DJ Swivel - Grammy Winning Musician Speaks on The Future of AI's Impact on Music

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today we are joined by my good friend Swivel. Appreciate you coming the show, brother.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it. So I think it was, what, two and a half years ago when I had you on the show initially. Maybe, maybe not. Two and a half. Two.

It was during the pandemic.

Okay.

We did. And I think it was. I'm not. Did it even. Did it ever air?

Yeah, no, it did.

Yeah, it did.

Okay.

It would have been like two or three years ago now.

Yeah.

I was in my. My old house.

I love that. Well, appreciate coming on today. We're here in the Questions podcast studio. We are just had. Feels like literally. It really does. Yeah. I'm super excited to dive in today. I know obviously, over the years when I first interviewed you, we were obviously friends, but more recently been spending a lot more time together. We.

We have.

We launched a podcast or we started recording a podcast, Questions, that should be coming out soon. Yeah. Which has been incredible. And Brandon and I were just talking about the backstory there. But the Questions podcast that we're launching would love to even circle back with you on this show for people that are watching how it came about in your world, because it's so hilarious how something as simple as owning an Instagram domain at Questions can turn into these moments. And it sort of manifested very quickly that I always reflect on and then I'll talk about in a second, but talk to me about how that came about and then we'll obviously dive into your whole DJ background and music.

So the story of Questions, really, it was so serendipitous the way that it happened. So I was having so a little backstory. So you and I, we've known each other for a number of years, and I had recently met Brandon Jenner and he was the host of a TV show that I shot called Banded that we shot in Nashville last year in 22. And so we had shot the show and then, you know, at the beginning part of 23, I can't remember exactly what month it was. He and I were having dinner here in Malibu and it was myself, Brandon, one of my other co judges on the show, Mark and Brandon's wife. And so my nickname growing up was Questions. I'm a very curious person and I do ask a lot. I know I ask a lot of questions. Might be annoying for some people.

You'll see in this episode.

You'll see. And so I was. I can't remember what we were talking about, but I was asking a bunch of questions. And Mark, who was sitting to my left, he turned to me, he's like, you know, I've never. You asked. So I've never met anybody ask as many questions as you. You know, we should call you Questions. I was like, funny thing you say. And then Kaylee chimed in and was like, we call Brandon Questions. I was like, no way. And so I joked, I was like, we should start a podcast called Questions. And Brandon laughed. And it was just, you know, a moment, fleeting moment there.

But.

But less than a week prior to that, you and I had a cat. Because every once in a while we do a catch up call. Like, hey, how are you doing? What are you working on? What are you excited about? Just a normal catch up. And you had mentioned that you had acquired a bunch of these really cool Instagram handles. You didn't mention questions, though. But you had a bunch of.

I probably didn't have it yet. I think I told Brandon I had it. And then the next day I posted about it.

Yeah, but I knew you had a handful of them. And you also had expressed a desire to do more in the podcasting world. You had your show, but you wanted to do something. Some other things. So I clocked that. Then the Brandon thing came up and I was like, then the next morning. So I come home from this dinner, had a few drinks, go to sleep. The first thing I do when I wake up, I pull out my phone and. Terrible habit of mine, but I open up Instagram. And the first story that I opened was your story. Posting from questions like, what should I do with this Instagram handle? And I was like, this is insane. Like, how does this happen? This just feels like it was meant to be. And so I called you right away. And I called Brand, or actually I called Brandon. I was like, hey, would you. I know we were just joking, but would you actually want to do it? Not to mention Brandon had said he had this studio.

Yeah. Where we are now.

So he was there. He was building it at the time.

Remember the first time we came in here? He was just getting going in terms of the building.

Yeah. I mean, it was still under construction. None of this was here. And so it's like, would you want to take a meeting? And then we went and had a meeting at his house.

Yep.

First meeting, we ended up half naked in a sauna. In a sauna.

I told him, I told him before this. One of the most brutal saunas I've ever. If not the most.

It was so hot, wasn't it?

Yeah, like 190 to 220. That's brutal.

Ridiculous. It's ridiculous. But, yeah, we. We had a lunch meeting that turned into a sauna meeting, and we kind of all liked one another and we're like, let's fucking do this thing.

Yeah.

So, yeah. Funny. Funny how things happen that way, but it's very serendipitous. So I'm glad I could sort of be the middle person, connect the.

It's funn. Because I feel like a lot of people, they might have seen that and they're like, oh, you know, we were just joking about it. Starting a podcast. It's a whole thing.

It's a whole thing.

Yeah. But it's crazy. And before we dive into your background, it's so funny how handles or micro things can turn into much bigger. Like, for me, I've always liked. You know, I have my Instagram's Casey. It was always like, cool, I got that. Awesome. And then you see these other handles, like, okay, great. What can I do with that? Start a brand with it, whatever. Had no clue what I'm planning on doing with a lot of these handles. And. And like, at Listener turned into a software company that I launched with a friend of mine, Brandon, who's CTO now and co founder. And it was challenges based off, like, Listener. Oh, podcast listening space. Oh, AI. How can we build an AI tool for podcasters to help the Listener experience? Great.

That's sort of like the name invented the product.

It did, yeah. And same thing with how that happened before was the. The truffle hot sauce brand. Truff Truffle. How that came about. I'm good friends with the founders, Nick and Nick. How that came about was the story was they owned sauce on Instagram and they're like, what do we do with this? It's stills.

