14 Feb 2024 · 39 min
Worldwide Ty discusses the rollout strategy for his album Brent, including week-long fan activations across Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, and Vegas. He covers touring, digital vs. physical releases, a Plaque Pass loyalty program he's evolving into NFTs, and lessons about independence, distribution partnerships with Lost Kids and Stem, and learning the music business.
Chapters
What's good, Ty?
Man, I ain't.
Another week, another episode.
Yeah. Yes, indeed.
California.
California.
It's hot. We in the pool.
Yeah, we're in Palm Springs, California. Actually, it's hot as. It's very hot. I don't know how hot I can describe it, but it's hot.
I think the devil got him a rental house out here.
Yeah, he definitely gotta rent him.
How you feeling?
I'm feeling good. Feeling inspired.
Inspired?
Yeah, I'm feeling like fuck your money. In the flesh. You.
Yes, sir.
You know what I mean?
Tell me about your week.
Monday was 4th of July. We had a fan activation. Then we had a magic city activation. And then Tuesday, July 5th to New York had a New York activation. I left when it got a little nuts. I went back to the hotel and got some food. I think I went to sleep. But the hotel that I was in in New York had a basketball court. So it took me about three hours to put on clothes and get off my phone before I was down to the gym shooting basketball like at midnight. And then the next day flew out to LA on July 6th. And we just monitoring and getting all this stuff set up for the album, but also planning for Vegas for summer league. And then the seventh, we had a VIP listen, listening event at Burberry for the album leading down to that. And then I left that early to go make sure that the album and everything was gonna roll out the proper way. You know, data making sure people credits and shit straight and making sure the right versions of the song ain't get cross crossed over and confused from the DSPs and shit. Then on Friday we had a. A fan activation that we did with Amazon at this studio space down in downtown LA where the police sent the helicopters.
And yeah, there was a swat. SWAT came out, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They sat down because it was too many like around waiting on the line. So the police was like, you don't have permits to have all these people like, like this a block party. But they were really like in line. It's just the line was so long and disruptive and it was. And the studio pretty much just lied to the police like, yo, this is a private event. We don't know how these kids got the, got the address. We're going to get the people that's supposed to be here. So they let in about 2500, I mean 25 kids fans, 25, 250, 300. It was between the number and then from there it got a little rowdy.
It got rowdy after that yeah, the.
Police shut everything down and try to get everybody away from the space. But the fans start to act like Travis Scott fans. They try to, like, knock down the gate at the studio space. We had to run Brent through the back. They had to use boat cutters to cut the boat off. I was one of the back doors. Cause the police had blocked the whole road. It was some wild shit. And then that was Friday. Saturday I flew to Vegas for some NBA summer league. Want to watch some games? And went to a panel. My nigga Barry was speaking at the panel. And then Sunday, I'm in here. I flew from Vegas to Palm Springs.
Now that's a week.
Yeah, that is a week.
So for anyone that doesn't know Ty works with Brent Faisal, Wasteland is out now.
Yeah, Wasteland is definitely out now.
You know, album number two.
And Callie Sway. Callie Sway's out single. You know what I'm saying?
The thing that I really liked was the first event was in Atlanta. Right? The pop up.
Yep. Fourth of July.
You tweeted out that the rollout begins.
Yep.
How do you decide these activations?
Well, it's a team effort. You know what I mean? It's like everybody have their ideas, bring their ideas to the table. It was PK idea about the Magic City shit. It was Brent's idea about doing these fucking unruly, unregulated ass fan pop up. I didn't agree with. I was completely against the shit. But it was a team effort. That's something he wanted to do. So everybody just kind of worked on how can we do it in a way that it can be manageable and not get shut down before he actually get there.
Right.
So the funny thing about it is the shit that was the most organized, which is in la, almost got shut down before he got there. So it was a collection of everybody's ideas for the activation perspective.
But managing digital activations and physical activations, how important is that for artists these days?
I mean, I think they go hand in hand. I don't think you should do a digital activation without pairing it with a physical activation. It's just something about people being able to see you as a fan. Like that's anything, though. When you think about sports, when you think about, you know, music, when you're thinking about talk show hosts, when you think about anything that people can, like, see on the TV or Internet, even loving hip hop stars, like, people just have a different type of reaction when they can actually see that shit and talk to them and interact with them and feel like they close with them or feel like they one of them, you know what I'm saying? Or we relate, you know what I mean?
