Closer (Season Finale)

We're back at it.

Yeah, we had technical difficulties last week, so anyone that was with us last week, thank you for hanging out. That was man. And gotta work on a few things, but we. We kind of figured it out this week, so we not. We're not too worried about it. We're not too stressed about it, but we're gonna be operating out the chat. We won't be able to do any calling, guys. So any questions, please throw them in the chat. We will be looking at them. We'll be having a nice bit of commentary just about anything you guys want to ask any. Any questions or. This is the time to ask me as Ty. Let's. Let's make this a great dialogue for our last. Our grand finale, as Ty would call it. So they still coming in? Please hit the. Hit the button. Share with your folks. Let them know that we in here discussing the music industry, the music business. Any questions you guys might have about independence, equity, the culture playbook. If you haven't got that yet, please get you a copy. It's worth the read, man. All right, time. Do you wanna. You wanna start with our question that we had from last week?

Yeah, we'll start with the first question then. You know, I wanted to. I wanted to get the. The overall dialogue in and we can kind of start thinking about questions, you know, like, midway through. Okay. But I wanted to. I wanted to just start off the. The. The overall dynamic of. Of different things and different ideologies and what I hope that this particular show was able to add value to people's perspective on how to get started in the music business. Their perspective on balancing their time and their energy and putting it into things that serve them. You know, their perspective on financing and their own personal budgets and what's important and what's not important, you know, and really, really, truly would like to make sure that we are doing what we set out to do, which was help people, you know, mentally, before physically it being a thing, but mentally being able to unlock the steps for themselves to capture, you know, fuck you money in the most humblest way possible without rubbing people wrong, without, you know, screwing nobody, anybody over and while adding value to your community while getting those. Those. Those revenue chips in order. You know what I'm saying? And so one of the things that. That hit me this year while doing caused me to, like, start looking at things and studying things a little bit closely, making sure that the information that I'm giving people is accurate. Because, you know, now there's an audience. It's not A huge audience, but there's an audience that's going out after they hear these things and speaking about it with their friends, their peers, themselves. So this year created this dynamic of make sure you got information that's accurate before you start speaking on it. Because people are gonna take it as, you know, truth if you stand on it too heavily. You know what I'm saying?

Absolutely. There's a lot of misinformation out there in the first place. So it's very easy to get tangled up with facts and fiction these days, 1000%.

And what I've learned is that when there's the fact that Google give you too much information, if you're not equipped with the right community, if you're not equipped with the right direction, you just feel like a failure because you don't know what piece of information to apply. So I hope that fuck you money, you know, the culture playbook or any other, you know, reading that we might have suggested throughout the call or any readings that we said we're participating in right now, throughout, throughout the calls and throughout the episodes are adding value and giving people some direction on how to pull information out of the Internet. Because it is a real thing. When you're over buried by information, you just don't make no decision. And it's important for us to make decisions and start working towards things that is benefiting and serving our time.

Absolutely.

So yo, what have you learned from this experience?

I think what you just said was so crucial is hearing you talk about things and hearing how someone else processes information really helped me see that there's positive ways to use knowledge and wisdom that you're gaining. And then there's negative ways because there is all of this information, it's extremely accessible. There's nothing you can't Google. There's nothing that you can't just decide to figure out in some form or fashion. But in that over information you can, you can end up not knowing what to do. So I felt like with fuck you money, especially with us having these bi weekly talks, it gave me insight in how someone else processes things and especially someone that has had that experience. You know, Ty has had a bit more skin in the game than I have, so I got a chance to access a person through that. A lot of people wouldn't have that possibility. And I really hope that everyone that has been in these calls feels the same way that you're hearing these stories. Are you hearing these perspectives from someone who's actually done it and not someone who's just studying or Someone who's just watching from afar. This is someone that's actually applying the very things they're talking about. So I think I've been able to gain a lot from these calls and gain a lot from these episodes. And it was really inspiring to also look outside of our show and know that I don't really see it anywhere else. I don't see it as transparent, as honest, and as raw as the way we discuss things. And I find that to be very beneficial to feel like, okay, there's not just an importance to this show, but it's necessary. It's. It's so necessary to have someone like Utah have a platform like this and to talk about our topics. It's not every day. It's not something that's ordinary.