Yeah.

And it turned into like, oh, it started hot sauce. Oh, like truffle hot sauce. Great. And that's how the idea was born. Was based off of a.

It's crazy.

And I don't like to say stupid, but like a stupid username. Right. And I kind of always. I've interviewed them. We've had that conversation for years. And I was like, oh, like usernames can kind of just plant seeds for different things. And then that happened with questions. Where I have questions. I was thinking about starting my personal podcast, just answering questions that people send in. Why not? Yeah, fun. And then that came up. Great. And then even more recently, I have Ogger now and.

Oh, that's a great one for you.

Every Saturday now, the last Six weeks ago. Diego's been coming out recently. We were doing like a Saturday track day at the Beverly Hills High School where, you know, I'm inviting friends and just people to come run do track days. And it's funny how these small things in life, whether that's a handle or someone you meet or a lunch meeting, just can manifest into much greater things just by putting the intention out there. Like, oh, I'm someone who runs. Oh, I bring this handle to me because I find it interesting and I align with it. I just find it, I would say, serendipitous.

Inspiration comes in many forms. Creativity. There is an infinite number of ways of being creative and these things coming together. And so my philosophy through my career has always just been stay open minded and stay curious and be receptive. Because I've seen friends where opportunities come to them and their instant reaction is ignore. No, I'm too busy for that. I don't want to think about it. Anything that comes across my desk, I at least review. I at least look at. I at least explore to see, like, is there something there? And I've done so many things that I never thought I'd be able to do just by happenstance, you know?

Yeah. So absolutely. I remember just for the context, I remember one of the first times we met, it was Kieran and I, we came to your place. And I'm someone that doesn't come from the music industry by any means. You know, you've won a Grammy and you've been a part of a record that has earned a Grammy. And I'm like, that is not only so epic, but when I think about it as a listener of incredible musicians, like, obtaining a Grammy is like pinnacle of, you know, the music levels in terms of recognition and acknowledgement. So talk to me about that experience for you. When you received a Grammy, what was that like? What was the story there? I believe it was the Chainsmokers song.

For Dulling Me Down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're nominated for three that night, although the Grammy. So an interesting thing that most average people won't know is that everybody who worked on the song does not get a trophy. It depends on what category you're in. And so as a mix engineer or vocal producer, some categories I will get a trophy and others I will get a certificate. Right. So if you're nominated, any of the big categories, Record of the year, Song of the year. Well, song of the year is only for songwriters, but record and album of the year, everybody who worked on it gets a trophy. Just the Big ones. But then in the smaller categories, we were nominated for best electronic dance song or something like that. That's one of the rare categories where the mixer gets an award because electronic music is so heavily influenced by the sonics of it.

Yeah.

And so anyways, we were nominated for three, but that was the one that I would get a trophy. So it all worked out. But anyways, I found out, so I. We skipped the. So there's. There's the televised awards and then the pre. Televised awards. I skipped that award ceremony because I went to get ready with the boys at Drew's house. So we were getting ready. They had their stylist there. We had two sprinter vans that were taking everybody down. I'm in one van, the other half the crew's in the other van. And we're parked in front of. We're just. Everyone's loading into the vans, and I just hear screaming from the other side. I'm like, what is going on? So everyone jumps out, like, what's happening?

They're like, we won. We won.

You know, Now, Daya was.

This is the pre. This is.

We're getting dressed. We're on our way to the Grammys for the red carpet in the main. Main show.

So how does that work? There's a pre award show.

There's a pre award show.

Hear about the winners?

There's about a hundred awards they give out every year.

Okay.

Or something like that. But they only televise 10, 15. Like, I don't know exactly. They only televise a fraction of them. So this was not part of the televised one. But there is a whole award ceremony earlier at the. I think it was the Microsoft Theater, and we just. We didn't go. Yeah. And so. Yeah, anyways, it was. So I didn't get to go up on stage. I guess I could have had I gone, but day I went there and accepted on our behalf.

So a song like that, specifically, how many people work on a song like that?

Okay, well, that's a loaded question. It varies in a significant way. If you're. If you're Prince, not many. Because Prince is one of those people that just wrote and produced and did everything himself. If you're a modern hip hop producer, a lot of people work on songs because now you got eight or nine producers on a song. But generally speaking, you have your artists and featured artists. You have your producer or producers, multiple producers who are usually working on the track and maybe the vocal production. You have a recording engineer and a mix engineer and a mastering engineer. And then you might have some musicians, you know, a guitar player who played this, a drummer who played that, maybe some background vocalists, things like that. So, you know, it varies. Every song is different. Yeah.

So for people that may not know. So when it comes to your experience and your work, what do you specifically do when it comes to the song and songs you work on?

That's also a loaded question. I've done everything.

Yeah. Where do you spend your time now? And then let's go back to where this all started.

Yeah. So one of the things, I get a little stir crazy and I get bored very easily, and I don't like monotony in my life. So I started my career as an intern. Well, prior to that, a dj. That's where the DJ Swivel moniker came from. And we were joking before.

You know, I still say people just.

Call me Swift, Swivel, whatever. But anyways, I started as a dj. That kind of created my love for music, and then I was producing. But my way into the industry, I would start as an intern and then an assistant.

Where were you interning?