Anything you learned throughout the week that has kind of stuck with you so.
Far, that people weird as shit. Like I always knew that. But like they're just weird. It's just weird individuals that work in the music space. And when you start to see like when you look at Master P's documentary about no limit to story and you notice that Master P had like a period of like five years before Mr. Ice Cream really hit and blew up, you know what I'm saying? So when you think about what we are doing with Brent, it's been five years like sunder sun five year anniversary is in October. That was the first like debut like album. So technically this is really the second album. Everything in between that been eps and been singles. So like we've literally we're on like a no limit trajectory just with less artists, right. And so when you start to see that and you, and you start to have like this, this, these charting successes where people are like things that are trending to be number one or number two or whatever it is, you start to see like how people that you already have being cordial with like this just weird how they be acting. So it just solidifies that. I don't really specifically don't like men. Men are weird. Like men are weird. I'm say it twice and they're groupies and I don't understand it. Women are way better conversation and to be around. Cause even if women get weird, you feel like you can just change your direction and go to another room, you know what I'm saying? But when a man is weird, you feel like you gotta fight em because you're a man, you know what I'm saying?
Or you gotta and they might follow you to that next room.
Yeah, like it's just weird. Like I don't think grown men should be having certain conversations with other grown men that they don't really know like that. You know what I'm saying? That's just me personally.
I won't get into that.
Yeah, that's what I learned. Men are weird.
Okay, well we got about a nice amount of people in here and I know you were, you were tweeting about you. They might get some game today. You might get some knowledge. What were you thinking? What's on your mind?
Yo, it really hit me today, like work hard but study harder, right? Because people know what hard work looks like. Because they're like if you have a family. Like if you, not if, you know, if you, if you didn't grow up rich, you know what hard work looks like. Because your parents probably had one or two jobs. They probably work 40 to 60 hours a week. You probably didn't have that many vacations as a family. You probably didn't see your, your, your, your, your mom or your dad that much because they, they work that much, right? And so you know, when you're looking at something, you're like, damn, this person is really working hard. They're taking care of the household, they're waking up every day, they, you know, whatever. But you never really see what study harder looks like. You know, growing up, I never seen what study hard. I never seen a visual representation of what study hard looks like. Right? And through this week, the, the, the information that I have been privy to, you know, the same information that these 40 year institutions have, information to, to make sure that an album can be successful. You know what I'm saying? Certain partners that you can align with that understands what you need to do and what the rules are to be able to make sure that you're not working down the wrong path. I think that's what happened with like a lot of our parents. Like, they worked extremely hard, went to job, went to work every day, never called off, probably picked up a second job because the ends wasn't meeting. And they worked really hard. But like, there was no study harder like mentality mentality or even an example, like, I ain't see nobody that sat at the house all day and made money and didn't have to leave. And me being like, dang, I wanna how they make all that money and then them be like, oh, well, I've been studying this specific industry and I've been waiting for the right opportunity. And then opportunity hit, I took advantage of it, Boom, I made a good load of money, I invested it, I diversified it, all those different things, Right, right. It's funny, in Magic City, this is how Atlanta works. Men in Magic City with all tycoons. And he tells us, in Magic City, true diversification of your income or your portfolio is to make money without labor.
Right?
That's true diversification. He didn't say, get you some real estate here, get you some, you know, franchises here, you know, you whatever, you know, you got your music business here, your tech. He didn't say none of that shit. He said true diversification is to make money without labor. And I was like, this is Magic City on Monday. Why he got a 1942 in his hand. Like I'm telling you, put your shit in the trust. You put your shit in the trust, no matter what happens, it's protected. No matter if you go through a divorce, matter if you go through a lawsuit, put it in the trust. And he's like walking through these tidbits, you know what I'm saying? Why he getting a lap dance? This is Atlanta, this is why the script clubs in Atlanta, this is not the first time this happened. I remember being in Onyx, they had this shit called Smokers Club. It's the last Friday of every month from three to eight, nothing but black attorneys. Black lawyers, architects, and they in a bit, smoking cigars and they just chopping up, getting lap dances, ordering chicken wings and shit. This is literally on every Friday. I don't even know if it go on anymore.
