The Key to Creating Leverage | No Standing Zone Ep.7

So, um, you know, this is my favorite thing that I do all week because really what I get to do is sit around and talk to my friends and find out how they're doing, and I get to hear their history. And this is one of my favorite people in the world, so I'm so happy to be doing this one. Brandman Sean, how are you?

Wendy Day, what's up?

I think that we have now officially interviewed each other, right?

Yes, this is— it's nice to be on this side. I don't even know what's coming. I know, right?

But the cool thing is you know me and you trust me, so you know it's not going to be some crazy shit.

Exactly.

But this is awesome. So you are a person that I discovered online, and I found and still find that we're in the same vein. Like, you really love sharing information with artists and you're really artist-friendly. And there's so few of us out here. And you and I have been doing it. You were doing it before me. You and I have been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it in real life longer than you, but you've been doing it online longer than me. And man, I used to just sit there and watch you like, oh my God, this is awesome. Like, here's somebody that thinks the way that I think and just wants to help people and It— we're rare and amazing, and thank you for being you.

Oh man, no problem, no problem.

This is so—

what? I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I was just saying it's definitely just me being me. I wasn't trying at all when I first started.

I love that. And I remember the first time we sat down at a Starbucks, you said that to me, like, I don't know why I'm doing this, but I'm doing it. I don't know what comes next, but I'm just going. Yeah. And you have completely found your way. So how did you get started? Like, what, what was your impetus? Because I don't think you started in the music business.

No, not at all. Um, I came from more of the tech and startup space to begin. Uh, always saw myself in that vein. Um, always saw myself as an entrepreneur just looking for the idea that would allow me to live and breathe that out. Um, so after college, I was just still in that space, but I was helping my homies on the side who— they were in the music or creative space in general. So I always tell people, um, that we had this, this group, this collective, and it consisted of not only artists but also DJs. Also a guy by the name of Young Juice Guy, um, who sold juices and his juices were really dope. They were like anime themed and man, he, he made juices like, I don't know, man, they, they would be in the store, the most bougiest level of quality, but he was just selling them at parties, right? But he actually took it seriously like a crafts person, which was dope. And then another guy named Grilled Cheese Poppy, um, who is now like a chef.

Yeah.

Hey man, that was definitely my favorite food back then. I can't do it no more. I can't allow myself to do it. Anymore. But there were just these really interesting, um, you know, creatives that I was working with. And I always saw myself as a creative, but I always was like behind the scenes. Like, I, I've done visual art and was in classes and, and written film and all that, that stuff. But I have always just kind of been more of a chill person, and I was just helping on the side because I never saw creative as a career. And not like I actively thought, hey, I can't do that. It just never occurred to me. Music, any type of creative, like I just never thought about it, right? So I was just helping them because, you know, one, we were cool. And then two, you know, my homie, the one I connected with first when we worked at this restaurant called Tin Drum named Josh, he like pulled me in and knew I had like a business mind as well. So I would help construct everything. Next thing you know, it was like my turn because I was helping everybody else's event. They're like, hey, Sean, it's your turn, you know, you're a part of it.

What do you want to do?

I was like, huh, I never thought about that. I never thought it would be my turn, right? I didn't do anything. So little did you know, little did I know, I, you know, it wasn't for that, I, I would not be here, um, because doing that, I looked at it as, well, in terms of how I think from a creative canvas standpoint, what would I want to see? It's weird that I have a predisposition to do something that businesses and marketing people constantly encourage, but it doesn't come from the same place, which was like, what do I want to see that's not there and what need can I serve? Right. So, like, my festival that I ended up starting because of that, it was one, there's these spaces that I would be in, in college, going to these clubs, and it would just be like, I'm tired of this. I really am just standing here rubbing up against people. So then I started going to these artsy events and the artsy side of things. It was like, to me, the exact same energy, except it was like art on the wall. It just looked a little bit different. People dress different. Everybody swears they're so different than everybody else, but to me, they're all like the same people. We're all the same. Like, most of them are the same people. And that's— I've, I've been in so many different pockets in life and always found myself like an insider/outsider no matter where I go. Um, so I looked at it as like, well, they already have these things done, so I don't want to create something that I feel like is doing a good job. So I'm really only going to move into a space typically, um, that I feel like no one's doing a good job here. Otherwi— I'd rather just promote the thing that's already dope, right? And just help that, right?

And help that grow.

It was literally how I even thought and started my channel. So, but I, I created the festival, um, one, to like help create a platform for those guys, um, and also to, to serve the need of what I wanted to do. Like, how could I stimulate myself? Like, make it in— where would I want to go? So it was this indoor festival concept, um, and on the creative side, the thought process was, how can I stimulate everybody, right? Like, in the same way I would want to be stimulated. Like, if I get bored I don't want to have to leave. I want to go to another room, right, and just experience a different vibe, right? And there were so many different rooms. I end up renting out this house that was like— not a house, a school that was like 1920s or something like that. And it's crazy that I even did that. I had like no money, but the opportunity— this, it was just the opportunity. Like, it, it worked out, right?

So much alike.

Like, like, I don't know how I would do that now, and I have way more money now than I did then. It was just— it just happened.

It just— all the stars aligned.

All the stars aligned. And it's actually knocked down now. I hate it because it was like really unique architecture. So when— what people think about when they think school, it's not that. It's like older architecture, more European inspired. Um, it was in East Atlanta. And it was actually right behind some other building that apparently used to be like some kind of jail or whatever. That was beautiful. It was also be— like, in terms of architecture, I guess they just— everything looked good back then. It didn't matter who it was for, I guess, right? Yes. So running out the entire building and, and had this entire experience. The way I thought about it was very much so user experience. So my through line is product and marketing, all right? I'm not like hardcore product and hardcore marketing without any consideration of the other, because to me it's hard for me to separate them. It's like the same thing happening in different places, which is like, what is the person's journey, all right? And what is their experience? Because every touch point is building your reputation or taking away from it, right?

One or the other. Yes, sir.

That's— it's just like that simple. So when I thought about little things of like, when do they come in, what does the entrance look like, and then how are the rooms set up. Like, one room, like, it was the outdoor room. It was inside, but, you know, before adding grass everywhere on the inside was a thing, right? On the ground and vines hanging from the ceiling. And we would have the artsy neo-soul acts perform there. Then it was another room that was like lit You know what I mean? And we call it that room because there was an episode of this show called Adventure Time that was like a party. It was like this episode in the belly of a big old bear, and it was a character called Party Pat. So it was like lit, technical, techno type vibes, and people dancing and smoke everywhere. Then it was like an underground, uh, dark—

I want to come here and shoot content.

Yeah, you said what?

I want to come here and shoot content for my artist.

It was actually great. It would have been amazing for that. I didn't, um, we didn't think about it like that at the time.

Of course, because we didn't have— it wasn't— this was before content, right?

It was, it was literally like that. And if you look at— so there was another room that was, uh, like a high-end museum, right? White, all white walls, had all the visual artists. So in this mind, I'm not still not in the music industry, right? This is just arts.

Well, visual.

Yeah, all different types, right? We have artists here, we have visual art, like music artists, visual artists, uh, other different forms of artists, like everything in between, and people who are building merch and crafts. And like, all of it was, was there.

And grilled cheese and, and, and juices.

Yeah, all of it, right? And then, um, this is great. And then even thinking down to all these little details, like there was a surprise at the end of the night, right? So we, we opened a couple of rooms, all right? We let everybody flood in. There's a thin hallway, and now they starting to experience all these different rooms. And oh, Hey, guess what guys? There's a downstairs in the basement. That's where we're having like the, the lit Travis Scott type energy, smoking, it's red lighting everywhere, right? That's what's happening there. Then 11 o'clock comes, call everybody into the hallway. Yo, yo, yo, everybody to the hallway, everybody to the hallway. As many people as we can get. And then every, you know, it's school, so hallways aren't like huge and it's long. And at the end of the hallway there's these doors. So then we open up the doors, smoke comes out, they start seeing floating things and lights everywhere. And we had like a surprise glow party at the event, right? So they come in, then there's a bigger stage, way bigger, like a full-blown auditorium. And that— now we have like the final performances and glow party. And the cool thing about that was they had no idea, like the people at the event, they already came And they were elated. This is like the best event ever. But then we're going to take it to another level with another surprise, right? And that was like all thinking about user experience.

Exactly.

I can get into so many details, but I repeated similar ideas of it all the way to the last one, something I didn't get to do. So we were going to surprise people and open up and actually do like laser tag. That just ended up being like $500 too much. The budget was like tight, man. Of course.

Course it was.

It was like me and my— like, the only people funding it was me and my, um, homie Josh, who worked at— I think he was working at Domino's at that time or whatever. And I didn't have a job most of the— most of these. This was like— I don't even know. Was your job kind of the first one? It was because I had just quit. That was my other job. But like, I— the way I approached that and marketed all of it is really the baseline from a lot of my experience and understanding on such a deep level, because I took what I understood from like tech. If you go to a website, what is the user experience, right?

Right.

You have the product. Once you're over there, what is the experience? What are people going through? How quickly can you, um, help them stick to the platform, right? In a real world event, um, fashion. And then the marketing was a whole nother story. Never paid a dime for the marketing for that, but it just was so dope. People kept wanting me to do it.

Yeah. Because it's just different and cool.