In New York City for a guy named Duro. Duro founded Desert Storm Records with DJ Clue, signed Fabulous, worked on Jay Z and Nas and all. He's like hip hop royalty, if you know the. The underpinnings of 90s hip hop. Like Duros in the center of that. So it was a great place to work. He was. He was a fantastic mentor. And he never put a glass ceiling over my head. Always encouraged me to do more. I would often maybe overstep my bounds with him and try, you know, try to take. Take on more responsibility. And so I interned for him for. For a number of years. At the same time, when his artist Fabulous started working on his first or his, I guess, fourth album. At the time, I was sort of next in line. I inherited the engineering job, so I'd intern for him during the day, and then I'd record for Fabulous that night. And then I started mixing songs, and then I became Beyonce's engineer.

How does one go from, you know, I've interned, then I'm mixing songs. Beyonce, like, what was that step in that process when you.

Honestly, it's all relationship building.

Yeah.

Right. So I. I did two albums with Fabulous. I went on tour with him. I did a bunch of mixtapes with him, and then one of his A and R. Lenny S, who's at Roc Nation now and manages, like, Khaled and a bunch of people. His friend Omar used to work with Beyonce and Destiny's Child and So I had gotten to know Omar just from being at fabulous sessions. And he called me one day and was like, hey, can you fill in for Beyonce's engineer? He's sick or he's not available or whatever. I didn't know the whole story, why he wasn't there. And it was just. It was that simple. I was available that day, and even if I wasn't, I probably would have canceled whatever. I had to do it. And was that then it worked out.

Reflecting on that, was that moment for you? I mean, I would think of it as a massive step in terms of, you know, you're working with this international superstar. Was that a moment for you? You're like, wow, what I'm doing is working. Because you're obviously working with incredible people. And, you know, I was doing a.

Lot in New York. I was sort of became the well known engineer in New York. So I was working with a lot of, like, rappers and.

Yeah, well, I should ask instead, you know, what was the first moment? Whether that's a certain person that you worked with or being in a certain room where you were like, hey, wow, like, this is. I'm moving in the right direction. And this can be a. Not only a career, but something that I'm great at.

The true answer, that is always and never, which is not a great answer, but always in the sense that I was excited to just intern in a studio and just clean the toilets. Like, that was fun to me because I was in an environment where I felt like, it just felt so natural and it felt like where I was supposed to be. And then. So every time you work on a new project and a new artist, you're always like, you know, reinforced. You're having this reinforcement that you're heading in the right direction. At the same time, I'm never satisfied, ever. I've never been satisfied, you know, like, even winning a Grammy. Like, the next day I'm like, all right, what's next? Like, you know, that's not where we stop. What is the next goal? And so, you know, in that regard, you know, I'm never sort of thinking like, oh, I've made it, or whatever. I'm, you know, it's a journey, it's not a destination.

What would your childhood self think about you winning a Grammy? I mean, I feel like, did you.

When I was a child, I wanted to be a marine biologist. So I don't think as a child I care too much. But in high school is really where I connected with music a little bit. In elementary school, I Played like bass guitar and I, you know, I played a few instruments. But in high school was where I really fell in love with music. And you know, I've never really thought about that, to be honest, but I bet you I would have thought it's pretty cool. Yeah.

Yeah. So nowadays where you spend your time in the music space, what is your typical the last year of your life look like in terms of music? I know you have an incredible new AI company that I don't know how deep we can go into it. Would love to talk about it.

Oh, we can go.

Where do you spend your time right now in terms of music building companies? AI, this new venture that you have, would love to just dive into your world today and also speak to what you're building.

Yeah. So like I said before, my creative journey's always evolved. I started as an intern, then a recording engineer, then a mix engineer, then a producer and a vocal producer and a songwriter. Then I started a publishing company and I started a magazine. And I've always self managed myself. So I've been a manager the whole time. So I've really kind of built my brand and my company in many ways alone. You're always collaborating and working with other people, but in many ways it was just me. And so the centerpiece, I sort of think of my career as a wheel on a bicycle. The centerpiece of it is always music. And then all these spokes sort of come out of that. And I've always, anytime I take on something new, I always sort of ask myself a few questions like it used to be two. Now it's three questions. The first one is, does this new thing contribute back to my music career? The second one is, does my music career contribute to this new thing? And then now the third one is, and I read this book Essentialism, which was helpful. Is this an essential use of my time? Because there's a lot of things you could do that might seem fun, but is it really, when you boil it down, is it the most essential use of your time? And so, so I've always taken on these new things. Now I still make records and I still mix and whatever, but I am literally in the last month I have begun to realize that building an AI company and we've raised money and I have, you know, about 10 staff now. Yeah, it's a more than a full time job. It's two or three full time jobs you're thinking about as founder and CEO. I'm thinking about every single aspect of, of the business. And so I'm Always on. And what I'm realizing is it's very, very difficult to juggle that. And then, you know, artists work on their own timeline.

Yeah.

Right. They need something done tomorrow. You have to drop what you. What's in front of you and, and get it done. And so what I'm trying to now juggle is building an AI company and then only work on the most essential songs. Right. So I, I've been working with this artist, Rema, who I love. We did the Selena with the record with Selena Gomez.

Calm down, Talk to me about that. So that record I've seen you've been posting about like top 10 record top.

I think it peaked at number three on the Hot 100 and I think it might have been a number one global song. Certainly it's been number one African song for the last like year straight. And yeah, I started working with Rema.

How did you meet Rema?

