 What's so crazy about it is we're independent. We're not tied to any label situation. Like we did all of that. We were number one on Remy Radio, number one on Urban Radio, number seven most dream song in the world. At one point we were number one on Apple. We were number one on Spotify. I mean, I think we made us number one on TikTok. Bruz is so many number one, so many without anybody's help. It was literally just us hiring the right teams, like hiring the right radio team, hiring the right UK team. We hired an Australia team. I mean, we hired so many different teams to make sure this world was recognized globally. Yeah, I mean, this record was recognized globally, man. And so that is, but that's a combination of Grammy is like, yo, anything is possible out here. Yeah, man, that's crazy. And that is a long story. I don't know if y'all want to hear it. Hey, man, let's hear it. Okay, yeah. We will get into some regular times of things, but I want to set the tone though. Yeah, so they sent me the first EP. Again, she hadn't put anything out yet under Money Long. And the thing is when you change your name, you start from scratch. Like your Spotify account, zero monthly listeners. You know what I mean? Your Apple, you're starting from zero. You know what I mean? And so this first EP was ready. I listened to it. I thought it was really good, but I didn't think it was for her. You know what I mean? Like she's used to writing Ariana Grande, his things of that nature. And that's what this EP sounded like. It sounded like these are the records for Ariana. Can you stop and talk about that for a second? Because I always say that's one of the problems that a lot of songwriters and people have attended. Go to them. It's like, you don't know who you are yet. Right, and that was my issue with the first EP. I was like, man, this really sounds a lot like... This is the thing. They were hit records. Of course. They were fire records, but it wasn't... You're a black female R&B artist. This isn't indicative of that. This isn't what that would sound like. You know what I mean? And so we put out the first EP on a consulting basis. And at that point, I started my distribution company, NPR Global. And I said, I was like, man, I really believe in you. I would love to do a situation with you. She had went to all the labels. Of course she has ties to every single label. She writing all her hits. And they couldn't work out a deal. So she didn't go with any of the majors. And so I was like, well, hey, this is an opportunity for me. Like I believe in you, Greggy. Like let's work out something where you get to keep your masters. You get majority of the revenue. I just get a minority share of the revenue. And we work together. We build a partnership. And so that's what we did. And the first thing I had to do was I had to go in and work on the music. And again, keep in mind not that she needed help writing songs. She's the greatest writer, you know what I mean? But when you're an artist, you have to know who you're talking to. You know what I mean? I explained to her, I'm like, you know, if we want this to work, number one, we're black. We can't skip over black people. We can't come out with Ariana Grande type hits. Like you have to start with the culture. I was like, let me explain to you how you write to these young black girls. As best I can. I'm not a young black girl. But I was about to get the heat coming. Yeah, as best I can. You know what I mean? I'm not a young black girl. But I understand the music that resonates with our culture. You know what I mean? We just went through that process. And so when you hear EP2, EP3, you hear the drastic difference of now we're speaking directly to our people. You know what I mean? And so that's what we went in there and did. Well, why do you... Well, no, not why do you feel like that, but why did she choose R&B specifically? Because obviously, you know, you can't make people do it, but she's a talent to say, hey, I want to... Yeah, she really loves country music. And so do I, actually. I really love country music too. King Bed is a country song. Yeah, it is. It is, exactly. And so she does have country projects ready. You know what I mean? But her manager from what I've been told by her, her manager convinced her like R&B is the way to go. You know what I mean? So her manager... What's the strategy from that? So since the manager said that, what do you think? I mean, I just think you have to understand where you can be successful. And not to say that she couldn't be... She could probably be the biggest country artist the whole time. You know what I mean? But I think the strategy was, this is where we'll be successful. You know what I mean? This is where we start this thing off, because you still can get a money-long country record, no problem, right? But they wanted to do R&B. I wanted to make sure we were talking to the right people. And so we went in the studio, made Matt like, bro, I loved working with her in the studio. You know what I mean? I started my career as a label owner, but I learned later that I am a great composer. I am a great producer. I'm a great songwriter. You know what I mean? I learned this from being in the studio with my artists and like the talent just flowed. And so I was able to do that with the greatest songwriter of my generation. So I mean, I love that experience. And so we wrote records together. We talked about what we should be talking about. You know what I mean? And that's what you get out of those projects. So EP2 and EP3 is like those conversations and those moments in the studio. And it works, you know what I mean? The first record we really collaborated on was called Just Beginning. And that was her first breakout record. That set up hours and hours. And so Just Beginning was a record where she had the beat and she sent it to me. And I was just like, man, this reminds me like R. Kelly trapped in the closet. And I was like, man, I was just like, yo, what's like the most disrespectful shit that you think? But you don't say it. At least you don't say it out loud. You may say it to your girlfriends, but you don't say it elsewhere. I'm like, I want to hear what you would tell your girlfriends. I want to hear that disrespectful shit that you would tell them. And that's how Just Beginning came about. And we got in there, man. It was an amazing record. And so it actually went viral. And