It was different, it was cool. A lot of people stole from it. I, I, I, I'm never gonna like go too hard on this, but the— a lot of the artistic culture, or the— a lot of the types of events and format like were inspired from that, from and by people who will never— and people will never— people will never give the credit. But it was a lot going on at that time. I'll just say that it was a lot going— no one had did the multi-rooms or in the, in the way that we were doing it. Um, like that, especially to that level before that. But, you know, I, I'm aware of some of the names that, that found out are over there, and I never know. And I, and I was behind the scenes. I wasn't like a guy— it's not like people were following me. It wasn't until like the late in the second or third that people even find— started to find out that, like, about me at all. They were going to my friends and saying, yo, man, can I get onto your event? And they'll be like, that's Sean event. They'll be like, who's Sean, right? You know, because I was like, you know, me, I never cared about, um, being in front of the scenes. But because of that music, you know, the artists were like, how can I get on the platform? And then how can I get advice? I see how you're marketing. And then now it starts to get bigger and bigger and bubble, and you know, and the production cost increases, all this stuff. And which, that's a— I'll get into get to that. Um, that ends up leading to me like starting a YouTube channel just to give advice so I don't have to talk to a lot about everybody because I talk to them one-on-one. Yeah, I didn't, um, you know, I'd be called introverted, right? So just like, I remember my now wife, I remember one time earlier on the channel, uh, people would be hitting me up asking me questions. I'm like, bro, like I'm like, why do people keep asking me this stuff? And she was like, bro, don't you make videos about this stuff? But I just didn't fathom, like, you didn't think it through. Want to talk to me and they're asking me questions to help with their life. I'm like, this doesn't make sense. And she was like, dog, do you not see it? I didn't, because again, I'm so used to, like, it's just me.

I went through that too. Why are they calling me for help? Because you're giving it away for free on YouTube.

Right. And it's funny because like between that and then on the other side, on like the negative side, I remember earlier on the channel, um, there was one like skeptic who— it was probably like 6 months in, maybe 8 months— he's like, yeah, he's just giving this stuff, uh, free to trick y'all into buying his, his, uh, services or whatever. And that time I literally had no services.

I was gonna say you weren't selling services.

I didn't have anything. And I was like Hmm, I was like, should I do that?

Like, you should. Yes, the hater helped you. I love it.

The hater helped me because I, I really was, you know, not looking to make music a thing, right? Like, it was like, I'm always just giving up the help in game just so I could give the help in game. That's what I would do, like being A teacher is a part of my core. I care about people. Like, uh, like, artists just happen to be people. I don't, I don't really like say, oh, just because you're an artist, you're entitled, or you need more help or coddling people.

Yeah.

Um, and I, and I love to help people. One of the areas that I care about the most to help is within business and economics because I feel like it empowers people.

It does.

So it's a way out of the struggle. It just happens to be that's a huge need in the artist space especially, right? And that happens to be my bag.

Yes, especially artists of color, especially.

Yeah, for sure.

I can't wait until Web3 becomes a little bit more, um, understood and popular because you can build your school in Web3, and it will be just as cool.

That'll be interesting. Yeah, I'm waiting to see like how, how that—

that would be awesome.

Yeah, how that happens, because I, I do want to formalize things like even more at some point down the line.

It's such a great idea.

Yeah, yeah. You know, we just have to see how Web3 continues to chug along the time period. One of those people who were super hyped about it during the hype period because I also had an experience. Just, I had just seen a lot. So again, coming from the tech space, I wasn't new to the term blockchain. I wasn't new to a lot of those terms. So it was weird to me because I would hear about it over there and all of a sudden I'm like, wait, why is everybody talking about this? So out of nowhere, right? So I would, if you ask a lot of bandwagon jumpers, yes, why? But the way I, but for one, it was just like weird. Because in— to all of a sudden hear everybody care, people care about it, which that didn't look anything or act anything like the other people that I remembered cared about it, right? Yes. But more importantly, having more experience at that time, and I'm never going to get this answer probably, but I— if you ask a lot of people around that time, I was going around asking people like, man, like, who is behind this marketing campaign? Because there is marketing going on right now. It's no way you go from it's not being talked about at all and then it's everywhere. And then it's everywhere. Yes, it's everywhere. I'm like, yeah, there have to be a couple of billionaires that are—

hey, that are pulling levers.

Like, nobody— and then of course, after a while, we know the snowball, so then it's working for itself, right? When you build a hype machine. But I'm like, this ball didn't just roll off the hill by itself, man, because that shit came out of nowhere. That's how I felt during that, that period.

Agreed. I'm finding that to be true now with the word superfan. I think if I hear the word superfan one more time in our industry, I'm gonna start shooting at people.

Superfan, direct-to-consumer, it's gonna go through its wave. These are— those are elements that are principally right. Yes, it's gonna matter, but they're—

yes, but they're pieces of the pie. They're not the whole pie.

Pieces of the pie, they're not wholes. And it doesn't discredit the things that have to be done to get there.

Correct.

All right, um, but right now, you know, because people are incentivized It's the messages being pushed. And, uh, yeah, the message is being pushed in a hype fashion but not relevant for everybody just yet, right? I'll leave it for now.

And, and we're such bandwagon jumpers that you see the whole crowd like all move at the same pace over to one thing, and then somebody else starts talking about something else and you see everybody at the same time moving over to that thing. It's, it's, it's really quite funny.

Yeah, man. I mean, I think in general the world is like a follow— Followers.— mentality, and people are chasing waves. But I've heard this about the music industry from people like you and others who have been in it before me. It really is like one of those reactive industries. It feels like nobody knows what's going on. Very few people know what they're doing. They're just following and chasing waves. And of course, if you're in a position, then you can take advantage of waves and leverage waves. It's not like you aren't supposed to chase trends. That is an actual part of this business, right? You do understand trends.

Absolutely, you do.

But there's a difference, you know, then from truly understanding like what's going on and what's a wave, what's hype and not really credit it where I should put that much effort leaning over there, right? Right. And that's what you always—

all your focus. You should not put all your focus—

you always have to manage. Like, okay, I see this thing is happening. Do I skip this? This is really a blip. Is this going to be a lasting trend? All right, how much of my current business or whatever I'm doing, whether that's on the artist side or the executive side, do I actually put into it? And sometimes, you know, you might be at risk of missing a really big moment, right? Because this is also an industry I've realized where people make careers off of moments, and it could just be one moment. So, so yeah, you have to be shrewd for sure. And I, and I get it because it is industry incentivized chasing the trend, especially when you only need one, one moment to all of a sudden say, hey, I was attached to this moment and now I just got to talk to enough people to level up and get a few promotions if you're on the label side or whatever that flip looks like. I get it. But, um I think in this indie space especially, you'll see more and more of the people who truly understand over a long enough time horizon.

Agreed. Agreed. So what should an artist do first? I mean, obviously they're making music, and I'm going to assume that the music's good. So what can an artist do first to stand out? Because there's so much music out here?

Do first, or second? So this is a— those are like two questions the way you said it in my head, because do first versus do first to stand out are two parts of the journey. To me, do first is like really start getting your music out there, start to get feedback and understand like who's gravitating around it, get a better sense of your audience and who's liking your music. But doing first to— and of course there's multiple different ways, you know, TikTok page, Instagram page, Spotify in general, the DSPs or whatever. There's, you know, we can get deeper into any of those individually if we need to, but do first to stand out. Now that takes a little bit more strategic thought of who likes what I'm doing, right?

Right.

And what do those— what are the other artists that those people like, right?

Right.

And then I'm starting to form some sense of a lane based off of their perception, right? And now that I know my lane per se, right, I know artistically that sounds like restricting. It's not, right? It's not actually empowering, right? It is another way of seeing stuff.

Is it your tribe? You now know where you fit in.

Yep. And you Once you understand that lane per se, now you got to figure out how do I stand out within that lane. I want to communicate to that lane and stand out to that lane because branding, right, is all about your placement and positioning. If I'm— I got on a hoodie right now. If I'm standing next to 50 guys in hoodies, then I'm not really standing out. But I go to Wall Street and all these guys are suited and booted and I'm in there with a hoodie, I'm standing out.

Standing out.

Right, a lot of artists made this mistake in the SoundCloud era thinking, I'm just gonna give myself a bunch of tattoos and have colorful hair. Well, if all the other artists your fans are listening to have tattoos and colorful hair and doing wild stuff, you're not standing out. You're standing out to the girl at the grocery store and everybody else there, but in your world, you're just another one of those people in that world, right? So you have to think beyond that. You might use some of those cues to show them I belong here, but you also have to understand why am I different here as well.

Man, that's so important. Why am I different here as well? Mhm. Yep. When I was in school, that was called a unique selling proposition. How do I stand out from people in my lane? Not just— I know how I stand out from the people in the world. I can see how different I am.

That's the part that people miss, right? The biggest part is just the relativity of it, of it all. Like your position, within your position. And that's why I think it's, it's a tough thing when artists don't have a willingness to compare themselves to other artists. And of course, I always say, like, you can use the tricks, or like, hey, again, it's not about your perception, right? It's about who other people tend to compare you to, right? Or other people just that like you tend to listen to? It doesn't even have to be— are they comparing them, right? People are naturally going to compare, we know that. But if we want to be completely delusional, all right, what concert do I belong at, right?

Who—

what playlist are they tending to listen to me at? Whatever device you need to do to stroke your ego and get to the, the end goal, right? The, the end goal is I just need to figure out the perception that exists. Because the— a lot of times people think that the brand moves that they're making are building the brand that they imagine. But if you never get the feedback from the fans, you don't realize that my moves might not be communicated right. Like, the message isn't hitting. In the same way you're arguing with your, you know, your homie or your girl or whatever, right? And you could say, I'm saying something and that's what I said. And it's like, nah, that's not what you said.

That's not what you said.

To your brand, right? So it's the marriage between what you intend to communicate and how you want to be perceived and how they actually perceive you. And you have to figure out how do I find a happy medium? Mm.

I love that. You know, we could stop right here and it would be a fucking phenomenal interview, but I'm going to keep going.

All right. All right.

So one of my secret frustrations, and maybe it's not a secret, I'm pretty loud about it, is that artists will sometimes focus more on— they'll focus more on, um, fame than on monetization. Where do you, where do you stand in that?

