Leasing Beats (Interview with Abe Batshon from Beatstars) :: Producer's 20/20 Vision

Cool, cool. Well, I've been watching from afar since I was a kid writing rhymes in my bedroom, so— Oh my God! I probably hit you up a few times to help me out back in the day when I was an aspiring artist, so—

I love it. I'm sure I responded, because as long as you didn't call me, as long as you emailed, I'm sure I responded.

That's all good, it's all good. Well, thank you, thank you for, um, you know, for even like having me you know, join in and have you—

Oh my God, I needed you.

I begged you. You know why? And this is something actually, maybe once we get— Oh, you are recording already. Okay.

I am. Do you want me to not?

No, no, no. Record, record. I think, you know, I love taking these kind of opportunities where I could talk to people that have had, you know, a huge amount of success in the traditional music industry as well as, um, just being kind of like a thought leader and someone that's, that's also like influencing, you know, other creators around the world, which are— a lot of them are my people too. And so it's a great opportunity for me to come, and I, I think hopefully I can, uh, weigh, weigh a few things for you to think about. My goal is to have you at the end of this conversation rethink a little bit of, um, some of the, some of the things that you're, you're standing on, right? Okay, so that's my goal.

That's my goal is for people to hear— I already have a bias, but I want people to hear— like, I don't want people to learn from my bias. I want them to learn from everything, and I want them to go and do a shit ton of research and learn as much as they can and then form their own opinion, and it's so hard to do that in today's world, you know. So, that's why I stalked you a little bit.

No, no, no, I love it.

Please, please come do this, I need you.

No, I love it because I'm so thankful. So, so many folks within, you know, within traditional industry have stood on similar stances on things, right? I've been hearing about it my whole career since I built— Of course. Since I've built the platform.

Probably since you even thought about building the platform.

Oh, I thought about it in the '90s. In the '90s, I was already thinking about this, right? So, you know, I've heard a lot of, you know, opinions, and so many people, I guess, you know, have kind of not welcomed the actual people that actually created this industry outside of the industry. Like, so I really commend you for like saying, hey, Abe, come on here and just talk to us because—

Please, oh my God, yes.

Because it hurts my soul when I hear, you know, when I don't hear the full picture. When I don't hear the full picture, right, it makes me feel like we're mis— we could be miseducating people, and we could be sending people down a road that's, you know, that's not to their advantage.

Absolutely. And I'm so thankful, and I'm hoping you'll do two things today. I'm hoping you'll, of course, talk about the Lee side, but I also want you to talk about how you started BeatStars as an entrepreneur, because if I remember correctly, it was an Indiegogo, wasn't it?

Um, well, no, we did like a, like a crowd— a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in 2016, but we've been around since 2008. Yeah, we, we, yeah, we did, we did a crowdfunding campaign because I don't know if you know, and you really follow us a lot, but BeatStars is so community driven. We are so community-driven. We, the CEO of Indiegogo hit me up and said, "Hey Abe, we're launching for the first time equity crowdfunding." So prior to equity crowdfunding, you had, you know, Indiegogo and Kickstarter, you know, be a place where fans of products would support these creators. Would support the products. Yeah, support the product and they would get their product in the mail, right? But they, President Obama, passed the JOBS Act, and the JOBS Act changed the way that investors can now— what's the actual definition of investor now, right? So he changed the definition of what investor, and he made all of us, the people of America, we can put on our investor hat without being accredited. Without being accredited. So, that was huge, right? That was huge.

That was huge because it means we didn't need $250,000 in order to invest in something.

Exactly, exactly. It could be $5, it could be $10. Exactly.

I did a lot of crowdfunding in real estate and made money.

Oh, awesome. That's great. Yeah. So, I thought of it as opportunities like, you know, we don't really need the money but the CEO of Indiegogo wants to feature us, wants to get us some press on TechCrunch. He wanted to launch with us. I'm like, all right, cool. Let's do it.

Fabulous.

Yeah, I was like, yeah, let's do it. And at the same time, I win because now my community, we had over like 400 or 500 of our members invest in BeatStars. So now I have— I'm very like, um, I like putting myself in uncomfortable positions because it helps me grow, right? So I never— so many founders and so many companies would never think of having their customers be the shareholders of their company.

Yeah, that's the perfect person to invest because who knows you better?

Exactly. So, I thought, who— me being independent and not taking any venture capital and not reporting to anyone, I was like, who better to serve on my—

and not having to sell your company after 5 or 6 years.

Loved it. And I loved it. Exactly. And I loved it and I loved that my customers now became the voices I serve and the people that I have to work for. So, it was so dope and it was a great experience. But prior to that, yeah, we've been bootstrapped since 2008. We started building BeatStars, I started building BeatStars on the weekends while I was working at InGrooves. I was a content development manager at InGrooves, signing artists and labels back in 2005 and '06 when no one was really thinking about digital, right? I'm getting on the phone with all these music entertainment lawyers and artists and saying, "Guys, you have to get on iTunes. You guys have to get on iTunes." You gotta be there, yeah. I promise you, in a couple years, this is gonna be the new— You'll see it, you'll see it. I know, and I was lucky enough to convince a few few awesome guys, and these guys are like my favorite guys. I convinced Royce Da 5'9", I convinced Killer Mike, I convinced Immortal Technique, I convinced Crooked I, I convinced Macklemore, we convinced Mac Miller, we convinced Too Short, we convinced you name it. Like, we went down the independent, like, you know, pipeline. Me and Ghazi, me and Ghazi back when we were working together.

