 What up? What up? What up? I'm Brandon Shawn and I'm Corey and we are back with episode number 25 of No Labels Necessary where we talk music content through the standpoint of culture, cash, and I don't know music business in general. I'm just freestyling with that one this time around but look catch us on every Tuesday, Thursday, YouTube, Spotify. Are we on SoundCloud? I just don't think so. Maybe we should get on SoundCloud. I don't know if they want to. That's not like a little if y'all want it. They should upload work. You know what I'm saying? I ain't gonna lie. All right. We got our six platforms. Okay. Let us know if y'all want to hear us on SoundCloud but we're seriously every Tuesday and Thursday. Y'all know we are here. We are back to talk about music, marketing, and branding and all that good stuff that y'all know we do. But as we start every episode out, we like to start with some advice. And today I got something that actually hits close because we just talked about this in an episode recently, really like two days ago. Yeah, not very long ago. Episode number 24, lowkey. So check this clip out because Moneyman is telling you why your music ain't doing what it's supposed to do. You see a lot of artists falling off because they make trendy music. So when the trend is out or your dance is out, you're gone. You get what I'm saying? Absolutely. But if you make you music, you talk about your feelings or you talk about how you are, your music can be timeless. Like you got a future. He been on for what, seven to 10 years because he doesn't make trendy just, his subject matter ain't just the trend of what's going on at this moment right now. So a lot of people make songs like an Instagram post. Like you know, Instagram post, once you see it, it's over with. Right. So you got a content is a big thing. You got a lot of people getting on, but they also falling off every day. But it also gives people the opportunity to make some money. It's just what you do with your money after that. Damn, they just fall off. They just fall off every day B. People are making music like Instagram posts. Yeah, that was a bar. I can't love. That was a bar. When the step thing is gone, it's gone. You forgot what the first thing you saw on your scroll session this time around. That's tough. But look, like I said, we just talked about this, the importance of putting you in the music, but so many artists don't even know who they are enough to put them into the music. But look, this is an artist. Y'all don't know who money man is. He has six million plus monthly listeners right now. He's independent to my knowledge. Even if he is now, he signed a deal after he started popping because when he started popping, he had more than six million monthly listeners at some point. But you know, he's probably in between projects or something like that. And he was independent. So he knows some things. And when we talk about putting yourself in your music, I like the way he just straight up said, like, share your feelings. Yeah. Right. Your thoughts, your experiences. Because one of the most important things that I've been saying for years now, when it comes to being an artist that people can find value in is your point of view. Period. If you have a way of going about things, right? If you have a perspective that people find valuable, then they're going to come back for it because they want to hear what you have to say about it. There could be some news that comes out, right? And even if they go hear somebody else talk about it, they'll want to hear what you got to say, right? Like, there might be some news that comes out about music, right? And then y'all might be like, man, I wonder what Sean Jacori have to say about it because we're just putting out our perspective, right? Even though you heard other people talk about it. And when you can get to that point with your music, no matter what happens and what the trends are, which is his standpoint about trendy, people are going to know what you want to know, what you have to say. You know who's an artist that's like that? You always going to throw your boy out there, man. You put them in some precarious positions, right? Jay-Z. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. Jay-Z. And he's the only one. I'm not the only one I could clearly say that, but I want to say he's one of the ones I want to use because there's some people who are on that path, but they're early on. This guy's been around for a minute, obviously. And you know, when he says something, he puts out a single track, it circulates. It might not be a hit, but people want to know what he has to say, period. And that's what you want to be thinking about. Like, if people can value what I say, then not only are they going to be more likely to continue to listen to your music in the future, but they're going to be more likely to care about what you have to say in the category of style, right? Gaming, whatever is your particular cross-branding activities, right? They're going to care a lot more about that stuff because they're going to know it's not just a brand flip and you're just being in there. They're going to know it has something to do with how you approach things. And they already fell in love with how you approach things. Jay-Z. Yeah, I think that's what made the trendy stuff such a like double-edged sword. Like on one hand, it can be a great catalyst, right? Like, I think about, I think about when drill music became trendy on TikTok, right? Think about all of the drill artists that that becoming trendy. Well, think about all the artists that were exposed to a larger audience because that type of music became trendy. But then to your point, I think about all the artists that made drill music because it was trendy that, you know, once it stopped becoming trendy, people started kind of listening like, I don't believe you, man. It's not really feel like you, you know what I'm saying? Like, this don't really feel like the you that you present and everything goes. So I don't know, man. Sometimes I think the trendy stuff allows artists to kind of have fun, but I guess it's a different caliber of artists, right? Like, artists that has a sound, knows themselves. You know what I'm saying? It's like the Drake effect, bro. Like how many times we've seen Drake just go hop on some shit because it's trendy. It ain't ruined him yet. That's exactly who I thought. Yeah, but it ain't it ain't ruined him yet. It's like as fans, we're like, oh, he's just having fun as other genre, but he doesn't make it his thing. You know what I'm saying? See, why is that, right? Because he knows who he is and we know who he is. Yeah, right. So you know that he's being beside himself. Inside himself in that moment. So you can recognize what's happening. That's the difference between the master and the novice where the painting can look exactly the same, but this master has already laid the groundwork and showed you, hey, I can execute at the highest level. So now I can throw some shit up there and convince people that it's worth a lot and it's this high art. But you, you know what I mean? I don't know. What am I, what am I basing it off of just being somebody who just started, right? Like that's the difference of those things. So my point of view is so valuable and I think that Drake example kind of continues to clarify the idea because I know a lot of people are going to immediately hear the first part of what we just said and then be like, yeah, see, you need to avoid trends. Trends are bad. No, you can definitely leverage trends to bring in new audiences. As a matter of fact, if you think about how Drake used them, it's almost like the funnel effect. Hopping on a trend can help you get more views and expose you to newer audiences and let them hear different sides of you, but then you're still leading people back to you. You know what I mean? You know, sometimes somebody might not connect with you in one way or another, but then one day you might see an interview or something and you're like, oh man, he kind of funny. I kind of fuck with him. You know what I mean? Or it might just be something or they might do something that you think is noble. They're like, oh man, know where that is a good person. So it's exposing yourself to people in different ways to where eventually they find their way in to the rest of the groove. Because sometimes, you know, the first version of you or the most or the default version of you makes people think they don't like you. You know what I mean? And they don't have a full reason for not liking you. We're not talking about full blown hater, but like just rubbing the wrong way. Yeah, rub you the wrong way. You know what I mean? I know Gary V talked about that a lot with him, right? Because his approach, he's like, yeah, I know I might come off to a lot of people as if I'm like a scammer, a charlatan, one of these people who just, you know, flipping his presence in a regular business coach, but you hear him talk enough, right? And eventually you see he doing some real business. It slowly starts to mow how you view him a little different if that first approach doesn't fit you. And then he also knows the cursing that he