Embrace Your Artistic Passion & Turn It Into A Full-Time Living EP 1321

To each their own, but I'm in my zone and I'm all by myself. I am not no clone, I'm here with Lewis Howes on the School of Greatness. We all about the real, never kicking no fakeness. Y'all know I got the rhymes that to leave, I'm shook, it's H-Mack off.

The brain, never written in books, let's go. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. So you want to give me three words, huh?

Sure, yeah, give me three words.

Or whatever you are more comfortable with.

You can either give me three at the top or you can just lob them to me as we go. As we go? Just as many as you want. I'll give you three at the top.

Okay, let's do that. I don't know if I'm gonna be that creative. I'm looking at Muhammad Ali, so is.

That count as one word?

Yeah, of course.

Muhammad Ali.

Yes. Ohio.

Ohio, got it. And.

Love.

Yes, yes. All right, Muhammad Ali, Ohio, and Love, those are the three words. We rolling?

Yeah.

Let's go. Yeah, yeah, come on, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, yeah.

Check, look, H-Mack off the top, I'm kicking the raw free like I'm swinging in the ring with Muhammad Ali. I got the truth inside, I gotta state this. Focus on Muhammad Ali, we talking greatness. It's safe to say, when I spit, I'm staying locked in. My lyrics swing, kind of like if I was boxing. I make it happen, I'mma be your master today. I be the greatest, like Cash is clay. And speaking of clay, I'mma mold these rhymes, I mold your brain. Every time I'm holding mine, I make it happen. H-Mack, I blow your mind with the verse. Word, the Cash is clay, 'cause I built this from the earth. Yeah, I make it happen, y'all know what I'm about. H-Mack getting busy when I'm all up on my route. Yeah, I'm coming off the tip with these fly flows I rock my shows from LA to Ohio Anywhere we at, these mics bro get thrown down I might have to rock a show up in your hometown It's H-Mack, you know I got the truest style I mean, I'm on the School of Greatness with Lewis Howes All up in it, yo, we made it on the podcast H-Mack coming off the top with the raw blast of lyrics and information Win by every indication yeah, 'bout to get the TV show with syndication Every obstacle we quick to rise above and when I see another human being, I don't judge I know we struggle and that's when push comes to shove so I spit it from my heart and I represent love I know for people all around the planet it ain't easy so I'd rather try to channel that L-O-V-E yeah, y'all know I'm trying to help you understand To anyone low, I'mma reach out my hand Knowing I can't win unless everybody's winning I wish I had that same mindset from the beginning It takes time but over time while learning these lessons I expanded my mind We call that progression It's love from the heart, love from the soul Love for these rhymes, love for these flows and I love to control the mic Love that I hold, rather have love for the soul than love for the platinum, love for the watch, love for the gold. It's not 'bout the material. I be getting lyrical, Grand Imperial, H-Mack working a miracle. Y'all know I had to come through right now, School of Greatness, Harry Mack, Lewis Howes.

Oh snap. That was epic, man.

How long were you doing the jazz drumming before you got into freestyle rapping?

Well, I started playing the drums at the same time that I started rapping. They both came into my world when I was about 10 years old. And I started performing both as a drummer and a rapper at some point in middle school. So I did like my first professional jazz gig at a farmer's market in Portland, Oregon, where I'm from. I was part of like a community, you know, youth jazz band up in Portland. And we got a gig. I don't know if it paid now that I think about it. Maybe I can't call it a professional gig, but I was 13 years old, you know, we played out at a farmer's market. And then simultaneously, I was rapping in a group that I had that started back when I was 11 or 12 years old with my best friends in middle school called State of Mind.

A rap group.

That's right.

In middle school. Yes, yes. Now, I'm curious, like, how do you create competence when doing yourself to do something that maybe you weren't supposed to be doing, freestyle rapping, right?

Yeah.

And to do this in public for strangers a lot. Like how do you get the confidence? Which I think is one of the key things that a lot of people are missing in life in general. On how to have confidence to ask someone out on a date or to go for the career they want. But public speaking was the biggest fear for me growing up. And you kind of have to do this to express your talent. How did you learn how to overcome the fear of humiliation, embarrassment, looking silly, messing up? and gain that confidence?

Man, that's a great question. I think one of the most important things for me is, you know, confidence comes through experience. And I'm lucky in that I've been performing since I was a little kid. My first instrument was the violin. I started playing when I was seven years old. And I always remember my first violin recital. And the reason I'll always remember it is because I didn't play. Because instead I just cried the entire time. Oh my god. Because I was so scared. How many people were there? Oh, all the parents and, you know, some grandparents and aunts and uncles and-- 50 or 100 people?

Sure, yeah, 50 or 100 people.

School recital, was it? It was this place called the Community Music Center in Portland, where I'm from. So that's where I took violin lessons.

And, you know, every quarter or so, the teacher would put on a recital for all the students.

So the first time, you didn't play anything. You just stood there and cried. That was my first public performance opportunity. I just, I cried the whole time. I didn't even actually like make it onto the stage. I just sat with my parents and cried. And the teacher kind of looked over and was like, it's not gonna happen, right? And my parents were like, yeah, it's probably not gonna happen. This guy won't stop crying. So I say that just to say that I wasn't some kind of born performer. The confidence that I have now wasn't gifted to me at birth by a long shot. It's something that I've worked through over time and something that I still actually have to a large degree. When I perform today, I still get nervous before I go out on stage. Oh, definitely. When we go out in public, like you're mentioning, and I have a series called Gorilla Bars on YouTube, essentially me going out in public and rapping for strangers. And I get very nervous at the beginning of those days, you know, less so now because I've done it so many times and I know that it's gonna be okay. You know, I have data that I can look back on. I have videos. Yeah, exactly. I have results and the videos exist online and so at a certain point you kind of have to look at that and say, okay, stop being crazy, you know, it's gonna be okay. But definitely that sort of feeling of nervousness, the increased heart rate, the shortness of breath, the feeling like this is crazy, why am I am I going to put myself out in these sort of situations? Why am I going to expose myself to this kind of judgment is tough. One other thing that comes to mind when you ask about how to sort of gain the confidence to do something that maybe you're not necessarily supposed to be doing or something that's disruptive, like going up to strangers in a public place and saying, hey, let me rap for you. I feel very grateful that I started freestyling when I was a kid. I started when I was 10 or 11 years old. And at that age, I think, at least for me, and I think for a lot of people, we're just a lot less judgmental of ourselves. Less fearful.

Yeah. Just goofing around, being silly, having fun, trying stuff. Exactly. Experimenting.

Right. Like, for me, as a 10 year old, I'm in love with this music called hip-hop you know, at a visceral level, I'm in love with the way that it makes me feel, you know, the low end of the bass and the drums smacking hard and this vocal that even though I don't necessarily understand what rappers are talking about a lot of the time at that age, the way the message is delivered feels so important and it's just gripping. And so I'm in love with this music and for me as a 10 year old at that time, it wasn't like some big decision that, oh now I'm gonna start rapping. It was like, yeah, of course I'm gonna play around and try to rap, you know? Sure. I'm 10, like, and that sounds super fun to me, you know? And I love this thing and like, why would I not try my hand at it? You know, at that age it's almost like finger painting when you're in preschool or something. No preschooler does a finger painting the whole time being like, oh, is this good? Is anyone gonna like this? Like, oh, I wonder, like, what's the point? Why am I even doing this? Maybe this isn't for me. No preschooler is doing that while they're finger painting. They're just getting messy and having fun being creative. And so I think for anybody at any age, because somebody might be listening to this and saying, well, that's great, but I didn't start when I was 10. And I've done a lot of teaching, both drum lessons and working with freestylers and aspiring rappers. Really? Yeah. I've taught a lot of private lessons. and also done some group stuff in schools. But when I'm working with people who are a little older, maybe in their 20s or 30s or even older than that, I think one really important thing to keep in mind is as much as possible, if you can try to channel that inner child when you're practicing and when you're in the beginning, when you're sort of getting comfortable with this idea of doing something that feels crazy, like doing a freestyle, your first ever freestyle, if you can take the pressure off and, and not judge it and start finger painting, make it like finger painting. Do something bad on purpose. You know what I mean? Don't try to be good. Make a sound.