You guys had Tech N9ne.

I mean, Tech N9ne is so cool. Tech N9ne, Tech N9ne.

Don't forget Tech N9ne.

I worked on his account, I worked on his account, and so, yeah, it was a fun time to see that transition. So while I was there, Wendy, while I was there, I also developed relationships with all the producers around these bigger artists too. So I started, you know, talking on the phone with, you know, Focus from Aftermath and Havoc of Mobb Deep, right? And started having conversations with Domingo Padilla, Domingo Padilla, you know, who's a legendary producer in my eyes, right? So I started having conversations with the producers that were powering the engine prior to the collapse, prior to the collapse of the music industry. When you really think about it, it was a full collapse.

It was a full-blown collapse.

Collapse, and they had to restructure their whole business models completely, and the people that were greatly affected were the music producers. The music producers no longer started getting massive advances, no longer started getting huge licensing fees in the industry, and so the guys who have Grammys and the guys—

and they weren't paid great to begin with, Abe.

You probably know better than me. Yeah, you probably know better than me.

The beats run— the production runs the industry, and these guys are the last to get paid, and it's— I didn't mean to interrupt you, please keep going.

No, no, you know better than me. Like, that's just too passionate. No, and, and that's another thing, and that's another thing, um, which I love to create a delineation between the beatstars economy and the music industry. And so that's another reason why I'm here, because I feel like there— we, we operate in separate universes. And, and, and so I have to, I have to give the full picture to you guys. I have to give the full picture to the industry, right? So, so it's my responsibility. So when you ask me, I'm like, of course, let's go. And yeah, please. So, so I'm talking to all these producers, and I'm, I'm I'm hearing their gripes, I'm understanding their challenges, I'm working at Ingrooves, I'm distributing albums. They're like, "Hey, this iTunes thing, you think there's ever gonna be one for us producers, right? Is there gonna be a digital outlet like a MySpace for us to do?" 'Cause right now we're slanging on MySpace, we're slanging on SoundClick, we're slanging on, you know, everywhere. But those guys weren't, those guys weren't. But the producers that were on the internet were on those very early social platforms like DMM.

Yes, the up-and-coming producers especially.

Yep, they were on dMusic, they were on mp3.com in the late '90s. I was there, I was buying beats. And so, but these guys were selling music, you know, digitally, but there was no real transaction happening. There was no license agreements, it was black market, right? It was all black market. And so, I saw that, and I saw the beats like really trending on these charts, on these platforms. I'm like, "Oh, okay, these beats are actually like a viable product." a viable commercial product. I mean, I was buying them in AOL chat rooms in '96, '97, and I was like, what is— yeah, what is this social stuff, right? What is the social stuff? So anyway, heard the gripes of these, these, these producers, and it, you know, my experience as a songwriter and, you know, working with Lease Beats, being able to travel the world, write for other people, perform, perform in front of the masses, like, I experienced all that off of Lease Beats. I experienced it all off of Leece Beats. It liberated me in my art, right? And so a kid that's coming up, that's living in Hayward, California, without a dollar to his fucking name, I had to figure out the most cost-effective way to explore my art. I thought accessibility, like, I started meeting with, you know, stupid-ass kid, right? I'm just trying, I don't know, I'm trying to figure out this industry. I start hitting up major producers, who are friends of mine now in the Bay Area, like EA Ski and Rick Rock and all these guys. And I'm like, yo, can I get a beat, man? Could I get a beat? And they're like, yo, it's gonna cost you like, you know, I'm not gonna say, but—

X amount of dollars.

Oh, a huge amount. And I'm like, yo, I don't even have a job. I'm 14 years old. Like, this is crazy. No budget. Yeah, this is everything. So it took me— so when I first got, you know, my first computer, that was the first thing I started looking for. It was like, where are people, where are people, where are musicians, where are they at? What chat rooms are they in? And so I was like super, super, super techie nerd. And so I started, you know, started experimenting. And it— the development that— the emotional development, the artistic development, for what it did to me personally when I was going through a real tough time in my life, was my therapy. And from kids— and kids in the hood, we don't go to therapy. Kids in the hood, we don't go to therapy. Grandma just smack you back in the back of your head and say, shut the fuck up and get back to it. Go do your homework. Go, go get, you know, stop fighting, you know. So it— therapy was— music was— music's therapy. Music's therapy. And so when I look— when I started building Beatstars, I didn't build it because I gave a fuck about the music industry. I didn't give a shit. I didn't care to know it. I didn't care to understand how it operated. All I cared about was, yo, I can make cheap songs that sound better than most of these, most of these Bay Area rappers in my area, you know. And these guys were buying crazy amounts of beats at huge prices, and I'm like, I'm gonna cheat the game. I was trying to cheat the game, right? I was just trying to cheat the game. I was trying to cheat the game. And so that That whole process was just, man, it was, um, it's, you know, it's crazy how sometimes, you know, I don't know if you're a believer or not, but, you know, there, there, we get put onto certain paths for a reason, you know. We get put onto certain paths for a reason. We, we put on certain journeys to, to experience because there's actually like a bigger purpose to help enlighten a whole group of people. Other people with your own experiences. So I went, I went through it, like I went through it to know, to be able to understand the landscape, what it is today, and what, you know, and what we're now doing for the industry. So, um, so yeah, I didn't care about like understanding the ins and outs of industry and like license agreements. I just wanted to create. And so I was like, I know there's millions of other kids out there in this world that really don't give a fuck about like the politics and all the other stuff. They just want to create.