I met him through some producer friends of mine during the pandemic. Or it might have been just before the. I can't remember exactly, but it might have been 2019 or early 2020 and he had under a million monthly listeners on Spotify. Was not popular, but he was good. The music was great, his songwriting was great, his voice was great. There was something there and sometimes you can just hear it. You're like, this kid's got something really great. They didn't have a big budget for me, like a Nigerian record company.

Yeah.

Not used to dealing with, you know, the, the ways of sort of an American, very structured sort of record business. But I believed in him and I said, let's just, let's just work, you know. And I had no idea that that would happen, that that record would happen. But we, we did a bunch of sort of EPs and songs and then he worked on an album and I mixed and mastered and did some co production on, on the record. And then this calm down record came and it was doing really well by itself without Selena. And then we added Selena to it and it just, it became like the, the song of the summer on TikTok or something. So there was no way we could have guessed that. Yeah, but it is, it does have the underpinnings of like it's a catchy, easy to sing song. The melody's easy, anyone can sing it. It's not complex with, with the wording in the hook. It's just like repeating calm down and a couple, you know, beelines. And then, you know, you have Selena Gomez who's got like what, 400 million followers on on she's the most followed. Is she the most?

I believe so.

More than Ronaldo.

I think they're.

I think they're. They're neck and neck, but either way, yeah. And it. And it sort of took off so. Very unexpected but well deserved. And if anyone deserves this, Remo, that guy's a. He's awesome.

That's incredible. Where is he from?

He's from Lagos or Benin City in Nigeria, but near Lagos. And he's actually in L. A right now. I'm supposed to see him tomorrow, so.

Cool. It's incredible.

It's great.

So spending time on records, obviously that you want to work on and then what is this new AI company that you launched?

Okay, so we had talked about a little bit on one of the early Questions podcast, but for your audience, we are. Okay, so there's these AI voice models.

I hate real quick.

I hate the term.

I think just real quick deep fakes. I am so excited to dive into this because people watching or listening, they've probably seen the ghost face thing. The Drake. How do you describe ghostwriter? Yeah, Ghost writer. Yeah, that whole thing spoken to who went viral. And when you hear AI and you think about music ownership and you can create voices out of, you know, what AI has created, we'll dive into it. Your perspective on someone from the music business and knowing all the top record labels, it's such a unique perspective to be building in. But again, just to re. Ask the question, what is the AI company you're building and what excites you about it the most?

Okay, so the AI company is essentially creating a licensing model for these voices. Now, when, when you use the term AI, AI is not a monolith. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. They think AI is this one thing, but AI is really just a ton of different technologies that all are built on top of one another. And sometimes they're generating things from zero, sometimes they are converting something. You know, there's a lot of different ways. And then you have like chat, GPT and llama and, and bard and whatnot. And these are sort of like large language models that allow, you know, rich communication with a machine, basically. So what we're doing is, you know, I heard these sort of deep fake voice models. And what it essentially is, is if you sing into a microphone and you take that audio file, you can essentially make your voice sound like anyone. If you have a well trained model, like anyone you want.

So if I was with you in the studio, I rap something, you can make it sound like Drake.

I can make it sound like Drake.

Yes. Dude, we got work to do.

I know. Now here's the thing, though. It's not going to fix notes. So if you sing into it out of key and then you change your voice to Beyonce, it's just going to sound like Beyonce singing out of key.

Got it?

Now that doesn't make a good connection because, you know, it's. It's not just the voice that makes it, it's the delivery and the, the performance of it is really a really important thing. So I have, I have a fundamental philosophy on AI music. I don't think it's cool that machines can make entire songs and they will, and this is gonna go there. And maybe for YouTube background music, it's fine. But I don't like the idea of the songs that we listen to on the radio and the things that inspire culture being written by a machine, because it's more than the machine. There needs to be a human emotion behind it. The best songs, the best movies, the best things. There's. There's a story there, there's. There's a richness in the human experience that, that makes a song connect to you. It makes you feel something. Not to say that an AI generated song, like an entire song couldn't make you feel something. I'm sure it can because it's taking from. It's studying human songs. But, you know, it's not going to drive the culture forward. You're just going to have a recycling of what's of the past. And so I'm generally not on the side of that. But with respect to AI voices, what I love about it is it's just a new layer of creativity. It's like when the drum machine was introduced now you could sample old songs and there was a minute there where people, people were up in arms, they thought drummers would lose their jobs. And, you know, you're stealing old samples and that's not cool either. And eventually the, the business worked itself out and now we pay for sample clearance and all that stuff. And drum machines have. Have driven the culture of music just through that piece of technology. Synthesizers in the 80s, same thing. You know, the electric guitar in the whatever, 50s or 60s, whenever it was. And so I view this as just a layer of technology that's going to open up creative avenues where you can leverage another artist's voice and come up with these, like, clever implementations. But I think it's important that artists are paid for that. I shouldn't be able to take Beyonce's voice or Drake's voice without their permission. So we're building out the permission layer where artists can sort of license this out at scale and you'll be able to release it and monetize it, but they will be able to participate on the success of that record. And I just think that at a fundamental level, that's where we should be going. Right.

So is it something where, if I'm an up and coming artist, I could pay for the rights to use Drake's voice as a verse or a feature in my song? Yeah.

Now you'll have to write the verse and you'll have to perform it and we'll just, we can convert it to Drake's voice and then we'll allow you to release it and monetize it. And Drake will have permissions. He'll have permission to choose what he's entitled to.