Why do you think it's so hard for people to be bad on purpose?

I think as we get older, as we grow up, I think especially probably in, in Western society, but, but in modern society in general, I think we get a lot of messaging along the way, whether it's from parents or teachers that we kind of have to prove our worth through our output. Like if you get a good grade, well that's great. You're going to be celebrated. If you get a bad grade, well now you're going to be in trouble. And until you get that good grade, it's kind of like you have to earn that love in that moment. I know. And we get those messages throughout our lives and I feel like the pressure behind those messages only increases over time. Now you got to try to get into a college if that's the path you're on. And then you graduate from college and you have to enter the workforce and you're not going to be able to make a lot of money until you prove and move up that structure. There's just this sort of feeling that putting out something into the world that's not of the utmost quality is somehow gonna take away from your personal self-worth as a human being. Yes. And that's not actually the case. I always would tell my students it's important to remember that nobody is ever gonna get hurt by your bad freestyle. You know what I mean? Nobody's ever gonna die, right? Not even close. They're not even gonna feel any sense of pain whatsoever. You know, it won't cause any real world problem for any other human being on earth.

Why do we put the pain on ourselves when we fail or are embarrassed?

Yeah. It's a good question, man. I mean, I do think it's because of the way that society sort of puts these messages out to us that our self-worth is dependent on what we do. Yeah. You know? And so, people decide early on. I also think another thing that goes along with this is, the way that music is taught and probably other art forms as well or anything that might be under the umbrella of creative work, it's sort of taught in this way where you, okay, let's say you want to be a musician and you're a child, then often very quickly your parent will say, okay, well maybe, but we're gonna have to get you some music lessons. You know, we're gonna have to get you with a professional so that you can learn the right way. to be creative, right? When in reality, every child is creative. Like I was banging rhythms on my high chair tray, you know? And I didn't need anybody to give me permission to do that. Sure. And nobody, but what so often happens is the child is banging rhythms on the high chair tray, and then the parent intervenes and says, oh, maybe you're interested in music. Stop that, because that's probably not right.

Let's go structure it.

Yeah. We'll get you with a professional who will show you the right way to do this. And then so often what happens is maybe the student gets paired with a teacher, maybe it's not the best fit, or maybe it's not the best teacher, who knows? Or maybe it's just the wrong time for that child to be learning in that particular way and they struggle in those lessons and they don't necessarily get very far and then they get frustrated because suddenly what was a very intuitive expression of creativity is now it's like that's not it and you have to do this now, right? And so that's frustrating to a lot of young students, I think. And then what ends up happening is they decide at that point, well, music's not for me.

Interesting.

You know, or this creative expression is not for me. Or art or anything. Or even, you know, somebody who wants to create a podcast or build out a business like you've done. I think a lot of people have already decided, well, I'm not creative, therefore I can't do that. And I don't actually think that's the case at all. you know, it's again, it's just this from a very early age you're getting these messages that there's a right way to be creative and a wrong way and you have to be taught the right way. And I think that sort of gatekeeping almost to creativity causes a lot of people to be turned off from it.

Now, how did you learn to overcome failure then? You know, with, because you were into freestyle rapping when you were 10, 12, 13, and your teens, But you didn't pursue that as the next thing for you. You pursued jazz drumming essentially. And then for what, about 10 years, you were doing like, you know, $50, $100 gigs for jazz drumming around LA trying to make a living. Which you never really, let's say, made it financially, but you were living the dream. You were playing professionally. You're getting paid to play in front of people, which is pretty sweet. How did you learn to overcome the failures that would come?

That's a great question. You know what? For me, I've always had such a strong passion for music my entire life that, you know, regardless of what happened in terms of my music career, so to speak, I feel like I've identified as a musician since I was very young. Yeah. You know, my parents tell me stories about, you know, I used to love classic blues, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf. My dad would make me cassette tapes with those artists on them. And I loved them as a kid. And then there were times, like before I was even walking, Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf would come on the radio and I'd start vibrating. I don't remember that, but that's what they tell me. So, you know, and I would crawl to the speaker and like I said, I would play drums on my high chair tray. And I've always been, I've always felt very connected to music. And so, you know, violin was my first instrument, then I went to the drums, then I started rapping, and there's been all these sort of different chapters in my life of how I've sort of expressed my musicality, and it hasn't always been the same, and it's morphed and it's changed. And there have been times where, you know, I had to have a job that wasn't music. You know, I worked at a call.

Center for about four years.

Really? Here in LA? Yeah, at my alma mater USC. I called the alumni and asked for chairmanship. Give me some money. Give me some money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was a very challenging, you know, in many ways soul-sucking job. That actually taught me a lot though. I think a lot of important lessons.

I mean to ask for money as an artist is hard to do too.

Yes.

Like to learn to sell yourself.

Yeah.

To sell your art, your music.

Yeah.

To say buy a ticket, buy a CD, whatever it is, that takes courage.

Absolutely.

And most artists don't want to sell.

Right. Right. I think there's a stigma around selling as an artist a lot of the time. You know, there's this idea that you shouldn't have to promote yourself, which is totally crazy. Of course you should promote yourself, you know, as a musician. I mean, I'm a musician, but I'm also an entrepreneur, you know, I want to do, I'm so in love with music, I want it to be what I'm able to do full time with my life, you know? Yeah. And in order to be able to do that, I have to build a business around my music. So I think, yeah, learning how to ask for, for money, essentially, right? Learning how to promote, learning how to build rapport with strangers, learning how to network, lessons like that, and also learning how to, like you say, get comfortable with rejection. I mean, working at that call center was a crash course, man. I used to be so uncomfortable on the phone.

How often were you getting rejected or said no to?

All day, all the time. And the funny thing is, I was set up to call the music school, 'cause that's the school that I went to. Oh, and they got no money. Yeah. They got no money. Right, or they're not working in music and they spent a lot of money on a music degree and now they're selling insurance or whatever it might be, and maybe there's some resentment there.

They're like, screw USC, they didn't get me anything.

USC didn't help me, you know, I'll never donate back, and all those kinds of things. It was great for me. It was great for me, even though I didn't really enjoy being there, 'cause I would rather be playing the drums or rapping. I gained so much from it.

What were the three biggest lessons from being told no and rejection for four years at a call center?

I think the three biggest lessons, number one, I learned to just sort of let rejection roll over me. I learned to not take it personally because after spending even just a few days in a call center, you will learn that it's not personal, it's not about you. Rejection is the name of the game. You're gonna get rejected most of the time. And then maybe one out of 20 calls, you'll get a donation. So the job is basically rejection. And so if you take that personally, you're not going to last more than a week. So I quickly learned to not take it personally. And that's probably the most important, important lesson. And that's helped me in a lot of other areas of life as well. The second big lesson from the call center, I think, is you don't know to what degree people can help you unless you ask.

Give me an example.

When I first started training for the job, they told me the first amount of money you're gonna ask for is $250. And I couldn't believe that I would ask a stranger over the phone for that much money. And that's not some crazy amount of money, but for me in college at that time especially, and in general just for a stranger on the phone to ask you for $250, it seemed crazy to me. And so I was so intimidated just by that fact that I had to start the call by asking for $250. And sure enough, you know, not every time, maybe not even every day, but every couple of days, somebody would say, yeah, sure, I can donate $250. I enjoyed my time at USC. I'll do that. Here's my credit card info. And so I think, you know, we have these sort of like limiting beliefs, right? That, oh, no one would ever give $250. And granted, they weren't giving it to me, they were giving it to USC. But applying that now, you know, when I'm building a business and, you know, It's like, I don't know to what degree my fans are willing to support or I don't know to what degree other people might be willing to join my team and support unless I ask. And if I have this belief in my head, like, well, nobody's gonna do that. Nobody's gonna come work for me as a full-time video editor. Why would they, why me? Why would they do that? A lot of times we have these sort of self-doubts or these limiting beliefs. And so that's something that I got from the call center is that all you have to do is ask. and the worst that's gonna happen is they'll say no. And you don't have to take that personally.