That's any of that. They just want to make music.

It's just art, it's just, you know, it's just expression, it's our expression, it's our expression, it's in our DNA. So, it's like, before we even start thinking about the commercialization and all of this other stuff, we just want to say something, you know, we just want to say something, and what's the easiest way to say something, you know? And when you put, when you put a big price point in front of those kids, now you're closing the door on kids that have a vo— that, you know, you're closing the door.

That want to have a voice.

Want to have a voice.

And you can change the world.

And can change the world, and can change the world. So the industry completely shut this door on accessibility for so long. So I said, okay, well, I'm gonna create the most accessible, um, platform, and I'm gonna change the way the music industry operates.

You're gonna kick in the door.

Oh, I'm gonna kick in the door. I'm gonna fuck shit up. I'm gonna fuck shit up because, because I, I don't, I don't serve, I don't serve, uh, you know, I serve, I serve these kids. I serve these kids, right? And when I serve these kids, like, it's just the most rewarding thing in my life, you know, being able to see, being able to see, um, internet producers landing the most favorable publishing deals ever in the history of music now, being able to see, being able to see music producers create, generating a living. Doesn't matter on what planet they're on, it doesn't matter where they live and what, and in what, like, economic condition that they're in, they're making a living, they're feeding their families. So when I hear anti-leasing or, you know, anti-internet, and I'm like, yo, you're spitting on those kids' face that are feeding their families in Saigon, Vietnam, and in Amsterdam, and in South Africa, and then Nigeria, and in Seoul, South Korea. Like, we're basically spitting on those kids' hunger, their drive, their entrepreneurship, their creative energy. And so I like to take these opportunities because it's like, yo, we don't exist with y'all. We do not exist with y'all. We're not serving y'all. Even though now, now in today's day, there's no artist that's relevant today that didn't make it to what they are without leasing beats. Tory Lanez, Lil Pump, A Boogie, uh, uh, you, all the stars, Pop Smoke. Pop Smoke's whole album is all internet beats. Pop Smoke's whole album. Like Juice WRLD, you name it, like— It's accessibility. The biggest stars of today were developed because they had access to cheap and efficient production and an easy licensing process, and it was all automated, and it was technology-driven. And they— I almost will guarantee it, you know, their development process would not have accelerated at this pace if we were still talking about, pre-BeatStars age, right? If we're still talking about the industry pre-BeatStars, you know? So, yeah, so anyway, so like, those things is what like really, you know, really drives me to where I am today. And the beautiful part about it is, you know, BeatStars, you know, we're not digging in people's pockets, we're not taking a percentage of our producers' royalties, we're not taking a percentage of ownership, we're not, they're getting paid, we're the first digital company to pass through 100% of revenue directly to each creator's merchant accounts. Like, when a producer—

You started doing that?

No, no, I'm just saying, like, when a producer's— Seriously? No, of course.

'Cause you could have, you could have taken a cut.

Let's be real. Of course, 100%, because that's not my mission.

I love that.

And so, you know, we got kids right now making transactions right now, getting payments dropped to their PayPal, payments dropped to their Stripe accounts right now that they can access funds. We have kids making $60,000 a month selling beats on BeatStars, kids.

How much did you pay out this year? Because it blew my mind when you told me that.

We're on pace to do like $60 million, like $60 million this year.

How amazing is that?

It's beautiful. And you know what's even more beautiful about it is that $60 million never passed through BeatStars, was never touched by us, it went directly to all of our creators.

That's so amazing.

They built their businesses. So when we talk to our creators, Wendy Day, when we like we, you know, educate and we empower. We're not— these guys are entrepreneurs. These guys, we want to build a gang of bosses, right? We want to build a gang of bosses that understand business, leverage, investment, money, management, management, like marketing, like everything, every aspect. They can create a self-sustainable business just by learning a few tricks of the trade. And if we can encompass that, if we can like create the educational material and build the economy around it, the platform around it, and empower folks, man, listen, I could die today, I could die tomorrow, and God will, you know, hopefully take me in, you know.

I think he will, or she, we don't know.

I, you know, being a Palestinian, right, coming from Palestine, family of refugees, right, coming to this country with nothing, you know, ownership.

Are you first generation?