I mean, on a realistic level, the way I think, like, outside of being in the business, how it's just a regular Sean thing, it's like, all right, man, if that's what floats your boat. I don't really get the fame thing like that, but Okay, you know, but you have to understand, right, that those two are not the same thing, right? And you can have a disproportionate level of fame to the amount of money you have, right? Let's just— units, right? We got money units, all right, in dollars, and we have fame units, right? So you could have 5 fame units and have $20, right? But you could also have 100 Fame units and $20. One situation is like outperforming, one is I'm out— underperforming. Even if I'm getting more money, let's say if I had 100 Fame units and I have $50, well, still you could have more money based on the level of Fame you have. You're just not monetizing it correctly. And the thing is, it's not always— it's not always perfect in terms of the measurement, right? It's not a one-to-one. I have 10 Fame units today, so I have $10 today, right? Right. There's moments in time where you have to lean in and go from 10 Fame units and $10, and I'm going to keep $10, but I'm going to keep going to like 50 fame units and then focus on monetization again. The most important part to me, because there's no perfect way to do it, the people's opportunities, their fan base is monetized differently, all right? Some almost don't monetize at all, so you got to find other ways to get your money, right? It's not perfect, but it's important to know that they are different and then how to leverage each, to enable each, depending on to what level you care about fame and what level you care about money. But just to expect, because I have one, I'm supposed to have another— the other is where people have their issue.

I love the way that you just illustrated that, because that's, that's very true. There was a point where artists coming up are more famous than they have money, and they have to play catch-up, and not everybody can do that. Because sometimes, sometimes you can be super famous and be broke, you know. It's not easy to leverage fame into money.

Yeah, and a lot of artists, they feel it in that order, right? If you just go about how artists communicate, you hear the artist, how many fans and much going on, they feel like more people should see them and recognize them. That's team talk, really, right? If you break it down. But then when they have fame, all of a sudden they want to renegotiate record contracts, and, and then you feel like, I have this level of fame, I should I have a level of money that has to do with the amount of fame I have. Exactly. They kind of feel it in the proper order, um, in the way it works, um, in music, that is, a lot of times, right? Because this is a more celebrity in, um, industry. I don't care if you're indie. For most indie artists, it might not be on the same industry scale, but it is some level of fame. Yes, to monetization. So, you know, I think that again, as long as you understand that there's a difference of these things, then you'll be all right. Uh, and then allow the disposition you have to determine what you should focus on. Okay, right now I'm feeling like I'm not getting the amount of money worth my— that I'm worth. Then now let me think about what that infrastructure looks like a little bit more. Don't complain. That means, oh, I haven't been focusing on it enough because it's not the same thing. Right? Oh, my money is leveling up. And this is when it starts to get weird. I got so much money, I feel like the world should know, like, I got money, or I am— yeah, you know, or how much I'm killing it. I guess if that's your thing, you know what I mean, then focus back on the fame game and then get out the narrative of everything you've done and everything you build, or just how much you're killing it as an artist, right? But, you know, allow that how, you know, whatever your personal measurement, um, to determine what you should focus on.

I like that, the 'how much I'm killing it' campaign.

That's really what's happening. He's like, okay, you know, this is what he wants us to know right now. I've seen the last few interviews and the articles popping up in music business worldwide. That's, that's us. And this is the thing though, there's a, there's a reality that comes to this, even more on the exec side, I feel like, than artist side, but, but both. The, um, somebody just sent me a message. Uh, that was a cool sound too. The— I don't know how to enable it. Let me cut that off. All right.

The—

there's a certain amount of I'm killing it that the world does need to be aware of to leverage on a business level.

Correct. In order to grow in your career.

And that's the part where someone who has a default of like, I'm just chilling and doing my thing, might feel a little tension, all right? Because it's like, man, I don't even care like that if these people know, but I need to have like a PR article that my business do this, so does this. So when I'm talking to such and such and I'm trying to get an investment, or I'm trying to be taken seriously in these rooms, it's going to open certain doors, right? Because I know—

that was cool.

Yeah, it was cool. Because I know these people, because my business has accomplished this, and now it gives me a certain level of credibility. It becomes a resume, right? That's really what it is. It's like a real-world impact, living, breathing resume. No difference than what you're writing on LinkedIn. Oh, he worked at Google, and Google has a brand that precedes it. Yes, in a lot of ways in this industry, because it's more individual, right? A bunch of individual contractors and so, and so to speak, entrepreneurs. And, you know, um, you have to constantly put yourself in a position where your resume speaks for the next job, right? Right.

And, and that's true, especially on the business side, but even on the artist side too. It, it's very difficult for me when an artist has a song that grows faster than their brand. So they'll have a song and everybody knows the song, but they don't know who performed it because there's a disconnect between the artist's career and whatever that hot single is. You know, we had that happen with Lil Donald when we were working "Do Better." It was frustrating because people knew the song, but they didn't know that it was him. And for us, it was a lack of marketing We, we did that song initially with no money. So it, the song grew faster than his brand. And people were like, yeah, I love that song, but I don't know him. So the song was huge and he was getting offers from major labels, but the promoters didn't know who to call to have somebody come perform that song. It was crazy.

So you're missing out on money.

Exactly, leaving money on the table.

Yep. And then, yeah, that's a perfect example. I have— people don't know, right? The money can't flow, you know? Exactly. It's hard. Um, so you do have to get the image out there to a certain point, right? In traditional cases, it would be a company, right? But you are a company.

You are the company.

Yeah, you have to put your, your face out there. And I've seen so many moments missed, man, in this industry. For multiple reasons, like lack of understanding or lack of funding. Funding. And but the end-all be-all is not a label. It really does pain me to see that, you know, to this day, you know, people would watch videos and they still just dismiss everything. It's like, no, man, X, Y, and Z artists are just doing what they're doing because they have a label. It's like, y'all can't talk about how labels don't do anything and y'all don't need labels. But then say just because someone has a label, that guarantees success. Like, which one do you want?

Which one is it? Exactly.

Wendy Day is it. And, uh, I've seen, you know, you know, right, that yes, a label can help with certain things.

Yes, label can be great, but a label now also not be great, right?

Like, that's in multiple ways, right? Label today is not a label back then. And, and more importantly, um, I think if artists were more aware of all the failures or how much labels can mess things up or how little understanding, right, um, labels have, then I think they wouldn't just contribute— attribute all successes to other artists to having those type of systems and things going on. Because it really— I remember, I can't remember her name, it might have been Lisa, it was like Black lady, and she had— she was like a motivational speaker. But I remember she said something, and I loved how she said it, because she said, don't make me extraordinary, right, um, just to really become an excuse for why you can't do it, right? It's like, I'm not extraordinary, I'm ordinary, and I'm doing this, right? But you're making me extraordinary, putting me on a pedestal, or my position, or and my achievements or situation on a pedestal to then discredit why you can't do it too, right? And I see with people, that's what inevitably often happens when you say, oh, that person's only winning because they had X, Y, and Z. All right, but I'm like, all right, well, let's point to all the people who have famous parents with money and they want to have a rap career, they want to have an acting career, but they don't. You know what I mean? Like, we see it all the time, and we still haven't seen the son or daughter— let's just stick to the rap world— like, of a past rapper, right, that's great on a certain level, be considered one of the best, right? So until we have like the top—

I'm crossing my fingers that it's Damani.

Damani has the potential. I think he does, right? Like, in a real way, uh, I think he does.

I hope it's him.

But if we're just—

you're absolutely right. Like, Rakim has a kid that raps. Eazy-E has a son that raps.

What's his name? Um, Run has two. All right, Diggy was doing his thing for a minute. I don't know exactly what happened to Diggy, but Diggy was doing the thing for a minute. But, um, but like, I think so when you see and when you have to work with and you get reached out to with all from all these people with all this money And you see the thing, the money that gets wasted, and you realize it's so much more than that. Like, what it becomes down to is competency, you know, um, luck, and of course grit. But like, I've seen situations where it'll be a song going crazy, like things doing well, um, but the artist and the collaborator, right, have a little falling out in the moment that the song is taking off. So no music video, no follow-ups, nobody's posting. So it just cuts off, you know. I've seen a moment where an artist was having a song and things were going super crazy, and like, then he reaches out and like, hey, let's get connected and like figure out how to take advantage of this moment. I'm gonna put X, Y, and Z dollars together. And I'm like, ah, that's not the most amount of money, but it's enough that we can keep turning things up and maybe get you a certain another position. Then he had a lot of life situations happen at once, you know what I mean? Like real life situations from— yeah, just a lot of stuff, you know what I mean? And it just stopped him from being able to do anything. And people don't understand the sensitivity of the moment, especially your first, all right? Um, So if you— once you're in it and you really see and you have enough knowledge to know if this happens at this moment, things are going to another level, but then you see them not happen for very trivial things at times, you know what I mean? Yes.

You know what I mean?

It's like even beyond the money, you're like, oh, the competency, the money, everything else is there and it just doesn't happen. You realize that there's just so much to this. Like, it's just— it is— it's humans in a human industry. That's all.

Yes. And I think we forget that. I think we look at record labels as like a building, but it's not. It's not just a building. It's people, human beings inside of that building. And it could be your career might not flourish simply because the marketing person can't stand the A&R person that signed you. Yes. Or maybe, um, there's somebody else in the building that they know can go faster with less work. And it's human nature to want to do what's easy, you know, and, and less time consuming. So they put their efforts behind somebody that's a tiny push rather than somebody that's a big push. You know, your, your team as an artist matters. It could be that your manager just isn't a people person and they're not a good cheerleader inside of the building.

Yeah, I haven't seen that. The manager—

I've seen that more than anything.