And learn how to not take it personally.

Yeah.

Okay cool. What's the third thing?

Well, the third biggest thing for me that I gained from the call center was learning how to essentially learning how to network with other people. Learning how to talk to other people. You know, I wasn't anti-social necessarily.

Were you an introvert though or were you like yeah.

And I still am. I mean I still there's this There's you know, there's the performer Harry Mack that goes out in public and asks.

People to freestyle for them the extrovert who's the performer yeah, but the rest.

Of you is more of an introvert yeah, yeah at the end of the.

Day I you know prefer to read.

A book youk don't like people. I love people, but you know I need I need to recharge alone.

Sure it's a lot of energy. I'm sure yeah to be that creative to also overcome your fear every time if you're going out in public and talking to strangers and saying hey, do you want me to freestyle rap for you? Yeah, like get away from me. I'm trying to get to the store or whatever. I don't know who you are. Yeah Oh yeah. It takes a lot of courage and energy and thought and creativity.

Absolutely.

Even if you've done it for decades.

It still takes energy and effort. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah it does. I mean at the end of a day of shooting Gorilla Bars where we're out in public doing what you just mentioned, I'm exhausted. Drained. I'm completely drained.

How long do you go for? It depends, we'll be out there for three or four hours maybe.

Yeah.

But it's like the rejection and then.

It'S the highs, right? You get both sides of it and it's managing the energy of both, right? Yeah and it's in this, If we get the yes and we're able to do a performance within that three minutes and 30 seconds of me performing, I'm giving everything.

You're all in the zone.

You're giving everything I have in the zone. And such a high level of focus. I mean, it's very mentally taxing. Although it happens in a very short frame of time, it's a sprint.

Because you have to pull, I don't even know how you do this, but I'm assuming you've got, I don't want to actually assume, but I would think that you would have a vocabulary of words that you know, here's 30 words that all rhyme.

Yeah.

10 words that all rhyme. And there's somewhere in your mind, I think people call it like the mental castle or something, where there's places in your mind where these words can be stored.

Yes.

Where you can tap into in different places in your mind and link together. And that is an incredible skill that people can learn how to do, but it just takes a lot of effort and energy to master that.

Absolutely.

You see people doing that with like counting numbers or cards or and memorizing things. It's like, it is a gift, man.

Man, thank you. No, it's really a lot of fun and it's exactly how you described it. It's a vocabulary. You know, being a freestyler is completely different than, you know, if I were writing songs and making albums in a more traditional sort of format. Because in that sense, you're taking time to, you know, pen something and revise it maybe and get it to a place where you're happy with it and then you're committing it to memory. and it's always essentially coming back out the same way. What I'm doing is I'm attempting to develop a language, you know, my own personal language and vocabulary.

And adding music and tonality and all these different elements to make it rhythmic and pop and be unique. Not just let me rhyme and monotone, but flow in a different way.

Yeah, yeah. And by the way, that's not to take away from the great songwriters of the genre as well, whom many of whom I love. and have influenced the way that I rap. So, I love Nas, I love Kendrick Lamar, I love Eminem, I love Jay-Z, Biggie, I love these artists and they're my heroes. But, yeah, it's a different part of the brain and it's a different approach because my goal is to be able to rap about anything at any moment. So, if we have a conversation and we touch on certain things or maybe you, you know, Louis, you teach me something and drop a concept on me that I hadn't thought about before, you know. I want to be able to say, huh, you know, okay, let me put a beat on and rap about that. And the only way that I'll be able to do that successfully is if I have this vocabulary that I'm comfortable with.

So how big of a vocabulary is it that you have? And are there different buckets of rhyming words that you put in there? Like, I'm just, Yes, 100%. I have no idea how this works.

Yeah. I don't know exactly how large the vocabulary is, It's funny, people will say to me, oh, you must be a genius. You have this insane vocabulary. I don't actually think that's true. I know people who use way bigger college words than me in conversation. All the time I have to say, what does that mean? So I don't think it's actually about the size of my regular vocabulary, how most people would talk about vocabulary, the words you know. But I think what I've practiced and the skill that serves me as a freestyler is that I have quick access and deep familiarity with the vocabulary that I do possess. So I know how to grab the words that I do use quickly and I can find the right ones for the given moment. And your question about rhyming buckets, sort of, is one way to think about it. Yes, 100%. Over time, the first time you try to freestyle about coffee, you might quickly discover you don't have one single word that rhymes with coffee. what rhymes with that? And that will manifest when you say, Yo, I'm sitting here sipping on the coffee. So that used to happen all the time when I was young. Oh yeah, my first freestyles were not good. I've practiced. I've gained my skills over time through practice. And then maybe you go home and think about it, what rhymes with coffee? And then eventually you think, oh, stop me. Can't nobody stop me. That could be a useful rhyme with coffee. And then eventually over time you have coffee. probably and watch me and cacophony as a slam stretch rhyme, you know, and not free or whatever.

Exactly, there you go.

Yes, yes.

So it's adding two words that make it rhyme, maybe not one word or something, yeah.

Exactly, and you start to build that up with a range of words, you know. Interesting. And you start to commit them to memory the more that you use them. And so in that sense, it really is a language. I like to remind people, like we're improvising right now. Like we're freestyling right now, utilizing our language. And we're not overthinking it, you know, we don't have a plan. Like, I don't know what you're gonna ask me. You don't know what I'm gonna say back. And many of the things-- It's jazz. It's live jazz. It's live jazz. Or it's a freestyle cipher session. And what's so cool about that is like, we're not completely reinventing the wheel with every single thing we say. Like, if I sit down, you might say, hey, welcome to School of Greatness. I'm happy to have you here. And I'm gonna say, oh, thanks, Louis. It's really an honor to be here. Right? And sentences with basically that exact same structure have been said millions of times. You know, and it's the same when I'm freestyling. It's not that I'm completely creating from scratch every single time and trying to make something brand new. It's just the fact that I don't have a plan and I'm fully open to going in any direction and I'm gonna use the vocabulary that I do have and the words that I have in my fluency and this sort of language of rap. to communicate to the best that I can in that moment what it is I'm trying to say.

It's really cool, man.

Thank you.

But for how many years were you doing the jazz drumming for?

From age 10 till...

I mean professionally.

Professionally, yeah. I went to school for jazz at USC. I graduated in 2012, and I gigged around LA from 2012 to 2017.

Gotcha, okay. And then you decided to Were you still doing the freestyle rapping thing at the time just kind of like for fun with friends?

Yeah, yeah, I sort of fell victim to this thing that I think a lot of people might go through who you know go to college and earn a degree My degree was in jazz studies and I was a drummer on paper, you know, and I did love playing the drums. I really did and I love jazz music. I still do but My heart and my creative voice was really in hip-hop. Really? Yeah. Even before you went to USC.

Yeah, I think so.

I think it always kind of, I think, you know, hip-hop is the first music that grabbed me directly. You know, my dad was a jazz fan, and he had this incredible collection of CDs and albums from, you know, the jazz greats, Miles Davis and Coltrane and people like that. And he gifted that music to me. You know, he shared that music with me, and that was an incredible I'm really grateful that he did that. And I do love jazz. But doesn't speak to your heart the.

Same way hip hop does? Yeah, yeah.

It spoke to my dad's heart that way.

You know?

Hip hop grabbed me directly. No middle person.

But you didn't have like a path to pursue after high school necessarily to say, I'm gonna go try this hip hop thing, dad.

Yeah.

I was fortunate enough that my parents supported me getting a jazz drumming degree.

That's a big deal.

That's rare. Rare. That's rare. A lot of parents.

Because they know you're not gonna make money.

Exactly. I mean, it's so unlikely, you know, that the number of people on earth that can make a good living playing jazz. It's a handful. It's a handful, and it's the best.

Of the best of the best. I mean, it's the greatest living jazz musicians. And it's the greatest and the most marketable. The ones that promote themselves and package and position their brand in the right.

Ways at the right time.