I don't think so.
From three to eight.
Yeah.
And I met the architect that was at the time putting the plans together for the Brooklyn Net stadium, right? And black guy and he told me then he said, if you can afford a five bedroom house, get a three bedroom house. And the remainder of that cash you got, put it away. If you can afford a E class Benz, get a C class Benz. The difference between that, that cash difference, put that away, invest it, put it somewhere else. Always stay cash heavy because you never know when that cash can come useful. And he just said living below your means, when you got it, accelerates your journey to wealth because you have so many different resources to really acquire wealth comes through ownership, you know what I'm saying? Acquire, acquire, acquire. Right? So like when we start talking about like how to really build and like find ways to utilize what you're doing and you're learning this information into like nightclubs, script clubs specifically. This is financial information.
Well, there's money there, right?
Yeah, yeah, definitely money there.
Do you feel like the way people view strip clubs and the way people view money is such a negative space because of the work that goes on in there?
Yeah, 1,000%. I mean, I don't blame them the fuck. Like it's a very unique experience in Atlanta pertaining to like those type of experiences.
But I feel like that says a lot about Atlanta, the kind of people you can meet in those spaces.
Yeah, 1000%.
You gotta be open minded.
Yeah, I think you gotta be open minded no matter where you at. That's another part of like studying harder.
But I was about to say, yeah, the way we view studying, right. I didn't know what you were going to say when you came up with the idea for the description of the episode. Right. I was thinking maybe you can come with a book. I didn't know you would come with a strip club story. But I don't think people imagine studying in that way.
Yeah, because you, because these are questions that have been, these are conversations that's been happening. He's not just blurting out this shit.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying? You're having, you're having dialogue. Just so happen to be in the script club. Right. Because the person may say something that sparks your, your aspects of what you're trying to achieve. So like when we start talking about studying just through management of music and entertainment and like, and, and, and, and this thought process of growth, right. If you, I'm, I'm sitting down, I'm talking to our different partners and I'm learning things in real time about how a project can be successful but not be documented. Right. Because like if you sell X amount of units or if you do 15 sold out shows but it's not documented, it's successful. I mean it is successful. Yeah, but in terms of like being able to leverage that for other success, how do you prove it? That's 15 shows was 15 years ago. You gotta have some level of like information to know. Yo, you need to make sure that this person report my shit to Polestar. Is the promoter promoting myself to Polestar? Cause that's the database platform that tracks every time you have a headline show that's sold out. Every time you're a headline on a festival that sells out, they're tracking these different things. You know what I'm saying? If a person is like, I'm gonna put my music out on YouTube. You gotta know on YouTube, if you're trying to get credit for selling units as a popular artist, it only counts on YouTube if it's screaming from your artist official artist page. It don't count because me and you uploaded it and that video got 10 million views because I did some cool weird shit with the graphics. That don't count. Now it counts towards you making money.
Yes.
But it doesn't count towards this credit that I think every artist wants to have credit in the artistic world, but also in the commercial industry world, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I want the niggas that create music, the artist community to respect me, but I want that respect to be the foundation. But I want the actual public and all of the platforms that collect all this data and say this artist is number one based on their numbers and there are a lot of artists who's. Who's not getting that do justice in that arena because they ain't been studying or they team hasn't been studying and being prepared for how you need to move and position your art and your IP so that you get credit. It's like when you fly in Delta, right, if you don't put that Sky Mile number in, yeah, you'll get credit for them flights. No, now I'm trying to get credit for everything. I put my dollar into, I put my energy into, I put my sweat into. I want fucking credit. Because I remember, like, the All Gold, everything shit, right? Like, I was co managing the producer. I walked the producer into his publishing situation. You know what I'm saying? I was working with Trinidad because Forte was working on the Don't Be Safe project. He was producing on it, was featured on it. Like, when them niggas started putting out, when they start giving plaques, never got a platform. All Gold, everything. Even though I brokered the deal for the producer and was co manager, nigga walked him through the shit, right? I never got my plaque for Uptown Phone, which they sampled, fucking All Gold, everything. So that shit ain't never happened. Shit never happened, bro. You know what I'm saying? I'm pretty sure this nigga that got plaques, that didn't do nothing, that wasn't involved. Like, I literally told the producer, yo, there's more people that want to sign with you. I know because I've been talking to them, you know what I'm saying? Because the producer ended up firing everybody because he thought his cousin who connected everybody was trying to get him. Like, he was really paranoid. But after he fired everybody, he hit me. He was like, yo, man, like, I fuck with you. What do you think about that? He still was asking me these different questions. So I was like, man, you need to meet with this person. You need to meet with that person. Because being that I wasn't from Mississippi, I was really just from Atlanta. And he was just like, I never lied to the nigga. It's just one of them things where I was a part of the apples, the batch of apples, and the ones that were spoiled, I got thrown out with them. But he still was like, yo, he recently hit me up, like, two months ago.
