 Also, everybody, once again, it's Grandman Sean, and today I got a special guest for you guys. It's the rapper Coupe de Trille, but it's not just being a rapper that I have him on for. He is very unique in a lot of the marketing tactics that he uses, so he's a businessman as well. He's been a moderator for some conferences. He just has an overall unique perspective and approach to how he's moving throughout the business. So we'll get into why I think some of the things he's doing is interesting. But first, I want to go ahead and bring you Coupe de Trille. What's up, man? What's going on, man? How are you doing, man? Good, good, man. So, like, first off, I mean, you're a rapper, you're in St. Louis. Are you from St. Louis? Yes, sir. Born and raised. How did you know that you were going to be rapping? How long have you been in? I've been in, honestly, professionally, I've been only rapping. Like, I released my first project, like, this year, but I've been rapping professionally about, like, maybe for a long time, but maybe two years, I would say. The reason why I say that is because that's when I started taking the series. Okay. But I've been rapping and writing for a long time. Okay. So, the way you move is pretty interesting, man. Put your, can you get your faith down? There we go. So, people can see you the whole time. There we go. There we go. Okay. I guess. I do want to make sure you hear me. Yeah, yeah. What was I going to say? Right. So, the way you move is pretty interesting in comparison to a lot of rappers that are up and coming. I definitely have seen your grind, noticed your grind. We've had our encounters. Yeah. I mean, what were you doing before rapping? Now, I didn't know that you were only, you've only been rapping for, like, a year or taking it seriously for, like, two years. Where did you get the way you move from? Basically, man, you, Wendy Day, Gary V, Dame Dash, Nipsey Hustle, Master P, Jay Prince. I just study all the breaks. I study, and I'll put you in that category as well, because the information I receive from you, man, is just, like, actually executing them is, like, your stuff works, man. So, all of those combined, man, going to the Rico Love music conferences, you know, two years in a row, going there and just, you know, everything that I learned is applied. And, you know, it's really just all about the knowledge, man. See, but that's really what I'm talking about, though, man. I mean, I understand, you know, you appreciate the information I give out, and all these other people give out some great information. But to actually take what you're learning and apply it quickly and stay real steady and consistent and go hard, that doesn't just come from anywhere. So, what were you doing before that? If you could talk, I don't know what you might have done. I get you what I was doing before, man. You know, I always had a job, you feel I'm saying, but, like, to be real, which, you know, I was my daddy, man, my daddy, like, I was fortunate enough to have a daddy in my life. You know, my daddy always was a hustle, so, you know, everything that he did, I pretty much watched. He had me around him for a lot of situations, and I just watched how he just conducted business. So, you know, when it just came organically, you know what I mean? To me, just like, you know, how to talk to people, how to network, you know, and then my mother, she's very corporate. You know, she's the one that got me the job. So, you know, she taught me politics and, you know, how to conduct myself in the corporate environment. So, that's why, you know, I say I give her a best of both worlds, you know what I mean? So, that's how, and both of them are very ambitious people. So, they, you know, they just instill that in me. Don't, don't, don't. Okay. So, let's talk about one of the most ambitious things that I've gotten to see you do, and one of the more unique things, particularly when it comes to marketing, the whole smart shirt scenario. First of all, explain smart shirts to other people who, you know, like, try to paint that visual. I'll try to remember to put a visual up, but try to paint that visual. Right. Okay, basically the smart shirt is basically an NFC instill shirt. It's an NFC, which means near field communication shirt. We all have it in our phones, and it's basically, it can scan, like, either barcode or QR code, but it's mainly NFC technology. And what I did, I had an NFC sticker on my shirt, and it was through a company called InterSale. And they specialize in NFC technology, and I got it from them. And basically you can scan your phone on my shirt, and then my music and all my videos pop up, basically. All right, so you got something in the shirt. People take your phone up to your shirt. Your music can pop up for your phone, just like that. Now, what, how do people react to it, typically? Like I was an alien. To be honest with you, I, like, St. Louis is kind of like a small market. So, like, we're not used to seeing things like this. So, they were looking at me like I was a foreigner. So, like, how did you do that? I almost look like I was a lad in the sum of the jeans. Like, it was