does. Apparently when he goes into some of these spaces, you know, we're not really in those spaces where people are like, oh my gosh, you're cursing or whatever. But I've been in those when I was like back in college before, you know, so. Now we are with YouTube. Damn, you're right. You're right. YouTube done put us in the corporate environment. We done followed it. And now YouTube don't want us to curse like that, which reminds me, yeah, we got to, we might have to start like looking at the clock and make sure we don't curse in the first eight minutes of the video for real. Can't pay a clip that curses in the first eight minutes of the video just so you don't demonetize the whole thing. That's crazy. It is crazy. I feel personally stifled. You know what I'm saying? Like they made it for me. I know they didn't, but you know, I'm impressed. I mean, look, I don't know, they might have been watching me. We got started. We got started. That happened a few episodes after 13 minutes. That happened a few episodes after we had a whole call. No, for real, not cursing. Try not to curse on the podcast. Yeah, it did, man. Like I was like, no way. You guys are right. Demonetize. Hey, that's tough, but we appreciate the views though, YouTube. We appreciate the views. But well, again, this authenticity thing is such a deep conversation. Shout out to Tuko. He actually, we had a conversation last night and he checks out the podcast and we were talking literally about that authenticity conversation. He had a lot of thoughts. I want to, I feel like that's a conversation that we can bring up with a lot of people who come up on the pod. Because in one way or another, everybody's had to go through that journey of trying to find themselves specifically in music when you're trying to express yourself and make that connection. And it's not an easy thing to do. One thing I told him, I was like, everybody actually, to be fair, everybody actually finds it difficult to just show themselves and be themselves. The problem is artists are trying to monetize it. Because people in corporate jobs, they don't want you to be yourself anyway. Nobody cares. You know what I mean? Actually, if you be yourself, you might be up out of here. So artists are the ones who feel that struggle and it actually impacts them in a way that it doesn't impact most people. And then to your point is like, what if yourself is something that people don't like? Yeah, that's a whole another thing. You know what I mean? I miss my hours like that life, man. It's cool, but something about you just sucks. Don't see your anxiety. Just don't sit right with my soul, man. Hey, man, you suck, man. Hey, but that stuff is always more offensive to me than like curse words and like blatant, like malicious talk. Well, I want somebody to tell you that I don't like you, like as a person. When someone says something like that, no, not like even don't like you, it's just like saying something like you don't suck. I mean, you suck or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know, man. Like, okay, I remember I noticed this in 10th grade, bro. This is dude in my class, named Russell. That dude was funny. He was always like, he had like this mean stick or whatever, like angry stick. And I always find angry people much funny, bro. That's all my favorite comedians. And the teacher, she was like, you're such a jerk. And for some reason that shit hit, bro. Like she said he was a jerk and she meant it. And it could have been bitch. Like it could have been anything. But the fact she said jerk, it just felt like, dang, man, she really meant that shit. I don't know. Like those kind of words always hit me harder for some reason. When I know somebody's trying to be offensive, that shit never fits me. It was all cool. I just know where you are. But people feel like they're being genuine. They have to think about it, find alternate words and describe it. Like I'm truly trying to express. That shit just is different. You know what I mean? But yeah, man. Look, like you said, sometimes your personality might not hit, but there's too many people in the world where you can't find anybody. We are out of that era. Now, with that being said, we got to make a quick transition to, there we go, inside of the network. We got a brand-man network post that we think is going to be extremely valuable to y'all. TikTok offering cheaper digital ad placement. Not really quickly, of course, if you don't know what brand-man network is, it is not only a place that we offer free courses, completely free that show strategies that we use in our agency, but we also have a really dope community where they share stuff like this. It's invite only, or you can apply to be accepted, brandmannetwork.com. Check it out completely free, but you do have to be accepted and we don't accept everybody. Check it out and apply before we stop accepting people. TikTok offers cheaper ads in race against social media rivals, Meta, YouTube, and Twitter. This is a music business worldwide report. If y'all don't know them, y'all should check them out, man. Very credible. Very credible. And they gave us a really great article. Now, TikTok is offering digital ads at a lower cost than rivals as it attempts to lure more advertisers and brands away from Meta, YouTube, and Twitter amid the slowdown in global ad spending. Platforms such as Twitter and Meta Facebook, that still messed me up that whole meta thing. Platforms such as Twitter and Meta Facebook and Instagram are seeing reduced ad spending as brands pick TikTok due to lower cost and better levels of engagement. The Financial Times reported on Tuesday, January 10th, citing advertisers, industry bodies, and brands. I don't understand what the industry body thing is. What does it mean by that? It's like just people in the industry. Okay. That's weird, but maybe I'm not corporate enough. TikTok generates most of its revenue from advertising in 2021. The company reportedly raked in nearly $4 billion in ad revenue. For a billion, the ByteDance own app is predicted to have ended 2022 with 1.8 billion monthly active users from 1.2 billion at the end of 2021. So they went up 600 million in last year and in China alone, its home market, TikTok has over 600 million daily users. But with the slowdown in global ad spending, TikTok slashed its global revenue target for 2022 by 20% or by at least $2 billion. Anyway, let's cut this short. We'll probably finish the rest of it. But to add to this or expound on this, basically everybody is finding it difficult to make more revenue period. One of the ways that they can control is incentivizing you to use their advertising platform, because most of these platforms utilize ads as a majority of their revenue. TikTok's been aggressive. They've been aggressive since day one on the way up. And the fact that they're at this level now being aggressive is extremely interesting. And them having lower ad costs, though, to me is something that I would like to understand how they're doing that. It does this mean that advertisers are paying the same because we would be an advertiser. Are they taking a smaller cut? Is that what it is? So they're taking a smaller cut at charging less for the impressions and clicks and things like that. You kind of have that hidden back-end cost of what it is. They're lowering that, I guess, because TikTok has already relatively cheap compared to the other one. I really want to understand the motive other than pushing them out, because it's not their core revenue yet. So they don't see any crazy risk with doing this. I probably is their core revenue. You think so? Yeah. I look at the ad manager and I got this grief. Hey, he shouldn't be. But where else are they getting from? All right, let me see. Let's see really quickly. TikTok revenue breakdown. And they did just make a power move update to the ad platform. I will give them credit for that. They finally made it to where you no longer have to upload money into the manager. You can just connect the credit card like Facebook. Such a small improvement, but such a huge change. Huge, huge. So their value at 100 and 150 billion, I mean 102, 150 billion, 4.6 billion source. I mean, look, 4.6 billion was their revenue in 2021. That was basically the money that got reported in this article. So let me see. They said, no, active users, yeah, 4 billion. All right, 4 billion dollars. That's all their money. And that's from ads. They're specifically talking about in this article. Well, never mind. I mean, I feel like they had got to be getting some money somewhere else. You know, that's probably not the best, best source, but taking that 50% of their credit revenue. Yeah, 600. But TikTok advertising is definitely their largest revenue source as far as I know at the moment. Now, let's get deeper into this, but these are obviously some reasons that you might want to look at TikTok ads. Just as people have seen at scale, right? It's not just artists. Everybody's seeing greater engagement from ads. If you're running the right type of ad, understand how to make sure your copy is better, which we can get into. YouTube is also no exception to the downturn as its ad revenue slipped 1.9% in the third quarter to 7.7 