Would this work? I'm just so curious. From a record label down, right. So for example, label owns the rights pretty much to a lot of artists. They could then control where this voice version of them lives in terms of the industry and features and all those things. Or how do you think about that?

It's not clear who, where the rights are, but we're speaking, we're speaking, we're speaking with all the record labels, but ultimately they're not going to be able to make a unilateral decision because they don't have those rights in their contracts. But, you know, you don't bet against the record labels. They will, I'm sure they will begin to introduce those rights into contracts moving forward. And there's a number of rights that come into play. There's name and likeness, but there's also copyright because you have to train a voice model on existing copyrights. Unless you can get Drake in the studio for a few hours singing Happy Birthday, I guess you could bypass it. Right. Public domain stuff, but. But, you know, so you need both sides. Right. Labels invest a lot of money into artist voices. They should have some amount of control over how this technology is used, but artists should have most of the control. And so we want to give artists the control to determine what their ownership stake is on the song and make it a marketplace. Some will want more, some will want less. They should also be able to approve or deny every song.

Yep.

And attribution is important because as a, as listeners, we should know if that's a real Drake song or if it's an AI Drake song. So as the aggregator and distributor, we will mandate credits have an AI suffix On it. So you'll know it's not going to live on Drake's Spotify profile. It'll live on Drake AI's Spotify profile. And so I think it's important. Some listeners are hardcore. They care about what the artist does. They're hardcore fans. That's maybe 10 or 20%. The 80 or 90% just want to listen to good songs and so they may not care.

They don't care about the music, they just care. Is the song good, make them feel great. Do they like the artist or they, they recognize the artists and they align with them. But yeah, it's such a tricky world where I think you're right. It's like that top 10 to 20% probably cares and they want the hardcore fans. Yeah, the hardcore fans.

Did Drake write it? No.

Yeah, yeah. What do you think are, what are and what do you believe will be the consequences of, you know. And I love thoughts on the ghost face.

Ghost Rider.

Ghost Rider, yeah. Ghost writer perspective of he's doing these songs. I don't know who he is. He said you've spoken to him. Does what he do his actions result in lawsuits or what are the consequences for not doing this yourself and just putting it out there? Obviously it's short lived, right. And you can create viral moments. But what are the consequences of using someone's voices as it's being played out in real time based on the information you have?

Well, you could create, you could draw a parallel with what happened with file sharing in the early 2000s with Napster and Limewire and that stuff. So a technology is introduced, peer to peer file sharing, which at its surface is not about music theft or any theft, it's about being able to connect to another user's computer and retrieve a file that they've opted to share. Right. That's peer to peer file sharing. Of course, when it's implemented, it opens up this can of worms that allows people to share audio files of music and whatever. And the record labels were right to be concerned about it because it was theft. The problem the record labels made was that they didn't. They felt that they had the power to shut down technology. And I think what we learned is that technology only goes one direction, right. It's kind of like time in that way, or at least our perception of time. It goes in one direction. Once the cat's out of the bag, you can't stuff it back in. And so the mistake they made, I think was. And what they did was just try to sue it away, but then you Just start playing, you know, whack a mole and you sue this guy and then it pops up over here and then you're chasing that and you're always one step behind. And that's kind of how I viewed this, eventually being like they may very well be suing and taking these, these songs down, but I think they recognize that it's not a sustainable practice. So let's come up with the, you know, Spotify was the solution to peer to peer file sharing. And why it was a solution was with peer to peer for music, you're saying for music. And it took 10 years to get there and music had a huge decline. And I entered the music business in 2005, 6 and that was sort of the bottom. That was like, oh, when was peak.

Napster file sharing music?

Oh, I mean it was happening in 2005, but I think it started in 2000. Yeah, I was, I first got on Napster in 2000 I think. And once, once it came out, there was a sharp decline in the, in the, the tam of the music business. The overarching value of the music business. Sales dropped off a cliff and they dropped consistently for like five, six, seven years, something like that. And then once Spotify was introduced, we, we got streaming revenue and started climbing. Now music's never been better. So you know, when, when you, when you think about it in, in those terms, like, you know, you have to create a solution. And we don't think about peer to peer file sharing as a problem anymore. It still exists, but the music business doesn't care because people would rather pay 9, 9, $10 a month for Spotify and have every song ever created in high quality at their fingertips with recommendations and curation.

Are there still people that are resentful of streaming?

I don't think so. The, the streaming revenue, I mean, there's always, there's always an argument. Songwriters have a problem, they're not getting enough. The record labels want more, like everybody wants more. At the end of the day, there's a pie and there's different pieces of the pie and they all, they all feel that they're the most important. That's just the nature of capitalism, I think. But nobody can argue that streaming hasn't been a huge benefit to the music business. You can make the argument that you don't get paid enough per stream or, you know, users aren't paying enough for the service. And you can, you can have those arguments so you're blue in the face. But at the end of the day, if you look at the overarching music business revenue, it's up. So I'd say that's a good thing for everybody. Totally.

So what is. What was your perspective on. I'm gonna say wrong. Ghost Killer.

Ghost Rider. You're thinking about Ghostface Killer, who I've worked with. Awesome, by the way. The best.

Ghost Rider. Talk to me about this cultural moment that happened from people that may not know as well as your perspective on that.

Okay. So I do know quite a bit of information about that. I don't want to reveal more, but I've spoken to Ghostwriter, and, you know, there's. I'll put it this way. The person is quite an intelligent person and knows what he's doing and how to generate buzz. And to be fair. And he just released another one with Travis Scott.