just like, hold on, what's going on? And, like, I got two types of responses. Like, one of them was like, man, that's innovative. You know, and the other one was like, kind of went over their head. And he was just like, okay. That was it, you know. So, they didn't even get it. They were just like, all right, I'll just send her, but whatever type of thing. Exactly, exactly. Okay, interesting. So, when you, when you do that, do they have to do anything on their phone? Oh yeah, they have to. I tell them, I tell them to go on their phone and under their sentence, it's something that says NFC, in their field communication. They, you know, tap it. Once it's enabled, boom. All they gotta do is just tap the back of their phone on my smart shirt and boom, there you go. And then, you know, my music, my single pops up in all my social media and all of that. Cool. So, what made you even think to do something like that, or how'd you discover that? I discovered it actually watching a sway in the morning. Right? Sway in the morning, he was interviewing above the law or whatever. Above the law, the old rap group that came out and it was records years ago. And I saw it, you know, because I always listen to the OGs, you know, me to basically so I can last longer, you know, in a nutshell. So, they demonstrated their own, they demonstrated their own sway. And I was like, and they said inter-seal. So, I immediately got off of there and looked up inter-seal, went to the website, got in contact with CEO, you know, we talked and then you can just like, look, just send me some search and I'll give you, you know, I'll give you a sample and then go on and we're from there. I was like, you in contact with the CEO, do you know what it is? Yeah. No, we'll shove that conversation right now. Right, right. What you done outside of just taking this stuff from marketing, right? And doing like a podcast, you have so many things that you're trying to do in the way you're moving. Have you found something in your personal journey that you feel like you've tried, but it didn't work? But you hear a lot of people say it will work, but it didn't work for you? That was a good one. That's a good one. I tried, not necessarily because I kind of, I guess having, because I don't have a team for a sake. You know what I mean? I call myself a one-man brand because I pretty much do everything by myself. So if anything, like I would like a team, but I need more people around. So it's like, it's like people like, I'm gonna do this and do that. I have so and so do this was like, I don't really have no reliable people around. So I do it by myself, you know, that's the sense. But other than that, like everything else that I'm, I would say it is like, I could say, look, we spoke on a podcast. The podcast is great, you know, anchor podcast that I have, material talk podcast, it's great. It's strict, it's strictly audio though. So it's where I got the energy any day on it and things of that nature. But I've learned that, you know, more visual, we're moving into more of a visual situation in the future. So I learned you two was a better fit for me. You know, I think it's better for you. Exactly, yeah. Okay. Cause I hear a lot of people say, I mean, a lot of people tell me I should do a podcast, but, you know. Yeah, you should. I'll be told then, bro. Seriously, I will. I'm on YouTube, man. I'm good on YouTube right now. That's podcast enough. Yeah, you know, that's just more work, you know what I'm saying? I understand, trust me, I understand. This whole one brand man band thing, I hear so many artists doing it. You found some levels of success anyway. And you've got a nice acknowledgement where you're able to talk to a CEO of a company and use his technology in an innovative way. You're on the panel for a music conference, right? Yeah. You've gotten to even interview and, you know, rub elbows with a few interesting people. But with what you being said, you still talk about the limitations of not having a team. So what's been the biggest drawbacks for you? And what are you looking for when it comes to building a team? Mainly just the, like you said, man, so much work. You know, you've got so much work. I know you understand. Like just, I would like to put out more videos. You know, I would like to put out, you know, I would like to put out, yeah, mainly just putting out more content as far as like videos and music. But you know, at the end of the day, it's like everybody's got their own agenda. So, you know, it's just like, I took it from myself. I was like, okay, content is key. I learned that from you and Gary Beach, like content is key. So it was like, okay, cool. Well, since I can't, you know, shoot, hear this video, I was like, hey, can I, you know, let's shoot a video. Like consistently, it's like, okay, I'll just make, I just start doing my own YouTube videos. No doubt. I'll just invest in myself or whatever. And yeah, basically that's really, off the top, that's pretty much like the biggest hurdle that I'm eventually going to chop over. But it's just one of the main things. It's constantly putting out like constant content, like visual. And the