billion, contributing to the overall 27% drop in alphabets revenue in Q3. Twitter now owned by Elon Musk also is being affected by this. Now, YouTube, they're slipping in their ad revenue, right? At the same time, they're bringing shorts into the fold, right? That's interesting. Why? Because, one, they're probably saying that this is something that's been better for advertisers for whatever reason. So that's not, they're not just copying shorts because we just want humans to be on the platform or we think, ooh, doing the TikTok style is cool. There's obviously business incentive in the back end and it seems like advertisers might be having a better experience with that format in general for ads in some form of fashion or at least a competitive experience where they need to get in it. But then you consider they're advertising revenue dropping. What else has YouTube done lately though? They cut our money with this curse word, right? It's interesting. It's like the timing, their revenue dropped, right? Let me see. 1.9% to 7.7 billion. I don't feel like doing that math. Yeah, I don't feel like doing that math, but that was probably, maybe they jumped from like $10 million or something like that. So they probably dropped like $2 billion or something almost. So they're losing money over here. They're going to offer us this new opportunity to monetize shorts. Ah, but they cut the money we were making on the other end from the long form content. I don't think that's coincidental timing. It's like, where can we get strict on things? You know what I mean? But people can't complain too much. Exactly. It looks like it makes sense. I don't know, man. I don't know. I think I see you. New York based media agency VaynerMedia noted that obtaining 1,000 impressions from video advertising on TikTok costs nearly half that of Instagram reels and third cheaper than Twitter and no other cheaper than Twitter and 62% less than advertising on Snapchat. And so that means Snapchat's more expensive than Instagram too. Man, because we haven't ran Snapchat really seriously in a minute, right? Yeah, I mean like a couple campaigns, but yeah, not as serious as the others. Okay. I wasn't aware that it was that much more expensive than Instagram. The FT most recently reported financial times. As a result, the top 1,000 advertisers in the US alone boosted their spending on TikTok by 66% to 467 million from September to October. Man, in one month, they just boosted 400 near 500 million. Wow. Okay. This is saying a lot. Follow the money. We'll let you know that there's some kind of incentive wherever the money's being poured. Some money's probably being made in lessons of Vanessa, but we're not talking about some FDX shit. So many of our brand partnerships used to be 100% Instagram. Permalade Doyle said, hopefully I sound that, said that right? And she also said, now for November 2023, no, now for 2023, we're seeing 80 or 100% TikTok. Now they going all in. They going all in. Man. Sheesh. All right. Market research firm Insider Intelligence recently noted that Meta and Applebit are losing dominance over digital ads in the US from rivals TikTok, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. Whoa. What's going on? So this must be, are they talking about Twitch ads or are they talking about like some video game type advertising? I'm not sure. I would think Microsoft. Well, no, because Twitch is on by Amazon. Oh, it is Amazon's on the right. Okay. Yeah. Microsoft, I don't know. Microsoft on Twitch. No, I think Amazon on Twitch. Yeah. I think you're right. You're right. Yeah. And so Amazon has an ad platform on the actual Amazon site and they have the Twitch ads. I don't know what ad platform Microsoft got. That's the part that was confusing me out of all this. Or Apple really didn't think about it. Other than the Apple store. Yeah. True. Yeah. True. Okay. But that's a lot. And sometimes losing ground, we're talking about such a strong level of dominance. You know what I mean? Talk about, oh, anyway, it went from 5% to 10%. Now it amounts to billions now. Yeah. You know, you're talking about a whole collective market. So the firm also predicted that TikTok will soon beat YouTube in viewing time, although it does not expect TikTok to surpass Netflix's viewing time anytime soon. See, we talk about a different game. But that's how these companies really think about themselves, right? Yeah. Because I remember Twitch, you know, Twitch started popping before most of these. YouTube was there and everything, but TikTok and Instagram weren't serious in this type of conversation. But when I first really start hearing about Twitch, when I was in tech, one of the business things that I heard was it had more watch time than YouTube at some point in time. It was like the most watched. They compared it to television. So ultimately, all of these platforms that are looking for your views in some ways are looking themselves as television networks. That's a good point. Or maybe television companies or enterprises, whatever that is. But that's kind of what they're saying. So it's like, yeah, how much are you watching Netflix? How much are you watching TikTok? It's the same thing when we're like, yo, artists, y'all are just competing with other artists. Viewing time is viewing time. And if you're not looking at me, you're looking at something else. That's what Netflix and TikTok are saying. But it's crazy when you beat your part of the game so much. It's like, okay, Netflix, I'm coming for y'all. I'm not going to make no movies, but I'm still coming for y'all. That's like a different type of monster, bro. By the fact that makes me think so Tom Brady has this special called Man in the Arena. It's not just Tom Brady. It's over the Patriots. But this was pretty early in Tom Brady's career. And maybe he had one or two Super Bowls. He had at least one. And somebody was like, how many do you want or something on his team? And he told them that he was going for Michael Jordan, all right? He had, which now Tom Brady has seven, I think Jordan got six. But for a football player to say, I'm going for Jordan, a basketball player, all right, six, like it's so hard to get one in football compared to one in basketball. Then you talk about multiplying that. You do them like 52 other people. It's a different type of mentality. And I feel like this is where all these platforms who get the top of the game, they get to. It's like, all right, we beat all the regular people. We're dominant. And now there's just this level of titans of certain level of goatness that, yeah, Amazon, we're a commerce platform first, but we're also fighting with Google, who was a search engine first. And we're also fighting with Apple and Facebook, right? Social media network first. Like now it's like, oh, now it's us. And we all eating each other's lunch. One, to kind of keep you off of our shit, to distract you a little bit and two, to try to expand and become bigger. So like that's, it seems like what the, what the game is. I wonder if the artist at the top of the charts who are on that goat space look at it that way? Because we do hear like some Taylor Swift Drake shit. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like the whole like kind of was like, I want to, you know, be like Steve Jobs and shit like that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm like, that point is like, what else do you have to do or prove other than I can hang out with these goats? We've done everything it goes. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing that the goats don't just want to hang, bro. They also want to dominate. They want to be the better goat. It's an interesting thing, but like if anything, look, this tells you straight up that TikTok is a cheaper platform. And we've seen this, we haven't talked about it like heavy, but from the agency, we've seen ridiculous results. And then we've, you want to take some time to talk about like the deep link or anything like that. Some of that stuff. I don't know how I would explain it because it's not something that everybody doesn't have access to yet. Everybody doesn't have access to it. Yeah. Okay. But I mean, but I will say this with the whole advertisement conversation, because I'm afraid that a lot of artists will see it and be like, oh, I need to go out in like Instagram, YouTube, you know what I'm saying? Like just keep it strictly TikTok. And so yes, TikTok ads from our experience have always been much cheaper. A good TikTok ad would typically be half the cost of your best Instagram ad or, you know, probably like 80% cheaper than your best YouTube ad. But TikTok ads are very fickle because the platform is very fickle. So it's nothing for you to run an ad on there and get a 2% conversion rate, you know what I'm saying? 