then Rihanna got wind of it. Rihanna responded to some things about it. And we used that momentum to put out the EP. And on the EP was hours and hours. Let me take a quick second to say, if you're an artist trying to blow your music up or if you're a manager, music professional in general, trying to help an artist blow their music up, I have something that's a game changer for you and it's completely free. As you may know, we've helped multiple artists go from zero to hundreds of thousands of streams. We've helped multiple artists go from hundreds of thousands to millions of streams, chart on Billboard, GoViral, all of that stuff. And we've now made the way we've branded multiple artists and helped them go viral completely free, step-by-step in Brandman Network. All you have to do is check out brandmannetwork.com. You apply, it's completely free. But the thing is, we're not gonna let everybody in forever. So the faster you apply, the better your chance of getting accepted. Brandmannetwork.com, check it out. Back to the video. Yeah. Yeah, man. That was my song when it came out, man. Yeah. I really rocked. Actually, I don't know if I should say this. You know what I was saying. Remember when I told you how I misread the title forever? All we thought was hers and hers. Hers and hers. But I think that actually helped us a lot too. Right, that actually did help us. I saw early on, I was there when the first pop happened, like just watching on Tiktok. Yeah. And I forgot her name, but it was a girl, her girlfriend. Breezy. She was like the girl from Breeze. Empire or something like that. Them too. So, okay, it's two women that are dating. Indeed, it's all, I see, I thought it was hers and hers. Right, so initially the trend was more led by females, because of that reason, because they thought it was hers and hers. See, that's not the only one. Yeah, so initially, it was very helpful. But even prior to that song being out, and that's why I tell people, that's why the data is just paying the attention into the details is so important. Go back to five minutes ago when I said, I wanna make music for young black females. That's who I thought we were making music for. That's what our goal was. But our initial fan base, and I don't know how to, LBGTQ community, the initial fan base was that. That's who that music resonated with. And so, yeah, we came in with our intentions, but once we saw who was resonated with, we doubled down on it. Okay, if this is who our fans are, let's support them on how they're supporting us. And so that's what it was. But that's not why she titled it the way that she did, but it just ended up working out in our favor. I'm just glad to hear I'm not the only one. Yeah, no. Honestly, it was like three months before I was like, know what, they keep on saying hours and hours. Know what? Yeah, yeah, that ended up working out in our favor, man. So seeing that, I mean, I love that though, right? You like, y'all have a strategy. You can come with that, but do you still pay attention to the data? It wasn't completely off, right? Yeah. Well, it was still young black individuals. It was the LBGTQ versus the females that I thought it would have been. Right, that was just the initial spark because you weren't necessarily wrong when it actually... When it actually took off, yeah. It still did resonate with those people. Oh, it started within a niche, within a niche. So... Exactly. It's really dope to see that. So what happens when you see it start to take off like just being in exec mode? What's the sort of thing that you're into? So we put the project out as an EP on November 19th. So it was two or three early signals. So the first early signal is obviously I talked to all of the DSPs, Apple, Spotify, et cetera, you know, all of them had the opportunity to hear the project before it came out. We did in-person and Zoom calls with all of them. They heard the full project. We were going out the gate with Time Machine as the focus single. Like, okay, all of the DSPs, this is the song we want you guys to playlist the day the project comes out. So number one, the project came out, hours and hours is a song playlist everywhere. And so I was like, I'm like, okay, the editorial really loves this song. That was one sign. The other sign was our content person Jasmine. She's our head of content. She was posting hours and hours before it came out. The numbers it was getting was way higher than the other numbers we were seeing. So she signaled it. She said, hey, this song might be special. You know what I mean? And the third and final signal was after it came out, you know, Spotify is a day behind, Apple Music is two days behind on data. So Sunday, I looked at it that I was able to see Apple Music data from Friday. Sunday, when the song comes out, you usually it starts at a peak and goes down. Hours and hours started and went up. That's not normal. You know what I mean? That's not normal at all. So on Sunday, I made the call because Time Machine video, I think, or one of the videos was supposed to come out Monday. So on Sunday, I said, no, we're gonna put out hours and hours video because we had the videos shot for all of them already. You know what I mean? And so Sunday, I saw that I said, okay, tomorrow we're putting out hours and hours instead of whatever we was gonna put out. So that was the next thing. Then the next thing that happened was Breezy. It's actually Breezy's girlfriend made the video. Breezy didn't make it, but it was Breezy's girlfriend. Breezy's girlfriend made the video to it of them just their love moments, right? You know what I mean? And I saw that and I said, man, this could be a trend. And so I reached out to literally every significant couple I knew. Tony Romitti and her boyfriend at the time, I think they're married now, what's the name? Willie Taylor. I reached out to Willie Taylor. I reached out to Ro Timmy. Everybody I knew that had influence that had a significant other. I reached out to all of them. And I would say like 80% of them made the videos. I was like, hey, this song is about to blow up. Can you take this and make one of these yourself? And so that was the next big step. And then the ones who said no, or just didn't respond, Jasmine made it. So Jasmine, go find videos of them on the internet, put it together and we made it and we put it out. And so we- Y'all put it out or did y'all also send them to? Well, we