Exactly. My brother talks about this, you know, he's like, there's so many, he sees so many talented people that are just in their room thinking someone's gonna discover them. It's like if you're not building your personal brand and promoting yourself like what you do through content, no one would know who you are. There's probably only, I haven't seen any other people do what you do. I'm sure there's a handful of guys that are doing street stuff around the world, street rapping, but you have built a personal brand that allows you to be known, that allows you to generate revenue. And a lot of artists, I feel like, just work on the craft only and then sit and hope someone discovers them at a night gig once a week. But this is a daily thing where you are creating content, building personal brand, and mastering craft.

Yeah, it's so important because I don't want to have to wait for somebody else to give me permission to have my success. I want to be able to manifest my own success using my own creativity and do it sort of on my terms, you know, and in a way that aligns with my heart and makes sense for me and showcases what I do in the best possible way. And I think one of the challenges that freestyle improvisers, because there, there have, there's a long lineage of incredible freestylers way before Harry Mack, you know, one of my biggest influences is, is MC Supernatural, who's one of the greatest freestyle rappers to ever live. Yeah. And there's many others as well. That's just one. But one of the biggest challenges they faced is that a freestyle rapper doesn't fit in easily to sort of the machine of the music industry, right? Because people working at record labels, they might hear an amazing improvised freestyle all about their outfit and the label name and maybe the whole catalog of the last year, and it might blow their mind, right? That's happened time and time again. And then they say, oh, this person is amazing. This is great. Do you have a single for radio? Do you have something we can promote? Where's the album? We want to put you on tour, but we can't do that unless we have streams, radio plays, structure. People need to know that they're going to be able to come out and sing along. What do they sing along with? What are you going to do, basically, to help us make money? How can we monetize this? Yeah, exactly. And so the monetization was all kind of outsourced. in many ways, because pre-social media, that was kind of like the best avenue was to hope that you got discovered and signed by a record label because they're the ones who actually have the budget to promote. You really didn't have the power for the most part as an independent artist back then. There just weren't the tools available to you in the same way they are now to kind of take control of that. So I have a huge privilege, you know, coming into my career now in this era where there's all these free social media platforms that you have access to and everybody has this phone in their pocket that's also a 4K video camera, you know, and we can capture anything and we can share it with the world. And if it has creative merit or if it's marketed creatively, if you're able to connect with an audience, then you're able to build an audience organically and you're able to succeed. And you can do that on your own terms without waiting for anybody else's permission, right? And you can make mistakes and learn from them, and you can experiment and try things. You can do things when you want to. You never have to wait for someone to say, oh, it's not the right time. Maybe we'll try it then. Or, oh, I don't know if this is the right direction. We don't want to waste time or money doing this. You get to make those decisions, and it really gives a lot of power to the independent artist. And I think one of my missions and goals and what I'm doing is to change the landscape for freestylers in particular. Because to me, it's an absolute travesty that all of these great freestylers who inspired me are not as well known as their peers who maybe had big radio hits, you know, and went more the traditional path. These improvisers are some of the highest level, you know, creative musicians on Earth, you know, similar to a Miles Davis or a John Coltrane. And, and they deserve to have that light shine on them. And I think for young freestylers coming up today, hopefully I can play a part in them looking and seeing, oh, there is a path for this, you know, or there is a way to pursue this on my own terms. And even if I prefer to freestyle and create kind of in the moment, and I prefer to have it be different every moment and, and not, you know, write it down and recite it the same way every time, that doesn't have to mean that there's no future for it. Right. Because for so long that's how it was posed to freestylers. It says, oh this is great, but when are you gonna pivot? When are you gonna do what actually matters, right? It's like, okay you can freestyle, but when are you gonna make a song? Because until you do, it's not really a thing. You know?

It's a cool little gimmick or whatever. Exactly.

Exactly. It's a fun way to sharpen your sword, so to speak. It's a good practice routine. You're obviously very talented and anyone who sees it knows that, right?

But you can't monetize it.

We don't know how to sell it. And so that's the whole thing is that piece about you're obviously very talented and anybody who sees it knows that. Well now it's like, okay, let me film it. And anybody who sees it will acknowledge the talent and if it moves them or speaks to them personally, then they may be moved to follow along with what you're doing. And maybe if you get to a point where you're having a show, they'll be the ones to buy the tickets. So yeah, I would love to sort of make that kind of wave where, you know, for so long I was talking to somebody and they talked about how, you know, you'll say, oh, they're a great freestyler, but they don't know how to make a hit song. They said, well, do you ever ask the freestyler, do you want to make a hit song? You know, it's like, and it's the same thing for comedians. It's like, oh, he's so good at stand-up, but like he's never written a TV show or sure.

Did you ever want to do that?

Right, do they want to do that? And it's almost as though.

Somehow only.

The latter is relevant or important and what about just being a good freestyler? Maybe that is in and of itself. I of course personally believe it is valuable. I'm very passionate about it and I'm not the only one. And I would love to create a world where up and comers can say, oh dope, this is This is my thing and I get to show it myself and I don't have to wait.

Have you created a freestyle membership yet?

Not yet. Well, I'm on Patreon.

Okay, cool. Of other freestylers?

No.

I'm saying like a club.

That would be nice.

Like a membership where you are the, you know, kind of the leader, the host of the community.

Yes.

That pays to be a part of it where you provide resources and tools to help them expand their reach or something like that. That would be really the next thing for you.

I love that.

When did you realize that because you kind of grew up in the social media world.

Yeah.

When you started doing freestyling and doing it more full-time with 2016, I think you said, or 20.

And, yeah, 2017.

2017. So the tools of, I guess you really, you know, Tick Tock started to come along 2018, I guess.

Yeah.

YouTube started to make it more for live streams and Instagram started to have video, I think, around then, so. Yeah. You kind of transitioned right when live video, vertical video started to come around in the last four years. When did you realize like, oh, this is a way to make a great living and not just make 50 bucks a night and some chicken nuggets at the local bar, you know, drumming. I know you got a commercial, but I mean, with the social media wave, when did you realize, oh, I can make a real living here?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know what's funny? My first sort of taste of having a viral video was the end of 2016. I made a video with my friend and, you know, it was for his channel. And it got a hundred thousand views overnight. It was me freestyling while driving down Sunset Boulevard and rapping about the changing scenery around me. That was my first taste. That was kind of the catalyst for me saying, okay, I gotta dive in on this and see what I can build. You know it gave me the excitement.

--Had you made any content before then? --No. --As a freestyle?

--You'Re just kind of like doing it for friends for fun, but --I had various, you know, I had my band in my group in middle school and high school. We became pretty popular, but it was written songs. It wasn't really freestyling. In college, I put in just an absurd number of hours freestyling in the.

Dorm with my friends. I mean insane.

--Every night just like --Yeah, whatever's happening, I'm rapping. At least like two or three hours almost every night. That's fun. Yeah, and became known around like, you know, party circuits as this crazy freestyler guy. It was like the trick that you.

Could pull out and bring out at the party.

Yeah, it was always fun, you know, make little circles at the party and freestyle, which is how most people get started freestyling. It was fun. I had a band for a while with my, with my, you know, jazz studies cohorts at USC. It was dope. It was kind of like, you know, we looked up to the roots and groups like that that had live instrumentation. So we had, you know, drums, bass, guitar keys. horn section, and then I was the front person freestyling. That's cool. Which was a lot of fun. We became a very popular party band. So, you know, we would play all around the USC campus and things of that nature. But yeah, the first content that I made was at the end of 2016, and it was for my friend's channel. And it got 100,000 views overnight, and that was enough of a catalyst for me to realize I need to start my own thing. Didn't have a YouTube channel, didn't have like a professional Facebook page, or even like, you know, my IG was just a personal IG, you know? which I barely ever posted on. I wasn't a social media guy.

Didn't know anything about it.