10% conversion rate, 3%. And the cost of the views are much cheaper, but people aren't translating as high versus I look at Instagram is like, oh, reliable. You know what I'm saying? It's not going to necessarily give you super amazing results, but it's a good baseline for you to judge everything else off of. And maybe before you decide if you want to even take it to some of these riskier platforms, i.e. TikTok, i.e. YouTube, right? So it still has this place, even though it's it's more expensive, right? And like there's still an audience on the platform, so you can build out an ad from there. But yeah, like trust and believe, bro, like a good TikTok ad is crazy, bro. Like it's like, I think to this day, the best TikTok ad we ever had was like 8 cent cost per click in the US. It probably generated like 13,000 clicks for like $700 or something like that was crazy, bro. Like I'm just looking at shit like, damn, this shit real. Like she just streams moving up, shit moving up. Now with that deep link feature that you talked about, like I said, I don't think everyone has access to it yet, but TikTok is beta testing this feature where you can deep link to like your streaming platforms right in the app. So now instead of having someone click over to something like a toned in or a link tree, like once they hit learn more or watch or whatever, it just comes up right in the app. So because of that, we've seen our conversion up like anywhere from low end, like 5% to like higher end, like 20, 30%. When that shit hits with a good app, crazy, bro. Nothing's touching it. Like nothing is even closer to touching it. So I do think TikTok is basically a high risk high reward. You know, like are you willing to burn through a little bit of money to finally find that thing that does convert well for you? Just for those of you listening, I do want to give you a little bit of advice. If you're not making TikTok content, it's going to be a long, arduous road for you. If you're someone that's already making TikTok content, you understand the language over there. TikTok ads, it's almost like a why not? You over here anyway. But I don't want people to hear that and go like, oh, I should start running YouTube ads then, right? I should start running Instagram ads. Every ad platform has their pros and their cons, right? All of them in the perfect world, you do all of them at the same time, right? In the non-perfect world, then yeah, you pick like one or maybe two to kind of stick to and that fish a budget, fish a demographic and it's getting you the results you want to get. Yeah, man. But no, the TikTok ad shit is crazy, bro. I want to make sure people understand why you need to have content on TikTok first. So one thing is you want to put yourself in a position to find content that works well on a platform period, right? You do that organically, right? And also ask, know what? I'll get to that in a second. If you don't understand what's going to work for you and organically on your page, why run an ad for it? Because after you run an ad, those people are not going to respond well to your organic content. And I can see how you might say, well, look, my ads are cheap on this platform to any other platform. So I'm just going to run ads and not be somebody who puts up content. It's worth it for me. I can see that. But just in reality, you're missing out on 10 times the results by not being somebody who posts content on TikTok and runs that. Because what I was going to say earlier is, as great as TikTok ads are, they still don't outperform content that organically hits on TikTok. That still, bar none, is the best thing that can happen for a music artist. Content that's done right, meaning your brand is not misrepresenting you, is not something that you're going to hate that happened. It's done right. And it hits and goes viral on TikTok. The results and everything else, it moves like nothing else. There's no other single activity that you can do outside of having somebody else post content that does well. But I still argue that content posted by you with you in it, going viral on TikTok is way better than a TikTok by somebody else that does two times the results. Unless that shit just makes 50 other people post it. That might be a little different. So TikTok ads is a beautiful thing, but please start posting content, figure out what works for you on the platform. Because also, that's going to let you know what to run your ad around. The way TikTok works, if you attract the wrong people running a bad ad, it's going to make it really tough to get results when you do start posting organic content. So do organic content first. Yeah. And to that point too, the content ends up being the thing that converts the stragglers, right? So we always talk about, you gotta think about user behavior with these people that are coming from the ads. Some of them are gonna see your content, hit the music and go like, oh, this is great and click immediately over. Some of them will be like, oh, this is cool. And you know what they do? They click on your profile and they scroll through and see, do you have anything else they objectively like that makes them now want to convert? So maybe they go through and that ad didn't make them want to convert, but it got them interested in you. But then in some video you posted five weeks ago around your song is the thing that is like, no, I'm, makes them go like, no, I'm going to check this out. Right? So it's like, do you have one piece of content on your page? And like, that's just your ad. You got to be like, damn sure that shit is going to be amazing. Because if not, you have no other at best to convert that person that doesn't like that piece of content versus if you have 50 pieces of content in your page, you can get that person just interested enough to at least check you out. You have 49 other chances of that person to like something to finally go check the song out. I would much rather have as many at best as I could possibly get, especially when I'm paying for them, bro. Like I pay for them to come here and I need you to make the best, most sound decision you could possibly make before you swipe away. 100%. 100%. So look, I mean, I think we can harp on a TikTok all day, but it just follows those basics of those things we've said, as y'all know, like, these are things that we've done within campaigns and ran a lot of tests. And look, we've made most of the songs at this point, we actually are probably most of them have blown up on TikTok, right? I would say the majority. Now, we've blown up songs on all platforms, but probably at least 50%. Yeah, I would say even if it didn't necessarily blow up because of TikTok, a lot of our campaigns had to spark starting on TikTok. Exactly. Exactly. So when we talk about TikTok, it's coming from a real place, but again, on the other side, as Jaquory said, that doesn't mean you just run over there and do it blindly. With that being said, who do you take your music to after you create it? If you don't have an answer for that, I suggest that you find it. Young Thud, Metro Boomin, will suggest that you find somebody to take your music to, because they definitely have somebody they take their music to when they created it. Check this out right here. Is Magic City that dope or no? Yeah, Magic Legendary, man. I was in there last night. Really? Yeah. Man, me and Thud used to do songs, and as soon as we get done doing it, like this one, we start CDs. I'll burn a CD on the computer and we'll go to the club, take it to DJ, like, yo, let's go hear this shit, see what's going on. Oh my God. Well, that's how you know if it's a fucking banger. How other way can you test a track than that? Exactly. And you just watched the strippers' reactions? Yeah, watched everybody's reaction. You know, vibe out, throw some money, get everybody hyped, and it's like, okay, you feel me? Damn, that's dope. That's so, that's so amazed. So amazed, man. So innocent, so pure. Hilarious, man. Hilarious. But hey, Focus Groups, baby. Focus Groups. Hey, who do I take it to to see if it's going to pop? Well, he did influence it a little bit. I wish. I mean, I know why they're doing it, you know what I'm saying? Let's influence the crowd, throw some money. But I want to hear the raw perspective of the car without all the other exciting elements going on, you know what I'm saying? See, that don't work. That don't work in a strip club. The money has to be thrown out to make it go, look, to be fair, that's the actual environment, right? The environment is the money going out. So she could come and move and do her job because the money's coming out. Yes, that's a good point. But that don't mean she has to enjoy it. Part of her job is pretending like she enjoyed it, but you can sense you know what I mean? Oh, no, this shit is lit for real. I've seen certain songs come on and then the girls like, oh, let me run to the stage, just my one, or just be in their spot and do a little some extra. Like, oh, yeah, I'm on my little break or whatever. I'm not doing nothing, but I still can't stop myself from moving. So the connoisseurs that they are of the strip club, I'm sure they could tell the difference. You might get it, man. Like I said, you got to set the funnel. You got to create the entire environment. You want to judge them in a real life simulation, not the fake shit. You know what I'm saying? And they're not about to, I mean, they thug and metro at this point, but they're not like, because this is a common thing, obviously, in Atlanta, they're not about to play your stuff without the DJ getting some money. You know what I mean? Stripers. Knowing who you are. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like the environment has to be set. So I get what you're saying though. You want the uninfluenced. Yeah, I want the strippers standing out with their arms folded, looking that metro and young thug bobbing they had. And I don't know if I fucked that baseline on the second chorus, bro. That's what I want, bro. You know what I'm saying? But in that case, you need to catch them after hours, but it's not going to affect the rest of their business. Yeah, but it's funny because now with the money involved, it feels like it's no different than like a test ad. You know what I'm saying? It's like you are artists and you're like, hey, I got $500 to spend to see if this particular demographic of people like my music before I scale it. This is that, bro. Hey, I'm going to go to this environment where I think that this demographic of people like this. I'm going to drop 20 bands on my test. It's my test. And if it hit, amen, we going to the label for a couple of Ms. If it don't hit, amen, back to the lab. You know what I'm saying? It ain't hitting. Now, artists, managers, and the like, who do y'all touch y'all's music with? Yeah. That's a question. Put that in the comments. Yeah, I love that. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. I will 100% would love to know, and I think other people would love to know. Or if you admittedly don't have anybody you test it with, but you like the idea of it, put that in the comments as well. But I have always done that when especially come to R&B artists, I'd ask my wife, you know what I mean? Like I'll ask my sister or like especially Afrobeat. She fuck with Afrobeat heavy. For a long time before it was as big of a trend now. So I'll play stuff and see. Like when we were working with Twitch, just put that shit on, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. And then see what happened, you know? Oh, she said so. She wouldn't know who that is. Okay, okay. This shit hard. This shit hard. She got me some call points. Yeah. If they don't say nothing, you know, they go about their business, then this might not be it. It ain't horrible though, because, hey, I didn't have quite a few. Turn that shit off or turn that shit down. Put your headphones on. Bro, this heathen is messing our home. But you brought up a good point too though. Like you got to make sure that the people you're testing with are typically that demographic. Because I do think a lot of ours made the mistake of trying to get people that don't like the type of music to judge their music, right? It's the biggest reason of why I don't like artists standing on the street trying to get people listening to music. Because like, bro, I'm just walking by. You don't know what I listen to, bro. You over here trying to get me listen to your indie folk cover. I don't even vocal that, bro. You wasting your time. You know what I'm saying? If that was an ad, that'd be a wasted dollar right there. You know what I'm saying? Just trying to convert me. Because I do the same thing with campaigns. Like whenever we get a client and we have the song, I try to think, like, who do I know in real life that I think will like this? And then I do the same thing. And let me see if I can get around them and just play it real quick and not saying that and see what they say or like. Or sometimes I hear them like, hey, bro, what you think about this? You know what I'm saying? Because I mean, one, you'll learn if you're right or not. And then two, you know, regular people don't have the same reservations about music and the music industry. We do. So they tend not to overthink it as hard as we do. You know what I'm saying? Exactly. You know, so they can be great sources of opinion. Because like, yo, this is your target demographic. Ideally, like, you know, listen to what they have to say. And then three, sometimes they give you ideas that you never thought of going back to that. You know, sometimes it's people in music like you overthink it. Oh, bro, this would be crazy. If y'all like, got this one meme page that posts like horse memes to do it. You like, what, bro? Like, where you getting that dust? I had a friend say that once when he's scrolling and it was like a horse page. Posting horses with like rap music in the background. I was like, bro, how did you find this shit? Like, why do you know about this? You know what I'm saying? But that give you ideas. I'm pretty sure people came out of them in shit clothes like, man, this should be crazy. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And they probably was like, oh, shit, you're right. They would go crazy over there. You know what I'm saying? Let's take it there. I figure out how we can get it over there once it's out. So yeah, like you are an artist that feels like you don't have that focus group. Like try to think about people in your real life, coworkers, schoolmates, family members, people you might not even like that much that you've seen listening to that type of music or your style of music before or you know them well enough to know they like that type of stuff. Yep. And then hit them and be like, hey, bro, like, you know what I'm saying? What you think? Like, you fucking with it? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? What we doing? Yeah, and I like that you mentioned those artists who are out on the street selling. It's one thing if you like really are targeting it, you know what I mean? Like a lot of the street artists, different term, right? Now artists on the street, but like street music, they typically are doing it with the right artists, especially back in the day. You don't even see them doing as much. Yeah, because they'll pick that battle, but they'll be outside like a club they let out or like an event that makes sense. They picked that battle smart. But then people going outside of a football game or just some random park in the city, you can convince people to give you money, right? And appreciate your talent. It's just not something that translates to people who actually might like your music. Some of those people might. Some of those people might not, right? It'll be like families. Oh, yeah, you're a really great singer, right? But everybody in that family environment might not necessarily like your music or you just putting your talent out there has nothing to do with the sound that you present your music in because you're just doing some kind of random cover. So it's like, be mindful or just know the objective because if you're just out here to make money, cool. If you're just out here to capture some footage, if you're doing this and hopefully make some money or whatever while you're down here, cool. Just don't expect it to be something to generate fans in a real way. Yeah, because I think what artists have to realize is that people don't like hurting other people's feelings like that, you know what I'm saying? Most people don't. Most people are okay people. Yeah, exactly, bro, especially they don't know you. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I don't know you. I don't know a reason to be rude to you. You know what I'm saying? You ain't did nothing to me. So I also don't know what you might do because I don't know you. Yeah, that's a great point. But it's like they'll give you these answers sometimes that just, bro, you know they lying, bro. Like I've seen like rap homies doing it and it'll be like some like older white guy. I'm like, what'd you think about this? And he's like, oh, yeah, this is dope, man. Like, you don't listen to name three rappers right now. Oh, I'm like, that Jay-Z guns cool. All right, man. Get them out of here, bro. It's a waste of time. Get me out of here. So that's my biggest quorum with it. It's like, no, it's just like, hey, man, just pick your battles for it. Why was it? Well, pick the right focus group. You got to pick the right focus group. But having a focus group is valuable. Now, next topic, people may never be able to afford concert tickets again. That's the premise. I want to hear the argument and the commentary, but artists, if people won't be able to afford concert tickets, what y'all going to do? Well, let's hear this conversation. I genuinely do not think we'll ever be able to buy tickets to concerts anymore. The young lady and the stitches will move because these concert ticket prices. And honestly, I think it's time we start calling concerts exactly what they are, which is a luxury experience. I feel like anytime a one-off event starts to cost more than a round trip fly it across the country, we have to deem it as somewhat of a luxury. Because gone are the days where you can see a super mainstream and in-demand artist for like $75. That ain't even covering the processing fees nowadays. But given that we're in a day and age where you can legally listen to any artist's music for free nowadays, I'm not surprised that we're here. But this new normal is a little shocking. It's a luxury. Major artists' concert tickets are all over the place. What is this? Yo, TikTok, we having some random stuff. No, I'm going to just let this play while we talk. I'm going to mute it, but I'm going to just let this shit play. And shout out to