don't yeah i don't i don't really put a lot of that stuff on the artist like a lot of people do maybe i should do a video on it but um but it's definitely some somebody on the team or there's some intentional moves that are a complete contrast to the stuff that he says which has just been weird with them but cool it's real dope to get your opinion and your perspective on that getting back to some of the things when it comes to you man like your style is typically more lyrical right um if i think about the indy jones 2 project definitely a little bit more lyrical and then when i think about the joint project well was that supposed to be like a full collab right the via text you and paul russell yeah it's a little bit more laid back feels more like a collaboration doesn't feel like anybody's trying necessarily super outshine um one or other or go hard but your your solo projects you're more of a you seem to like you have a i go hard type style if that makes sense um what what makes you as an artist more of a lyrical um i don't want to say this what makes you go the the lyrical route more versus trying to open up and be a lot more melodic you have people on your courses and things like that and you have some pretty dope courses right like i know the one um i think it's cool it's cool something you have like two songs i really love the chorus um but it doesn't seem like you put too much effort in but or too much too much energy into the actual course as far as saying i gotta be that guy you just leave it you do your lyrics and then you'll bring in a dope singer or you'll have a nice chorus but it's all about them lyrics what leaves you as that in an age where you could be blowing up and making viral songs on a bigger playing field at this point yeah that's a great question uh man self-awareness like i know that uh i'm not the melodic guy you know as much as i would love to be like i would love to do real cool melodies and all that kind of stuff i'm just not i'm not that guy and maybe i need to spend a season you know getting vocal training and trying to become that you know working on that side of things i'm just i'm not that guy so instead of like trying to do like if i did autotune like i don't don't think i'm in a space right now where i have the natural talent or the natural spark of like you know whoever a post Malone or Travis Scott these guys they got like really clever melodies and all that kind of stuff so i just rather focus on my strengths and focus on the things that i'm good at and then if i need to bring in someone who can do that and execute that vibe like i got a song on indijones 2 called hyena and so i'm my man kishon you're welcome kishon did the chorus and you know it was that like that vibe and it was the sound kind of like not john legend isk is that that song no this this one's way more like ratchet like this is on something like uh some from some Travis Scott you know we're real real autotune oh yeah yeah i'll go yeah he doesn't saw what man he wells that's the song man he wasn't saying i did a song i did it's one of his songs that song i didn't see um so yeah he so yeah so like i'd rather bring in someone that could actually pull off that vibe and kill it and that's their thing instead of me trying to to do something that's that's not me um it's just not like i can't really sing like that you know what i'm saying i i've tried bro like i'm college i think i mean i was a choir i was like vocal training like i was really trying and i just i just you know but i can i can give you these bars though you know what i'm saying like i can rap and i think uh i think maybe that's an advantage of times you know like maybe people like that i i i i'm the rapper that doesn't sing and rap because now everybody sings and raps you know and doesn't i just i just rap and then i bring in the fly singers or the autotune dudes to stick to add that color and that texture one when i'm ready and so yeah i mean i think i think i just just self-awareness you know i'm saying like i know what i'm not good at and right now i'm not good at that doesn't say i won't be a good maybe i will but i'm just it's just not my lane you know got it back to the business man do you guys use super phone i love super phone bro super phone is uh everything that's the first line of defense from me so yeah actually reached out to me and told me i wanted the top 77 users of super phone or top 70 users of super phone or something like that so yeah i have a very like you know personal touch with all my audience um i think i have about almost 2 000 people in my super phone contacts and i'd be really on a super phone like i check it every day i'd be texting with people you know what i'm saying doing all kinds of stuff the super phone has been really helpful in just getting the information out and then like we do stuff like uh like this week i don't know if you saw but we did a flash hoodie sale so for 24 hours we did 25 dollar hoodies which you had to be on my super phone to get the secret link you know what i'm saying and then paul russell accidentally leaked the link in his instagram bio and he didn't understand what was going on it's just like whatever just all right links out there you know so we were able to do something like that we have 24 hours 25 dollar hoodies um and we sold 80 hoodies you know what i'm saying or i think we saw a little more than that i gotta check i'm actually gonna go to la right now and go buy out of links and get ready to you know fulfill that order the super phone gives me the ability to mass text everybody and be like oh this is happening you know what i'm saying and i think the personal connection like i'm like my entire thing the entire indigence philosophy is i'm trying to do opposite of what everybody's trying to do so like rappers are trying to be cool and mysterious and hollywood and it's like nah i'm gonna reply to every single comment on my instagram i'm gonna reply to every single dm i'm gonna reply to every single text message i'm trying to be as normal as possible because i i'm using that as a as a way to distinguish myself you know from a branding standpoint but then also from a uh just a marketing standpoint because i'm always it's to a level is always content me sending somebody a text message is a degree of content me replying to a text message is a degree of content and it's small enough where i mean there's only 2 000 people i'm probably getting a couple dozen text messages