For real?
Yes. Through LinkedIn.
That's crazy.
Yeah. But I don't respond because he didn't break me off. When I got. When I put him in place, the promoter, I mean, the publisher, who didn't think they were gonna get a deal Then break me off. And then I ain't get no plaque for none of that.
So you're like a ghost.
Yeah, basically 100% like so. But it's cool because at the end of the day, I'm just speaking towards all of that now. When I'm talking to youngins, I'm talking to people like, yo, get. Especially managers. Yo get your credit. That is your next check. If you don't realize it when you're young, that's your next check. So now I'm due plats now from our publishing company, my drum. Like I need all my platts. That's. Cause that's my credit for the work that you put in when 10, 15 years pass and people like, oh, did you really do that? Only way you can prove it. If you got some level of hardware, some level of like, vouching or if you're still working with those individuals.
Right.
You know what I'm saying? Right. So it's one of them things where, you know, very, very, very. I mean, I said I don't even. It's platts. I will. I haven't got my platform juice WRLD shit yet on the record that Brittany was on the album with gold. I ain't got my plat from. It's a lot of plants that I personally have not collected, you know what I'm saying? Because I was working hard, but I wasn't studying hard. Right now I've been studying for the last past three years, heavy on like, all of the different things that it takes to break an artist, to break a executive, to break a company, to break a team, to create a movement that can last over and over and over again. Cause, nigga, I'm studying Bad Boy. You know what I'm saying? Puff still is live and walking in the well. And we've had a few conversations about it. Not nothing in detail, but that's what I'm studying. Cause shit, Bad Boy was a relevant crossover R B label that broke multiple R B acts. Yeah, they had Biggie and he had locks and shine. But like, people remember like that. That fly ass R B that Puff was doing, you know?
Absolutely.
And how it crossed over and blended. And so that's. That's what I've been studying a lot of lately in that regard, you know what I'm saying? So now I'm like, study harder. If you study harder, a lot of shit that you don't even realize matter really do matter, you know what I mean? And it puts you in a place to really take advantage of Your success there.
I saw that you guys will be presenting plaques to listeners that listen to Wasteland. Yeah, tell me about that idea.
Plaque pass. Wasteland, Plaque pass. So basically it was this concept where we was trying to get all of the DSPs was like, yo, what can. What ideas can we do? Can we do an event? Can we do a performance? I'm like, yeah, we can, man, but what can we do to give back to the fans, right? So this idea hit where it was like, what if fans. Obviously we can't give everybody because it's a lot of fans, but what if their top listeners, the people that's the most engaged, we identify those top people and we're like, we're gonna make sure you get a plaque for the first record that goes gold off of, you know, on Wasteland and customize with your name with logo. That's your credit as a fan. You know what I'm saying? If you've been listening for a long time, you're more likely to be in that conversation about getting it. If you on the community line, you receive the text messages, you did a pre order, like you follow up in that small circuit. Cause it may be 20,000 people trying to get this fucking pass right. You know what I'm saying? But it's only be a certain select amount. And I think that first batch is going to see how successful it is. And my goal is really to turn that into like an nft, like to turn that concept, these membership passes into nft. And these are one of the things that you'll be able to get like your customized plat pass or your customized merchandise, or your lost kids promise rings. Like all these different things that we're developing that we're trying to make sure that fans become like a part of the story that they can tell their kids and, you know, be cool when they in their 40s and they 50s and they're like, yo, where you get this platform? Oh, this one time back in my day, you know what I'm saying? You remember Brett Fias? You know, you still listening to him? I was one of the early fans and it's like that shit is important to me. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Because I think when you think about working hard in music, in the music space specifically, the fan does work, the listener does work. Showing up shows activation, listening. Yeah, you decide that in a way.