Yeah, first generation, first generation, dude. Awesome. And so ownership is big for me because it was taken, it was taken away from us, taken away, you know what I mean? So it was taken away from us. So like, holding on to the things that you worked hard for and build is really important. And so, um, I always— I mean, I, I mean, you could probably, you know, you could probably say that Beatstars is probably one of the most centralized platforms of successful Black businesses in America too. Thousands of Black businesses on BeatStars are, you know, changing the game, you know? And so I'm still proud of the shit I'm doing, right? But at the same time, I'm so proud of these kids. These kids are busting their ass, man. They're bending the software, they're changing the music industry sound. They're the real-time streets, right?

They're the leaders.

Yes, man, it's crazy. The producers have so much influence and so much like impact and contribution to the music industry right now. It is just so crazy. It's so crazy. And so anyway, I'd love to hear the, the questions from you that you want clarity on, because yes, I could, I could tell this story all day, but you know, I just want to— yeah, that's it. I just want to get that out of the way so you understand from what standpoint like the business was built on.

And I love that because I did not know any of that. I've, I've read articles about you but I haven't heard it like from you, so I really, I really appreciate that. I also didn't know you were Palestinian, which is really awesome.

Thank you.

Yes. So can you, can you explain least beats? Can you explain what they are, why they exist, and where they came from?

Yeah, yeah. So let me, let me, let me— I, it came from people like me that couldn't afford high production, and so we started haggling on the internet. We started haggling on the internet, and we started, you know, telling producers, yo, just give me the MP3, mail me a CD of the WAV file, and, you know, you can keep selling it, I don't care, you know, just give me a cheap-ass price, you know. Right, make it affordable. Make it affordable, and that's where it all kind of stemmed from. So leasing beats, the technical word is selling production music non-exclusively. So it's a non-exclusive license, okay? Meaning, guys, if you like, really just simple terms, you're treating your beats like a product inside of Amazon. You're not just selling one version to one licensee, right? That one person that is licensing the music. You're actually democratizing the creative process and allowing thousands or millions of artists, if they want to, be able to have access to that same piece of production. And so what that means is you can sell your beats, guys, to multiple, multiple people, and that product still stays in your store. There are beats on BeatStars that have generated, just the beat alone, in non-exclusive licenses, uh, the highest— I think the highest, um, earning non-exclusive license on BeatStars is a beat that sold close to $300,000 in total, in total revenue. In total revenue. There is no way in hell, no way in hell, that any, any, any label or music company is going to pay you $300,000 for one beat. Correct, right? So automatically you've built, you know, so what, what, what I, what I call these non-exclusive licenses, I call them every time it sells, you're building equity. You're building equity on this product. This product is now a standalone business. This beat it's its own, it has its own economy now. This beat is its own business, it's its own intellectual property, and it has other factors of business attached to it. So now it has equity, has value, where now we're not, now that value scales, scales up and down. So if I'm a young producer that hasn't sold a lot of beats yet, you know, the value of my production probably, you know, the lifetime value is not worth as much as a kid that's sold $300,000 worth of the same beat, right? And so there's room, that's why it's so, the scale is so beautiful on BeatStars, is that there's room, there's entry points for people that just wanna get started, just wanna get people to pay $10, $20, $30 to help reinvest back into their craft, their career. And those little sales, those little transactions, what it does for a producer's confidence, and commitment is, it's just so huge. We see it every day. We see posts every day on our Twitter of kids like, oh, I made my first sale on BeatStars. Yes, I can do this. I could do this. I could do this. But Wendy, you know, in this, in this world that we live in where we're all introverts, right, and everyone's so introverted, and we're, you know, we're, we're especially me, I'm saying we're stuck in these homes, right? We're not seeing, especially now during the pandemic, even more, even more. We're not, we're not having human encourage, we're not encouraging each other, we don't see each other, so we're not encouraging each other. We're not interested, it's weird, we're not interested in our friends and sometimes in our family. Hold on, sorry. Sure. Turn my phone off. So sometimes, you know, our friends and family, especially in these hard times, you know, they're too occupied with trying to figure out their own lives, their own lives, right? Like to think about, to think about like trying to push you and encourage you. So these little— especially in America, these little milestones, especially in this capitalistic society that we live in, right, where we— which is totally wrong. I wish, which I wish people would not, you know, you know, measure their success or measure their worth because of how much money they've made, you know. But, um, I'm trying to open this thing. Okay, but, but, but even in this world, in this digital world where everything's digital, a Venmo, a PayPal, so these little, these little These little, like, you know, milestones, you know, help producers push and continue to, like, work at their craft and make more music and develop and learn how to mix and learn how to sound design. And it's a long process. Like, the music produced— being a successful music producer or just as a creator alone without selling music, like, you need a few years. Like, there's a few years of, like, ironing that sword, you know?

Right.

You know, and so if you, if you, you come out the gate and you don't, you're not making any money, and now you're measuring whether you should continue, whether you should keep investing in your, in your art, then, you know, that, that hurts the, that hurts the process. So a lot of producers, these little, these little transactions just really wins.

Yes, wins.