Yeah.

They're great songs. Right at the core of them. They're good. It's not a gimmick when the song is great.

Yep.

It's a gimmick when there's technology there. And it's like, okay, what is this, though? But he's made compelling songs that are catchy that people want to listen to, and that is, I think, the key and why it worked, because it was. It was. It felt like great music, and we should enable that. Like, creators should be able to imagine if you could, you could create that Tupac and Biggie collaboration album. That was your view of what would happen if they had healed their relationship and neither of them were killed. Right now. Now, I don't know if either of those estates have any interest in doing that or participating, and we should respect those things. Right. Our whole view with. With the company's called Hooky, by the way, and it's not out yet, so, you know, don't harass me about it.

But.

But we're working on it. You know, our thing is we have to be in line with artists interests. I care about artists, I care about art. I care about the process. I am a creator myself. So we're not trying to. You know, I'm not like a tech bro who's coming in trying to, like, destroy the whole thing.

Yeah.

But provided that their estates were okay with it. I would love to hear what, you know, a collaborative album between them under the. You know, with the concept of them sort of making up and doing like some. Something really dope like. That would be cool. I'd love to hear what that sounds like.

Yeah.

You know, or doing, like a dream collab, like bringing back, like, Sam Cooke, who's got, like, one of the Most beautiful voices ever. Like, can we bring him back for a chorus on a song? Because it's the right voice for the right song. And when you get into the creative side of it, it's no longer a gimmick. There's. There's. There's intent behind it, and there's purpose behind it. And just, like, all creative stuff, the cream will rise to the top, right? The songs that we listen to that we love, that's like a very small fraction of all the music made. So I think it'll be the same thing. There'll be a bunch of nonsense, and then there'll be that. That. That really. That small group of people who make really compelling things. And that's what's exciting to me, is where's the evolution of culture? Where's the evolution of creativity? And what does this technology enable? And is this gonna shift similar, like what Auto Tune did. Auto Tune comes out, and it became popular, and then you could get it on your machine. It changed the sound of music for a long time.

Absolutely.

And by the way, there's not a single song with a singer that doesn't have Auto Tune on it. Like, if you can find one, I will say, when I worked with Beyonce, no Auto Tune on Beyonce ever. Ever.

Wow.

Ever. I. She's a queen. I did load it up one day just to, like, with her, and I put it on, like, the hardest setting, which is, like, you can call the T. Pain setting. No, she was in the booth, and I put it on, and then she started singing, and she was laughing. Her face.

She.

She was just laughing so hard. And she started, like, experimenting with it just sonically. But none of her songs, it was, like, it was a joke for. And, you know, we took it off. But anyways, 99.9% of songs that you hear have Auto Tune on it. So it's shaped how we create, and I think this will do the same thing.

So speaking of your moment working with Beyonce. She's in the booth. What are some other moments of artists that you've worked with that have left an impact on you in terms of their creativity when working with them in their environment?

Well, Beyonce is a unique. She is a incredibly unique artist. And she's unique because I've never met anybody who works as hard as that woman. Like, it's actually. It's a sight to behold. And I always joke, like, from the outside, it's easy to look at her and say, oh, she's a triple threat. She's, like, got this amazing voice, and she dances her ass off. And she's beautiful. And that's what make. That's the package. That's not the package. There's lots of beautiful girls who can sing and dance who are not Beyonce. She is an absolute machine. I've done sessions with her where she worked for 36 hours straight, no sleep, didn't leave the studio, sang six songs, lead vocals, background vocals. Like, if I get one song done in a day with an artist, that's like a really productive day. That's a solid productive day. Usually it might take two or three days to get a song done, but, like, if we get one song done a day, that's great. She getting six songs done in a day, it's like, insane. And then she'll have, like, a lawyer come in for a meeting and then her PR person and then a video director for some creative concept she wants to do. Like, she's just an insane. She'll eat next to me while she's working. Like, she just doesn't stop. So that was eye opening. And I learned a lot about work ethic from her. And by the way, I thought. I felt like I had a pretty solid work ethic just in order to get to the room with her. Yeah, but you got. Then you said there's. You realize there's. There's levels to this, right?

I'm curious as someone that you always ask questions. You're. You're a curious person when you're in an environment, you know, we've all been in rooms or I should speak on. You and I were interviewing someone interesting. Yes. I'm having them on a show and I want to learn about them. But the conversations you have on and off the court, you know, or before and after the interview. I always personally seek to learn something just from someone's demeanor. Right. Like, before I had Larry King on the show, the conversation we had after was great. But for someone like yourself that's in that room with Beyonce, what are some of the conversations? Like, do you ask questions to her about work ethic and try to learn from her constantly, or what's the dynamic? Because it's different in the music industry than honestly having a podcast.