music conference that you're going to be a part of and you'll be on the panel for again. What's the name of it? Back to basics. Back to the basics. You are a business music conference. All right. So what's really dope is you mentioned to me that you guys are not only going to be, you know, doing the regular music conference thing in terms of getting people just knowledge and all that type of stuff, but you're also going to have music supervisors there. Yes. Yes. Everybody's like looking for placements. Well, the ones that are trying to get to the money quicker is looking for placements. Those placements. Exactly. How many music supervisors are y'all probably going to have there? Right now, one. There's one? But yeah, there's one. But he's been around for a minute. Okay. And now he's been around for a minute. So, you know, he's a bit, he's a bit at what he does. So most definitely, like, and like I said, he's going to be looking to get some artists and some producers and placements. So, you know, at the conference. So it's going to be, it's going to be well worth it for like that. No, because, I mean, the music supervisors that I know of, I don't really, you know, rub elbows on one personally too much, but the ones I've had the opportunity to like, talk to and things like that, they have like a lot of different projects. So, I mean, you know one, like one needs thousands of songs, you know, to sift them. So, okay, I can see that. Yeah, you got a catalog. Who likes it? And then placements can be like, I mean, I know people who, man, they just started their career. They don't have any followers. They don't have any real connections, but they happen to land a placement through like just reaching out to a few companies and five, 10K just off of one placement. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's the whole point of it being that you are in business conference because we're sharing like, like how you said, man, like, are you in it for the fame or you in it for the money? Yep. I mean, if you're really, if you're really independent, you're about the money. So, you know, I'm going to teach you how to get it. You're going to teach you how to, you know, the proper ways to maneuver to get your money back. Right. You're going to have to know where the money's coming from for sure. Okay, cool. So what's one of the more interesting things that you are working on recently, man? I know you dropped the project not too long ago. Yeah. I dropped the project called Aggressive Intelligence back on March 23rd of this year. And the reason why I called it that because I wanted to, I wanted to basically let people know who I was within like two words. Yeah. And I got that, I got actually, because I was like, how can I say look smarter, street smarter at the same time? Right. And I was like, oh, so honestly, I heard Liv C. Hussle on a song and he was like, effortless, call of aggressive intelligence. I said, bingo, bingo. So I took those two and I was like, that explains me all day. So, and that's what made me title it there. It was only five songs, but it was like, I'm not received, honestly, I've not received my one day review from there, or from their project. It was only five songs. Okay. And they say it's set up, they say I made it like a playlist, but it's still cohesive, you know what I mean? So that was one of the accomplishments. I actually got a placement of one of my songs from there got placed on the Gary Vee's blog. Really? How'd you get points on the blog? Because I know his editor, one of his editors, we got like 100 editors and I happened to rank it to one of his editors. And he basically like heard one of the songs. He heard a lot of the song, he heard, yeah, like two of the songs off the EP. And he just really gravitated to the song on tired of taking ills. And he was like, bro, I have to put this on the blog. I'm like, really? I didn't even ask to be honest with you. He just threw it in there and then like, I talked to him on the Tuesday, that Saturday evening, he was placed on Gary Vee's blog. Really? Yeah, yeah. So how did you meet buddy? How did I meet him? Instagram, Instagram. I made him, I did, yeah. Now go ahead, just go ahead. I made him on Instagram, man, I just, you know, I do my research too. That's a lot of things that I do, man. Like, honestly, I use Instagram as a business, honestly, like, I don't approach it as like a somber, like when I'm on there, I'm not just looking at, you know, Instagram models on a day, like all some funny stuff. Now I'm in it to like, who, you know, who in the booth, I'm reading a bio, trying to figure out who you're moving with, who. So I saw in his bio, he was like a editor for Gary Vee, I'm like, okay. Hit him up in the DM and, you know, we have to talk and it was more organic situation because I wasn't even like, hey, Gary Vee, the editor was going on, hey, put me, put my song in, no, it was none of it, we just talked and had a genuine conversation. I let him know some things that I was going through around that time. Hey, you know, I seen that he was a genuine person and we just clicked on that. And it was really an organic relationship. Well, so