These little wins is what really, really, um, you know, helps them believe that they can be a successful business person. Right? And in so many cases, it does become that. It does become that. So now you've got these non-exclusive licenses. Producers are now selling production music, right? These beats, these full compositions, just minus the vocal now, right? And they're licensing non-exclusively, and they're giving each customer, each artist, each songwriter, each licensee, the opportunity to create their own version of, of, of a master, their own derivative, their own derivative version, right, of, of this math. They're, they're allowed to create another master. They're allowed to create multiple masters. So, and they're allowed to, and they have rights to distribute, and they have, they have rights to monetize, and they have rights to, you know, do a lot of things depending on, you know, the, the license agreement that— yeah, depending on what the, what the producer has set forth, which we give our producers a a lot of flexibility in customizing and, you know, using their own agreements and stuff like that. So you might get a producer that's a little bit more lenient on the rights, that's, you know, on distribution rights. But in never, in no case, in no case ever, in no case ever are producers relinquishing all ownership of their production to the recording artist, even if it is like a $20 or $30 license, right? And they're never giving up publishing. Ever. Never, never. And so, yeah, so that's the model, you know, that's the model. It's not for everyone, right? But like we were talking about earlier, like accessibility, accessibility, probability, probability. If you're licensing one beat to one artist, that's the life cycle of that production you made lives and dies with that dude. Or a girl, that singer or songwriter, right? Lives and dies. And you know how hard it is to get a massive hit in today's world, right?

It's like winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning.

So, so if it's like winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning, wouldn't you like to have more tickets in the game? Wouldn't you like to have more lottery tickets?

Well, I would like to not play that game. I would like to not— I would like to not try to hit the lottery. I'd rather—

but they're not trying. Listen, listen, they're not even trying to hit the lottery. Exactly, right? Young Keough, Young Keough, who produced Old Town Road, was not trying to hit the lottery, right? You know, he was like, yeah, Young Keough was making a great living selling beats on BeatStars prior to Old Town Road, right? Prior to Old Town Road. He didn't create music to put it on BeatStars for the, for the thought like, I want to hit the lottery.

It's—

they're hitting these multiple times now on BeatStars, right? All these hit records are being made. Like, I just heard a story of a similar Old Town Road story in China. I was talking to some big executives, some big executives in China, and they're like, Abe, didn't you hear? I'm like, no, I have no idea. He's like, yeah, there was all this press and all these big stories about BeatStars and how this artist in China purchased the beat and became the most viral hit in the Chinese.

That's so awesome.

I'm still trying to find out what song, what's the name of the song, but that's awesome. But you're seeing that replicate, uh, same thing with PNL Music in France, like their hits were all bought on BeatStars. Same thing with multiple artists in Germany, same thing in the UK, you name it, like a lot, Vietnam, Thailand, a lot of the biggest hits, a lot of the biggest hits across the world are being sourced on BeatStars. So now it's like, we're not, we're contributing to the economy without really designing our product for it, right? We didn't design it for, for, you know, for that.

Exactly.

We just designed it for collaboration, you know.

So what happens What happens with an, like, an Old Town Road? What happens if an artist buys, excuse me, leases a beat and then it goes viral and they need to come back? How does that process work?

Yeah, so there was definitely another conversation, like, with the labels and publishers for, with Young Thug for Old Town Road. I don't know the exact details, I was not part of that, but there was another transaction and agreement that happened outside, after the non-exclusive license was created.

So they just renegotiate, basically?

They renegotiate, yeah, they renegotiated, but at the same time, um, those artists that license that production, um, non-exclusively of that same beat, um, have all their rights in the world to continue—

that's what I was going to ask you—

continue fulfilling, could continue fulfilling the agreement made between the, the writer, the artist, and the producer.

—Got it.

—But, Wendy, it's like, it's okay. Why not? Let, like, those kids are not going to make another Old Town Road, those, you know, so it's like, it's really like a marathon. It's like, it's kind of like a race to who, it's kind of competitive to like, for these artists that come on Beastars, like, who can make the best song from this? And if I make the best song, if you're really the best artist, and you really want to be this superstar, then go make the best song with the beat. Prove it, prove it to us, right? And so whoever shows and proves and does the work and creates the best song, like, those other licenses don't mean shit to him. He doesn't give a fuck. Like, who cares, right? Who cares that those beats are also living with some other smaller artists with 1,000 plays, right? With 1,000 plays on SoundCloud. Like, who gives a fuck? At the end of the day, who cares? This kid has, their lives, both of their lives have completely changed because, because, because of this, this one song. Because of one beat. One beat. One beat. Exactly. So, so, um, that's, that's my, you know, that's my, that's my, like, I'm always about, um, openness, transparency, independence, building, building, building, building, like really building structure, infrastructure for yourself, you know, building equity, building equity. And that's that, you know, old immigrant, you know, like old immigrant mentality, you know, from my family passed on to me with small business, you know. I love that. You know, so, yeah, I love that.

So what's next for Beatstars?