today it's not that hard for me to set aside 40 minutes and reply to all my on my super phone contacts or my all my dm's you know i mean but that's very intentional just doing the opposite of how other rappers are trying to come off though i figured that you had to be using it just because i've seen you you know requests for texts and things like that before and it's interesting that you said content because that is a great way to think about it me saying yo what's up man like how are you doing that's still content in its own its own way or yeah that was dope i appreciate it like that's that small exchange is content all right in relationship ryan leslie um he talks about relationships being about proximity and frequency and that's all that is like a staying connected because you look you get create distance between any relationship and then there's no frequency in the contact but you you lose that just point blank and i know a lot of people try to play with that when it comes to you know that mystique and whatever all that stuff but if you don't have a lot of money behind you it's really hard to maintain that and always have to try and manage that that becomes a thing to manage in itself so yeah and i think you said it well uh i watched your producer grind interview i don't know how old that was but it was around the time of your festival i actually just watched it recently and you said that branding is like the the the the expression of who you are like your brand like almost like you know a halloween costume you know what i'm saying like you were marketing is releasing content and building that rapport with people you know and so i think sometimes we over we just we confused the two all together that's actually one of the cleanest definitions i've ever heard of like man this man so for me it's like i have a specific brand i am the advocate for indie hip hop you know i mean being independent being free at the same time i'm creating content to support that brand and to continue that like you said that frequency of relationship but ryan leslie is a genius in his own right for developing the whole idea and yeah so so dope i'm surprised that thing isn't bigger yet because it's at some point it's gonna hit and it's gonna hit hard but he's been rolling it out really slowly i actually had super bone for i had for a decent period of time but i had to use it differently because it's not on android yet and i have it android so i had to go ahead and cancel it for the time being i don't know if i'm gonna get an iphone so i can use it because it's so useful or if i'm calling yeah i don't know what or just wait for the android release but i'm curious to see how super phone scales to the bigger artists like i would be curious to see how many contacts does ryan have how how does it how personal can you get it because that from what i've heard um i think andy minio who has i think he has half a million instagram followers and social club uh i think social club is like a hundred thousand hundred fifty thousand instagram followers they're both on you know bigger platforms they i don't think it works for them i don't think they could scale it at the same way like where for smaller mid you know uh middle income level artists i think it's a really big advantage but i think on that next level like if you got a hundred thousand super phone contacts like or join or lucas is on super phone right like yeah how does that even work like how do you like you you you never reply to everybody and then it just feels like another bot now it just feels like another like exactly you know i would love to work with one of those artists on that scale like just that specific project kind of project to figure out how to make that work because i think it can but it has to be some thought but put behind it i remember one of the people on the team telling me that they had some stuff for cardi d on it but i don't i didn't get a chance to figure out what they did but it probably was more of a one-off project versus the ongoing relationship building like what you use it for uh what dope man so what you're using super phone and obviously that's like it sounds like it's a core of your marketing and in your marketing system what does your marketing system really look like you use super phone as some back end technology are there any other things that you use outside of just being youtube instagram yeah youtube instagram and recently patreon so essentially my youtube my super phone is a funnel to try to get people on patreon because that recurring subscription you know what i'm saying so i think we're at 61 patreons we started it july something like that which like i'm pretty stoked with the growth you know what i'm saying we have a couple bigger givers on there so i love patreon i love the idea of having a subscription method and kind of creating and tailoring and content for those very very core those would be like your super fans right like the people you know so my goal is like to build patreon once we get that to 100 people to develop our our podcast more and so like i told you like you know i'm using some of the equipment right now using multiple cameras on a podcast a video switcher scaling content you know i love this what you're doing here i gotta figure out how to do with software using for this because i think this is super dope to do interviews like this because i can do so many interviews with people you know i'm saying if i knew that i could do this and it looks this great like you look super clean on your end you know and i have my camera connected so i think that opportunity but yeah to get back to your question um so yeah marketing is instagram really good photos for instagram really taking time to learn instagram i'm right now i'm learning a light room i'm understanding lutz my my roommate who lives in the studio upstairs in the bedroom upstairs he's a photographer videographer he's incredible so um he takes most of my photos but we're trying to really understand like the the the lighting the you know all that kind of stuff the lutz the light room so one natively doing that and then youtube for me is a way to one do podcasts and have like long form conversations like this we're like we just dropped an hour long live stream multiple cameras on the king stream youtube page and people watch that right and they love it and they're like this is incredible but then we'll also do smaller segments we'll take that live stream we'll