how did you actually first engage with him? You slipped him a DM, but like, what were the words if you can remember the idea? Okay, as I can remember, I was just like, hey, I was just like, hey, what's going on, man? You know, I just, I slid in on it. And he's like, hey, and we just got to talking. I was like, I don't know. I pretty much, I can't remember where, but I know I learned this from your networking guy as well. They know, I just, I approach online situations like personal situations, like if I'm physically in somebody's face, you know, I'm not gonna come up to them and be like, in your face and like, hey, how you doing? Hey, you know what I'm saying, I'm not gonna do that. So I just basically talked to him and, you know, had it, I put, you know what I did? I think I found, and I like this trick, Gary Yee, I found a common ground within his, I think it was something that, basically I found a common ground within his profile. It was something that, I don't know, was it a song or something? Something I commented, like, are you like this song or whatever, something like that? And he was like, yeah, I love, I can't remember. I really can't remember. I just know we connected up with the song. All right, yeah, by man. I'm not just like the idea of what you're saying. You're using Instagram as a business. You're using your research. And then when you engage with people, you're engaging them as a person versus. Yeah. Check out our music or blah, blah, blah, you know. That spam, yeah. Everybody hates spam, you know what I mean? So why spam somebody? And also I learned that five common ground thing from like when I do interviews, when I like for working like nine to five, like when I walked into the recruiter's office, I noticed that he was like, he was in the fish. You know what I mean? He was running a lot of, you know, Bass Pro championships and stuff like he had a lot of trophies and I just spoke, oh, you like fishing? Yeah, I just went fishing last week. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It just built an organic conversation. Yeah. And people can see through the BS, you know, and people can see if you really like, really doubt what you're talking about, you know. Yeah. So I've never tried to, you know, BS anybody. It's just not a couple of real place. You don't call a lot of something that you really can't talk about. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Yeah, I mean, you know, don't play yourself. That's definitely one of your laws. Exactly. Okay. So do you collaborate with people often, by the way? Oh, I do. I collaborate with people, but like, to be honest, I have been collaborate. It's been talks. It's been talks of, I actually collaborated with a young bleed on accident. You know, young bleed is, he used to be signing a limit. How you do that there? No, no, no, no, we don't care. I collaborated with him on accident. I actually did a song for this producer in Canada. You know, we click on Instagram, we click and he was like, I don't want to get you on the song. Okay. I just did it, you know, because, you know, he asked, I'm like, cool. I never did like a featured situation where somebody from over, not overseas, but out of the country before. So he was like, yeah, he kept saying, you know, young bleed gonna be on young, okay. I'm like, okay, some, some independent artists, some local artists, that's what I'm thinking. Turns out, he's like, yeah, that's, that's young bleed, you know, let me break his mind. Oh, I didn't know. As a matter of fact, he was on the original, I smoke, I drain, but like I said, that was on accident, I didn't know. So that's like, as far as the collaboration, as far as the big as I live, but as far as locally, it's in talks, especially come this upcoming year. But like, honestly, I didn't, I didn't, my plan is to get out there and collaborate with more artists. But when I was creating my project, I just wanted people just to hear me and get the first impression, let it be the best impression, you know? Got it. Okay, that's what I was gonna ask, because it seems like a lot of your moves are solo dolo moves. Yeah. You know, at some point it seems like the knees, that's gonna, you gonna hit a ceiling. And I like it. Yeah, almost definitely. It's gonna be taxing. Most definitely. But the thing is another way I'm approaching this game is not only collaborating with artists, but like, I've been talking to a few tech companies as well. So I've been talking to them, like a few of the CEOs of like these startups and stuff like that and kind of collabing with them, you know what I mean? To get more awareness using their product. And you know, but as far as, yeah, up and yeah, it's not that I'm not open to collab. It's just, honestly bro, like people just be talking, you know, the people just be talking, it's just like, I'm ready. I'm ready, whatever, whoever wants to collab. But you know, people are busy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm not no stuck up individual. Like, nah, I would love to collab with people. Honestly. You just don't play that game. Yeah, I just don't, if they, if it's like, okay, let's