Unculture, Culture Unfiltered. I don't know your real name, but shout out to you. You be having some dope videos. Y'all check her out on TikTok and Instagram. We'll let this video play. But that is a crazy, crazy thought. But I think the logic that she presented after that commentary makes sense. But the first thing I want to stop with is the girl, Danielle Burnett, I think was her name who said, hey, I don't think we'll ever be able to afford concert tickets. What's a fan? And I love to hear just fans talk. Yo, yo, TikTok. Yeah, exactly. You get their perspective. So if fans are thinking, man, I can't afford these tickets. They're too expensive. Because on the other side, artists are like, oh, I'm seeing these other artists charge this and that and the third, and they must be selling at this. So I should probably raise my prices. And I don't really have a strong enough fan base to go start at that. Or maybe I could go half of what that price is, because I'm using that as a measuring stick. That's the type of thing people typically do, right? I'm going to use whatever the standard seems to be and maybe go a little below that, because I know my fan base isn't strong. But if a fan is like, hey, I can't afford that shit, and then you just drop it, then you're still out of range. For someone who doesn't really know you or your fan base isn't strong enough, because the bar has always been, yo, these tickets are $30. I might make my tickets $15, because they don't know me yet, and it's easier to convince them there. But if you take that to a range where I can't afford anyway, now you're talking about I can't afford, or you dropped it down to a difficult decision. You didn't drop it down to just, do I like this person or not? So, if the middle class is going to suffer when it comes to shows, that's what it comes down to. I understand. Like, and middle class makes most of their money through shows, right? So, that part is going to be a massive challenge for artists, because we talked about Lorde and her letter mentioning that shows are also more expensive. To put on. Right? This is the seesaw. Shows are probably more expensive for the fans, because putting shows on are more expensive with the pandemic, supply chain issues, all these different things. So, in some ways, some of these people aren't even making them more expensive just to be able to make more money or offset their lower revenue from streaming. Some of these people are just trying to make sure they break even on their shows. Yeah. Right? Now, you talk about the middle class artist where does that leave them if fans can't afford, right? I don't know. I think this is going to be a tough range, and we're going to have to figure out a couple of ways to adjust in this, or people are going to get really smart in about how they do their shows. You're going to have to be really targeted. You might not do a traditional venue. You might rent out a spot on Peer Space or something. You know what I mean? Yeah, stop. Yeah, no more traditional venues. Yeah, no more traditional venues, and you can troll everything up in there. You buy some bottles, you know what I mean, from the liquor store yourself. You know what I mean? Have Homie the bartender. Yeah, have Homie the bartender. Give him a little cut. Tell him to put a little bit of water in the shit. You know how it goes? Or, you know what? Poor as follows for it, bro. Hey, man, that's how I be, man. Look, you put some ENJ in the Henney bottle and then put some juice in it. They're not going to know the difference once they have enough. So, look, whatever you have to do, I think it's going to become creative. But also, there's a beauty in that because it's creative, which is going to make experiences more unique. Because you can see how many shows you go to at the same venues that actually takes away from the specialness of the show. Yeah. All right. So, even without these issues with higher costs, I think it'd benefit artists to try to go left. You're probably not making the same money anyway when you cut out the promoter costs and things like that. It might take a little bit more work for you to figure some shit out. But I've done a lot of shows in random places back when I was in the show space. It can be done, especially if you refer in some homies who's a DJ or people who already got some equipment. You can make that shit shit. If you're in a big city, bro, like not many abandoned buildings or random warehouses and shit, you can put something together. But I've done a show before in the back of a bookstore, bro. You know what I'm saying? It's a bookstore? Yeah, it was like a little alt bookstore on Pew Street, but still, you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah, I'm talking about me. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Bookstore nonetheless, bro. Is she here? Is she here? Bookstore. Yeah. That's funny because we did one in my homeboy's homeboy house, which is real dope because he was able to deck out the entire experience. And then I went to this one show. And it was in a barbershop. That shit was hard. That was hard. It was hard because they in the barbershop had like a pool table and stuff in the back. So it was like regular barbershop in this back room that had some more stuff and experience. But the main show and everything was in the barbershop part. So, hey, man, look, if you got homies who own some spaces, whether it's traditional or not, whatever it is, all you got to do is make it a thing. See, people fight it. And they try to make the abnormal experience normal. It's like, oh, man, this is in a barbershop. How can I make this feel more like a regular venue so people don't realize that I'm doing this in the barbershop? No, make that shit. A barbershop experience, you know what I mean? Own whatever your abnormal experience is and flip whatever your broke experience is into something that might be a competitive advantage. Make it seem unique like you did it on purpose. And now people are going to be like, oh, my gosh, she's such a genius. And then you get famous. And then people will be like, oh, yeah, man, I had to do that shit. Like I might have been mad at it at first, but hey, it worked out. So just rethink and reframe how you do this stuff. But yeah, man, this concert ticket conversation, we can get back to the affordability and everything. But it takes my mind in a lot of different places. I do think there is a little bit of a pro to it is that it is training the middle class and lower class artist fans to be OK with higher ticket prices. Last week, I went to an artist showcase. I didn't know anybody on the bill. I think I went because somebody just invited me out. That ticket was $25. $25, bro. Six acts, I know, I know. Rich, rich, bro. Hey, man. Maybe it begins to my own detriment. You know what I'm saying? So I'm like, damn, but $25 is six motherfuckers on the bill. I never heard it on them. But I was cool with that, bro. Because I'm used to seeing ticket prices like she showed on the screen, bro. To Drake, $500, you know what I'm saying? Kendrick, $4,500. Last most expensive concert I went to, I think it was a Kanye show. And I think I paid like $400 for those tickets. So I was like, when I noted like, damn, here's $400. It's $25 and looking so bad, you know what I'm saying? But you said on the screen, when you were saying on the screen of this video we just played or the screen of the person who showed the $25 ticket price? No, no, of the video we showed. The culture unfiltered, yeah. Because you showed like a ticket was on credit, like $800 or something, bro. Yeah, like I've seen it, but it been times where I've logged in and looked at shit and I'm like, oh shit, bro, like Drake is all his fucking mom. Like I'm not buying this ticket. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm not buying that. And then you be in the nosebleed, nosebleeds be like $250, bro. It's like, come on, now I'm getting violated to be in the back, man. That used to be the sauce, bro. Like, hey, man, I want to be in the building. So I'm about at $33 ticket in the very back just so I can get in there, get my merch and get out. Now you don't even get that anymore. So like, but now when I go through either smaller artist showcases or shows or like mid-range artist tickets, I see like $30, $50, $70. It doesn't feel as much of a shock value anymore. I was like, okay, I get that. You know, I understand like where you kind of coming from. So I do think that is a net positive out of the whole situation. Like you wouldn't have paid $30 for like a little hoot or whatever now because Drake charging $600 for his tickets. Yes, but I don't think the artist gets the benefit of it because you have to look at everything. Why are the more expensive artists raising their prices? Because shit is more expensive. Yeah, production values. So we know that their $30 shows aren't going to have this crazy production value, but the venue is probably charging more. Yeah, sometimes the bar be free too. You know, like there's all these other things that are taking place. It's probably more expensive for them to put on the show. We know inflation in general, everything that went up. You know what I mean? So I think at