Manager—

actually, that's not true. You know what I've seen more than anything? The artist get in their own way. I've personally seen that more than anything.

I, I, I didn't know that was like how many people's experience that is, but I have more experiences with most that are like directly artists just because because of the way I came in the game. Yes, I've definitely seen that the most. And yes, people, man, they get so in their head. I remember even in a recent situation, there was a guy where things didn't work out, where I was just like, hey man, like, I don't think we should do this. Cool, but like, no bad blood, but I don't think it's the right position, etc. And he's like, well, you don't see my value now, right? But you will. And I— and my big thing was, it's like, dude, to get this far in the process with a me, like, I believe there's value. Like, and we were actually making concessions, like, trying to figure out a way to do something where our capacity was already full. So I saw— it's not that I don't see value, but the way you acted after the fact, right? Is just like, ah, let's kill this before it goes bad. But his mind, right, is like, oh, you don't see my value. Maybe— and it's— maybe it's this weird thing because there's this level of hunger and delusion sometimes that it takes to achieve, but it can also have it be a double edge where now you think the world is against you when it's not.

When it's not.

Yeah, it's just like, nah, bro, you're overthinking it. Like, it's not that. It's just like, hey, I have a life and I was making concessions, and then you're gonna bring in more energy than my team could take on, so let's just hold things off. And maybe, and, you know, I don't want to get too much into the rest of the details in life, but it's just like, you— I've seen situations like that so many times where, you know, artists will be scoring from whatever the position is. Oh, you don't see my value. It's like, no, it's not like that. Or I just got scammed by 5 other people and now, like, it was just another conversation I had recently with an artist. It's like, oh yeah, I don't see the value in this. I just had a manager that told me he was gonna do X, Y, and Z and he didn't. And this just sounds like the same thing he was doing. Well, I don't have nothing to do with that situation.

I'm not him or her.

Yeah, and my track record looks very different.

Yes.

Yeah.

Like, just because it rained yesterday doesn't mean it's gonna rain again today. Sometimes it does, but it doesn't mean it will.

What you have to do— and I always say this stuff because it's how I think about myself and how I try to coach myself up, right? It's like, well, if I did make it a bad decision, that's how I look at it. I take responsibility. But what made you pay this company, right? And they were scammers. How did I miss that they were scammers, right? Like, I don't take—

sometimes people are great scammers, but you catch it in the first month and then you stop.

And then that's—

don't go 6 months down the road.

Well, that's another thing that's still on me, right? Because I got to get sharp enough where I can catch it quickly enough, right? True. Like, it reminds me of what I call the ego trip, right? We all like have our ego to manage, right? And people won't like this because the J. Cole situation is an analogy, but they don't like what he did. But So every— I— everybody has an ego. We are all managing it. And I've always heard the term ego trip, but one day I thought of it as a literal trip, right? Our egos can take us on a journey around the world, right? And off base of where we should be, our actual path, right? But as you mature, if you mature, hopefully, right, you should be able to shorten that journey. So it's taking me around the world All right, and now it just took me for a wild ride, but now I'm back on path. However I got there, next time I went on an ego trip, I went from Atlanta to China and back. Next time I went to the airport, but I was like, nah, I'm not getting on this plane. Yeah, next time, you know, I got in the car and I was like, I'm just running back in the house. Like, I caught it. And the whole idea is to catch it as quickly as possible and get back path. And but the hard part is, especially in the industry like this, is an ego trip can come with benefits. You can get praise for ego trips, right? Because you want to rap out, or you went off on somebody, or whatever happened, right? You can get praise, or you can go viral for an ego trip. So it's really up to you, because that's how people lose themselves, right? It's up to you to know when you're on path because the world will tell you that you're on path when you're not, because you're on a path that they want you to be. You're their entertainment, right? They don't know.

They want you to— they want you to— yeah, they want to be entertained. Exactly.

So, you know, I, I think of everything from, you know, that kind of basis. It's more about understanding who I am and, and what I want to accomplish, what's important to me or not. And I think for artists especially, to not get lost in the sauce That's an important thing, but executives as well. I think, yeah, we talk so much about artists, and I've been thinking about doing this for a long time, um, but like just some level of encouragement for executives to be just as indie as we encourage artists to be.

Artists, yeah. Just so you know, there's going to be more executives watching this than artists because they're the ones that want to learn. Artists very rarely want to learn.

There. There's a tendency there. But yeah, it's just like, I mean, you know, me, it's not like I don't want to act like I mastermind anything, but yeah, but you know, because of the way I came into the process at the timing I came in, you know, I've never like been, uh, an employee at a label. I mean, I also have a level of just, you know, I'm— I just don't like working for people in that way, that capacity, um, because I know what my particular path is. But like, the point is not that you shouldn't work for anybody or a label. It's just understand that like to build your own thing and in this new industry, really being at a label, I found out in this, in this industry, it's not the worst. But if you go to other industries, there's like, you have the Google, the tech companies that are more cutting edge. And then you'll have like a Georgia Power, right? And if you get it, it'll pay well, it'll be great, it'll be comfortable and more stable. However, if you ever end up outside of that position, boy, you have to catch up to the real world because the real world moves a lot faster than those companies. And the people who've worked for us, like at our agency, that had to grit their teeth in the, you know, the wild, they find it to be pretty easy You know what I mean? When they get to the label system, right? That's demanding more money, right? More benefits.

Absolutely more money.

But the other way around, it's a huge adjustment.

Yes. You know, more memos, more meetings.

Oh my God, more stress. Oh my God, the meetings. I can't, I can't, I can't with the meetings. Like, but, but, um, like, so I, I definitely encourage, like, if you aren't— even if you are in the system, like, have your own thing. Like going so you can at least grit your teeth and keep your— keep a pulse of what's going down. Because that's what the system is trying to do anyway. Like, because we're in this, the wild, it's like, all right, we have an institution that can leverage what's going on, and we figure that out. But we have to figure out what's going on, and usually it has to go through a few iterations before that I can figure out that it's worth doing, because I move slower and I don't want to invest everything in the wrong direction. Me and my partner Jacory, when we were— got on the TikTok, we would always joke about the timeline. It was like, yo bro, we got about 6 months, all right, until labels start to figure out like this is a real thing. Yeah, start to invest and then they're gonna come saturate the market, influencer prices are gonna go up. Like we knew, so we were moving with that level of aggression because we also knew that this wasn't an always thing, you know what I mean?

Yes, yes. So one of the, the, the questions that I, that I want to ask you is a question I get asked all the time, and, and, and I'm hoping that your opinion's a little different than mine. It may or may not be, but can an artist do this with no money?

Up front?

Yeah.

Do what?

Create success in the music industry, create a career in the music industry just because of their talent without having any money?

I think yes.

Awesome. Tell me why, because I don't.

All right, it's, it's with some caveat though. It's not gonna sound as crazy, but like, yes, because you do have social media, you can blow up organically if you really understand how to leverage people, build relationships. You can go pretty damn far, right?

And then start to make money, and then use that money, then fund yourself, right?

Flip that money into yourself, or leverage what you have to get a deal and things like that. So it puts you in a position where you can go a lot further However, the ones who can— who have that as like a way of how they really got into the game are always going to be few and far in between. Uh, and my thing that I don't like about today on a social level, right, in terms of how we talk about things in society and even down to the business level, where we try to make the abnormal the normal, right? Like, hey, let's normalize. It's like, no, that's a standard deviation, all right? You can't make the deviation the norm. That's why it is—

that's why it's a deviation.

Normal to have deviations, but you can't make the deviation the norm, if you understand what I'm saying.

I absolutely get it.

We will look at these—

one, my clients are not the norm. They have money, they have investors.

Exactly. So it's like, we, we have to—

we're the norm, I'd have a staff of 90 and be a record label.

Oh, see, that we would— we like to do that, and we would be moving different if artists were like— like, if, if money would came the way they came in other industries, we will be moving different. I'll just say that in general, correct? Um, like, you take the skill set of a you, uh, a me, many executives of what they accomplish, right? And then you put that in another energy, their counterpart all right, you realize it's a great— it's a sliding scale. It's like, oh, you would actually have 10x the money doing the same equivalent of work and money and achievement, right, right, in some other industry. But that just happens to have way more money. Like, I think it was the recorded music industry, it was like $60 billion, or we're going to get to $60 billion, one of the Goldman Sachs reports or something like that. Maybe not just recorded, but like multiple— it was multiple facets of the industry and they were saying it was everything. Yeah, right. Like Google is bigger than the industry.

Than the industry. One company in tech.

Exactly.

It's like a tiny company. Well, not tiny, but one company in tech company. And there's ways bigger than the entire music industry.

There's so many companies that are like half of the music industries, more than a music industry. Google is just obviously a well-known no name, so I'm mentioning them. But there's like— so I think when you put it in that perspective, I think I come with that just because I came out especially from tech and just by outside industry. It's like, yes, there's a lot of money, but it's the—

it's tighter.

It's a lot tighter. Like when you work on a big budget artist— well, a big artist and their budget is like way smaller than you would think, right? You know, for the brand, how that artist has to move, how that artist moves, you start to wonder like, all right, is there not as much money in here? When you start to see so many artists make more money outside the industry and then that, and they start to actively make those moves because you, you realize, okay, they aren't getting their full value. The celebritytation— celebritytization of their brand is going to be monetized most outside of music versus in it, right? And I would watch, let's say, Steve Stout, uh, with somebody earlier on, uh, just when I came into the industry. I just like looked at the people that I paid attention to, like, oh, all the artists got their money from something else or not being traditional. And then I would look at like a lot of the executives, it's like they would go into real estate or they would go into other industries. Like Steve Stout did the, the marketing and paired with transition. Yeah, you know, so it's like It's like, okay, the, the ones at the top all have like— are getting at some point to get more value, they're leaving music, right? And I'm not saying you shouldn't do that at all, right, ever, but you see more people doing it when you— than you would find in other places. Like, the, the man at the top in healthcare isn't like, hey, I need to get into music to make more money, right?