Yeah. I think that we're doing our part by being other, aspiring or achieved or progressively working towards goals. Type of black people that add more, that take away more pieces of the pie of platforms that are operated and being educated by black people about the things that black people experiences. I'm a huge proponent of getting information from other cultures and bringing it back and share with the black people that probably not have the opportunity. Our problem that we have to work on in our community, it isn't working with white people or working with Jewish people or working with Spanish people over working with black people. That's not our problem. Our problem is boxing our own people from the information that we're learning from other races of people. You know, if we are to go and spend time studying Jewish business culture with a small collective of Jewish black men who only found a liking to you because of how smart you are or how smart she is or he is, our goal and our duty is to take all the information that we learning from this Jewish collective and bringing it back to form something in our community. That information can be spread throughout the layers and generations of black people. Same with Asian communities, same with Hispanic. I think that is something that I'm personally hypersensitive about, is that I'm not gonna get information and block out a black person from getting that same information, because then that makes the race a lot more tougher for a black person. You know what I'm saying? Man or female. If we know off bat that we were coming from a very strenuous history in the United States of America and a very oppressed history from United States of America, we can't afford to box each other out of information. You know what I'm saying? If you got a budget and your budget is only A certain amount of number, which. That is just what it is. And you can't pay another black person to come work for you, or you can't pay that black person what they feel like they're worth. That's one thing. But there is no cap and there is no budget on how much information that you can give to another black person that'll help them progress their walk in a different way because of information that they would have never learned. Because of how society has boxed us out from being able to be educated in a certain way, and how we have boxed ourselves out by not reading enough, by not going into schooling and having a certain focus on what we're trying to learn enough, by not looking outside of traditional education from a college level and just looking at being educated in general. You don't have to go and take the bar to have the understanding of a lawyer. You know, all of it is about studying and really getting the baseline information. The same as a businesswoman, a businessman, same as a trainer, a coach. All of this stuff is you're. You're more excellent when you get the information. And if you got enough information, when you sit down with somebody who's looking for that service, they might take a chance on you and be your first client. And then from there, you get wisdom and you get experience and you get paid. And now you're. You're starting to be on your way as a business person within your community to work on keeping not only the black dollar in the community longer, but information spreading in the community longer, you know, and deeper. And so that's, you know, one of my biggest missions. And I never charge a black person for information is a real thing I stand on, because it's not meant for me to charge anybody. It's meant for me to give the information and let you apply it the way you want to apply. You know what I'm saying? Now, if you want me to do the shit for you, then that's when the charge come.

I was thinking about you the other day. There was a report that came out that Glorilla was looking for a personal assistant. And I believe that they were going to pay the person $500 a week. And they had a set amount of things that they were supposed to be doing. And there was a big outrage about how that amount of money was not enough to be someone's personal assistant of her stature, of her celebrity. And I'm not getting into it too deep, but I remember there was a point in time where I was traveling around with Ty and I wasn't his personal assistant per se, but just going to places with him, I learned a lot. And something about the knowledge you receive from being in certain circles, the possibilities to learn and to meet and to network and to grow. I find that sometimes we put a lot on the economics that you receive, but there's things that you can't put a dollar on. And I don't know, that particular situation is, you know, quote, unquote, white. What I got from hanging out with you versus I don't know what you will get from being Glorilla's personal assistant, but I know for a fact that she's in rooms right now and she's meeting people and she's having experiences that I think anyone that has any interest to be in Music man you would benefit from. And. And I. And I think about Tyler that way. Like you. You have the possibility to open up your mind to so many things that you can't put a dollar on. And money not being real is something that I learned from not just a culture playbook, but from this show in particular. I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

Yeah, I made a $2,000 a month to be, you know, Glorilla's assistant. You know, anybody that is. Is. Is in the right age bracket, because I'm pretty sure that she's going to look for somebody that's in her age bracket. And I don't know how old she is necessarily, but I know it's gonna be somebody in her age bracket. And I don't think she's older than 25.

No, I think she's in her early 20s. Really?