Yeah, they working hard. You know what I'm saying? Fans are working hard. Like they're working hard and they don't realize it because they have a passion for listening to music.
Right?
They don't work. They don't realize how hard they work, bro. I'm not a fan of nothing. I'm not. I've literally, the longest I've sat in a line to vote for anybody or to buy anything was two hours, two and a half hours. And that was the vote for. That was the vote for Obama. But I'm not a fan of standing in line for shoes. I'm not a fan for like standing in line for concert tickets or festivals. Like my experiences in life are a lot more deeper than like my time, controlling my time. I can't. I'm not standing out for no three hours camping out, the waiting, no, I'm not doing none of that shit.
But she's like, you said you're not a fan. You're not a fan enough.
Like I'm a fan of like Deion Sanders. Like, I'm a fan of like Obama. Like, you know what I'm saying? I'll go and watch a game. I'll go watch Deion Sanders coach practice for two hours and be like, damn, this shit crazy. Well, I'm at Deion Sander Price, but I'm not gonna go stand in line for no Travis Scotts in line digitally or physically. I got you. This ain't happen.
So tell me also, you said three years of studying, like hard, studying about breaking the artist, breaking executive, breaking the company.
Yeah. And.
And that three year time period. What? Didn't you know when you guys released Saunderson that you realized that has been a big impact on the way you've been moving for Wasteland?
Man, you wanna know the most simplest shit? I never did a clean and the dirty part of albums. I never put out clean and dirty. Just that simple change helps with like your sales history.
Yeah.
Because if you want your shit to be playing at the Apple Store, well, like they shit gotta be clean.
Yeah.
I've never delivered.
That's very crazy.
Clean and a dirty project. Never. This is the first time.
I'm sorry. That's funny.
Yeah, like just something that, something that simple.
It seems extremely simple.
It is fucking very simple. And it wasn't like I didn't know it. I like, fuck that clean shit. We gonna go dirty, right? That clean.
I had them the album.
Yeah, like I had them for like sinks, shit like that. But I didn't never put it out.
They were never uploaded on dsp, which seems so simple.
Very simple. Just things like that. It's not a hard lift, right? Oh shit. Probably should do that.
I also Think. People tend to think you're always missing something difficult.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, 1,000%. That's the thing about when you start studying. When you start studying, you realize like, damn, the simplest life hacks. They call it life hacks, right?
Yeah.
It's just things that when you're studying, you're proning yourself to pay closer attention to small details, you know what I'm saying? You not studying for the big shit. The big shit is where everybody run to you studying to try to figure out how did this big shit even become the big shit.
Absolutely.
That's why I'm studying, you know what I'm saying? Like what Chance the rapper Nim did to get that number one as an independent company, you know what I'm saying? We don't got rich dads and shit, you know what I'm saying? I'm not a rich manager. So my perspective from what they did is gonna always be different from what we're gonna do.
Right.
We literally came from a seed investment from post for 75 racks that turned into what it's turned into now. You know what I'm saying? So it wasn't like, no, no hidden, you know, shit like. Like that and then being very secretive about it. Everybody has their own thought process of it. But that's another part about the studying part. If I didn't study, I would look at that and be like. And be. I will slip. Probably be discouraged because I'll be doing what they said versus studying the details of all the moving pieces and the nuances on these different things, you know what I'm saying?
And then applying what you can apply 1,000%.
1,000%.
Now, I noticed with the DSPs, they usually have, like, the record label at the bottom. Y. Yours is Lost Kids, obviously. That's the company. But I also saw that it had marketing by Venice and stem.
Yep.
Tell me about that.
I mean, the. Once again, it's a. It's a study aspect of it, Right. If we are to, as independent companies own the market, we have to work together more. You know, When Drake and Future put out what a Time to Be Alive, Epic and Republic worked together to promote the project. Right? So I was sitting down one day and I was like, man, what happens if two independent distributors work together on the project?
Right?