sent it to them and if they didn't put it out, we put it out. Like so for example, a little dirt. I sent it to dirt people. I'm like, yo, can he please post this? I beg for about a week. They never posted it, right? So I said, okay, fuck, we hit academics, academics posted, we'll pay you. Pay academics to post it. And then a little dirt responded. So academics posted the original, then he posted it when a little dirt responded. And so we got two for one. You know what I mean? Another example, we made Jacob Latimore's. So I met a Jacob Latimore. And so he was day in Saraya. And so Jasmine made a video of them. And so because I managed him, I just posted on his account. I wanna say I asked him, but I don't even know if I asked him. But I'm gonna say that I asked him. So I posted on his account. But the thing about Jacob was, I knew every couple video that comes out of him, Shade Room posted it every single time. And so sure enough, I posted it. In my mind, I'm like, Shade Room, please, please, two hours later, Shade Room posted it. And so literally Shade Room probably posted hours and hours between 30 and 40 times for free every single time. We never once paid Shade Room. But because significant couples were doing it, they just kept posting it, kept posting it. You know what I mean? And so we basically took over the culture for about three to four months. A good, yeah, three, four months. Was that the first time that you had something like that happen where you saw the Shade Room like naturally picking stuff up? Because we had done that. Yes. So some of the clients that we were working with, specifically, I know of Macy Gray, they were picking her up like crazy around the LeBron. I don't know if you saw, like she's saying that Starfangle Bender and the LeBron had a reaction, but apparently he was reacting to like Steph Curry getting booed, but they thought he was reacting to the song, you know, whatever. Who knows what's actually true, you know, you can confirm or not. But, you know, like we made a lot of videos using that moment and Shade Room was picking it up. And I don't think a lot of people understand that you surely can. Of course, there's more with influential people. Yeah. But you can literally just have that stuff happen. Yeah, it definitely happens because as a media platform, you know, your job is to share the most viral content. Like you're sharing the stuff that you feel like people need to see or people want to see, right? And so, you know, I don't have a problem paying for, I pay for a lot of posts, but I'm fortunate when they post for free. Like I love it. I'm like, okay, when they post for free, that just lets me know I'm doing a good job. Right. You know what I mean? Like lean into it somehow? Well, when they post it, it's done. Like that's what you want. You want them to post it. But you know, it's just it, when you get the free ones, it's just like I'm like the dirt and when academics repost the dirt, I'm like, man, like we really like moving the culture. You know what I mean? That's just how I felt about it. Like, yo, this shit is crazy. Like we really moving the culture with this. So yeah, nah, it's always great when they post for free. It's a possibility, but you know, I would just tell people, I don't wait for that. Like I pay, you know what I mean? Yeah, I pay for plenty of posts. Right. Yeah. Right. So I like what you said there, just from a marketer side of things, right? Cause that is kind of what it feels like. You made things move multiple times before, you got successful results without that extra impact and people posting things. Yeah. But then when shit's moving like that, you do feel like, yo, this is like, you know a moment of impact is made. And like you said, y'all really did take over the culture for about three, four months. That was a song, man. I feel like, especially for R&B, I don't even think it's just a feeling. I think it objectively, we don't have that many moments where there's a song like that takes over the culture and from that type of energy too. That was like- Yeah, it was a positive energy versus the negative. You know what I mean? It was very positive, man. It was great. I mean, first of all, shout out to her for the song itself. You know what I mean? From what I remember, that was just something she wrote in her home, like just messing around, you know what I mean? Cause normally she's in the studio making magic. But I think with that one, she said she was like washing dishes or something. She just heard it beat on YouTube and it came to her. So I mean, that's a magical thing, you know what I mean? To turn to that's a multi-platinum record. Grammy-winning record. It feels more like home than a studio too though. Yeah. Kind of the energy of the record. Did she just like walk around the house streaming beats on YouTube? I don't know, man. I don't know. But that shows the hunger it takes. Like I said, like you talking about one of the greatest writers of our generation who still just has that hunger for, you know what I mean? So that shows like, I think it shows passion, but it also shows hunger. Like she really wanted this shit. Like she really wanted to have her stamp versus writing for other people and helping them get their stamps. You know what I mean? And so, you know, she was so hungry for it. She at home listening to YouTube, like I'm gonna do what it takes to find this record that's gonna take me up through there. You know what I mean? So shout out to her, man. A Grammy, bro. What's so crazy about it is we're independent. We're not tied to any label situation. Like we did all of that. We were number one on Remy Radio, number one on Urban Radio, number seven most streaming song in the world. At one point, we were number one on Apple. We were number one on Spotify. I mean, I think we made this number one on TikTok. But it's just so many number one, so many without anybody's help. It was literally just us hiring the right teams, like hiring the right radio team, hiring the right UK team. We hired an Australia team. I mean, we hired so many different teams to make sure this world was recognized globally. You know what I mean? This record was recognized globally, man. So that, but that to accommodate to a Grammy is like, yo, anything is possible about it. Yeah, man, that's crazy. You know what? I'm glad you said the independent thing, because that just sparked in my head.