You know, like, or I need to do a deal with Samsung for all the hospitals.

I just need to come up with another healthcare business, right? I don't have to figure out how to use other verticals and industries to maximize the value of my industry. And that just goes to show how, you know, again, like, things are, things are tight on a macro level, and I think people are constantly feeling it down the line. And we personalize it, like, man to man, woman the woman artist to label. And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of, you know, mismanaging of money and misallocation of who should have more. That still is within it, but it gets aggravated even more by the fact that there's less here. And you actually tend to find that type of behavior in industries when— in pockets where the money is tighter.

Right, right. It, it amazes me, um, to look at somebody like a Taylor Swift where the world measures her— the world is measuring her, um, effect on like the Super Bowl, you know, the— or, or when she's touring, they say, oh, this city where she came and performed live, um, she has made X amount of dollars for the city. She's brought in, you know, whatever. And I don't want to quote a figure because I can't remember what the figure is, and I don't want to be inaccurate, But if she's bringing that much value to this one city or to the Super Bowl or to whatever she's attached to, and then you look at the budget she has for promoting and marketing her music, it's like, wait, what? It, it, the, the output and the experience is bigger than what she is allocated to create that. It's amazing to me.

What do you mean by Um, like how much she's allocated.

So with her budget at Universal, and I don't want to use numbers because I, I, I, I always try to be as accurate as possible, but the money that she is spending to market and promote is not, is not commensurate with her effects upon the world. So if she's performing in Pittsburgh, for example, and she's bringing an extra, you know, couple of million or almost a billion dollars into the marketplace in the day of her performance through restaurant sales and, um, merch sales and hotel stays, for example. I mean, there's been articles written about the, the Swift effect, right? You know, what, what her movements bring to an area. It's not in proportion to the amount of money that she gets in a budget in order to do her thing.

Ah, yeah.

And that blows my mind.

I think it's a weird thing though, right? So on a, on a straightforward level, I understand it, right? It's not the money that you're bringing in. However, there's so many stakeholders, right? Like the restaurant, like, it's like, yeah, you brought in more business but we're also not like partners or anything, right? Like, you brought more people to the city. So I think, so I think it's hard for the label to put out more money for that, obviously, because again, they're not, they're not benefiting from that.

I mean, they are benefiting from that, but they're not benefiting.

You're right, right, right. It's one of those things, so it's hard to measure. But I think what I've seen, the artists at that level, the people at that level, and companies at that level the, the medium is, all right, government, you know what I mean? Like, we're gonna have to figure out something. Like, what, what are we gonna subsidize, you know what I mean? Or like, how can we— like, we have direct conversations. Like, Taylor Swift was talking to— and the government was involved in bringing her into Brazil, or, or maybe it was Argentina. It was one of those—

wherever it was.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Brazil. Um, but like That's, that, that's a whole nother level of leverage, right? It's like when, all right bro, I'm bringing in so much value into so many people, like we gotta figure the government has to get involved because I know I want to get it and I need the treatment, all right? So I'm sure she's getting the treatment and because we even, um, what is, what is something else that she just did? Oh, she put her music on TikTok. She was the first artist to get her music back on TikTok. I didn't know that. Um, but to me, Taylor Swift is like, like Michael Jordan in this, in this, uh, degree. And a lot of people gonna kill me when they hear that on a surface level, or if that was like just a regular clip. That's why I actually changed how I said it. But, but this is, this is what I mean by that, all right? You remember how Taylor Swift didn't have her music on Spotify? She was fighting with Spotify for a period of time, and then she finally got on it, right? Yeah, I know Beyoncé and Jay-Z had their own platform and they were going that direction, but the way Taylor has moved consistently was similar to Michael Jordan has for years since the '90s, where he owned his own likeness, where the rest of the league did not own their own likeness. You would know there would be some games where Michael Jordan just wouldn't be a character. On it because they didn't come— they didn't come with the deal.

They didn't come with it.

Yeah, yeah. So he's moving at a set as a separate entity, and it's always interesting when you see those people who have that leverage to, you know, like, to truly like sit out and then make sure it fits whatever their specifications are, you know, whatever that might be.

Yeah. I don't know why I'm mentioning this, but I'm gonna mention it. I was just reading an article the other day um, about how when Taylor was fighting with Spotify, she was fighting for like all artists. She was saying that, I'm not doing this because it's not fair for everybody. It wasn't, it wasn't, it's not fair for me, it's, it's not fair for everybody. And she stood on that. With the TikTok play, she didn't use her power to help everybody. It was like, I need to be there, I'm getting back on. Yeah, it wasn't like, you know what I mean? So she was kind of taken to task for that. And again, I don't know why I'm mentioning that, it just, it triggered in my head when you, when you just said that. So maybe it'll trigger something to somebody watching.

I didn't even think about that.

Um, I didn't either till I read it.

I don't think a lot of artists will give her credit for thinking about it for all artists, or at least trying to on the Spotify side. And of course it's easy to like, you know, talk shit about her for being on Spotify. TikTok without the artist.

She's done so much for artists though, like she's really leveraged her power. Other people have not.

And this is, this is another thing, you know, that kind of gets me about just people. This is more people in general, it's not— I don't want to say artists, but there's a lot of people here, like, because I do videos, right? I would love to give you just what I believe is the most helpful information in the world at all times and and how exactly you should look at it. But let's say being on a YouTube, well, I know you're not going to be interested in it. You're not going to click, and then nobody ever is going to see the videos. So if I talk about a Taylor Swift, which I've done a video or two, just because I'll do something just because, like, if there's, there's something for you to learn here. I've noticed there's a lot of artists who, because of their genre, they don't understand that they can learn from an artist in a different genre, or because they're—

I learn more from other genres than I do from hip-hop because we're followers.

This out though. And because as a, a male, I can't watch a female artist and learn from her, right?

What?

It's a— yes, this is a, a constant. For whatever reason, people— the, the thing is, I've noticed that people want to learn from the artists that they like, right? And in many ways are usually inspired by and going down their path And it's like, well, that's why it's hard for you to break out and, and be better than that artist or create your own lane, because you're not studying artists. Like, if you in other lanes from Taylor Swift's lane and then bring it to people who don't even know anything about that, right, or understand that, you can break out in a different way. Like, what is the thing that makes sense for you? Kanye does it in spades. Like, Kanye used to take— I mean, he still does. Like, part of Kanye's an artist, of course, right, beyond just music. But he's far more of a marketer, one, than he would ever admit. And two, he has a great talent for seeing— he has a great taste and understanding of how to put things together and introduce to an audience that normally would not digest what he's giving up, right? So the people who are like, oh, I care about all this art and these things, a lot of times they're going through a vehicle like Kanye. But if it wasn't for Kanye or a certain hype machine introducing it, they wouldn't be interested in, I don't know, let's say the ballet or that particular Japanese art form or whatever is happening, right, outside of that, right? And like, but that's a thing. You can be that person that shows people the world through you or different pieces. And that's why artists talk about references, right, beyond just like a reference track in music, right? It's like my reference is the world I'm experiencing, and oh, I was inspired by the dress I saw that young woman wearing that day, and somehow I applied it to the album artwork or just the song. That was my inspiration. Like, and you're taking all these different textures. Like, if you find like a visual artist— like, as I said, I came more from visual art as me on a personal level. Like, you know, you, you might find the material of rocks. You'll have a room with all this random shit that you've been inspired by, that you've collected from the world, and now it's time for me to create my work. And how do I take the world experience pieces and give it to these people in a digestible way?

Right, right.

But artists don't— I'll say this, like, I feel like a lot of artists are— don't really like art like that, which is interesting to me. Uh, and there's a difference to me.

I agree with that.

I was like, do you even know art like that? Do you study art like that? It's like, I know you like music.

No, there's a lot of artists that are doing this because they've seen other people use this as a way out, and they're following that path. So they grew up seeing, okay, my way out is sports or rapping or selling dope or pimping women. Okay, of those four things, I can't play football, I don't want to be a pimp, I don't want to go to jail, I'm gonna rap. It's, it's a default choice instead of a path of passion.

It is. But, and I know a lot of people complain about that, but I'll, I'll prefer that path than what I've seen some other people do when they got to their last choice and they said, I'm going to be a teacher. It's like, no, teacher is not what you want to do as like—

not unless it's inside of you. Yeah. Yeah. Great generations.

Uh, and some people even now today, we're seeing people do that when they choose, I want to rap, and then I want to rap don't work, or I want to sing and I, I don't want to sing, I'm just going to teach other artists and not really know what I talk about either.

So exactly, you know, I see people in the industry do that too. It's not just rappers. I see a lot of people jump into music because they think, okay, I don't have an education and I can make a lot of money here. So they jump in and they just start like trying to collect money, and, and they follow a path of greed, and they're just like knocking people down and taking money from people and destroying their brand because they think that that's how this works, and it's not.

Yeah, it sucks to see that. Like, it does.

It does. How long did it take you to start making money in music? Because it took me 6 years. I mean, until I made a dime doing what I do, it took me 6 years.

It wasn't that, Wendy Day. I— we call this the new generation. I was— I was— it probably took me, uh, all right, I guess I need to think of a clear starting point. So like when I decided I want to do this thing for real And I went— it only took me probably like 3 months.

Wow, that's awesome.

That was fast. But that was really fast. Let me clarify what that looked like. All right, so remember I was building out my channel, yeah, right, and not thinking about doing any business, and that was like almost a year.

Okay.