You know, we're— we just announced— we just announced distribution. Congratulations. Thank you, thank you, but I have bigger plans for distribution. The first version of what you see right now is just, I'm just testing the water a little bit. Beautiful. I have, because like, there's so many other damn distributors out there, like, why do I need to enter into the space, right? But I'll keep it real though, Wendy Day, I'm gonna keep it real. We've been making these distributors rich for a few years now on BeatStars because all these songs, over 6 to 8 million songs are being made a year on BeatStars. It's beautiful. So, so these distributors kind of, kind of, kind of been eating off of our hard work, just to keep, keep it real, from the hip. And you know how big hip-hop is. Yes, we are hip-hop, we are hip-hop. So these guys have been eating all of our hard work. I think it's time, you know, you know, selfishly as a competitive entrepreneur, I'm like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you guys not— you guys can't keep eating off of our shit. So we dropped distribution, but, you know, they got something, you know, the industry's got something coming for it when I release, when we release as a team, you know, Phase 2. Phase 2.

Abe, is there a market, if I'm a producer, is there a market for just for me to distribute just my music without having lyrics on it?

Oh my gosh, Wendy Day, I'm so happy you answered that question. Yes, yes, yes. Oh my gosh, if you, if you If you, uh, go on Spotify, if you go, um, on Apple Music and Amazon, some of them, the highest retention playlists, the most, some of the most returned visited playlists on these, on these services are instrumental, are instrumental playlists. Yes, I listen to them a lot. Me too, me too. I love listening, just chill lo-fi and just like, just get to work. I can't, I can't work when you're working, right? Yes.

It's easy when I'm trying to sleep because if there's lyrics, I listen. If there's not lyrics, it's just relaxing, and my brain can kind of download.

I love hearing you say that. I love hearing you say that because, you know, we want to educate producers to start, um, considering themselves artists. You know, you guys are artists.

Like, they're brands. Yes, you guys are brands, man.

You guys are brands. You're, you know, these, you know, they're, they're, there's— I've seen, I've seen producers on our platform that have beats on Spotify that have like 20, 30 million plays, just their beat, just the beat, just to be, you know. That's wonderful. It's amazing. So it's just another way to tell our community like, yo, this is another source of revenue from you for your, for your music. This is like, this is, this is get— I know your product lives on BeatStars, but now let's, let's, let's put it, expand it, let's put it at Walmart, let's put it at Amazon. Like, let's, like, when you think small business, like the distribution, distribution of product, get your Get it out there, get it out there. And, and, and it's not hurting your online licensing businesses because that's— those are just streams. No one's downloading those files and downloading, downloading the studio files and stuff. So it's, if anything, it's just helping more people discover your music and probably come to your BeatStars store.

And as a producer, it's showing you what beats are most popular. And as somebody that I'm putting on my consultation hat now, as somebody that consults independent labels, if I know that there's a beat that's been downloaded, that's been listened to 60 million times, and a beat that's only been listened to 60,000 times, I'd rather put the money behind the 60 million, 'cause it tells me what sound is popular with actual fans. Yeah, yeah.

And then Wendy, another thing, now, if you're built, it's another place to build up equity. So that kid that put up the beat with 20 million plays on there. Now, when it comes to a major label to come license that production for their next, for their new artist, what do you think, what do you think that's gonna be worth now?

A lot, because they've got the data and the research to back it up. And as a producer, if I'm making 1,000 beats and they're all over the place, right, I've got trap beats, I've got club beats, I've got EDM beats, I've got all different kinds of beats, and I see that my up-tempo music or my more emo music is doing well, I'm gonna make more of the beats that people are reacting to because it means that's what I'm better at. And it's a way for me to test the market and become really fluent in a certain lane faster.

Right, right. So I like to reference the restaurant again. We used to license beats from chefs' signature. Dishes, right? We used to license in the old days. It still happens, still happens. But today and going forward, these producers are cooks now. These producers are cooks. They're not, they're not chefs. They can be chefs. They can become chefs. They're chameleons. They're chameleons, but they're cooking up for what is on demand, for what, what your restaurant people, uh, want from you, what your customers want from you, and what the, what the masses want from you. So you're, you're catering, you're curating content that fits across different platforms, right? Just like when we market on Instagram, or when we market on Facebook, or when we market on YouTube, different content is curated and crafted differently for each platform. So now when you're cooking up for Spotify, and you're cooking up for that specific trap playlist or that lo-fi playlist, right, you're trying to cook for those places, now you have to be, you know, you have to be flexible, you have to be chameleon. And these producers now, the ones, These young— we have like 11, 12-year-olds selling beats on BeatStars, and somebody— and somebody's like young, and some of these young kids, like, they'll make a reggaetón beat, they'll make a boom bap beat. Wendy, I'm telling you, boom bap is coming back. Is it? Yes. Thank you.

I love boom bap.

It's coming back, but it's, it's sprinkled with kind of today's lo-fi. It has to be. It's sprinkled with today's lo-fi, and it's mixed. It's mixed so much better than the old rusty crusty kind of, not crud, but like raw boom bap. Now it's like made for the ears.

Smooth.