Yeah. Right. So. So if I'm in my early 20s and I got the opportunity to work alongside, you know, artist that's developing and they. And they got a lot of weight, they got a good amount of momentum, and they're. And they're putting that opportunity out in the world, right? So they're. They're being open to being exposed to what, Whatever, you know, backlash that they're gonna get. Right. And the truth of the matter is, everybody. Budgets are different. You know, people. People look at how much she. She might be paying for this assistant out of her own. Out of her own pocket. You know, you don't know how that money is being put together from that perspective. And you got to also remember that if she's looking for a personal assistant, she's looking for somebody to be with her a lot. Right. And so if you with her a lot, you buy naturally, might not have to pay for food, might not have to pay for transportation, might not have to pay for the hotels when y' all moving around. You know, if you smart and you doing everything properly, you can leverage that, you know, $2,000 a month and not have to spend nothing, right? And know, okay, well if I'm going to go work for her, I'm going to go do my best job. You know, if I got an apartment, I'm finna get, I'm finna let that apartment go and I'm finna just travel and just be with her. And when I don't have to be there, I'm gonna try to stay at a relative house. I mean, there's ways to make it work and that's not something that you might want to for the longest, but you might work one year and be like, you know what, I did a great job. I know I did a great job. Everybody respect me here, I gotta go use this as a stepping stone to get another job or they gotta give me a raise, you know what I'm saying? I showed improve what I'm capable of and did the work. And so I'm always gonna vote towards doing the work. When I was in my early 20s, I wasn't making $24,000 a month and I damn sure wasn't making it. The money I was making wasn't a personal assistant to apply to a world that could potentially change my life. You know, that's a, that is a real trade off. I do understand that the money is, may not be enough money for people in their opinions, but the positioning and the timing, you know, Rilla, what if over the next three, four years she turns into an artist that's just as big as Nicki Minaj over the next three to five years, you know, just because of her songs being outgoing, being spoken. Now that twenty four thousand dollar entry level fee that you got paid now you, you, you might be living a completely different life in three years, you know what I'm saying? If you do the work and you do the transitioning and you stay close and you do the, you know, do the due diligence to understand and learn your boss, but you know, that's just my opinion, man. Like when I say money ain't real, this is the opportunities. Why when I say money is not real? Because money would dictate opportunity and opportunity is priceless and the higher that opportunity looks, you know, it's priceless. I just had a, I just connected, you know, up and coming artists and songwriters with executive talent that's looking to work with artists and develop artists. And I told him, I told her, I said, yo, I've seen this movie before. You're in Your early to mid-20s, you're looking for education. Whatever is put in front of you from a business perspective, look at it. Decide if you think it's fair or not. And if you think it's fair for you right now, give notes back. But sign off on it and believe in your hard work. I said, because these type of opportunities don't come by that often. You, you will get, you will get an opportunity to sign with a record deal 10 times fold before opportunity like this come around you. And even an opportunity to sign to a record label is one of those things that are very, very, very. That's not a normal thing either. So this just shows you what level of opportunity this is. And this might not be, you know, one of them things where you do a lot of like thinking about it, you know, and that's just in my opinion. And I would never tell anybody nothing that I would not do at that particular age. Identifying what I, what I'm looking at and those different things. Right. And so the money ain't real thing is, is, is it? It creates your mind to start looking at opportunities as stepping stones and life changing elements versus how much money I'm gonna make from this. You know what I'm saying?

Yep. And sometimes that can be hard. I don't know if hard is the word, but you always want to make sure you know your worth. That's something that I feel like I've heard since I was a child. Know your worth, know your worth, know your worth. But I think somet our value scales, we have to know what we're putting on the scales and we kind of have to weigh the value of the opportunities versus the value of how much we're actually going to make economically. Because that can change. Like, like you said, you can get raises, you can negotiate things like what you're making today does not have to be what you're making tomorrow, but that today's opportunity might not come around tomorrow in the way that it is for you. Because some things are just for you. Like, it feels right. It feels like, you know. Todd talks a lot about how when he got the opportunity to work at Delta, the moment he got the call, he knew that this is going to change my life. Sometimes you get those calls. It's not, it's not about money, it's not about anything. But this is a chance to change my life. And I feel like everyone Trying to get some fuck you money is trying to change their life in some form or fashion.