And then, you know, through the inspiration of that guy I referenced earlier that was hating and said he has service services and all this stuff. Um, and then I started seeing people ask me, hey, can I talk to you and can you do a consultation call? So when I saved my first money, it was like, uh, okay, I do a call with you, and then, okay, $50, you know, like, so that's, that's what it looked like. Um, that's beautiful. Um, and then, then it was interesting because Again, it's my, like, always understanding where my path is and what I'm rooting it, rooted in. And I just didn't like the feeling of it. One, I'll be talking to people and then I didn't know what the hell happened afterwards. I would never see him again. I didn't know if I was helping anybody. And it was like, I want to have some sense of, like, helping to impact, right? That, that's there, better or worse, right? Because, you know, wanting to make an impact sounds great until you realize what that looks like or what you turn down sometimes, right? But I, um, so that led me to like stopping consultations for a while, thinking back, and then like, oh, let me create this workshop program where I was like taking people through what I would do before. So I had a stint where I was like a teacher in a nonprofit before, um, music. I also was like basically a teacher even when I was in college because I like started these entrepreneurship programs where I would—

people awesome.

And I would teach them. And then also I would, like, I wrote this book and I was going into, uh, the jails and teaching, right? So I was like, I'm always going to teach no matter what I do. Like I said, it's like, it's about helping people in the economics and success and business and mindset. Like, those are just things that are mad— that matter to me.

Um, it's also the best way for us to learn because if we can turn around and teach somebody what we know, it reconfirms our— the knowledge to ourselves as well.

Exactly. That's the fastest way for me personally, um, because it forces me to go just deeper. It's way deep, right?

Yeah, because you got to answer questions.

And I would say— oh yes, I— when I created the workshop, that was like, I think it was like 5, 6 weeks, and I would meet with the exact same group, like cohorts, like a legit class, right? I was basically— I literally built it off of the system where— and when I was in a nonprofit, and we were successfully, like, taking people through workforce development and preparing them for their jobs. We got them, like, to make more money than anybody ever in their family where we were pulling them from to a stable position in, like, 6 months to a year.

Amazing.

Um, so I saw that system, I, I applied that, I did that for a while, and then I was like, well, what's the next thing? I never wanted to start an agency. I was so against starting an agency. Agency. I was so, so against starting the agency. If it wasn't for my partner Corey, I probably like never would have started it, just because I was like, well, at least I'm— I'll be in it with somebody. That's for one.

Like, right, right.

And two, he was like more inclined to than I was, like, just from a natural standpoint, even though I was doing some of the same things. It's was like, ah, how long do I want to do this? I could just go to tech, man. Like, let me— I was all early on, I was like, how long do I want to stay here? Because I could just help people for fun. Like, I wasn't, you know, trying to make money from it. Um, but the biggest reason, especially if I was gonna— I wouldn't have continued doing the, the channel without starting an agency because I knew I didn't want to be a manager, but I wanted to always be pulling for something real.

Yeah.

Hey, I, I can't just watch, like, read blogs or watch other people's videos and then, like, talk about it and consistently do that. Like, just the way my mind works and me knowing what I know, like, me knowing the truth and what I actually want in the long run, I was just like, that just doesn't feel good to me because I want real success, not just to be a YouTuber or get some views or something like that, right? So I was like, all right, let me go into the trenches, um, and then And, you know, obviously we were able to do a lot of cool things, a lot of great things, um, through that vehicle. And now I feel like, you know, it's not like we're done, agency's over, but I think we've accomplished the primary things that we wanted to accomplish through it. Now how can we leverage the infrastructure we have? How can we leverage our knowledge, uh, to do other things and new things. And I don't think that's going to look like what anybody else would imagine, um, because most people just say stuff like, oh man, y'all should start a label or something like that. I think the same way that we got to where we got to in a weird equation, where we're going to move, um, and how we leverage where we currently are is going to look probably a lot different than a lot of people expect. Tune in for that. I will.

I'll be in the front row with my popcorn.

Talk to you about that stuff offline, you know, whenever we talk and stuff anyway.

And I will help you any way that I can.

I appreciate that.

Are there any books or seminars that you've taken that have helped you, whether inside of the business of music or just with life itself? And, and my this, this podcast is really to help people become better people, not just better artists or better industry business folks. So I want to open that up to like anything that has positively impacted you in life.

Ooh, 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. By— I think it's David O. Gulby or something like that.

Yeah. Um, before he died, it's the only time—

mm-hmm.

It's the only time I've ever been tongue-tied in my life.

Wow.

I was in the presence of greatness. He was autographing exactly that book for me, and I was in a bookstore, and I said to him, uh-uh-uh.

Actually, I cannot imagine you not being able to talk. That's hilarious.

Isn't that funny?

Yes. Yes. I love that book because it's just so simple and straightforward, and it's just based on his experience and knowledge, and it's him giving back.

It's sort of like Ray Dalio's Principles. It's— he reached a point where he said, okay, I'm a fucking billionaire, let me give back, let me tell people how I did it. And that's what David Ogilvy did, and I love that.

Every time I put something out, like, I want it to be like that, like, from experience. Yes, yes, it just hits different, you know?

It's way different. And that's what I love about you, because not only do you talk about your experiences, but they're your experiences. It's not like you interview other people and then you retell their stories. Yeah, it's like— and that's cool too, because there's things that other people have done that you may not have done and you've learned from it, but you're coming from a position of experience, not a position of just asking others. And I think that's really important.

Exactly. I'm going to write a book. Like, I'm going to do my music book.

Yes.

I've been like working on it for a while. Good.

Do an audio version too, because your voice is awesome.

I'm not going to— yeah, I'll do that. I didn't think because my voice also I thought just because people don't like reading, but I think I listen and read books.

So like when I'm driving, I've always got a book. Right now, um, it's Build the Life You Want by Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey, which is amazing.

Oh, I'm gonna check that one out.

Yeah, especially I'll send it to you offline.

I don't read anywhere near as much as I used to, but that's one of the things I want to get back to more. I used to read crazy amounts.

Me too. But, but yeah, I'm doing a book a week right now, and I have been. Next week will be one year.

That's amazing. That's amazing. I would love to, to be in that bag. I'm gonna get on that bag again.

Yeah, I, I didn't think I could. I didn't think I had the time. And then I said, you know what, I'm going to wake up an hour earlier every day so that— and I read at the end of the day, I don't read in the morning. But I wake up an hour earlier and start my day earlier, and it's given me enough time in a week to finish a book.

That's crazy because so I woke up earlier when I was writing my first book, pre-music and everything or whatever, and I so much by like waking up earlier and getting it done. But I can't imagine waking up earlier and then living my normal day out to have time at the end To me, that's still a level of discipline because I've always had trouble with ending my day, like, like, to just then stop and then write a book, or stop and work out, or stop to spend it and do whatever.

Yeah, you're also, you're also married with kids, right? I, I, I'm not. I have no partner, I have no children, so I can be a little selfish with my time.

All right, that might Yeah, that might have something to do with it.

It has a lot to do with it. I promise you it does. I promise you it does. Because the reality is, if you had an extra hour in the day, you'd probably want to spend it with your loved ones.

Yeah.

Whereas for me, I want to spend it feeding my mind. That's what brings me joy. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I still want to feed my mind too. Yeah.

Balance, right? Yeah.

But, but yeah, that's—

are there any other books besides The 22 Immutable Laws or movies?

Lean Startup is good. Um, I also feel like people should watch The Hollywood Reporter's roundtable. Table that they do with actors year on year. Pick your— pick any round table. Those are one of the most— just the richest conversations.

Really? I'm not familiar with that. And why don't we do that in music? I'm gonna go watch them so that I can do that.

I've asked myself why we don't do that in music. Wendy, I think especially you— I'm so glad that you didn't know about this. If you don't know about this, you look at it, you will be amazed that this happens.

It's, it's Hollywood Reporter.

Yes, you will be amazed. And somebody who's like really geeking out about just industry, business, creativity, you will be amazed because like they do it every year. I think it's around Oscars or something.

And that makes sense because everybody's in town, right?

So it'll be like the comedic actors, right, from all different movies that you would never see. They're having— and they're having real conver— it might be like Denzel Washington, I don't know.

Is it called Off Script?

Uh, let me see what you have. It shouldn't— I don't think it has a name like that.

No, it's called the Reporter Roundtables, and it looks like it's maybe 10 different people. Like, this one's Andrew Scott, Colman Domingo, Jeffrey Wright, Mark Ruffalo, Paul Giamatti, and Robert Downey Jr.

But that's the off-script branding of it. I think it's actually probably like an extra from the regular.

Got it. Yeah.

So like, check that out. And just to explain again, obviously, because some people are listening, the— you have like the comedic actors from all these movies and talking with each other, the drama actors like who are like, uh, nominated. But then you also have like, I don't know, the CEO of Fox Studios, so, and the CEO of this other studio. So imagine if it was like, oh Lucian Grange and whoever is the CEO of the other two, right, sitting down with the, the head of, I don't know, uh, some of the indie labels, and they were all just there talking about the actual business.

That'd be awesome.

And this is like on a yearly basis they're doing this type of thing. I'm like, why doesn't the music industry—

why don't we do that?

All right, it's, it's so compelling. I think you'll, you'll like really like just freak out that like, one, that this is kind of cool to get that insight and see it that way. And the way they're talking about the business impact on everything and what they also appreciate, because they talk about shit that's so different than what you and I talk about.

They talk about market share like they're on some next shit.