the very least, that should encourage you though to be cool with doing $30 because there's still some people who don't have the confidence to put their shows at more than $5, $10, $15. So at least understand that now you're good to at least do $30. Don't make yourself, you have to move that tight. You know what I mean? Yeah, I remember we did that with the blue summer thing. I remember, I don't remember which one it was, but there was a ticket, a show before we were charging like $15 for it. And I was arguing with Sam that we could charge at least $25. And I was like, bro, we should at least try it. Worst case scenario, we fix it for the next one. I think at $25 a ticket, we may be sold like nine tickets less than the show before. So I'm like, oh, this is great. They at least said like, hey, we had worked a little harder. We could have gotten nine more people in the building that had 25 out of a head, right? So less people in the room, but more money may overall. And that was when it clicked for me is like, going back to what you said is that fans are okay with spending good money on your show for like usually one or two reasons. Either they really like you, which is what most artists are hoping. Hey, this person really likes me. Or they feel like they're going to get some type of unique or different experience at their show. I've been to shows of artists that I wasn't like a fan of but somebody invited me out. But then I might pay the money because somebody I want to go hang out with this person. But then I get there and I'm like, oh, this shit was actually worth it. There was this artist. I don't know if I want to say his name, but it was an artist that my homie was on tour with. And he had a show at vinyl in Atlanta. And his music, I didn't really fuck with it at first. And I was about to walk out on his set. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was literally walking towards the door and then I don't know where like the lights changed. Like shit got real dramatic. He started singing this one song. And I just kind of like stopped at my steps and I just looked at the stage. I'm like, I'm going to sit here for a little bit and see like, see what's up with this. You know what I'm saying? But it was like, up until that point, it felt like that artist wasn't investing like the character and the setup enough. And then like for whatever reason at that point in the show is when shit got like different, like way different. You know what I'm saying? And so it was like, I left that show going like, okay, it was $25 well spent. You know what I'm saying? Like he was a cool guy. He put together a good experience. The crowd was fun. So fans will be okay with spending money if usually those things align. I like you or at least have heard of you. I feel like there will be some type of unique or different experience and I have fun at your show. If you can tick those three boxes off, people will damn they'll pay whatever. 100%. So two things. The first thing is I leaned in heavy into making the show feel like it was just something to do. And that's a huge benefit for artists in the beginning. People actually do like to have nights out. So sometimes people focus so much of on marketing this as a concert, going to view this artist, a place for my fans that they forget that people just need shit to do. So make this shit feel like something cool to do. That type of experience, like a nice night out. What is the whole vibe of the place? And those unique environments kind of force you to do that or at least give you a easier canvas to make shit happen. A regular concert venue is a blank canvas. And it feels empowering in some ways the thought of having a blank canvas. But in reality, a blank canvas is pretty difficult to make shake. A blank canvas fun so you realize how expensive the paint is. And exactly. But then when you're working with a warehouse, you're working with a school, you're working with a barbershop, you're working with a bookstore, it already is creating a vibe for you to play off of. So now your production value drops as well, which that'd be the cost right there. For the really dope experiences, that'd be the cost. We know that. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that you need to reach out to that artist, buddy, and tell them, remember when you did a show with my homie and you had this set and you performed some song and then the lights went off. You might have seen this guy with treads with his back to you. But then he started singing that song and he turned around. All right. All the shit that you did before I turned around. Don't do that shit no. Don't do that shit. It's actually funny because I did tell him that. He did. Yeah. Well, not that exactly. But I told him I was like, because Sam put me on the spot. Bro, Sam was like, yo, yo, yo, tell him he was about to leave the venue. I was like, what, bro? Like you're just gonna throw me on the spot like that. I was like, yeah, man. I ain't gonna lie, man. I wasn't feeling the first half of your set. But that song you did around minute 15, bro, it won me over and I stuck around. He was like, oh, yeah, that's that's that's cool about it. He's like, that's dope, man. Like you took my this song, right? He's like, yeah, I was like, yeah, man. That song was hard, bro. He's like, yeah, that's dope, man. I'm glad I can make you stay. So he was cool about it. Right. You need to take note, bro. He got it. I hope he take that to heart for real for real because that's like an ad. Right. Yeah. Hey, man, you lost me in that first 15 to 30 seconds or whatever. And you're talking about somebody who doesn't know you. You need to come straight for the shit. You ain't that dude yet, right? You can't take me through the long intro and do all these cool things. You're popping up on other people's show. Hey, you got to hit. You got to hit. It reminds me of comedians. They talk about early on a career. They only have a certain amount of time. Everybody does this, right? Like with entertainment. You get more and more time for artists as well, right? It's like some of my jokes. They got to hit. It ain't that build up. My laughs per second. I forgot they have a whole thing about laughs and jokes per second. Oh, shit, bro. Yeah. No, that's a real science. You hear comedians talk about it. I know that. Yeah. And I'm not talking about like some academic people who were like, oh, no, I'm talking about, you know, Dave Chappelle, Andrew Schultz, all these guys, Chris Rock, like that's literally how they talk about it. It's interesting. Yeah. So they have that formula and what you're shooting for. And it has to just be like straight to it early on because you have to fight to get more. And then as you get more, then you can get more intricate because you have more time to work within, all right? So that's how you should do your shit, right? Like what are my quote unquote hits? The songs that are going to make people pay attention to rest. Like don't treat this like some show and you have, you know, full range and everybody's going to be here because people do be walking out, especially early on, like people come for their friend and then they leave. Or they catch you at the end. So you might want to end as strong as possible too because they catch you at the end because you're friends after them, right? So that part. And especially the ticket chief. The ticket chief, bro, I don't feel no type of way about walking out. Like it was only $7, you know what I'm saying? Exactly. Exactly. So like be strategic about it. And I, a lot of times I think people feel like it's like made up science when we talk about these things. But the people who are like killing it, typically them or someone around them is thinking about this type of stuff throughout the journey. Yeah. But you know what I just thought about too, that there's tiles back into, that you're not getting those tickets to that Jesus concert. See, I thought about that, but I didn't bring that shit up. I didn't bring it up for a reason, sorry. No, I do not have those tickets and I believe the show's in about three days. Yeah, it is. You know what I mean? I do not have those tickets. We will see what happens. We will see what happens. If anybody from Atlanta is listening right now or not even just in Atlanta, you know, anybody who is GZ related and knows about the show that is happening, you know. Like watching tickets? Yeah, you know, DM me, man. Hook me up, man. Show me some love. You know what I mean? You might exchange a free consultation, you know what I mean? Some courses or some shit, bro. But let's talk. I would love to go to the GZ show. It needs to be two tickets, by the way, two tickets. Oh, man. Had to bring that shit up. But that's all right, because I got to ask out of it. Hopefully this turns out all right. Yeah, man, that's why I did it, bro. I was trying to hoop you, man. You know what I'm saying? I caught it, bro. I caught it, you know what I mean? Now, I got a clip for y'all. Man, artist, y'all ain't the only ones who are struggling. And when you hear this clip, it's going to sound painfully familiar. Now, if you don't know who Deontay Wilder is, he is a boxer. He is a boxer. But the things that