The Work

All right, all right, all right. We good, we good, we good. I want to thank everybody for coming in for another episode of fuck you, Money with yo and Ty. I'm. Yo, that's Ty in the other end. And today we talking about the work.

Gotta talk about the work.

So tell me, Ty, why would you want to talk about the work? Why the work?

This week I've been having these conversations about artist development, right? And the. What's been misguided in a lot of these conversations about breaking through, you know, getting opportunity, all of those different things. It is the lack of artist development. Right. And so we have the same book engaging as, like Jack Harlow. And I was watching the Little Baby documentary, and I remember Lil Baby saying that he wanted to lead the club. Cause he was on. It was on like four or five people there while he was performing, Right? Yo, you seen that documentary?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The Amazon one, right?

Yeah, the one on Amazon.

Yes, sir, I seen it. You talking about the scene where they were at the club?

Yeah. It was crazy to hear that. Little Baby went through artist development, right?

Like, artist development from going out on the road performing in front of people that had no clue who he was doing radio, shaking hands with people that had no clue who he was watching other artists grow, which is another part of artist development, because you're going on the road with them and you're watching their grow. So you're. You're getting a part of education on how to be an artist when you get successful, right? All of these things that. That happen for him as like a.

Street artist, what made me think about certain things? And Jack Harlow is another one. And I'm specifically speaking about rappers that are selling tickets in this genre in this era, right? Because it's important to know G and Earth Gang is also in the conversation as well, because Gnome perform, they toured for four years, not making any money before they. Before it broke through for them, right? And so the reason why this. The work came up about in this particular podcast or this week was the resistance that I have been getting from the market when it comes to going out and developing an artist is wild. It's like even the infrastructures now don't even want to develop artists. And one of the things that really struck this up was we're in the middle of doing a developmental tour for artists who can't really afford to go out on tour on their own. Because it's a very big investment to go out and perform in front of however many fans are going to show up to their show. And the promoter for San Francisco is pretty much begging the booking agent to cancel the show because they're saying they're not. That we haven't sold enough tickets up to their standards, right? And in my mind, I'm like, the whole purpose of this tour is to develop, is for artists to go out and develop, to go out and perform in front of however many fans that show up that day to get better so that they can get an advantage over artists who are not developing in this day and age. The booking agent's like, man, we should cancel it. The promoter's like, man, we should cancel it. And I'm asking them, said, why should we cancel it? They're like, we ain't selling enough tickets. I was like, this wasn't the goal of this tour. This tour was a developmental tour. So you signed up for the developmental process of this tour. So why the fuck should I cancel my shit a week out when the artists have been getting prepared to go out and perform in front of however many artists or however many fans that show up and to sell merchandise to those fans and to touch those f. How important and how valuable it is.

For the work to go into them.

Rooms, perform knowing that it's not sold out, knowing that this is the reality of where you're at in your career, but also knowing that you're getting an opportunity to develop your live touring show in front of a live audience that.

Most artists in this digital age don't.

Even have the resource and opportunity to do. So now you're taking the same process and the same steps that Kanye took that. That Jay Z took, that Drake took. When you were talking about developing, you're going out on the road and being able to perform without occurring the host to go out and perform the same cost, you're paying a little bit because you got to invest into yourself, right? And it was so wild of me, yo, that I was having this level.

Of pushback when we're trying to develop artists.

And now I get it. I get why artists avoid the work. I get why they depend on TikTok or they depend on features or co signs or they depend on somebody to come and save them instead of getting out and do the work is because the industry, the market coddles the new artists. They ain't gonna never get no fuck you money. Cause they're not even given the opportunity to develop. Because if tickets are not selling, they cancel the show. If, if. If they blow up on TikTok, they treat them like they're better than everybody else. Instead of saying, you got this record, but we finna send you into artist development. It's time to go into artist development. You got in the moment, you having a moment. It's time to go into artist development. You know, one of the things that they spoke about with Chris Brown is that Chris Brown had such a loyal fan base because he went to every single radio station and shook every single program director and DJ personality at the radio station when he was doing his.

Early, early days of developing and shows.

All of the different things, right? Artist developing is developing yourself to be the most efficient business possible while simultaneously.

Getting educated on how to be the biggest and the best business possible.