Yes. And then they pair it still with love for the, uh, music art form, right? So also you might hear like, let's just say if Lucian Grange was like, I really love that, like that little— or it was crazy what that Lil Baby album was doing this year, and maybe not from a full, like, appreciation of the art form, but also understanding the moment that was happening and how he was at it, right? Like, it's like that type of thing happening from the executive level. But then you also had the actors talking about it, how they look at each other's movies. So it's like learning—

you even—

it's like if you're in a room of me and you talking about marketing and somebody doesn't understand marketing, they're going to hear things that they wouldn't see, right? Bases. Like, I told my trainer that I work out with that when I was explaining like Beyoncé's marketing, and I was like, oh wait, no, that text message, that is something that they created and put out there. That's not like a regular text message. It blew his mind, right? So I love those experiences where I can do that in other industries and spaces because one, the music industry is all like ruined for me, right, from a fan consumer, you know, fresh eyes perspective.

Yes.

So I like to have those moments in other spaces where I can still have like a naive fantasy. Yeah, fantasy. So it's cool because my mind gets blown and I still have appreciation in those spaces. I love that.

That's such a great idea though, because even like putting like me, you, Ray Daniels, J.R. Ewing, uh, Brian Calhoun, and, um, What's my guy that runs, uh, Trapital? Uh, Runcie, man. Imagine that roundtable.

Yes, that would be great. And, and imagine, like, and again, you got to watch it. Like, it's not— because I feel like when we get together so many times, like, in the capacity that we might be together, like, uh, we will be talking— we will be talking about, like, advice for artists. It's not really the conversation we're having from a a conversation that how we talk and see things. Like, even this podcast is more like our normal conversations than, let's say, if you're on a regular channel and then like, well, what do you think about Instagram and what artists should do on Instagram? So it's really like really more for artists to watch, not us and how we think.

Correct, correct.

In that conversation, and it was actually like the shit relevant to us and how we see stuff.

I would, I would, that would be awesome. It would be like going to a music convention for us instead of a music convention for somebody starting in the business and we're learning the basics over and over and over. It's like a next level conversation.

Yes, a real conversation.

A real conversation. It's like Roundtable 301 as opposed to 101, you know what I mean?

That would, that would be, that would be super cool. That would be super cool. I don't know about doing doing something like that in different capacities. But it's, you know, I— it takes a certain level of leverage and willingness, and it hasn't been that important to me. And I don't even know—

I love it though. I love the idea. I remember when I first started in music, um, there was a woman who was doing promotion at Columbia Records. Her name was Taish Harris, and it was when Nas's first album dropped. This is how long ago this was. And She started dinners and what's cool is she used her promo budget for it. So she would invite different mid-level industry people. And I was one of the people that got invited, which is amazing because I don't work for a major label. And we would have these dinners and there'd be like 12 people at the table from all different companies and, and radio record labels, me that was, you know, pro indie, um, and a couple of artists talking about how we, how we were feeling in the music business and in life, you know, how we balance dating. Like, we talked about so many different things. It didn't last very long only because we were all so busy. We were, we were all breaking our careers at that time. We weren't already comfortable in our careers, but it was in— I forgot how incredibly helpful and valuable that was until you just mentioned it. We need to do that. Even if it's just like once a year or once a half year.

Yeah.

For all of us to get together and just sit down and just have a dinner and talk.

That would be cool. That would be cool. And not it— and not have to be about, you know, anything in particular per se, you know.

I wonder if I could pull that off. I think I can.

You could probably pull that off.

I think I can. Yeah, I think I can.

I don't know if my leverage in life is there yet, but you could do it.

I, I, I think that you could. I would need partners to help me though, because I don't have access to like everybody. Yeah, like I can't just call P from QC and say, hey, come do this.

Yeah, see, but then the key with that kind of stuff is you also gotta, you know, keep it intimate.

Yes.

As well, just so—

and keep it all at a certain level, because if there's too many underlings that are going to be pushing up on whoever that person is, right, you know what I mean? Like, they're not going to want to do it.

Got to be a comfortable space, you know. You can have— has to be a safe space for variations and pockets, because that's where the value comes in.

You're not exactly where the value comes in.

I want to hear the exact same conversation that you're having all the time. No, that's your role. So you definitely want different roles to be there. Yeah, yeah, it's something. But yeah, that would be— that would be cool. Hey, you know, I look forward to watching that video whenever you drop that.

Yeah, you'll probably be sitting at the table, so you know, you'll absolutely be sitting at that table, so you know.

Oh man, I wouldn't turn that invite. But yeah, I love that. Yeah, this is, um, I don't know. Well, one, I want to just say, you know, I don't know how much time we got left, but like, this is one of the coolest conversations that I've had on a podcast. Because obviously when I get invited on a podcast or something, people are usually like, uh, what do you think about marketing trends for artists, or what's next for TikTok, or something like that. Yeah. And it's like, man, there's so much other stuff I'm not even interested in talking about that, you know what I mean?

Of course, I figure that they can, they can watch all of your videos to get all that stuff. That's why I didn't, I didn't go down that path when I started to, and I asked you, you know, what can an artist do when they're just starting out, and can they do this with no money? I stopped there because you've given it all. What I really wanted to do was show people how normal you are and how regular you are because they can be the next you.

Who doesn't think I'm normal?

Well, you're not normal because you do this for a living, so that tells me you're a little touched. But the point is that you're, you're reachable, you're open, you're a regular human being that followed a path. And I love the story at the beginning because it showed me that you you take risk. And one of the things that I've learned in, in the 8 million books that I've been reading is that the most successful people are comfortable being uncomfortable. And that's kind of like my new bandwagon pitch. Like I was at Lincoln Center talking to a bunch of kids last week. And that I was supposed to be talking about negotiating a deal, which I did talk about. But I left them with, if you want to be successful, you got to be able to take risks. And to take risks, you've got to be, you've got to be comfortable outside of your comfort zone. You've got to think outside the box, and you've got to be able to not just have an idea, but actually step and move it and run with it. And you started this by talking about that.

And I love that. That definitely, definitely was a risk at that time, you know.

Yes.

Agree, too young and naive maybe to recognize all of the risk, but thank God I'm definitely pretty analytical where I knew I was, uh, taking a risk and hedging some bets, um, and like counting down like I need to do X by X period of time. I think, um, like the way I look at it, like beyond— you do need to be able to take risk, but a lot of times risky moves only appear to be so risky to people on the outside who don't know as much, right? Right. So I see, right? Yeah, well, it's fear, and also I'm so certain about— let's say, all right, I'll say TikTok, right? That was just kind of real-world case study. I didn't realize how early I was on TikTok until other, like, executives and people in my space like you would, like, would tell me how early, or say stuff like, you were early. Hey, I didn't commit as fast as you did, right? Yep, but you were early.

JR McKee was early. You both early as fuck.

Yes. And JR mentioned, like, I think he, like, saw some stuff from me or whatever, right? But for me, I didn't see it as big of a risk because of all the stuff I understood from from tech and growing platforms, I was like, this is crazy. Like, I know exactly where this is going. And it hit like certain checkpoints of how I would measure companies, how I help them go to market and on the VC and startup world. And then I did a couple of campaigns and the, the impact was crazy. So I had a certain level of certainty and knowledge that appeared to be risky from the outside, but for me it was more risky to it at the time, right?

Right.

After I got there. And I think another part of success that people miss, like, if you could put yourselves in positions where you have like this, this disproportionate knowledge to the rest of the world, knowingly or unknowingly, like, you just— where things that could seem risky, like, aren't. And I think Warren Buffett has talked about this in some way or sometimes, right? Where it's like, yeah, it's like, I know so much about the company, it's certain, I done the math. Already, right? I'm not just making a bet, right?

Right.

So if you— whatever that looks like from your side of the fence and whatever your position is in the industry, where like you might say, oh yeah, I took a big risk not being on the label, uh, leaving my label position, but that's a risk if you do it with very little knowledge. But you might also be somebody who have really analyzed it, has some experiences, and you're like, well I don't know, the labels are getting all their information from like the indie side of things, our world. Yes, hire these people, and then the labels are changing their makeup. So it maybe is actually more risky to stay in here traditionally, right, and not build my own leverage and things like that. It's really how you look at it and also having enough information sometimes to like take the perception of risk away, right?

And to take the leap of faith.

The leap of faith is like, that's that last part that's still just gonna come to you. It's like, you could, you could have all the answers, you could have all the wise people telling you whatever, and yeah, but you still got to take that, that move, that step. And I think people like us, right, um, and I think it trains you in the music industry as well, like entrepreneurship, music industry, like there's a lot of default or pseudo-entrepreneurship you have to get accustomed to that over and over again, otherwise it's hard to survive. Whereas like, I know I need to be moving somewhere, I know trends are going to change, right? I know this isn't going to be there always, so how do I dip in and then continue to move and not miss whatever the next thing is? Because I know complacency is gonna, gonna kill me in this particular industry. So, you know, and then so it feels a lot less, um, it's just not as difficult to take that leap of faith. At some point, that's just how I move, right? I'm just skipping through everything.

It's just, I mean, just Forrest Gump in my way through.

Hey, like, that just is what it is.

I've learned, I've learned to do more of what works and less of what doesn't. It's really that simple.

It's that simple.

And I talked to Simple.

I talked to so many people who haven't even taken the first leap yet, and it's now so foreign to me, you know, like, and, and not even just the— not— it's not just being the fact that I am not used to not being able to take a leap, because there's still bigger and bigger leaps, right, that I still need to make and train myself to, to take. But just not— just the lack of confidence that I feel like it comes from. I don't have that lack of confidence anymore where I know that I will be able to figure it out. I was talking to somebody really close to me, I'm like, bro, you are the stuff you've done in the system on a corporate side. This person isn't even in like music. It's like today's entrepreneurship landscape, you would kill. You just have to have the confidence in yourself, right? And it also doesn't even look like what we thought entrepreneurship looked like before, right? It's like if you just had the confidence to take that step, and once you start taking them, you start to build a different level of confidence, and because it's proven, right?