You're an introvert. Yeah, I was an introvert. So I just wasn't that into it. But all of a sudden, I was like, oh wait a minute, this is a way that I can create energy around my freestyling. That's interesting. And so I set up my YouTube channel. But what's so funny is my first, I made a couple videos that didn't really get too many views. I was starting from scratch. Eventually we went out to Venice, Venice Beach and I had sort of my first like, you know, hit so to speak. I had a viral. It was called Venice Beach Freestyle Part 1. And we posted that on YouTube and it went pretty crazy on YouTube but on Facebook it went bananas. It got reposted by this viral conglomerate site and ended up getting like, you know, 20 million views or something on that one repost and across all the reposts it was upwards of 40 million views or something like that.

And that had never happened to me before. 2016, 2017.

2017, February 2017.

Oh, you remember the exact day?

Yeah, yeah, I remember. Because it was mind-blowing for me. It was just insane. I had never experienced that before. Just all the comments and just seeing it reposted and shared here and on blogs that I knew about and seeing my video up there was just wild. But what's so funny, I did a few videos after that, but I didn't turn on the ads. For any of those videos.

I did this for years, man.

Because I thought it would annoy people.

Dude, I did for six years on YouTube.

Did you do it by choice or did you not know that it was there?

I did it by choice because I didn't want, I wanted to serve and add value and I didn't want like some sleazy marketing campaign in front of my videos, right? So I was like, all right, I'm just gonna add so much value to my community and build this up for free and we did this for five or six years.

Yeah.

I went back, I started turning on the ads a couple of years ago.

Yeah.

And the first month I go, oh, this is not bad and it just kept growing. And I went back and just looked at the views from the previous five years. Yeah. And I about threw up when I realized that I lost about a million dollars. Wow.

Minimum.

Wow. And it probably would have been three or four because had I known I was making the money, I'd have been like, Let me pay attention to really go all in on YouTube and make better content and update the thought. I didn't do any updates the thumbnails.

It was like, just threw it up.

And so just based on the views, it would have been a million dollars over five years, which is a lot of money in five years for a business. Absolutely. And that's what I said, okay, let's really go all in on this and see how we can optimize this. And then at that point, it was also kind of the tipping point where I think they were just putting ads on every video anyways, whether you had it turned on or not. They were like, I see. We're monetizing your videos. Sure. Must have made money from it.

Absolutely.

Everyone sees ads anyway, so it's like, okay, it is what it is.

Right.

But so you didn't start doing that originally, but then you turned it on after these.

Yeah, I never turned them on because, I mean, similar to you, I just thought that it would turn people off from the videos. I would rather have more people see it, and at that time I felt like the ad would deter people from watching it, and I don't know if that's actually true. I think it's hard to say. Like you say, now that the ads are so ubiquitous, I mean they're everywhere. I think people just expect it. They accept it too. And it's totally normal. But that was my philosophy back then. I really didn't know anything about YouTube. I have kind of a funny situation too. We talked about it a little bit earlier, but around that same time after I'd been making these sort of non-monetized YouTube videos for a while.

Viral videos.

Yeah, yeah. I got called to do this Mitsubishi commercial and it was the craziest thing at the time because even though I was having these viral videos, I really wasn't making very much money. I was very much living month to month, which I was used to because I had been a gigging jazz musician for all those years. So I had no overhead, no savings, and I basically just covered my expenses, my rent, my groceries, and gas.

-I was living off the bus, yeah.

-Yeah, and sort of started over again at the top of each month. I got called to do the Mitsubishi commercial and it ended up being a national TV ad for nine months in the US and Canada. It's a trip. It's me dressed up like a Mitsubishi salesperson and they come in to test drive the car and then we go in the car and I start freestyling.

The features of the car. Did you freestyle the whole thing every time or did you kind of have pre-plans? You knew some of the terminology of the whatever, yeah.

Yeah, so for the ad agency and for the Mitsubishi Corporation, they want to approve the copy. Right. So hard, man. Yeah, so I wrote a verse about the full disclosure, for your audience. Yeah, I've talked about this before. I wrote the verse out word for word about the car features and shared that with them. And then we came up with this concept where I would do one take.

Like that, and then I would freestyle.

Yeah, completely freestyle, just rapping about their outfits. whatever came to mind.

Mix it in somehow.

Mix it in with the stuff. So the final product included some of my preconceived lyrics and then some freestyle.

That's cool.

But for me at the time that commercial, I made more money than I had ever made in my life to do that commercial. And it wasn't any insane jaw-dropping amount. But for me living month to month, it was like, oh wow, I can breathe now for the first time. and that felt really, really great. But I also learned a really, really important lesson at that time. I had always had the goal of making an album, writing songs, and sort of making more of a traditional hip hop album. Even though I didn't really have experience doing that since my high school days, it was something that I really wanted to do. And I also felt at that time a lot of pressure to do that because I felt like that was the obvious pivot, like we were talking about earlier. It's like, okay, this freestyle thing is.

Cool, but if I wanna go make real money, I gotta do this album thing.

Exactly. I have to go to radio and I have to become whatever image you have of a famous successful rapper. I felt this incredible amount of pressure to somehow embody that rather than remembering that I should just be myself and do what comes naturally to me. I wasn't quite there yet mentally. So I was struggling with that. And then here comes this Mitsubishi commercial and so I said, Oh great, this will be my record label advance. You know what I mean? This will be the money that I can sort of live off and use to fund my album and you know, get producers to work with and make some music videos and things of that nature.

And you stopped making content during that time?

I stopped making content. I took a break from YouTube for almost a full year. Yeah.

It could be irrelevant if you go a year away from your content.

Easily, easily. I mean now we post, you know, daily on multiple platforms. Yeah, we go hard. But at this time, I was like, well, I'm not making money on these YouTube videos anyway, because I didn't turn the ads on. Intentionally, because I didn't want to turn people off for the video. So it's funny, but I thought, well, you know, I gotta figure out how to pivot and actually make this career happen. And so I lived off the, you know, the Mitsubishi money for almost a full year, and I used it to sort of fund my album. and then it got to the end of the year and I was basically out of money, you know, and I looked up and all of a sudden there's this panic, you know, and I'm saying to my girlfriend, like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I think I'm gonna have to go apply to, you know, Trader Joe's down the street or Starbucks. I gotta get a job, you know, I'm gonna have to get a job soon. And shout out to my girlfriend and she basically said, you know, that's nonsense, you know, you have an audience and you have this talent, You know, you just have to activate your audience. Like, let's actually figure out what that looks like for you.

Wow.

And so at that point, I said, you know what? You're right. And I said, I'm gonna change my approach and I'm gonna actually do YouTube like a YouTuber. You know, I'm gonna learn how to monetize a YouTube channel. I'm gonna learn how to do social media in a way where I'm able to build it out as a business. you know, and I started really doing the knowledge and doing the research to understand how that works. And so from that moment on, that's when I sort of rebranded and started calling those man on the street freestyle videos, Gorilla Bars. And I sort of came back at that phase after doing the album. The album was not very successful, by the way. It was a big thing for me, and I'm proud of it, and I'm glad that I did it, but it didn't make too much of a splash. And so it was like, okay, let's get back into this YouTube thing. Rebranded the series as Gorilla Bars and started doing the videos monetized with the ads on from the onset. And, you know, we made, I think, six or seven episodes. We made six episodes, and then the seventh one came out and went super viral on YouTube. And so it was like, yes, I'm.

Back on a game.

Just enough.

So you start making money from the ads there a little bit and then you start going hard on all the platforms, right? We started, I found you on TikTok, I think earlier this year or something. You started doing TikTok, Instagram and just kind of creating content for all platforms.

Exactly.

And now you're trying to maximize and.

Monetize wherever you can there, right? 100%, yeah. It started then, it was me trying to learn how each of these platforms work and what specifically works well for Instagram as opposed to YouTube, Facebook as opposed to TikTok. what are the sort of idiosyncrasies of all of these platforms and how are people using them to build businesses and then seeing how I can apply that to what I do. And in the beginning, like at that time, you know, I'm doing every part of it myself essentially, which is a really important phase of the whole journey that I'm really grateful for, you know.

I'm-- you-'re not just outsourcing it right away. You're learning it first so you can understand the language of how these things work.

Yeah.

And then work with other people eventually.

Yeah, yeah, and learning the language of it but also just out of necessity. I couldn't afford to pay somebody else to do it.

Sure.