1,000%. 1,000%. So you know that all of it, like we never. This is what I've learned about life for myself. In 2008, I did not have a job. I was trying to find a job. And I end up through one of my homegirls. Her mom worked at Target. She put a good word in for me. I got an interview. I started working at Target. I think me starting working at. And this was 2008. So we in 2022. So what? That, that's like 14 years ago, right? 14 years ago I was 25. I mean I was 24 because I'm. Cause I'm 38 now. So I was 24 years old in 2008, got a job at Target. Couldn't. I applied for everywhere. Even fucking Waffle House. I didn't care. I was just trying to get a job. I was making $6 and 25 cents an hour. I don't want to go lower because I don't. I'm like. I feel like it was $6 and 25 cents the, the minimum wage. I feel like it was 5:75, but I'm gonna say 625 because I, I just gotta think that it was 625, right? And I remember getting that job. And bro, 24 years old. Like, mind you, now I know people that are 24 years old right now that would laugh if, if like I'm not working for no $6 and 25 cents an hour, right? And mind you, I didn't really have no choice. And, and I, I got, I was like, fuck this. I'm. I'm working this job because this shit is going to be able to help me get where I need to go at this particular point. And I'll pivot whenever I get a chance right now. Another reason why I took the job, because I still was in college trying to finish my education and it wasn't that easy, you know. And I, you know, I had, it was in state tuition, all those different type of things, right? Bro, I remember working, I came, I think I worked a whole year. And after a year they evaluate your, your, your work, you know, through the managers and through people saying how good of a worker you are. You get a raise, right? Bro, I got like a raise. That probably was a quarter, bro. I went from goddamn 625 to 650 in one year. I got a quarter raise right now, mind you, now I'm in 2009. I'm like, man, it's crazy. I'm still in college though. So I was like, man, I gotta get some other jobs. I would go apply for these other jobs and I would get the interviews and then they would be like, okay, they never said I couldn't work my part time job. They was found my part time job. But you know what they had a problem with? I wouldn't be able to go to school, right? And I was like, wait a minute. Damn, bro, I gotta go, I gotta finish, Scott. I gotta finish this degree, man. I can't not not go to school. Just like, that ain't gonna work. So the one thing about Target, the money was low, but I had a certain level of flexibility to still pursue my dream, right? And I was living in Georgia, so I had a roommate, my roommate paid half of the bills, I paid the other half of the bill, right? It was about, I think our rent was like $600, bro. He paid 300, I paid 300, you know what I'm saying? And I think I made, I think I was making about $500, $600 a month, really, living check to check, right? But I had, I was in school, so I would get Pell Grants and like, I would get loans and I would, I would ask for more loans than my tuition was so I can like supplement, right? So I didn't have to do no job. Target was important because I worked with a bunch of black women who allowed me to pursue my dream of trying to do music at that particular time. On top of that, they also allowed me to start doing in stores when nobody was doing in stores anymore because CDs wasn't being sold. So although I was just making $6.50 an hour and I was working like 30 to 40 hours a week, I was working full time hours, but still getting paid, you know, part time. Cause I was just trying to work as much as possible to make the money. I worked every weekend at night for like two summers, bro. You know what I'm saying? Mind you now, that's my 24, 25 and 26 summers in Atlanta. Work every weekend. I pretty much all nights during the week, right? Six, seven days a week just to save up enough money to get a plane ticket to Miami, you know, or, or really Miami, because the chick, the tickets was cheap. And Miami was the closest thing to music business that I could get to outside of Atlanta to go and meet with people, right? So when we start talking about, you know, how much money you making during that time frame, we Gotta have a certain level of what is a livable wage to the person that is getting paid. That's very important, right? What is, what is the, what is the actual vantage point of these different things? Sometimes we price ourselves out of certain opportunities because of how much our overhead is, right? And not everybody can accept certain wages because of, you know, where they live at, city wise, you know, how their, how their, their ecosystem is set up within their families. Sometimes people can't accept that, that, that, that money because data can't even afford to move to the city to where that job is being offered. You know what I'm saying? And so the overall thought process of it all, when we start talking about opportunity cost, we start talking about how do we advance in life. Every advancement that I've had in life, I ain't get paid for it, you know what I'm saying? Like, I didn't get paid for it, meaning that I wasn't getting a job. I never had a job in the music business. Every job that I had in the music business, it was a. I worked for contacts, you know what I'm saying? Every last one of them, I worked for contacts or I was working off of commission as a manager, but I never had a salary in the music business. Not as assistant, not as an A R, not as a manager. I've never had an assistant, right? And so for, I mean, I never had a job, a salary. And so for me, when I see, you know, any pay for anybody to work in the music business, it's like, oh, man, you know, that's dope. Somebody's gonna actually get paid because I ain't get paid. And I put a lot of hours in, right? And I just always viewed, once again, I never seen money as real, right? And I always was conscious enough of like, okay, how can I get a situation to where I can leverage these contacts to make some money? I just knew that the contacts eventually would lead to money, right? But then I worked at target from 2008-2009-2010-2011. In 2011, I got the job at Delta. So I was working Target and Delta, but I was only working Delta full time, seasonal. But the amount of hours that I would work between May, June, July and August, I was working 40 hours a week, sometimes 50 hours a week for May, June, July, August, which would equate to about part time year round, right? And then I would have a few months off, then I would come back and work November, December, and like the first week of January, and then I would be off until May again, right? And that was my overall cycle for, like, seven, like, from 2011 to 2018. And I quit Target in 2011. So for me, I was using other jobs to, you know, supplement me. Making. Potentially making money in music through brokering a deal or selling a beat or doing some kind of middleman activity to try to get me a check, right? And what I've learned through that journey.