Smooth, smooth. So that's happening a lot right now. Abe, you can see the trends. Oh, all the time, all the time.

That's so awesome.

Before lo-fi was even a, before lo-fi, anyone was even saying anything about lo-fi, like 6, 7 years ago, we were bumping that stuff in the office all day, you know, we were, you know, right? So yeah, same thing, same thing with, um, you know, the trap as well, you know, with the trap sound. I'm still— I still see— ah man, it's really tough because I still see producers thinking that trap is the only market that licenses beats, or that— or like it's the biggest market. And so they're all trying to kind of make similar trap sounds, and I'm still seeing a lot of it, but I am seeing a little bit of a decrease actually in Really? Percentage-wise, percentage-wise, from a market, from a market share, we're starting to see a lot more worldly music come on board. Starting to see a lot more producers making sounds for a specific, like, country, like India for music, or, you know, and or Italy, or even Italy jazz, you know, you're starting to see, you're starting to see like a whole eclectic creator group. It's awesome, it's awesome. But yeah, what I, like you said, I tell producers, you know, Don't put yourself in just one box, man. You guys got that software, you could do anything in that software.

Yes, and talent is talent no matter what.

Doesn't matter. You tell any producer, go listen to another genre of music, go study that for like a week, they're gonna come back and bring their own like flair to that, their own flavor to it. Yup, it's gonna be crazy.

Is there ever a time where someone can come from BeatStars and work with an artist in person?

I think connecting happens all the time on BeatStars because we have like, you know, direct messaging and commenting and all that kind of stuff. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, so we have social media elements too, so you can repost tracks, like tracks, playlist music, make your own playlist, you know, A&Rs make playlists on there all the time, managers do, so it's like, you could sell services, so like if you're an engineer and you want to sell mixing services, mastering services, all done on BeatStars. You can, like, each individual producer can sell memberships. So if they wanted to bundle a bunch of beats or a bunch of sound kits, that's another thing. We've been selling sound kits for many, many years. So you can bundle services, bundle sound kits, bundle content, create a recurring monthly membership for yourself that still they process on their side. So yeah, we give full flexibility of all the, of all types of like services and products where, you know, a DJ can go in there and make a living with, you know, with work, or an engineer can, or a songwriter can sell songwriter services. We see that all the time. We see singers and songwriters adding hooks to beats on BeatStars and collaborating. Collaborating. Yep, they collaborate. And with BeatStars in 2008, no one was doing this. We offered the first public platform that allowed a producer to share revenue on one track with up to 10 people. And we did all of the, at the point of transaction, spread the money to everyone's accounts, and there was no funny business. Everyone got their money, everyone got their licenses, and, and so, um, collaborating is really, really big. So Wendy Day, like, if we made something together, you know, we could split 50/50, we could, you know, we could set percentages. You can give, right, you can give your manager a percentage, you can, you can give your label a percentage, whatever, you know. So it's like, it's, we just thought of like all the different ways that our community is, is doing business online and just try to, try to just, you know, serve them, you know.

I love that. And I see you have a deal with Sony ATV as well on the publishing side so that you can pass it through to your, to your, um, clients. I don't know the right word. Yeah, yeah. So pass it through to your community.

Yeah, yeah. So, so, um, did a deal with Sony ATV. We had, we had 3 deals on the table. Actually, no, more. We had like 5. We had like 5 deals, all the majors and a couple of those— I was gonna say, I'm surprised it was only 5. Yeah, it was like all the majors, all the majors, and a couple of like the major indies, you know, right?

And if I was Songtrust, I would have been all over you.

Shout out to Songtrust. But, you know, so we, you know, We keep listening to the community and we're like, what are you guys' wants?

Like, what do you need?

Right, what do you need? And so one of the things over the years we've always heard was like, we want real opportunities, like real opportunities to be able to get in the studio with one of the major artists, or be able to communicate with one of some of these bigger artists and like pitch beats to them. And so we heard that our producers wanted to grow outside of just like just, you know, just selling online and they wanted to collaborate. And, you know, we've signed a bunch of producers to our joint venture with Sony ATV, but it's crazy to even think because years ago I was knocking on all these guys' doors, all of the publishers, like, yo guys, come on, like, this is where music's being made now. There's new copyrights being here during, you know, this in mass, like, let's do something, let's do something, and no one really understood it, and I think when Old Town Road happened, that just, that just retriggered a lot of those old conversations I had with those folks, and—

It made it real, Abe, it made it real.

I mean, when you go to, when the biggest song in almost the history of music is made online, like, now you gotta listen. Yes. Now you gotta listen, so, so we were able to, out of all of them, we were able to negotiate a deal that was so, it's so artist-friendly, so producer-friendly that, um, the others weren't, weren't willing to do. And that's, that mattered more to us than everything. We were, we were never going to do like a publishing deal where a publisher made us offer a publishing service on BeatStars that was like long-term, 3 years, 5 years, you know. Our deals are, you know, 1 year, 1 year deals.

Wow.