But it's good, I mean even if I could have, I think it's better this way, right? And I'm sure you can relate to this. I think pretty much every content creator out there goes through that phase.

Yeah, I spent years broke learning this stuff back in 2009, 2010, 2011.

Yeah.

And I had no money, so I had to obsess about it all day until I could start hiring people.

People.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, I was doing the gorilla bars. I was editing them. I'm not an editor, you know, first I was in iMovie and then, you know, it just.

I mean, it took me days to.

Get one little video. To get one little video. And then, you know, it's you. I would spend the whole week. I remember my calendar just had these huge editing blocks. Like, basically that was my job. I became an editor because that was the biggest bottleneck kind of to getting the stuff out there. I would pay, like, freelance videographers to come follow me around while I free stuff for people on the street and then I would get all the footage and edit it together, create the thumbnail and an app on my phone, you know, come up with the title, do the description, all that stuff, get it out. And then the most challenging part other than editing the long form was repurposing. Oh man, the short form. -Where you format. -Oh man. -Right, it's hard.

It's not easy, you know. -Well now there's so many different tools and apps that can like cut it up so quickly.

You're like, you, wish you had this four years ago. I know, but Yeah, and then the platforms would always be changing too. So it's like, well IG used to be one by one, but now it also accepts this larger size and now there's IGTV. You know, there were all these different things happening and each of them sort of required their own format.

Where's IGTV? Is it gone now?

Yeah, I think they phased it out. It was like the biggest thing.

It was, and now it's just all reels, right?

Yeah.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it is crazy. Overnight, you could have your whole strategy.

On one thing and you have to be flexible and adaptable for the next It's so important. You have to be malleable, you know, you have and that's always kind of.

How you have to improvise kind of.

Like freestyle 100% It's all improv man. It's all a freestyle. Yeah, because you never know what's gonna happen with any of these platforms, you know, they could get, you know, eclipsed by whatever the newest thing is, you know, TikTok is kind of every TikTok is influencing all the platforms now, right? You know, everyone is has their vertical kind of constant feed a la TikTok.

And that could evolve in a year.

Exactly.

You never know.

Exactly.

What do you think is the biggest challenge that creatives and artists, musicians have today in making a full-time living with their art?

Yeah. I think the biggest challenge, first and foremost, I know for me personally and probably for a lot of other artists and creatives out there is overcoming the fear to step up and do it.

Do what?

Be that artist. Be that creative. You know, for me it was overcoming the fear to be Harry Mack. You know, to be the person at the forefront. You know, I for so many years was a drummer. I was a support player. You know, it wasn't my band. It was maybe the singer calls me to play and support their vision. You know, I'm in the background, you know, and I'm doing the best job I can and to support them. And that's a beautiful thing to do. It's a beautiful role to have, to be a support musician, you know, and to help somebody else's vision sort of flourish and do the best you can. But, you know, it's like, tell me when and where and what I'm supposed to wear and how much we're getting paid, and I'll be there, you know? But to be that singer, you know, to say, oh, well, this is my vision, you know, I'm. I'm the one that is bringing these people together around my vision. I'm the one making the call. you know, I'm the one putting my creative voice out and, you know, exposing myself to feedback and exposing myself to criticism and making myself vulnerable, you know, that's terrifying. And it was for me anyway, you know, for years of my life, I was essentially crippled by fear and unable to fully express my gift, you know, to the world and embrace it for myself. and then be able to put it out and use it to connect with other humans, which is what I do now. But I was too scared to do that. And there was a long phase of time, like from when I graduated from college to 2017 when I started making content, where I was just like in my room making beats all day, you know, freestyling, rapping, to beats.

To yourself.

To myself, to myself, and never sharing it with anyone. It was never good enough. Wow. You know, it was this, for me, a lot of the fear sort of manifests as perfectionism. Where it's never ready and it's never good enough. And you know, my friends and roommates at the time and people that I lived with would try to talk sense into me.

Like, dude, it's really good, yeah.

Yeah, like put this out. Like you put so much energy into doing this, but you never share it. There's this concept, I think it's from Ira Glass called the Gap. Are you familiar with this concept?

Maybe, sure.

So the reason that, you know, creatives get into making things, is because they have really good taste, you know? So like they appreciate good art or creativity or good podcasts, whatever it is. They appreciate good media. So we have good taste and so it inspires you to want to start creating yourself. When you start creating yourself, you realize that what you're capable of making at that time as a beginner doesn't come anywhere near the people that you look up to and admire. In other words, there's this huge gap between your level of taste for creativity and art and what you're actually capable of creating. And that's a really challenging phase because it's very discouraging and it makes you feel like what you're making is not worthy of being put out or shared. But the secret to the gap is you can't start closing that gap until you share what you're working on and get feedback.

Right.

You know, the only way to actually get from what you're doing now to closer to the people you look up to. For me, you know, the supernatural who I mentioned or Nas or, you know, Whoever I put on that pedestal, these people are like superheroes to me, you know, and always will be, you know. And so to think, well, I'm way down here as Harry Mack, like what's the point of me sharing this? But the only way I can start to climb is to share my work.

And get real feedback from real human beings. --Yeah, if you just did it in your bedroom every day and no one.

Ever saw it, then you never get closer to where you want to be. --Yeah, and you know, I've met so many musicians who have hard drives full of incredible work that nobody's heard. And, you know, suddenly I'm playing that.

Role, you know, so much easier to.

Give advice than once you've done it. Yeah, to take it for yourself, right? So, you know, I'm saying, what are you doing? Like, if I had this, you know.

There'S that whole thing, too. If I had this hard drive, I'd be putting it out, which all your friends probably told you, man, if I.

Could freestyle like that, I'd be doing this at every gig anywhere I go. Exactly. And that's so, it's so easy to say, right? Because you don't have to actually face.

The consequences of doing that, which is, you know, Again, it's all about control. Embarrassment or failure or humiliation or no one laughing or no one clapping or whatever.

100% yeah, and that thought is so terrifying. So I think that is the biggest challenge for creatives, especially because, you know, and then the second biggest challenge after facing our fear, but they're very closely related, is the challenge of having to do it all yourself.

It's a lot, man. The weight can be a lot.

Yeah, we talk about, you know, obviously, the whole thing with the traditional path of the record label, you know, being very limiting for most people. But that being said, if you did get signed to a good record deal-- They do all the work. --A lot of the work. --Yeah, there's a whole, yeah, you have to be a good musician, right? Or a good songwriter, or whatever it is you do.

--They produce and promote and package and all those things.

--They put you on the billboard, they.

Distribute it all around the world, you know, they do radio, they do all that stuff. where to show up and just do your talent.

Exactly, exactly. And so, you know, that's not a walk in the park either, but I do think that it's very intimidating to recognize that the, you know, it's both intimidating and empowering, right? It's like we have all the tools available and that's incredible. We can do it ourselves without needing permission from anyone. It's amazing and I've seen what it can do firsthand and I'm so grateful for these tools and for this ability to do it myself. But not every part of the job is fun. And there were times when I'm up at 4 a.m. editing this video for the fifth day in a row, like trying to drag the little cursor in iMovie. Shout out to all the video editors out there. I have no idea how they do that. But you know, there's times where you.

Put a video out and it doesn't deliver and you're like, man, I spent a week on this and I got 100 views and I made nothing on it.

Right.

And if that happens week after week, you start to feel a little discouraged.

Absolutely, absolutely, you do. So I think overcoming the fear and then embracing sort of the responsibility that comes along with sort of doing it yourself, those are some of the biggest challenges we face. And also what you alluded to just now, learning how to not take feedback personally.

Yeah, it's huge, man.

It's so important. And it's an ongoing journey for all of us, I think.

Yeah, especially probably once you start to gain success too, and you start to build awareness and attention, you know, you have an ego you still have to manage.

Yes.

Once you're successful or more successful than where you were.

Yeah.

And to get the feeling of rejection or no one cared with this video or live when performed, that still doesn't feel good.

No.

So learning how to not take it personally is a superpower for so many people.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, really embracing the process and being in love with the process of creating and not so focused on the end result.

You know, it's so hard for people.