No, it's. At the end of the day, that's their. That's their sanctuary. It's their space. They don't want to be pestered with that stuff. I'm sure there's moments. Like, there's definitely moments. But no, we. It was just like a very open space. She would often. We would do sessions where she would come in and we wouldn't. She wouldn't get in the booth for one second. We wouldn't do any work. We would just talk. It would just be, like, therapy sessions. And it wouldn't be, like, her, myself, Shay Taylor, the producer who kind of was overarching on the thing dream, who wrote a bunch of the songs, maybe her assistant. And we would just have conversations about life, just about, you know, if she's having a bad day or she's going through something or whatever. And it wasn't even necessarily directly about her. It was just in a more general sense. And so, yeah, you don't really turn it into an interview with, like, you know, you know, But. But I also. Going back to your last question, like, I had the opportunity to work with Jay Z a number of times through that Beyonce connection, and that was. That was actually the coolest to me, because I'm a huge Jay Z fan. I'll be honest. I didn't grow up a Beyonce fan. Like, I like Bootylicious as much as the next person. But, you know, I wasn't, like, dying to go to the Beyonce show when I was 16, right. But I definitely went to the jay Z show 100%. So. Working with Jay was also unique because with him, it's the complete opposite. It's almost so effortless for him. Like, Beyonce's really grinding and trying to come up with the most innovative or creative things, and no stone left unturned. She'll try. She'll recut a song three, four times. She'll change the production a bunch of times. She will try everything until it's, like, perfect for her. Whereas Jay is so much more cool about it. He just goes in and he doesn't write anything down, and he just watches sports and the beats playing in the background. He just kind of like, scratches his head for a second, and then he's like, all right, I'm ready. And then he gets in and, like, two takes, and then. And then he hops out and he's like, I think the second one was the right one. What do you think? Like, you're Jay Z? I don't know. I'm supposed to tell you. He's like, no. And it's funny. He actually said that one time. He did two versions of I recorded him on Rihanna Talk that talk. He was featured. He did two different versions of the verse. And he asked me, he said, which version do you like better? Like, which one should I go with? And I literally said, like, I don't think I'm qualified to answer this question for you. And he's like, I'm asking you for a reason. Like, I genuinely am asking you for a reason. I said, I think you should go for the second one. It's more. It's more vulgar, but that's the point of the song. And I think that taps into what. The song is better. And he's like, yeah, I think you're right. Then he went in, touched up an ad lib, and he was in and out. So. So everyone's got a different process and everyone finds a process that works for them. And so Beyonce's works for her, and it's a really intense one and it requires, like, an extreme amount of effort and you get amazing, extreme results with it. And Jay is just like, he's the coolest guy ever and he can just go in and it's very, very cool the way his. His process is.

So that's great.

Both get a great result in different. Different avenues.

I love that. I love hearing those stories and not even just like, keep diving in the rabbit hole of people you've worked with, but it's like the creativity that you get from everyone is so different in terms of whether that's work ethic or the effort they put in and how they show up. Are there any stories that are important to you that have impacted you in terms of the artists you've worked with? Or maybe it's not even the artist, but the. The other producer in the room or their manager and how they show up for their, you know, their artist? I just feel like the music industry is one of those industries that the people that are these stars, yes, you see them, you follow them, but they have quality teams around them, and you've encountered so many great people and the people that they associate with that. I'm curious just to hear your take on stories and experiences that you've had personally, but also in the context of the lessons learned.

Yeah, well, first of all, not every artist has a great team. One of the underpinnings of the music business is that oftentimes artists bring along their friends, which is. Which is, you know, noble. Right. But not necessarily the most qualified of people. And you see it. I've worked across all genres. You see it a lot more in hip hop. I think sometimes those people turn out to be phenomenal and, like, super talented and really incredible. Other times, you know, they kind of often get in the way. And so I'm not, you know, I'm not going to name any names or anything like that, but I've seen Both sides of it. A team can make or break an artist, but sometimes the artist doesn't have the understanding of the business layer to be able to make a solid judgment. And that was. I never took that approach. That's why, like, I read my own contracts. I mark up my own contracts. I learned from lawyers.

Yeah.

You know, I paid lawyers in the beginning, and then I studied how they did it, and then I was like, well, I want to know what I'm. I don't want to have to ask somebody else to translate for me. I want to know what I'm reading and what I'm doing. So I started studying it. Most people don't have that. That thing, and so they have to rely on teams. And so, you know, a team can make or break an artist. Right. Teams will often, you know, artists put these gatekeepers up that filter through opportunities and filter through things. Often teams will shut down opportunities before they even get to the artist's eyes. And you never know that that thing might have. That might have sparked a creative connection or creative idea for the artist to sort of do something cool.

So, yeah, I love when you hear from artists, like, yeah, when they talk about their biggest song, it's like, yeah, that was one I almost didn't put out. Yeah, that's one that I just threw it out there. And that was the biggest thing for them. And to have a manager that. Or whoever that may block off just opportunities that could have created those moments is.

Yeah, but. But at the same time, I don't want to make it seem like it's a negative thing. At the same time, some managers are really pushing artists to, like, go outside of their comfort zone and do. And do the riskier things and whatever. Because great art, you should never be comfortable when you're making art. You should always be trying to push the boundaries of creativity, and it should always feel a little bit uncomfortable, I think. And some artists like to be in a comfort zone, and I think that's fine for some types of music where, you know, it's kind of. Maybe. Maybe a little more formulaic or something like that. But when you're trying to innovate and create something new, you really have to. Your entire team has to push you to be uncomfortable and, like, enter. Enter a space of the unknown and then allow creativity. Just do what it does. Right. So I think that's where the best music comes from, at least from my experience.

I love that. What kind of music do you listen to?

I listen to everything.

Everything.