And that's how they kind of like, came together. I called Troy, I was like, yo, I want you to work on this, you know, with us with stem, and you know what I mean? And we'll make it so that me knowing the information Me knowing like, oh, a distributor needs to be able to claim market share because it helps their business, helps them if they want to raise money, whatever. So I'm like, fuck whoever the aggregator is who is describing who's uploading the information. If we put in the pl, the P line, like, these are the companies that are responsible for how much money or how much success this project makes on these official charts. And these charts are the ones that are like showing like what the market share of. Of the success in the market. So if I could say them and Vinny is going to get a piece of that with Lost Kids now, I'm pushing independence forward, you know what I'm saying? When it's all said and done, they're gonna be masterpiece. They're gonna be Ty. No, no, my bad. It's gonna be J, Prince, Master P, and it's gonna be Ty. Because the independent aspect of it in this generation, history repeats itself. You know what I'm saying? Like history repeats itself. So when history repeats itself, all I ever has done has been like, how can I be the independent nigger? I'm gonna see what P did that I like. And I'm gonna say, okay, boom. We're gonna go about it a different way and we're gonna see if we can break an artist globally through being independent, studying, getting that information. It ain't hard to find no money when you hype. That's when the culture capital come in. That's when people wanna just bust down the door. Cause they wanna be involved. They wanna figure out how can we get involved with this. Like they doing something special, they doing something unique. You know what I'm saying? So from that perspective, I'm like, I bet when we talk about independent, you'll have to come see me. It ain't no arrogance thing. It's because I got information that when you're signed with a major label, you're never going to learn. You're never going to learn the information that I've learned when you do a major label deal, never. You're not going to know which radio people to deal with. You're not going to know how to expand your shit internationally. They have. They you. That's why you sign up with them, so you don't have to learn that.
Right?
You know what I'm saying? I purposely didn't sign up so that I can learn what does global commerce look like. How do you actually scale a project globally? Market by market, by market? Who? The people that you're talking to. You know what I'M saying, how does the radio work in Australia and Canada versus the United States of America, you know what I'm saying? Which markets are the, which markets globally are the, like the, the, the, the, the, those, those pressure point markets, you know what I'm saying? Like this market here, once you pop in there, it expands, you know what I'm saying? All of these things, you don't know. Record label. So if you get a global hit with a record label, you make a lot of relationships because you got to move around with the artists. You're going to meet all the top people, whatever, you know what I'm saying? But if we get a global hit, I'm going to learn all of the infrastructural things in real time, and I'm going to be able to record them, document them, put them in a book, you know what I'm saying? And always have that information accessible. So when people want to come and be like, yo, I just got out a record label deal, they want to give me 50 million to resign. But, like, I feel like they didn't take care of me the first time I got this valuable business. What do I do? Okay, first question is, do you know what you want to do? Nah, I don't know what I want to do, but I definitely don't want to go over there no more. Okay, cool. Well, we can put together a strategy that we can start off by just picking you a distributor, you know what I'm saying? Or figuring out a way to form a company or fund a company that can be the new distributor for just your catalog. If your catalog is generating that much money, right? And they're like, okay, cool. And now they're getting, definitely getting another different tutelage that they never got. And they've been in business with these companies for 8 years, 10 years, 12 years, 15 years. You see what I'm saying? So when you start talking about PhD, nigga, I'm going to end up having a PhD in independence, period. And it's not because of. Somebody said you should go to college. You know, you, when you, when you graduate high school, you should go to college.
That's the first thing they tell you.
First thing they tell you because worst case scenario, like, if you go to college, you'll learn some shit, get some, get some kind of, like, discipline. I just, I picked the education over the money. Literally over and over and over and over again. I pick education over money because you education is sustainable.
Yes.
It spreads it transfer overs, you know what I'm saying? If I go to the UK right now with some. With some US Dollars, they're going to be like, you need British pounds.
Yes.
Or you need euros. I have to. But if. When I come over with education, there might be some tweaks. Like, well, in our territory, they're not called LLCs. They're called limited liability. They're called LT. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
The language might change.
The language might change, but the concept, the concept of how that business is going to grow, how them taxes or that accounting or the budgeting or the balance of the books or the income statements or like, how do you are.
Still able to apply the same education?