condense it down and we'll scale it on my youtube channel so we just dropped a video today or yesterday halloween pagan evil or do christians need to chill and it's an entire video of me telling christians like y'all y'all like all of our holidays have pagan roots like stop tripping you know what i'm saying i need to chill like with this whole like halloween's evil like what chill you know it's so now there's you know it starts like one hour long piece of content scaling it down to a six seven minute video put it on my youtube page and so scaling stuff like that i think it's pretty cool um and so youtube is like i'm trying to add as much value as i can and then also do as much conversation and challenging specifically christians to think outside of the box so we're talking about you know our tattoo why tattoos aren't a sin why y'all need to chill with halloween is it can someone can someone smoke weed and not be in sin like controversial topics that a lot of people are asking i want to create dialogue and really just force people to think critically because i'm sure in your experience with some christians like you can really get sucked into the vortex of like group think and that's low key how we elected donald trump right a lot of christians was like yeah he's a conservative like chill he's not you know really like and i'm trying to get people to think critically about these these different topics you know and so that's the youtube platform sometimes we scale that to instagram usually we don't and then the super phone and then trying to funnel people into patreon um because i think that's to me that's the big uh well revenue stream that i see that that could really pop off i got i got a couple buddies on patreon one of my best friends on patreon and his revenue streams is like almost like he's gonna be probably at what is it four five three but he'll be up five figures you know i'm saying probably within the next year or something on patreon you know which is crazy and then yeah so it's just trying to diversify those revenue streams so patreon the web store was just doing amazing after we did this hoodie sale understanding flash sales uh obviously spotify apple music to show kid that money you know comes in sync licensing is is is amazing if if indie artist i tell all indie artists like if you're broke and you just started lease your beats if you got a spark and you got some momentum going learn to produce your own beats or get your own producer because sync licensing is huge for you know like we've had our you know one of our songs is on a penny hardaway commercial uh adidas commercials all these different things or just a small youtube or wedding vlog all these different things add up and so sync licensing is a legit revenue stream so diversifying those revenue streams and considering where uh where and how to get more people really behind what we're doing tell them about sync licensing real quick i mean just as your experience as an as an artist because one thing i know about that sync licensing check man is it's a good check and the work for it is different than having to go grind out some shows or build a fan base you can have no fan base at all and get a few sync licensing checks i know i've know people who got the five 10k checks and literally have zero fans yeah yeah sync licensing again it's another one of those things they're kind of levels of playing field because it's really about the quality of your music and if it works in a in a specific format a commercial a movie a tv show whatever sync licensing historically for me has always been about like a lack of relationships like i just didn't have the relationships and then somebody plug me with music bed who's the premier sync licensing platform like for like upper echelon you know films and stuff like that and they just liked our music they take all of our music now well they take most of our music now and they show a lot of love man and so they're they're super dope so they have a web portal where like the average youtuber can go sync license music and randomly enough i found like one of my homegirls does like a beauty vlog she has like a million instagram subscribers she's super popular and like she like used one of my songs tagged me in it and i was like and then i found out she did through music band and i was like oh that's dope like you could have just asked me i would have been like yeah that's a great shout out just her posting my song on an instagram clip i picked up a bunch of like you know little girl followers which is hilarious you know but music bed facilitated that i didn't facilitate that they took care of the payment music bed if you do a deal with them for me it's an exclusive 50 50 split you know we just do right down the middle and uh and yeah you're right a song from four years ago and literally this literally happens i have a wedding song on an album called do for one i suppose song about being married uh called good thing a song from four or five years ago gets synced today sometimes it's a $50 sink sometimes it's a $300 sink you know sometimes it's more than that all that stuff culminates and so music bed i would you know check check for music bed they're they're very particular i think they reject like 98.5 of percent of everything that's submitted to them but um they they're super dope and between me and you uh without me and you and the people watching this video like i haven't done a show since i can't even remember the last time i did a show july my last show was it was in july you know what i mean it's it's about to be november you know so like i don't have to do shows a lot of that is because of patreon and music bed and and sync license thing nice it's it's really dope that you've just been able to develop this legitimate income stream from your music and with that being said man you being where you are right now as you know someone who owns a label as an artist that's self-sufficient in their own right and someone who has another artist on what does planning look like for you what's your plan for the rest of 2018 and going into 2019 because i know you have a strategy yeah it's a great question uh 2018 we're putting out the john keith record uh what we did with john keith's new album is as i'm mixing it we had uh we have the album cover but we have like eight different album titles or like mox of text or whatever just three or four different titles we put all that up on me on uh patreon and we're