I go through phases like my. My Playlists are. So I'll do like decade eras and genres. So like 90s hip hop, 90s R B, those are my favorite genres of the 90s. You know, 80s classics. Right. Like the pop, the Whitney Houstons and the, you know, whatever. Hollow notes maybe. And then I'll do like the 70s kind of, you know, hippie ish, kind of, you know, the, the Fleetwood Max and things like that. So I do, I do. I tend to do decade era things and then I'll. And then I'll break it down to genres and then I'll have like a modern playlist of just like, you know, like chill vibes or, you know, more going out vibes or things like that. But often I just throw on the Spotify curated playlist and you know, because that's also a great way of discovering. I found it's a fantastic way of discovering new music. Whether you're on Apple or Spot, they all have great ones.

Yeah.

But find the things that kind of is in your lane. And then I always find new songs that I was like, I never heard that before. That's awesome. Could be a small artist with a small amount of monthly listeners and not a lot of plays. But I just love the song, so that's great. You never get to do that when you make your own playlists.

You're right. That's what I do. I definitely don't explore enough.

It becomes, you know what, there's so much music coming out. It is kind of exhausting. Like you can't listen to everything.

What is. I don't even know the stat.

It's like a hundred thousand new songs go up on Spotify day.

Yeah. It's crazy.

Same.

Yeah. Wow.

Most never get listened to.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. So couple more questions. We wrap up just regarding AI, but also like how you spend your time moving forward, what excites you in terms of the company and you're stepping into this role where you just raise money, having raised money before. It's this, you know, this newfound responsibility for you, your team, your investors. Like, you've always been an entrepreneur and as you said, that independent manager, artist and everything kind of ties back to that music.

I always funded my own things, so I only had to answer myself.

Exactly.

Now I have a boss.

Yeah. So like, what is the mindset around, you know, when you think about it in context of the music industry? Right. You've been independent for so long now, you gotta, you gotta deal or the label or a deal with investors. In terms of the venture capital side, what excites you about the company and, you know, how are you thinking about it moving forward in terms of the team, in terms of the tech, and just staying, you know, tied into what's going on. Because I feel like the AI space we talk about, it moves so fast, right from the time that we spoke about AI and the Questions podcast, however many weeks ago to today, night and day, in terms of the innovation that's happening. So how do you think about that as a AI founder and someone. I don't even like saying AI founder, but a founder that's building in what is so prevalent in today's society in terms of this new technology?

Well, like I had said earlier, I get bored easily. I'm always. I'm not the type person that wants to rinse and repeat the same thing, right? Like, I have friends who have won 10 Grammys or 15 Grammys, and it's like, that's really cool. Like, that's an impressive thing. But also, you're kind of just. You're locking into one task. Like, I am this. I'm a producer, I'm a songwriter, whatever it is. And then you're just like, make doing the same thing over and over again. And that's cool, right? The music is the evolution, but the process is the same. And some people like to be in their comfort zone. I've never liked that. So for me, once the goal is done, I'm like, all right, what's next? What's the next thing? And speaking to this idea of I ran my own business and really was the centerpiece of it, and I had nobody to answer to, and now I have investors and employees, and I have to answer to all of them, right? I got to make sure they're all feeling pretty good about what we're doing. That's exciting to me because I've never done that before. I've never had a real job. Well, that's not true. In high school and things like that, I had bosses and jobs. But, like, after college and in my professional life as an adult, never had a job where I worked for somebody where I actually had to answer for my actions. So it's nice to be able to have that added responsibility because something I never had before. And I'm learning a lot about how to run a business, and I'm sure I'm going to make a ton of mistakes, but that's learning, right? And what excites me the most is again, introducing this new type of creativity. Because I think if you give. If you give great tools to creative People, they're gonna do things that you never thought you would ever hear or see or whatever. And so that's exciting to me. I'm excited about the unknown because I know some of the. My own creative ideas and what I think is innovative. But once you open it up to the world, all bets are off. Like, I have no idea what people will create with it, and I'm just excited to hear that. And I want to see. I want to see success come out of it, you know, that's what. What drives me.

Exciting times.

Yeah.

Very excited for you. The company. We'll have to do a third interview in a couple years. You know, when it's going. Yeah. When AI and the industry has sort of played itself out a little bit more. So I'm excited for that.

By the way, I think not to cut you off, because I know we're going to wrap up, but I don't even like the term AI because I think AI, it's like. Yeah, it's like talking about the Internet.

Yeah.

We don't. We just know what it is. It's just like it's part of the fabric of things. And I'm looking forward to the day when the hype around AI is gone and now we're just talking about ideas, the fundamental ideas that the underlying technology creates. But again, it's not a monolith, so I'm trying to avoid the AI term. We're trying to remove it from as much of our branding as possible.

We're. Except when raising capital.

Except when raising capital is like. Put it on every slide deck. Yeah. Did you know we're using AI? Yeah.

For real?

Yeah.

Well, dude, so appreciate you coming on the show today. Any.

Thanks so much.

Before we wrap up, where's the best place to learn more about the company, connect with you and.

Well, right now. Right now, everything is just at DJ Swivel on all the handles. The company is called Hooky. It's not out yet.

We're.

We're in stealth mode. We're building. We're, you know, working with artists. We're putting the pieces together. We expect to launch Q1 of 24. So, yeah, very excited. So it'll be hooky. CO is the domain, but there's nothing there right now.

Love it. Well, appreciate you, brother. I'll be sure to link it all down below and people that are listening or watching. When it's live. It'll be live then. So super excited for you and everything you're doing.

Thanks so much, bro. Appreciate you.