It's so difficult. And it's challenging for me at times, you know, and I still, you know, I've been doing this for a little while now, but I still, you know, I might read through the comments and read, you know, 20 positive comments and then there's just one negative comment and it stands for whatever reason it sticks with me more than the positive, right? So I think, you know, it has to do with sort of, you know, if you're gonna, if you're gonna take all that positivity so deeply to heart, then the danger of that is you're also gonna take that negativity deeply to heart. So I think part of it has to do with, you know, kind of tunnel vision on you know what your gift is and you know what your mission is. And if you can focus on that and sort of keep your nose to the grindstone and keep creating what you know you're meant to create without being distracted by the noise. That can be helpful.

What's been one of the lowest moments for you in the last 8, 10, 10 years of doing this journey?

That is a great question. Lowest moment in the eight to ten years of doing this journey? I don't know if there's one moment in particular that I can pinpoint, but I do know that in the years prior to when I started making content, 2014, 2015, 2016, when I was out of college with this jazz drumming degree, in debt, you know, I took a student loan to get a jazz drumming degree.

Yeah, it's hard to pay that off.

That's not the smartest move necessarily in hindsight, but that's what I did. That was my reality. And I was struggling, you know, I mean, I was barely making it, you know? And there were times that I, you know, there were times where as much as I didn't want to, I was, you know, calling my dad asking if I can borrow $100 or whatever to to close the gap, you know, between. And, and, you know, my parents are comfortable, but we're not rich or anything like that. And, and beyond that, it's just you want to be your own person at that phase, you know, but I was barely making it. And, you know, at that time, like, I was not fulfilled. I was not happy, you know, if i'm being honest. I really was, was struggling personally, and I was struggling as well with sort of, you know, I was sort of abusing vices and things of that nature. You know, I was drinking a lot at that time, which is a habit that had been ongoing for me for a while, you know? And it wasn't a good place for me to be, you know? Right. Just in general, during that phase, I didn't feel like myself. I didn't feel excited on a daily basis. I didn't feel creative. and I felt stuck. And I think really all of that can kind of be summarized as the fear and insecurity that I was kind of grappling with. You know, like that's really what that was. At that phase, I was too insecure and afraid to sort of step into being Harry Mack, you know, or being my full creative self. you know, I wasn't giving myself permission to, you know, lean into hip-hop and lean into freestyling and lean into my gift, you know? And so I was creating all these limitations on myself. There was this feeling that I, you know, I can't do that, you know, I'm stuck here. And so it really took, it really took my friend. Honestly, it took my friend Jacob asking me to help him with that video at the end of 2016. Shout out to Jacob. because I really feel like if he hadn't done that, I don't know when I would have like on my own accord said, yeah, you know what? It's enough of this. I need to break out of this and start sharing my gift.

So it was kind of that push that helped you see the light.

Yeah. And it was a push kind of disguise that like I didn't know that he was pushing me in that way at the time. I was just doing a favor for him as a friend. Like sure, I'll freestyle on your beat, man. If this is gonna help you yeah, I'll do that. That sounds great. Let's do it. And then of course, ironically.

It was.

Kind of like we get this 100K views overnight and it's almost like he's smiling back at me like, here you go, my friend.

That's the time.

Take it and run with it. So I'm so grateful, I'm grateful to him and in general, I'm grateful that I have people around me who are telling me, Put this out, like do this, you know, do this freestyle thing. It's so special, you know, when you do it, there's no reason to keep it hidden from people. And so, yeah, I mean, it was big, man. It was big to start doing that. I'm glad that I was able to shake out of that other kind of space.

I'm glad you did, too, man. You're inspiring a lot of people. So many cool things I could take this, but I want people to follow you and really tap into your message and your art and your your craft. You're Harry Mac everywhere on social media, Harry Mac official on Twitter. And if they want to watch you live on tour in Europe, harrymacofficial.com/shows. But just get on your newsletters to see whenever you're doing live stuff. And if you're ever in Venice, I guess. What do you do? Do you go on the streets in LA sometimes still?

Yeah, recently we've been sort of going to other places outside of LA to mix up the scenery.

A little bit.

Sure, sure. So when we're on tour, you know, we'll shoot gorilla bars when we're in new locations. That's cool. Yeah, we toured in the US earlier.

This year, so we have gorilla bars all around the US, Chicago. It's fun, man. Yeah, yeah. But just to get signed up for your newsletter, they'll be able to see when you're doing live stuff or anything else online.

Check you out on YouTube. If you guys want to be a part of your, you do a live.

Every two, two times a month. Yeah, yeah. Wordplay Wednesday, every other week on YouTube.

So tap in for that.

To watch you live interactive online, which is a lot of fun, so make sure to check you out there. How else can we be supportive and of service to you?

Man. Well, first of all, I want to thank you for having me on this show. I'm a huge fan of this show.

Thank you.

Huge fan of yours. So it's already a huge gift that you've given me just to be able to be here and talk with you. Other than that, man, just, you know.

I.

I encourage people to check us out on Fridays at 9 a.m. We drop our long form video on YouTube. But really just, you know, if the videos move you, you know, it's such a joy for me to be able to lift people up with freestyles. You know, I've come to realize more and more over the years that, you know, I used to want to be the best freestyler in the world. You know, that was like, I wanted to do that so that I could write that down somewhere. I'm the best freestyler in the world to serve my own ego. But what I've learned through doing this is that this is a way to connect with other people and to allow other people to be seen and heard. Especially when other people are giving me words or giving me their stories and they're coming out in a freestyle. It's amazing what effect that has on people. And I feel so lucky to have been able to be a part of that and see that so often where people People's faces will go from hard and stiff to just smiling bright and this like childlike laughter.

Yes.

And that's the dopest thing to me. You know, like that's the best part of my job. I remember when we first went back out there to do a Gorilla Barz after I took the time off, the guy who was filming it said to me at the end of it, he was like, dude, that was an awesome day. We made so many people smile. And I just thought like, yeah, bro, that's right. Like that is awesome. You know, as simple as that sounds. And, you know, there have been times where, so I'm going off on a tangent now, but I just want to say the level of emotional connection that can occur through improvised freestyling is, I've been surprised by it at times throughout my career. There was a time during COVID on Omegle, which is a platform I used to freestyle for strangers, where I connected with a guy and We did a fun freestyle. He gave me a few random words, Batman and I think he said dark streets and whatever else it was. And I did a regular freestyle and he enjoyed it and smiled and laughed and he was like, oh man, before you go, can you do one for this person? And he grabbed a sheet of paper and held it up and it was the pamphlet from a memorial service for his fiance who died of COVID like a month before I'm speaking with him. His fiance died. His fiance died of COVID Oh man. And he holds up this this paper, and he's like, you know, can you do a song for her?

Oh my gosh.

And I was so, you know, taken aback. And I said, man, can you tell me a few things about her? And he said, we loved going on road trips, you know? And he gave me a couple other, you know, pieces of information. And I was, in the moment, like, to be completely honest, I was somewhat intimidated by the task at hand, because I wanted to do something Special.

Honoring.

Yeah. And but I felt like it was really important for me to do this and to do the best job that I possibly could. And so I did a freestyle sort of in honor of his, you know, late fiance. And at the end of it, he's crying. Oh my gosh. And I said, you know, we don't have to use this for the content. Obviously, you can just have this if you want. Or, you know, and he said, no, no, no. I want you to put this out. People should should see this.

Oh my gosh.

And it was one of the most like powerful pieces of content we've ever made. Oh. And so for me, like that's what this is about, you know? What I do, it's not about me being the best freestyler in the world so that I can win some award or feel somehow superior because I did that, you know? Even if someone does consider me the best, it's subjective and it doesn't last forever. There's some 12 year old now who's working on their freestyles. That's gonna be so insane when I'm sitting on the front porch in my rocking chair, I'm gonna say this guy. That's impossible. You know what I mean? These things are fleeting, but for me it's more about like I want to give this gift of hopefully being able to lift people up and allow people's stories to be heard, allow people to feel seen, allow people to be a part of something, you know, and to engage in that sort of connection. To answer your question, how can people support and help me? If you enjoy or smile while you're watching any of the content, that alone is huge for me. That gives me a strong sense of purpose and I'm happy to be able to put that smile on your face.