Meaning how to talk in front of press, how to talk on social media. With the new form digital age, niggas need press, need media training, and they need social media training. They need to know what to say on social media, not what to say on social media that won't jeopardize their business. You know, it was crazy, yo. Like the thought process that I had.

To argue with this promoter about allowing.

A tour to continue so that the artist can develop, but they wanted to get rid of it because it wasn't selling enough tickets.

Now that's incredibly disappointing to hear from the other side, right? Because this is for the artists. This is not about being in front of a sold out crowd every night. You know, you got to work up to that. That's a standard that you have to reach over time. And if you're not allowing artists to have that chance to go into rooms and see how it feels to perform for a few, then how are they supposed to prepare to perform for many or this, this reminds me so much of what happened when Makonin had dropped Tuesday and Drake had a show in Atlanta. And I, and I believe the remix maybe been like a week old, two weeks tops. He brings Makonan out and this is Makona in front of the stadium of people. He has a microphone performed Tuesday and it. He looks like a fish out of water. I'll never forget what it looked like because he seems so unprepared. And it seemed to be a moment that artists wait their whole lives for to have a song that everybody knows to be in a room where all eyes are on you. But what are you supposed to do when you have not developed a skill set for that moment? Because if it comes and you're not prepared for it, you're not able to capitalize, you're not able to manifest more opportunities after that, you just take this singular moment and yes, it's great to look back on, yes, it's great to post on the gram, but how great will it be if in 12 months you're not able to do that again or in two years you're not able to have those same opportunities because you do not go through the process? And this is what it sounds like a lot that you're talking about, Ty, is artists need the opportunity and the vehicle to go through the process. Because if you don't have that vehicle, then eventually you're going to run out of gas. And you don't want to be early in your career with nowhere to go. That seems extremely disheartening. So this developmental tour, like, what was your expectations early on when you decided to put these artists on the road? Were you thinking about numbers or were you just simply thinking about how many chances can I give these artists to perform? And then how are you able to make sure they're making progress as performers and not just with numbers or not just, you know, like. Yeah. How do you gauge process when you're developing?

Well, the saying goes, right? If you don't know how to manage a dollar, how are you gonna manage a million dollars? Right. And if it's hard for you to grab the five fans that showed up to the show to convince them to go and spread the word, how are you going to be able to grab the 500 or the 700 people that set a show early? Because you're the opening act for a big artist, right? All of that is education. You got to get educated in these things. People have to walk you through that. People that already have done it before. It's important, man, really important. They have to.

Now can you tell me a little bit about your development as an executive? Like the ropes you walk through that really helped you understand what it meant to help artists or how you needed to move in this industry. Like, where does it start for you?

When you say where it starts for me, you just talk about far as in development.

Well, yeah, but developing yourself as a self made executive. You know, I know you didn't have the same kind of opportunities that some executive has that's been in the game for so like a long period of time. You kind of came in self made. So how did you develop? What was your development like?

Well, first of all, I'm gonna start here. I am not self made. I am. I am a product of people, big or small, giving me access to information so that I can take it and learn in my own unique way to see how to promote it and Use it in the market. You know, I had a. I had a few key mentors. I didn't have a. I didn't have.

A slew of it, but I'm definitely not.

I can't take the title as self made. What I can take the title of is that I asked questions and I collected contracts and I went out and I tried to be alongside developing artists so that I can learn through these different processes. I went and I did work for free so that I can learn throughout these different processes, you know what I'm saying? So I developed as an executive through being open to help other executives or to help other managers with their clients without no screens attached until I felt like I had found the artist that worked for me or that I had ran into an opportunity that I could leverage and run porn on without me.

Needing help from a OG or a mentor or whatever the case may be. So my process of development, and I'm still developing was through education, bro.

That's why I'm so big on discipline. That's why I'm so big on going out and doing the work on your own.

And so people take notice and you don't never know how long that will take. You know what I'm saying?