It's—

what's the— it's the two words. It's the difference between faith and trust to me, right? It's like you ask me to have faith in you, ah, I can have faith in God or whatever, but like, like, but like faith is that I trust— trust comes from deposits, right? I trust, I have a level of certainty, all right? And you start to trust yourself. It's nice to have faith in yourself, like, I think I can figure it out.

But when you've done it, when you've done it and you know that you can handle anything thrown at you, you can figure it out.

I can figure out— so trusting yourself is like, man, it's such a gift. And Again, that's the foreign part. When I talk to people, I can tell they don't trust themselves in that degree. It's like, it's weird. I'm like, oh man, how do I coach somebody through this? But that might be like the next chapter of my life, like beyond music.

Maybe that is.

Maybe that's the next step. Who knows?

You also don't have a fear of change. And I think that's really important. Like, you're not afraid of change. You're not afraid to do things that are different. You're not afraid to wake up and say, okay, I've been doing it this way for so long, I'm going to now try it this way.

Yeah, yeah. For me, it becomes—

and most people fear change. That's why I'm pointing that out, because I noticed that about you early. You don't have a fear of change.

It's just like, I'm somebody— I, I love stability. I do.

I do too.

And not— and I— but to me, the math, right, the best ability there is, is to be able to change and equip yourself to change.

Life is going to change whether you adapt or not. Yeah, it can't not— it can't stay still. It's— it's— nature is constantly changing. It's constantly moving. So you can either fight it or you can accept it. Basically, you have an ability to adapt to change. That's incredible.

Because I convinced myself over and over again that it's worse to stay here than to move on.

Agreed, agreed.

Yeah, agreed.

It is worse to stay stationary than to keep moving.

Yeah, I mean, in general, and also based on where I just want to be and what I want to achieve, right?

Like, right, right.

I remember I was talking to JR one time. I think we might— it might have been like in an event or something, like where we were having maybe a little panel thing or something, but it was I talked about how we can— like a JR, someone who's done what he's done, even me to the degree I've done what I've done— you go through these iterations and you have these failures. People always talk about that, right? You know what people never talk about? They don't talk about the successes that were failures to them, right? It was a success However, my ambition says this isn't enough, right? And if I stay in this particular model, there's a ceiling here. And everybody else is like, you're doing great. But now, no, it's like, dang, that path didn't go as high as I did. I did it, I killed it, the world even applauded me for it. But nah, I don't want to stop here. This isn't enough for me, right? That could look like anything. It could be a job where you're making $200,000 or $100,000 or $50,000. It could be you have an agency, you could have had one artist, but now you want to pop another artist, or you might not even just— whatever it is, right? Only you are the personal, uh, you're the personal measurement of that. But of course, if you get to a certain point and have done the things that we've done and more, usually you have to go through, yeah, I did this and I failed. I also did this and I learned that, yo, that works, but it doesn't work for me, you know. And I, and I would have loved to learn that didn't work for me by, by just someone telling me or vicariously being able to do it, but I actually had to do it. And I just, and I just spent 2 years doing it, and I was winning it. So I had to literally get to the dead end before I realized that this isn't going to work.

This isn't working for me, who I want to be, right?

Exactly. And that's a That's a weird thing because again, like, nobody talks about those and they didn't warn me about it. And but it's hard to too because people are hard-headed when we get some level of winning.

Yes.

Like, how do you tell me that this isn't—

this isn't it?

Well, yeah, this isn't it, but I'm winning right now, right? It was like, ah, okay, go ahead, get to the end of that road, you'll see. It's like a labyrinth. You made progress, it's like, ah, yeah.

But it's also self-realization. Nobody can really tell you that. You have to, you have to be there. It's, it's like, it's like losing weight. Nobody can tell you you have to drop weight, but you're going to drop weight when you're ready.

Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

It's like, it's self— it's a self-realization. Like, oh, I'm gonna die soon if I don't change my lifestyle.

Yeah, I guess you, you think like I think. I mean, I guess you could literally say that, but, uh, but also there's like a version of I, I'm gonna die to who I am, right? Jay-Z has this song called No Hook, and it's one of my favorite verses for him, or songs, just for multiple reasons. And I know people don't love that album as much, as much as I do, the American Gangster album. But, um, he has this verse where it's like—

let me see.

Oh yeah, um, he says— I wish I could remember the line before. I would have to go through the whole verse. Let me see. Rose, keep on moving smooth while maneuvering. All right, so, uh, I'm so for sure it's no facade. Stay out of trouble, mama said. As Mama sighed, her fear her youngest son be a victim of homicide. All right, but I gotta get us out of here, Mama, or I'mma die inside. So what he's saying is like, yeah, my mom's afraid that I'm moving in the streets and doing everything I'm doing, but if I don't get us out of here, I'm gonna die inside.

Exactly. So he has to take the risk.

Yep. And, and then his next line is, and either way you lose me, Mama, so let loose of me. Me, right? So like, that's kind of like what I think in, in many positions, right? Again, like, if something could be great— and I ironically, I could go to the Dame Dash reference after the Jay-Z reference, where I remember him talking about there was a time where everybody thought he was winning but he felt like he was losing. And then he remembers a time where everybody felt like he was a loser and he was on bottom but he was winning, and it felt great. He loved it that way. Way better, right? So like, for me, it's always going to be like navigated by my internal. And keep playing myself and fall and pray to some of these, these industry, uh, things that bubble up that you hear about here and there, you know, over time. Because my, you know, my— your heroes are not my heroes. That's what I tell a lot of people, you know what I mean?

That's real.

And, and, and you know, and I, I have to have the ability to like win on my terms, right? You know what I mean? It don't have to look crazy where I gotta— I'm shaking tables or whatever, but just more so a certain level of ethic, character, um, and, you know, life that I want to do. Because hey, I don't want to have to be at a party at all times, or, you know what I mean? But that could be winning to somebody else. So it's not even hate certain paths, right?

That's hell to me. Yeah, like, that is so not winning to me if I have to be at a party at all times. Oh my God. Yep.

I made that decision early on, on the opposite, right? I was the— came in programming, right? That's why I went to school programming, CS. But at some point I decided I love to like hack and build some random shit for myself, but I didn't want to sit behind a computer, like, as much as that took, and that was the job. Ironically, I end up sitting way more behind the computer than I ever thought because I didn't know the world was gonna go this way, right?

Exactly.

But, but it's still different, you know what I mean? It's still different.

It is different because it's, it's— you're not thrust behind the computer, you're choosing to be there. You gained freedom but you kind of sort of had the same outcome in a way.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

I, um, I have a master's degree in African American Studies, and I didn't pursue that lane because I didn't want to write or teach, which is what I'd be qualified to do. Which is really funny because what do I do now, Branman? I write and I teach. Yeah, so I totally get what you're saying.

Exactly.

Completely get what you're saying, but I'm doing it on my terms.

It's different.

It's way different. I'm doing it in the hip-hop world instead of in the scholarly world.

Yeah, that would have been interesting, man, if you— I mean, come on, a white woman teaching African American studies, that would have—

yeah, yeah, that would be weird. I'm looking at my, my screensaver on my phone and it's Malcolm X, so I already know that I think a little differently than most people.

Ah, yeah, yeah. So this is the most underrated fact about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King to me.

Tell me.

And I feel like it's a very rare breed, and it actually moves me just thinking about it. Um, Martin did everything he did, right? Um, 1965, the, you know, the voting and civil, civil rights like all that stuff, right?

Peaceful protest.

Then what was it, like '68 when it was like the March on Washington and whatever, something around that, right? Had the Vietnam stuff in between. Overall, if you just summarize it, he led people in one direction and then he had that speech, hey, I fear I let my people into a burning building, right? And then started to focus more on the economics, right? Freeze frame on Martin. On Malcolm, his story, you know, being in jail and then Nation of Islam, the nation preaching that word or whatever. But then the dissension when he traveled and then saw the world differently and said, hey, this is limiting, it's more than what you're— is being communicated in the Nation of Islam, right? Freeze frame on Malcolm. Both of these very strong leaders that actually disagree with each other in many ways or whatever, but in many ways came closer to each other and met more in the middle near the, near the end, near the end of both of their lives. What I find so appealing that's such rare and shows legitimate true believer and true character is that they had a direction whether you'd agree, agreed or not, and led people with a legitimate platform And when they got to a certain point in their platforms, they both took a left turn and admitted it. It's more, and they admitted it and admitted it. No one was asking for this. They would have been good without it. And I don't think people acknowledge how hard that is and how true and character— to character that is. And you could agree or disagree. I know there was some polarization, especially around Malcolm X, the way people feel. But for someone to go there and not for their greater good— it was to their detriment in both cases. Yes, right. Yes. Something like that is just so rare. And just you bring Malcolm, like, that's one of the first things I ever think about when I think about those two. Like, of course, all the other things, the great things they did, but beyond, like, getting beyond, um, beneath that, there was like true character in the middle. I always think like, yo, that shit's crazy. And I don't see that many people doing, doing that, you know. I ain't putting no names out there, but it's just like, yeah, I don't see it. Oh man.

But I love it. This has been an awesome conversation, and you have been extremely generous with your time. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should Nah, nah, we're good.

We're good. You know, we can always talk another time on your platform if you want to or whatever, but yeah, I would love that.

Yeah, I don't want this to be the last time we do this. I also want to, uh, set up a time to have lunch with you whenever is convenient for you, or dinner or breakfast or whatever. So, because there's some thoughts that you had expressed when I last saw you, and I just read your last text to me when I was texting you And I'm like, oh yeah, we never did have that conversation, like, just you and I. So, um, whenever you have time, let's do that.

Yeah, when we, uh, when we end this interview, I'll give you a real, like, 2 minutes and, uh, right.

Well, here, let me, um, let me end it now. Thank you for doing this. I appreciate you so much. For sure.