That's great, man. Well, Harry, I want to acknowledge you. I've got a couple final questions before I ask them. I want to acknowledge you for having the courage to share your gift. You know, to having the courage to transition from doing something that you think you were supposed to do, which was follow this one path, and say, okay, this isn't working for me anymore. There's something inside of me that feels like it needs to come out. And having the trust to take the leap, even when you were in a darker place, I really acknowledge you. Also, for your mindset around your craft, because I think a lot of people are doing their craft for fame or money, which is a byproduct of you being talented. But to hear you say you want to bring joy to people and create connections, and vulnerability and intimacy and let people be seen. I think it's an incredible gift of you as an artist, man. So I really acknowledge your heart for that intention.

Thanks.

I think that will take you so much farther and longer than just trying to be famous and make a lot of money and be the best.

Right. Oh, I appreciate it, man. Thank you, Louis. Appreciate that. Appreciate that.

This is a question I ask everyone towards the end called the Three truth's questions.

Yes.

Hypothetical scenario. Imagine it's your last day on earth, many years away from now. Yes. You live as long as you want. You get to accomplish everything. You change millions of lives through your craft or whatever you want to do.

Yeah.

But for whatever reason, no one has access to your message anymore.

All your content is gone. Right.

Hypothetical.

Right.

All your work. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things you know to be true that you want others to know about. This is all we have to remember you by. What would be those three truths?

I love this. Okay, my three truths. I think the first one would be don't neglect your inner child. Ooh, yeah. Don't neglect your inner child. Feed your inner child. Nurture your inner child because I think You know, my first rap recording was made when I was 12 years old with my friend Brady for our group State of Mind. And I'm really grateful that I still have access to those recordings and I listen to them from time to time. And it's just amazing to hear, you know, it's not good by any objective standard, but there's so much potential in it and more importantly than that, there's just this unique creativity that exists because we were only 12 years old. And we hadn't yet been so morphed and sort of changed and sort of influenced by all of these voices like we talked about before from society or from parents or teachers. You know, these limiting ideas were much less prevalent in our minds at that time. And so I think it's a really special thing to be a child and to have this sort of childlike curiosity and creativity and just this sort of freedom that comes with not being so judgmental of yourself. And I think certainly to be able to freestyle and improvise, you have to tap into your inner child. So that would be one, is don't, you know, especially now in this modern society, don't let that inner child it can be hard to access it, right, as adults, because we have a lot of responsibilities and again, we have all this sort of influence from external forces. But tap in with your inner child, that's number one. Number two would be commit to being a lifelong learner. Never stop learning. You know, I think for me, I'm always trying to learn new things and I think I'm so grateful to have music because music is infinite. You know, you never, it's not the type of thing you check it off your list and say, cool, I did that, what's next?

Sure.

You know, it's unlimited. The potential is unlimited. And so I think having the humility to say, no matter how much I think I know about music or anything about life, you know, no matter how much I think I know right now, There's so much more that I don't know. And that will always be true. And sometimes you learn so much and then what you forgot is what you knew when you were 12. You know what I mean? So there's always more to learn and I think if you have that mindset of being a lifelong learner and never sort of becoming complacent, it will take you really, really far. So that's number two. And then number three, I would say it's okay to be afraid, but don't let that fear stop you from sharing your unique gift with the world. Because that's what, you know, that's what's gonna help make the world a better place if you share that gift. Yeah.

Okay, I've got one final question, but I want to throw a curveball and see if you could do a recap freestyle and answer the question in it somewhere.

Oh, dope. I love it.

So, the final question is what's your definition of greatness?

Yes.

So, you can define greatness somehow.

Yes.

Within a recap of what opened up for you during this interview for you. This is what you experienced of what you know, you shared as a recap. Absolutely. And add the definition for you of greatness.

I love it. I love it. Let me just pull my phone out to get a beat here. let's see this is going Ookay Oh. Yeah. Oky, Ah there, come on.

Listen A Ye, de, sad, sad Why too whathi so? Co on Dead Why too what so.

On dead dead, dead dead Hey yo.

My truth, I'm about to state this. My experience, I will relate this. I'm talking about my definition of greatness. I'm breaking down my definition of greatness. Hey yo, my truth, I'll be ready to state this. My own life experience, I'll try to relate this. I'm breaking down my definition of greatness. Check, I'm breaking down my definition of greatness. Yeah, one, two, off at the top, gripping on the mic, H-Mack go let the Rock. Y'all know I want to grab the mic and go wild, but I can't do it unless I find my inner child. I remember all of the freedoms and the Liberties when I had that young creativity. Yeah, it's kind of tricky to Define the mind of a child when it's unrefined, the ability to go anywhere on the path, not overcome by the science and the math of adult living. Hey, yo, it's real, not fiction. I wasn't hit with all the salt restrictions. Wasn't hearing voices in my ear telling me that I should chill, I should have fear. Wasn't feeling doubt when I looked up in the mirror. I just closed my eyes, dreamed it, manifested it, and it appears. Yeah, that inner child I'm about to nurture it. And if it's been too long since I've heard from it, put a beat on so I can get free, so I can finally manifest that in the child and me. Yeah, thinking back to sixth grade with my homie Brady, the first state of mind CD. you went crazy. RepubliCant raps sound like Alvin in the chipmunks. Yo, it's 50 Wonder on the mic, I never get punked. Back when I was young, before my voice dropped, I'm trying to make sure that has a special spot all up in my heart, homie, all up in my soul. I gotta let loose and let go with the control. Yo, rule two, y'all know my soul's burning. I must make a commitment to lifelong learning. Yeah, there's always more stones to turn over. There's always more time for me. As a flow that's a turn into a grower, the improviser, the one that gets better with time and more clever with rhymes. Through years I stay committed and always gain more knowledge and never sit back and feel like I'm most polished. It's not about my ego, it's about where I can take it and gaining information from me is truly sacred. And when I kick a rhyme it's like my soul is standing naked. I gotta keep it honest with my fans, I can't fake it. That's why late at night my brain gets shook from all the wild information that I gained from books. I stay reading all the time, blowing my mind with every line and teaching me new places to climb. And this is real right here. This part is not fake. Some of the best lessons I've learned were gained through mistakes. So many times in my past I thought I had the answers, but really there's more questions inside of my stanzas. Really, I'm not the professor teaching y'all how to do this. Cause on the daily, man, I feel like a student. It's important for me to grow from mistakes when I stumble. It's important for me to stay low and remain humble. I got this self-love and it comes from my heart. And I know I have a gift and I share it in my art. But I never think I'm the most talented, most smart. Cause I know I'm just one human that's doing they part. It's about the whole. It's about the collective. That's for my soul. And finding new places where Mack is about to go. So we about to take it there. I make it rare. Y'all know I'm here to spit. I gotta go and share my gift. And this last message here, I want to make this clear. I can't ever be held down by my fears. I've been through that. I had to wait to see my style evolve. I was trippin' in the dark place with alcohol and other habits and vices that used to hold me down. They made me feel like a king missing the golden crown. I knew there was a gap I had to close, but I was too scared to go and share my flows. Shouts to my homie Jacob, who threw me in the car. Sunset Boulevard, spewed a couple bars, 100k views, later went viral, no monetization. but still sharing all my creations. I had to get the bag, then lose the bag, then go back to applying for jobs, what a drag. Then got a little piece of inspo from the love of my life who told me, mag, get back on the mic. Saw the YouTube channel with the ads turned on, clipped it up for social media, the flow's more strong and slowly but surely it's crazy when you witness we be expanding and building out of business. Who the thought nowadays we taking over? I can't clear rhymes now stay sober to each their own but I'm in my zone and I'm all by myself I am not no clone I'm here with Louis H on the School of Greatness we all about the real never kicking no fakeness y'all know I got the rhymes that to leave them shook it's H Mack off the brain never written in books let's go.

That was epic man thank you man incredible man wow Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one told you lately. I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.