And I guess that was more. So my definition of being self made is that you were able to go out and make the vision that you have for your business possible because of the opportunities you were able to afford yourself by going out and meeting people, building relationships, having mentorships, you know, but you did the work. And I guess that's how I see self made is it's like if you don't do the work, you're not going to make anything out of yourself. You know, you can have all the people in your corner, you can have all the support in the world. And sometimes I think about that when people talk about signing to a major label and having the machine behind you. You can have the biggest machine in the world behind you, but if you're not doing the work, you're not going to see no progress. And I just feel like, Ty, when I see yourself made is that you did all the work to create your progress. And I know you're still developing, I know you're still educating yourself, but I really believe that, especially talk about rap and the possibilities of creating a world for yourself that didn't exist before. Man, it takes a lot of grind, it takes a lot of hustle. And if you don't have that in your heart to do, you're going to have you're going, you're going to struggle to get where you want to go. And I just think Ty's a great example of getting where you want to go because he educated himself because he was disciplined. And I guess that's why I want you to kind of talk about Ty a little bit is your grassroots movement really comes from you being on the ground. And I think that's just pre digital era hustle.

Yeah. I mean also, you gotta think about this. So I'm 38. Right. When I got curious about the music business, it was 2008. Before 2008, I knew about the music business through my cousin. But in 2007 I was working records on the radio. I was helping a record promoter work records in the streets. I'm a product of passing flyers out car to car to promote the party. I'm a product of getting into the Sprinter van with discreet team plastering flyers and weed pasting from city to city, you know what I'm saying? Like, but I'm also in the, I'm right on the cusp of the screaming era. I was right on the cusp of the blog era. So people in my age bracket have a very unique experience because they had the opportunity to potentially get the best of both worlds. The old school way that artists was developed and then this new school way of how artists have been going viral and the number of one hit wonders that don't last has increased in so many different ways. And the truth of the matter is, you know, we don't have too many global superstars that really came up through the, the digital phase only, you know, you have artists that's starting to come out that's having big, big moments. Like a Doja Cat who if she keeps on what she's doing, she's gonna be, you know, her version of, you know, Rihanna, you know, in that essence. Right. Big enough to have a global presence, but pop enough to, you know, have those different blends and measurements. Right. And Doja Cat was signed to a record label for a while before that shit popped off, you know what I'm saying? Doja Cat was signed to a record label in 2011, you know what I'm saying? Like she, she 10 years in at being on a record label.

Yeah.

You know, and so a lot of these different moments is the development when artists get developed through a record label, through independence, whatever the case may be. Tyler Creator is another great example of an artist that went through development, you know what I'm saying? I remember back had to be 2009 or 2010 when I first discovered Tyler, the creator, and we're talking about 12 years later. That's an artist that has developed, he's gonna have staying power. Cause he has went through development, you know, in multiple ways. And you can tell by how his music is maturing.

So you know, with, with, with certain.

Parts of things you can't avoid and you can't, you can't determine what year you was born. You know what I'm saying? If you're an artist that's doing music right now, you 21 and you're doing music, you're in a full blown era of digital, viral, over compensation, over sharing. Fans want to know everything about you until they don't. That's the era that you in as a new artist. And it might suck, but that's what you signed up for if you're trying to be a new artist in today's music business. You know what I'm saying?

Absolutely.

And that's just a part of it. Right? And it's wild because the most talented ones are, are, are left, they're left in the, in the winds because it's not like they don't want to be developed. You know, saying the most talented ones, they care about the art so much that they want to get better. They want to, you know. Well, I would assume that they want to get better, you know what I'm saying? But the most talented ones usually have been the ones that's been developed and it took time for them to discover what type of work ethic they needed to have in order to get to the next level. But this day and age, if you're talented, you got to learn what type of work ethic you need to get to the next level fast. If it takes you two, three years for it to click about the work ethic thing, then somebody else probably took that spot necessarily. Obviously God is all things and you always going to have a spot. But we're just talking about relatively to people and their time and what they're willing to invest into at that time.

You know, if you don't hit the right circuits fast enough as a super talented motherfucker, you can't be blind and think that your talent is just your talented. You gotta be open minded and know coming in, I gotta outwork everybody alongside my uber talent, talented ability.