collab. I'm ready. Like, if we set a time and date, let's do it. But it's just like, oh, it's all excuses. And I don't have time for excuses. Now I'm ready to just go by myself. Hey, make sense to me? Make sense to me? Yeah. You just, what I could find though, a lot of times just when talking to artists and just even knowing from my own individual experience and doing stuff, like, all right, you'll get in this habit of, all right, the people aren't moving fast enough for me or I don't feel like playing this game. So you're just gonna, all right, you can go back to your own thing, like effort. Right. You make my own progress. And it just keeps happening. It keeps happening. You move fast enough for you, but over time, eventually, it's like, all right, I gotta figure out some way to create some form of patience and look at the time I'm spending on building some of these relationships and progress in the same way I think about in the other type of progress, like getting a task done or releasing the project and using the making money. Like sometimes, you don't see that immediate result, but it's happening. You just gotta be able to slow down and. That's true. That's true, indeed. Yeah, and the thing is, I'm patient, but it's just, you can just kind of tell them, people just pull at it, man. You know what I'm saying? I'm saying, don't use your discernment, you gotta be able to judge. There's a lot of people who are, they're talking. That's all I'm doing. That's what I'm saying. So it's in due time, man. I know it's gonna crack. All right, you know, it's in due time. Do you travel much? Yeah, I've been traveling a lot. I just left from DC, promoting the conference, like, you know, just kind of like, you know, building and connecting with other people. You're promoting what conference in DC? No, no, the conference that we're throwing in August. Yeah, so we're connecting with some of the panelists there and just, you know, just, you know, building up certain things. So by the time the conference comes, we'll be ready. The conference is in DC or in St. Louis? No, it's in Cincinnati. Excuse me. It's in Cincinnati. Hmm. Yeah, it's cute. Okay. So it's in Cincinnati, Ohio. And yeah, I travel, like I said, I just went to Atlanta. And I went to, yeah, I went to Atlanta, the A3C. I went to Rico Luks Music Conference for two years in a row in Indianapolis. Went to Vegas. You know, so I do some traveling, definitely. What do you get from these different scenes that you go throughout? Man, I'm just noticing, like, just the, for one, I'm noticing, like, the different demographics. Like, honestly, every time I hop in the Uber, like, I'm making my business to, like, let people hear my music. Like, every time I'm getting in the Uber or Lyft, I'm making my business, like, especially in Vegas. As soon as they were, you know, I'm listening, as soon as they were, you know, listening to certain, I'm like, okay. Hey, listen to this, I'm not around. You know what I mean? And then I'm playing my stuff in there. So that was cool. But, yeah, I'm noticing, like, just the different, like, how West Coast, like, the sound, just different sounds for different regions, you know? Have you actually gotten a fan from an Uber, though? Say it again. Have you actually gotten a fan from playing music in an Uber? A fan? Not necessarily a fan, but just somebody who's playing and rocking with it. I didn't get back in touch with them because it was so fast. So it was like, hey, listen to this. He playing it, boom, I jump out. No, no. When I went to A3C, I'm lying. When I went to A3C, that night when I put up the hotel, and he was driving me out, it was an Uber. Yeah, and me and him still in contact, because he was originally from, he was originally from New York. Okay. And yeah, we still, so yeah, yeah, yeah, most definitely, most definitely. All right, so you just really just practicing your pitch over and over again. No matter where you at. Definitely, most definitely. Everywhere I go, I just make sure, even when we went to the gym, we was up in the gym in the hotel, I was just, hey, like I got some workout music for you. And he's like, okay. And he's still playing one of the songs. And he's like, oh yeah, yeah. And he has his headphones. So yeah, it's just, wherever I'm at, I'm gonna make sure I network. Got you. And try to build it up. But like, yeah, that's basically it. Okay. So, I mean, I understand as an artist that people are diverse. People are always gonna talk about being diverse. But what energy do you feel like you have? Like, what do you wanna represent as an artist yourself? Man. Honestly, just ambitions like, like the ultimate hustle. Like, my main mission to be honest with you is to create a new genre called mobile music. Mobile music. Mobile music. Yes. And that's like the ultimate hustle music. Okay. Say it again? Yeah, M-O-G-U-L, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the ultimate hustle music. Because every time people's like, like everywhere I go, I'm wearing one of these shirts. Right? Everywhere I go, I'm always staying up, you know, to be true. Just everybody who I talk to, like I learned from you was