Yeah, one year. You know, that's Sony. That's never happened with Sony ATV. That's unheard of. And we're offering it en masse, en masse, right? En masse to all the creators, you know. And so, so, um, and it's, it's, it's an 80/20 deal. It's an 80/20 deal, super favorable to— they're all admin deals. We've done a couple co-pub with some guys that have some hit records that were made on B-Stars, which, which, which are cool. And it's fun. And when we'll be launching a full service publishing portal that we built on our side, technology side, that's connected with the Sony ATV admin system. Awesome. We'll be launching that in a couple weeks, so every single creator, writer, producer, anyone can go on BeatStars, sign up for a publishing administration deal, and we can go collect on behalf of you. Outstanding. It's gonna be cool, and it's never been done, never been done for, like, from the major perspective to you know, to the online world. Yeah.

Is there, is there an educational component at BeatStars? Like, if I'm a brand new producer, is there a way for me to get better honing my craft other than just sitting at my computer and making beats?

You know, we focus mostly on business education, more, more than the creator education, because there are so many amazing, um, educators on YouTube like Busyworks Beats, right? And like a bunch of these other, um, channels that, um, are really like teaching producers, entry-level producers, how to make music in FL or Logic. I mean, there's tons of channels. There's like, there's, there's a, there's a ton of professionals doing that, right? And so we thought, we don't need to focus on that. There's so many resources So many resources to learn how to make music on, on YouTube, and so many resources to really develop your craft. We told people what are we good at. We're good at the business. Business. We're going to the business part. So we'll teach you how to market, teach you how to advertise, teach you how to brand yourself, teach you how to distribute music, education on, on just music, music industry stuff. We, we usually have a yearly, um, um, conference in Atlanta at A3C called the BeatStars Summit where we panels and stuff like that. We've been doing that for the last few years with A3C.

Of course, this year it's really awesome, by the way.

It's, uh, it's all fucked up this year, man. This year's fucked up, man.

This year is— this year— this year's a wrap.

This year's a fucking wrap. Can we just erase this shit? Like, just wake up?

But yeah, I don't want to erase it because so many people have learned so much from it, like about life. Like, this was our life lesson year. Oh, man.

For me, anyway. 2020 vision. Yes! 2020 vision. Yup, yup. It's— but it's like, you know, yeah, I think this year made a lot of folks stronger, stronger. You know, it's going to, whether you like it or not. You're going to have to build up some strength, you know? I think we were a little spoiled prior to this. You know, we're a little spoiled prior to this. But yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, traveling and seeing people and doing this and doing that. And that's just— oh, my God. And my whole life was work. Like, I— All work.

You know, like, I— my personal life just always took a back seat until March, and then it came to a screeching halt, and I had to, like, focus on me, and that was weird.

For real, for real. And, but, you know, but still, like, you know, you're seeing, like, major, major restaurants and companies go, um, you know, file retail bankruptcy. It's— so many people are hurting, man, and, and it's, it's just, it's crazy. My family members have lost their businesses, their jobs, and I'm here, even my sister, you know, but it's like, this is the effect, this is the effect, and you know, this is a time to like support each other and be there for each other right now, so.

And to learn how to pivot.

Learn how to pivot.

And you've built a company on pivoting.

Oh, my whole life has been pivot, because I had to do it with nothing. Yes. You know? Yes. Had to scrape around, you know, had to scrape around, so. We've seen a really, really huge uptick in activity since COVID has begun. Yes, I'm sure you have. Almost, almost like double in revenue, you know.

And I'll bet so many producers have like really honed their skills and gotten so much better because they've had the time to devote to it.

True, true. Yeah, so a lot of producers who were, a lot of producers who were kind of like on the fence of building an online business are, you know, a lot of guys who have been laid off and furloughed from their jobs, they're like 'Yo, I make beats though, so what can I do? What can I do with this product?' Right? And so a lot of people are jumping in, and it's beautiful because we're seeing guys fully jump in who never really did. And during, from the beginning of quarantine of March, right now they're making, they're making more than what they were making at their jobs. Isn't that amazing? It's awesome, man. Freedom, freedom, Wendy Day. That's what it's all about.

Freedom and the ability to create. It's one thing to have freedom you know, selling real estate or widgets on Amazon, but it's another thing to have freedom when you can create music and it's your passion and your dream.

There's nothing— it's the most depressing thing to me, it's the saddest thing to me to see a kid with amazing talent never explore his, his, his talent, you know, never, never expand on it. It's the saddest thing. It's like seeing an NBA player from your hood, well, not even an NBA player, but the kid from your hood, the best basketball player, dominate everything, was not given an opportunity to showcase his talent. Right? Not give an opportunity to, you know, show the world what his legacy is, you know?

I agree. Abe, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate you.

Wendy Day, thank you for having me. I'm sorry, you know, I'm crazy and passionate about this, this whole thing.

I love that you are. This is exactly what I needed for the folks that follow me to hear, and I'm so thankful you agreed to do this.

Thanks, Wendy. I appreciate you taking the time. We're, we're in the business of people. So, let's rid our minds of like the industry and all the rules and all the politics and let's just help people. That's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. Yep. Abe, thank you. All right, Wendy Day, take care. Take care. Love.