And that's what I wanted to piggyback off developing your work ethic. Because that is such a true fact that when I started being interested in music, I didn't really understand the work ethic. That rappers had or the work ethic that musicians had to have. I come up off the Lil Wayne mixtape era where it seemed like there was a grind, don't sleep mentality. That hustle, hustle, hustle. If you're not on it 24 7, you're not going to make any progress, which was cool during that time because, I mean, this was pre streaming, so it just seemed like release as much music as possible through free mixtapes, flood the streets, and that's how you build up your name to get you in position to have those radio records, to get those big remixes. It just seemed that you had to outwork everyone pretty much in the studio. But now we are in an age where you have to kind of outwork everybody in multiple different facets. You got to outwork them on social media, you got to outwork them in the studio. You got to outwork them with your drip. You got to outwork them in every possible way to kind of create your own space into your point. Ty, if you are developing your work ethic and you're not able to necessarily provide that work, someone else is going to enter that space that you're in. And I feel like that that makes things so difficult right now in this, like, type B era where if an artist is a type of artist, then yeah, man, they might get not just your fans, but they might get that attention that you were working on cultivating because you didn't have that work ethic. So when you're working with artists at developing tide, like, what are you. What's some advice you're giving some of these new guys to help them cultivate the proper work ethic so that they're getting the opportunities and they're also, you know, developing how they need to work for the next, you know, not just the next year, but hopefully throughout their career if they're building a career.

Oh, I mean, the number one thing I'm giving artists is like, you know, never get ahead of yourself. It doesn't matter who co signed you.

It doesn't matter what big feature you got. You know, getting to cut the line doesn't mean cut the work. You know what I mean? Like, if you get an opportunity to get in front of the line because of who you know or who gravitated to your music, that doesn't mean to work less. You know, you need to take the same work ethic and grind. Even if you end up getting pushed to the top of the line through a feature or through somebody wanting to bring you on the road, whatever the Case may be, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. One of the interludes in our book, the Culture Playbook, we were talking to your partner, Freeze and Freeze was saying how streaming allowed you and Brent to skip the line in a lot of different ways. That what you were able to do in five years, maybe it would have took 10. Or without streaming or Tim, without digital innovation, did you feel like you were skipping the line as you were processing early with culture, or did you feel like you were just preparing yourself to work in this new industry?

No, I don't feel like we skipped no line. What I feel like is that screaming gave everybody the opportunity to. For the world to be smaller. I probably just identified that opportunity faster than everybody because I was on screaming in 2010.

You know, I was on Spotify in 2010. So I didn't skip the line. I just knew that that door was about to open. And I stood in front of that door and just waited while I worked, knowing that that door was going to open. Because this is going to be a real thing. It's not going to be, you know, I wasn't sitting around waiting for the old music industry to come back. I was waiting for what the new music industry going to look like. And screaming was one of those components. Screaming was the main component of what the new music industry was going to look like.

Now, for the people who haven't read the book, could you give us the story of how you knew streaming was coming and what kind of gave you that foresight early on?

Well, that's a deeper story, but I can give like highlights of it. It's simple. It was a young guy that was trying to develop a platform that was basically Spotify before Spotify was known for.

Known about in the United States.

So we had a lot of years.

Had a lot of probably like two months of studying how screaming is going to be more beneficial and profitable than all other screens of revenue long term. When you think about CDs being sold in 1998 for $9.99, in 2008, those same CDs not being sold anymore because they're not pressing them up. So the earning potential dropped drastically when it came to CDs. Even though you made a lot of money in the front end when it became catalog music, nobody else was pressing up those CDs because they had new artists out or new albums out or.

Whatever the case may be. And the same with digital downloads.

You know, people, once people downloaded the song, they got the song and they're not, you know, they're not continuously downloading the song. They download it once that you got that money and then it is what it is with screaming. It created, it gave a record longer life from an earning potential where the catalog income would grow. So I can go back and listen to a song from 1994 as if it came out on New Music Friday, you know what I'm saying?

And that's something that I learned in 2010. Now what I didn't know is I didn't know how explosive it was going.

To actually turn into it being screaming, which ended up happening seven years later after, after 2016 when the major laser record Lean on Me went number one in the country as an independent artist, as an independent record, as a single.

And it was all really between because of streaming. Then you've seen the follow up with Black and Bryson, Tiller and crew and Sabrina, Claudia and Sza and you know, multiple, multiple, multiple artists that started to blow up. Daniel Caesar was one of them through the Apple Music Up Next program. And like some of the stuff Scream was doing way before TikTok, way before any of these different things, these exclusives that was popping up that were giving.

Artists a lot more freedom to grow on the screaming side. And so the opportunity was just studying the potential that their future may have. And that's literally what I just bet it on. I just bet it that the new music business is gonna shift and it's gonna shift towards screaming. And I started making that bet in 2012.