he is saying here, I think they're going to cut close. I ain't up that 95% that don't have men in the show for it after this is over with. And it's not 8% of fighters don't have men in the show. I say 98%. Dang, that's high, Deontay. You think so? You tell me another fighter that's outside that don't need this business. It's only a handful with spiders at the top of their game that's still asking for advances from promoters and managers and stuff like that. I ain't here to call out names. That ain't none of my business. But it's true. While promoters and managers, they can go on a hundred years and support their family, put their kids through college, be multi-millionaires, and never took a punch of day in their life. But you talking about the product that brains and put the fans, asses in the seats, the person that risked their lives for others' entertainment in the end don't have men in the show for it. The only thing they have to show for is a high medical bill, Parkinson's and speech pyramids. That's all we have to show for in the end and get the pat on the back in the safe. Or he was a great fighter during this time. I said to hell with that. You talking to the top? Yeah, man, it makes me think. It's making me think of something that might sound a stupid question, but I'm not I'm not a crazy boxing fan. But he's making the same argument that a lot of artists make, right? Man, this that manager that's been here for 50 years and never wrote a hit song in his life, but this motherfucker paid. And I'm not paid. But artists have the argument of owning their IP. Like what is the argument that boxers have? Because I'm assuming that the network owns the fight, like the content of the fight, right? Their styles are usually derived from a style they didn't create. It's not like they own the fighting style. So like what like what is like, what can they monetize long term the same way? Like an artist or any other entertainer could monetize long term? Well, one, you could be like Dion Sanders, where obviously he's not a boxer, but he is a defensive player. And he realized that offensive players ain't making money like that. So he marketed himself, promoted, came out with rap music himself back in the day. We talked about late 80s, early 90s or whatever it was. And created a brand and persona to make him larger in life and larger than the game itself in that way, right? So a persona is a way that boxers can expand their brand. And a lot of people can do that, right? Even artists, right? And you don't agree with the right things about personas. If a persona is right, you actually do not have to be the best. It's like people talking about Cardi B, right? That they're like, oh, doesn't she write her music or not? Or is she as good as Nicky lyrically? Da, da, da. People don't care about that because entertainment ain't no day. Maybe your skill is something that entertains me, but I might be entertained by somebody else. Buy something else, right? It might be her persona. It might be this person's looks. It might be this, like, entertainment is so many different things, right? So you could do that. There are some boxers that will own their promotion companies. Oh, okay. So they'll do something like that once you get to a point of leverage, like Floyd Mayweather. Then they start signing other boxes, just like artists are signing other artists. Yeah. You know what I mean? So there's ways, but it's not like straightforward and the game isn't built for you to do that. Just like the artist, music game is not built for the artist to really just be at a cap over and over again. You have to be creative. And there's so many ways to move throughout it. But yeah, nah, man, like this. You hate to see that this is such a common thing, not because, not because, like, everything is against the product or the creator, right? Because a boxer is a part of the creator, the creation of the fight, but also because there's so many people that are ending their careers with nothing to show for financially struggling. And I don't know, when I see this, it makes me think about that artist, like from the moment they pop, they need to be thinking about long term. Yeah. All right. What does that look like for you long term? Because he said outside of boxing, which I liked, right? So he's thinking, oh, without boxing, how can I keep moving? That means he put his money in something else. Right? And I'm all up for about investing in your business, but once you get to a certain amount of money, yeah, like, how can you build outside of the industry? Yeah. How many artists do we know make most of their money outside of the industry? Most of them. Most of them. The really paid ones, at least. The really paid ones are mostly really paid because of the money they make outside of the industry. The not really paid ones, and the broken some ones, they make most of their money outside the industry because they don't have enough money from music, right? The ones in the middle might be the only ones who make most of their money in the industry. And the ones in the middle are trying to figure out how to make more money. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Now, music is not that place for most people to get rich, rich, rich, rich, you know? Like, you can build a good life and do well. And there's going to be a lot more opportunities to continue to monetize, like you said, your IP. But I think the thought process needs to be, actually, people need to understand that a lot of this stuff is not necessarily considered music, right? When I was just a consumer, I didn't realize how separate touring and music I actually are. You know what I mean? Like, touring is something that artists use heavily. And we look at it as a part of the music industry and it does go hand in hand. But how many people do tours that aren't music artists? Yeah. Touring is its own business. Yeah. Podcasts, yeah. One man shows comedy. Like, touring is its own business, right? Yeah. So, like, there's all these other things that are adjacent to music that aren't specifically music that you can look at. But, and when you start looking at music in that way and realizing, hey, these things are technically separate, they start to make you really look at music for what it is. But when you just put it all together and like, oh, yeah, this is my artist made $80 million last year and he's like, oh, yeah. Well, most of that came from the tour. What is the music itself making? Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? That it starts to change your perspective of how you look at music and making money from music. Then you can get into like, all right, well, who's doing real estate? Who's doing certain brand deals and getting equity in companies and things like that. But just start by doing your research and breaking down. Like, find maybe your favorite artist that you know is doing well. Look at how much they made specifically from the music and not somebody who just sold their catalog. That's a, that's an aberration. Hold it, yeah. Hold it, man. Yeah. Yeah, that's something different, right? But like, how much are they making? All right. From and how much is that more like touring, merch, etc. Because hey, you can sell clothes without music, right? You could tour without music. And then, so now that means you can do that without music. That means that's just coming from the brand, not the music itself. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, and you know, again, you could be an influencer or anything like that and sell all those things. So figure out exactly how much that artist music is making. And then I think that'll change. I'll just change your perspective. And it will change how you look to play the game. Yeah, I agree. I agree. He said one more thing. That's what it was. He said, fires at the top of their game still asking for advances. I heard that before. Exactly. How much have we heard that before? How much have we heard that before? And why is that, you know, typically lifestyle? Because it's interesting. Boxers, they're not putting money. I don't know everything about boxing, but in terms of the business side and where the money goes. But like artists, at least a lot of that money, it's supposed to go towards like marketing their shit. It's supposed to go towards the production, creating product. So maybe some of them might overinvest or something like that. But then you have the trouble of lifestyle and not understanding, this ain't your money yet. But at least somebody goes towards production. Boxers, I wonder if that money is literally just their money. Of course, you got to continue investing yourself as a product and train, you know, I guess that expense. But like, man, like how many people have this advanced culture? I'm familiar. And maybe we should get them all together, man. Let them know that this struggle, it crosses, you know, industry lines. And maybe we should get in the think tank. That's what I was trying to do. Break the game. That's what I was trying to do. And that was episode number 25 of No Labels Necessary. We not going to do that, bro. We ain't going to add an extra hour to this podcast. I'm Brandon Misha. I'm Corey. He'll be out. Peace.