Is.

You have to figure out what works best for your actual living experience, you know what I'm saying? And what you're able to sacrifice and what you're. And what you absolutely are not able to sacrifice. I was. My situation is a little different than everybody else because in 2008, I had an apartment. I had a roommate, but I had my own room, my own bathroom, and I had a car that didn't have no car note. It was just paid for. That bitch smoked. It leaked oil. But it got me from point A to point B, right? And I wasn't even making $24,000 a year, bro. And I damn sure wasn't hanging around fucking celebrities that could remember my work ethic and potentially hire me for a second job that's gonna pay me more. I was at fucking Target, you know what I'm saying? In the fucking electronic department, trying to sneak calls to fucking KP and fucking, you know, answer calls when fucking Wayne Williams called me to learn more about why I thought the way I thought while I'm fucking wearing red and khaki, running off in the back of the fucking electronic department, trying to take calls, because all of a sudden, people starting to think that what I was talking about was smart, you know what I'm saying? Or the talent that I was attached to, they liked, and they wanted to learn more about it, you know what I mean? But that shit still didn't make me no money until like, three, four, five, like, six years later, you know what I'm saying?

So I got a question, like, during that period of not being paid, where did the resolve come from to see it through? Like, was there anything in you that was just like, damn, when? Like, when is it gonna happen? Did you. Did you. Did you ever question yourself like that?

I always had a timeline, bro. Man, I'm a planner, dog. I've always had a timeline. I always knew, like, I'm gonna do this, and I'm a. I'm a get my obligation, right? I'm gonna do my obligation, man. When I first started working at Good Music, when they was trying to launch the management department, you want to know the number One thing I asked for what fucking email? I need a good music email, bro. When I got that good music email, nigga, I emailed every motherfucker in the world that I could email about the talent that I was managing that we was trying to sign that good music. This how, this, how much I email. I remember this. Named Diamond Marty Diamonds. At the time, it was at Paradigm, I was emailing so many booking agents because at that time, Brent didn't have no booking agent, right? And Brent wasn't necessarily signed to Good Music Management. I just worked there. I didn't sign him to that. That company. You know what I'm saying? Him nor Wintertime. I never signed them to that company. But, nigga, I was using that shit. I was emailing so many motherfuckers that I email Marty diamond on some cold email shit. He seen the good music email. He hit Steven Victor like, yo, who's this kid then? Steven Victor? I think either I think Steven Victor hit me or Steven Victor hit Che Pope, which was my. Who I reported to like, yo, who is this? And chase like, yo, that's. That's my young kid that's working with us, helping to build the shit or whatever. But, nigga, I emailed so many motherfuckers, niggas thought that this shit was fake. See what I'm saying? When I started working at. When I started working at Crime World Entertainment with Cersei, first thing I asked for, yo, I need an email. I need a Crown World email, nigga. I emailed every motherfucker that I could get. Cause I know that motherfuckers will respond to emails that are connected to motherfuckers now. So when an intern or anybody that works for my company or works with us, I'm never giving them nothing but an email. If I'm the one that's hiring them and I'm the one that's bringing them in on the promise of an internship, they're going to have their own email address. Because I know how important that shit is to have the same email address as mine. Because when they reaching out, people are going to look at the email address and they're going to like, I know that company. And they're going to either respond or they're going to hit somebody that worked for that company. So if I was Glowriller's assistant, if I was anybody assistant. All right, that's what's up. Thank you for the pay. Hey, when I get my email address, that's hard.

I never thought about like that. But there's some truth to that. There's. Man, I got. I'll tell you. I'll tell you something off the air about emails. And that is another episode of fuck you, money with Ty. And, yo, thank you for listening.