All this shit is still the same education, man. Some of the most greatest business people in third world countries and developing countries, the international commerce is the international commerce. It is what it is. Like, it ain't no. That ain't nothing that's gonna ever fucking change. You know what I'm saying? They can change US Dollars and be like, boom, bitcoin niggas. Bitcoin is what we're doing now. But like, they can't change and be like, you know, there ain't no budget. We ain't doing budgets no more. Yeah, businesses don't got no budget. No nigga business is gonna always have budgets as long as businesses are making money. You need a budget. You need a budget to have a strong business, period.
I get that. When it comes to breaking artists, I think what's really interesting is you guys really haven't hit the road with brand. How. When was the last time you guys actually was on the road touring?
2018.
2018. So what have you learned about just the digital market since you guys haven't done live shows since 2018?
I've learned that fans want music more than live shows. That doesn't mean that live shows don't have value. When you start doing the live shows, then the. The. Then the fans buy more. They. They dig deeper into their experience, you know what I'm saying? The live show is the experience, you know what I'm saying? The music being released is the game. The live show is halftime. Right.
I like that.
The live show, you can't keep, like, everybody ain't that. That. That tight. They can just release music and then don't go out and touch the people, you know what I'm saying? There's rare occasions, and I'm aware that Brent is a rare occasion, that he's grown so substantially over the last four years without having toured like the regular artist. But all that does for me, from a studying perspective, I started to realize, like, oh, it's a little trickery going on here. Like, when you with a record label, you're forced to tour because that's how you make your money. But when you not with a record label now you can. Touring is bad on your mind and your body. When you got a tour to make money, to provide for your family, because the money that you're making on music is locked into this deal. If you're not mentally ready for that, it's going to create anxiety, social anxiety. It's going to create all these different things, you know what I'm saying? And then you're gonna have people picking on you. Cause they're thinking like, oh, you just being a diva or you're being extra. But they don't realize that artists today haven't been through artist development. True artist development. Like going out doing radio shows in every city when nobody was watching to get that chops up. To be able to perform in a small. Cause if you can perform in a small room, the big rooms are easy. Cause nobody's looking at you in a big room, right? The small room. Every motherfucker in there is looking at you in your mind. But in a big room, nobody's looking at you. 10,000 people at a festival, everybody's not looking at you, not. Not the way you think they are, but in a close proximity, and there's.
300 people in your face, all eyes on you.
You feel like everybody's looking at you. And the stages is like right there in the face. Festivals, the stage is high, you're looking down on everybody. You're able to move around.
There's no separation at 300, cap, bro.
No separation. So I think that it taught me from us studying, like, all right, so if we are working with a client who feels like mentally they may not be ready for live shows, I got another strategy. Now, we don't. All of that stuff is, you know, is proven or not proven, whatever the case may be. But people listen to music every day. People don't go to shows every day. So if you're gonna really, really, really, really bank on this shit, it's like, I'm gonna bank on this music. I'm gonna bank on being consistent with releasing. And I gotta figure out the best way to go out and do tours that won't decapitate my mental health. You know what I'm saying?
I get that.
That's what I've learned from this experience. And I'm like, I Don't think that there's a. That we are necessarily outliers in that sense. I think that we're the first one that crack gold to realize it. Wait a minute. So I can build my entire life around just how much money I make off music. And then when I want to have them bumps, I hit the road. You know what I'm saying? If you keep putting out great music and you know something is going to click, if it's gonna click. You know what I'm saying? It might be time. Meaning I've had enough time that I've done an experience that you like. Damn, that was a fire ass experience.
Who did this?
Oh, this is art named Brett Fyres. Like, wait a minute. That name sound familiar? That's on my workout playlist. Then you go to your workout playlist. Cause you remember now because this experience have created this thing where you like, oh, man, I felt so good. It was like so many great people. This is the type of fans that the artists have. I didn't even know that he had these type of fans. These people feel like my tribe, right? So now when they go back to their workout playlist, they're gonna click favor, they're gonna follow. Now all of a sudden, they becoming a more engaged listener. Because it was something along that time frame. That's why you can't rush this shit. And that's how artists stay around forever. Time developing, learning, their teams, learning, developing. And it's great to go fast, but you're liable to run off the road if you ain't a skilled driver.
Thank y' all for tuning in for this week's episode of Fuck youk Money. We'll be back soon.