like, your brand is not what you think about yourself, but what the people think about you. Yeah. So everywhere I go, honestly, the people who do know me, it's like, bro, you inspire me. Like, like this, the up, like, what was that? Like two weeks ago, I had went to an event and like a few of the homeboys was like, bro, it's the motivation. Every time I see your Instagram, bro, you motivate me. Like everybody who's talking to me, whether they in college, whether they in the hood or wherever, like they're like, I want like, like, you inspire me, man. Like, and in my, one of my partners, he called me. He, he said that I'm like, sneezed out, damned ass or gear and beef, they were rappers. I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, bro. He said, you, he said, your music is the type of music I listen to before I hit a busy meeting. Or before, you know, I'm too lazy to finish my mid, finish my paper or whatever, finish whatever. I'll play your music and get motivated to keep going. Okay. So I was like, okay. And just the moves that I make, man, like you say, it's, it's, it's moves. Like it's, I'm steady climbing. I'm steady climbing. So I think people are, they fascinated with what they're inspired by. And that's my main mission. That's my main mission is to inspire people. So like I said, the mobile music thing is like just the ultimate hustle. Like, I don't want like, I don't want it to be just about trap. Like, okay. If we trapping, let's talk about trapping and flipping it to some legal money. You know what I mean? Or, you know, the ultimate hustle, you know, like actually building a brand because my thing is now, I wanna, my main mission is like to, to spark the minds to create a whole new Black Wall Street. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So that's my mission, man. In and of itself. How about some of the artists that have a clear vision of their mission, just yet, but it sounds like you have one for sure. What's that? Okay. Did you sit down and like meditate on that and figure it out? Or was it just always natural to you or just happened? Man, I'm gonna keep it a book with you. I had watched Hidden Colors, the first one. Okay. And I learned that, they said that we're talking to go to school, go to college to be good workers instead of going to school to own, and own a business. So they stuck with me. I was like, man, we are, that's the reason why we're still a worker. You know what I mean? And then also, so that motivated me to make a song years ago called Boss Up. Or whatever it was like, we're gonna Boss Up. And then I honestly follow in Nipsey Hustler. Like he's the ultimate hustler to me right now as far as this generation is concerned. Everything he was doing, like his first interview, he was like, I'm spending my money on assets instead of liabilities. So, you know, I still did that type of mindset. I adopted that type of mindset. And that was just like, and then I don't know, I applied a lot of my reality, I was doing on my own. I applied my reality, my music, whatever. So, you know, as you know, from St. Louis, you know, we had the riots going on. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I looked at it like, you know what, if we had our own community, none of that, I don't think that it would have happened. If you catch what I'm saying. Yeah, that makes sense. So, yeah, so I wanna- You would break down your own shit if you owned it. Exactly, exactly. So that's my main mission. I wanna be like the soundtrack behind it. Not wanna be, I'm gonna be. The soundtrack. So the soundtrack behind the work, the work for a mission. Yes. The work for something big. Yes. The ultimate hustler, man. Like, basically, in a nutshell, man, not to be long-winded, just the ultimate granted for your last name, not for your first. Got it. All right, I like that. I think that's a good way to end it, man. Is there any last words that you wanna just, you know, put them on to? Tell them what it is. Ah, man. Follow me, man. I got a YouTube. That's why y'all see this YouTube background, man. I'm gonna shoot a video right after this interview. Follow my YouTube, Coop the Trill. All my social media is at Coop the Trill at C-O-O-P-D-A-T-R-I-L-L-E. You can follow it, like I said. Follow my YouTube, subscribe, hit the notification bell, all of that. And yeah, just stay tuned, man. I got some singles coming. And you know, steady just moving, man. Just keep watching. And if you wanna be a part of the conference, if you wanna go to the conference, make sure that you hit me up, too, as well. All right, y'all heard that. If you wanna be a part of that conference, maybe you might be one of those people that get in contact with the supervisor and get you a placement and a nice little check-along with. Most definitely. All right, man, hey, everybody, wanna know what your thoughts, put that in the comment section below. And always, you can check some of the bonuses that I'll be having in the description below. If you like this video, go ahead and hit that like button. If you like it, might as well share it and if you're not subscribed. You know what to do, hit that subscribe button.