letting our patreons vote for his album title trying to make it interactive you know what i'm saying so like they're voting on the album title right now uh we're mixing that that well should be out before the years out i'm guessing uh maybe around black friday maybe after that so a whole another thing music videos for that dropping the concept for that right after that i'll probably come with indy jones three um and i think in january ish i'm not not quite sure and then a paul russell solo record which is going to be incredible he already done working on it i've been able to get ahead on music videos we've been able to get ahead on these projects so like a lot of the steps already done it just needs to be mixed for the most part you know so paul russell record and then we're going to do some shows so i think we're doing a week on the east coast we're going to go from toronto boston queens maybe all the way south as uh virginia maybe if we get if we book virginia we might go all the way to atlanta and just do like a week and a half all over the east coast do a spring summer west coast tour um and then get back to paul will be done at cornell hopefully he'll move to california i think what we might try to do and i'm not quite sure yet is we might just try to do uh a couple of different singles where every week maybe we'll drop a different single from an artist or every other week really cool videos and and see how we can work those you know for season and then before we go back into album mode uh i'm sure you're familiar with toby naguibi uh i love what he's been able to do with his his uh his weekly videos before or around the time he started i was doing these videos called weeklies where i was doing a live one take video rap like almost like a bt cipher type vibe but i was out in different environments we're doing one takes um and i we me and me and zack my video guy we did 24 of them for like 24 weeks straight and dude it was it was so grueling i was the hardest thing i've ever done having to write a song every week memorize a song every week and deliberate and one take every week it was super hard but it built the hype and the buzz and the excitement and then i dropped indy jones one pretty much on the back end of all those songs and then i was like i can't do this this is too hard i can't i can't do the label thing and do shows and so i was like you know we're gonna stop but i want to bring back something like that i like the idea of weekly content and but maybe not using live audio because if we could punch and we could cut then it'll take us 30 minutes to shoot a video and way less time to memorize it you know versus like having to do a one take so that's kind of what i'm thinking for 2019 man some more shows uh and really thinking through how we release the content the podcast you know how i want to have i want to have you on the podcast have better guests on podcasts consistently covering everything from god to faith uh to hip hop culture to health and fitness i've been on a crazy fitness journey i just lost a bunch of weight and you know goal is to get to 10 body fat i think that's another thing that most hip hop artists don't talk about we're not sharing the information you know on how to get there nutritionally so touching on all these different things to really help people understand like what is a full life look like what is an abundant life look like maybe maybe you're not sure about the Jesus thing maybe you're not all the way there but you see like yo like these guys are happy they love their wives they have kids they're making money they're successful maybe there's something to their world of you you know what i'm saying let me let me dig a little deeper you know dope dope man that sounds great and i would love to see that weekly content thing of some sort between the three of you even if it's not the same person but at least right and i think that's how we'll be able to scale it right because if it's somebody every other week yeah it's way easier than me having to do 26th in a row you get the terrible bro brand that label at the same time every single time but you also have to start building a culture around that way that's dope man well hey i don't want to either keep you for too much longer now i really appreciate the conversation you've been super valuable to the audience i already know is there any last thing you want to leave people with man make sure y'all subscribe to brand man shawn i'm like a fan so when he you hit me with his dm i was like yo like i was like told my wife i was like i got to do this interview like i was super excited so make sure y'all subscribe to this youtube channel because i besides you curtis king uh i see very few people adding this much value to independent artists on youtube and i think it's a huge need right now uh because there's a huge huge opportunity to do it took me 10 years to get to where i'm at you know i'm saying i've been full time over three but i think if you guys are listening to this stuff brand man shawn i'm talking about i'm sure we'll do stuff like this i'll have them on my podcast i think a lot of people right now who have a spark we i think we can see way more chance to rappers i think we can see way more macro mores and we can see way more guys you know on a smaller indie boutique level like myself getting to a place where you're living off of your art and enjoying it and you're not you may not be the richest dude in the world like i got i ain't got my tesla x yet you know what i'm saying but like man i'm happy i drive a Prius my wife has a car like we good you know what i'm saying and i think people can do that off of hip hop music if they subscribe listen and follow the advice that you're giving through this platform so salute to you man that's what's up man i appreciate it man we're definitely gonna put all your social medias you know on the on the clip but if you have any specific action items or places you want them to start to check them out go ahead and let people know yeah yeah what we'll do is we'll link up i'll send you the link to how to get discovered on Spotify video i think that'd be the easiest on ramp for them to see your audience to kind of see what like the more linear tips that i give on the Spotify thing bet bet love it man well hey as always everybody if you like the video go ahead like button if you like you might as well share it and if you're not subscribed you know what to do get that subscribe but