And when would you say you knew that bet had paid off? Do you have like a moment or do you have like a year where you knew? Like, I'm glad I, I made that bet on streaming.

I mean, I'm still, I'm still having that realization. You see what I'm saying? I'm still having that realization to this day. Making that bet on streaming was a very intentional thing. And I'm still feeling like, dang, I'm glad I made that bet on screaming because it wasn't just about the artists.

Being able to benefit from it or the producers being able to benefit from it. There was an educational moment that I was able to utilize, to share through the Culture Playbook. And how all of these different things.

Was happening is because we had screaming. So there was some level of money being generated to help curate a lot of these stories that people are reading in the Culture Playbook.

Absolutely. Now, someone that's a really good friend of yours, Barry Hefner, who manages Earth Gang, Jid Sofago, a string of artists, a couple of Years ago, we were having a conversation, and he told me that managers or people who work in the executive position are able to have careers like coaches, where they're able to coach and maintain themselves for years much longer than artists can at times. Do you believe that, that a good manager, a good executive, is pretty much like a good coach?

1,000%. Either they're a good coach or they're coachable. They're good assistants, they're good employees. You know, I say this all the time to my executive staff. It's like, man, that artist ain't a good employee.

Man, that artist ain't even a good employee. Can't even be a great leader if you're not even a good employee. You know what I'm saying?

No, that's a great point. And like, going back to the idea of the work and the idea of being an employee, obviously the artist is the face. The artist is the person that cultivates the audience. But again, it's behind the scenes where people aren't watching. That's where the work is really done. That's where you have to be an employee. So ty for artists who are, who don't see themselves as employees, do you feel like that affects their careers long term? If you don't look at yourself like someone that's working a job, I don't want to say you consider like, yeah.

I firmly believe that the artists. And this is a statistic, right? You can look up this and look at, like, NFL players that got degrees have a longer career. Like, when you go into industries, the people that are the most educated in what they're doing, they tend to have longer careers. You know, when you think about, like, artists like Donald Glover, when he came into the business, he's on his music. Tyler creator came into the business owning his music. Jay Z came into the business owning his music. Ti end up, you know, getting into a situation where he could, like, partner and be a partner in his music. Artists that have a better sense of the business, Gucci Mane has always owned his music. Like, they have a longer career versus artists that don't own their music. And that's just what the reality of it is, right? Like profitable career, right? And I say own the music because that is a gesture that you're serious about your business.

So you can even. You can not own your music and still be serious about your business and.

Your education, and you still will last longer as an artist, you know, as simple as that.

But I see what you're saying. I mean, and I think that's such an interesting point because if you do own your music coming into the game, one that seems like it's a very unique opportunity that isn't industry wide, you're not going to run into every artist and they're going to own their music or they're going to understand licensing their music. And I think that the metaphor you use in the book is, you know, the gun and the ammo when you're talking about ownership and licensing 1000%. So again, for people who haven't read the book, can you kind of go into that metaphor a little bit? Because I feel like that framework is perfect for what you're discussing right now.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I could go into the metaphor, yo, but that's just like very drawn out in the book. You know what I'm saying?

It ain't like.

No, no, but that's what I'm saying. But again, just kind of giving people a taste of like, metaphorically, what does it mean to be an owner. And like, I think the gun and ammo aspect of it lets people know like, how, how that's. People who own their music are able to protect themselves in a certain kind of way.

Yeah, like.

Like the baseline of it is this. If you own your music, you're more than likely. You more than likely care about being educated about the business that you're trying to bet your life on, man. And if you're willing to be educated about the business you're trying to bet your life on, rather you own the music or not, you have a. You have a. A greater chance of being successful. Owning your music gives some level of indication that you have some sense about the importance of learning the business that you work in. It's like as simple as that. It. None of this stuff is rocket science. People try to make rocket science out of it because they don't want to do the work. So they try to make it like, like it's just that difficult. It's not rocket science. You want to have a long career in anything. Be educated about the thing you're investing your life into. Do the work. The work. Just not recording songs in the studio. The work is learning the business. The work is taking the right time to identify a partner. The work is don't sign anything just because it's put in front of you because you're desperate, you know, said the work is googling every word in the contract that you get when you're unsure. The work is asking every single person that you can get in front of. Rather, it's A lawyer, executive. Hey, what you think about this? You know what I'm saying? All of this stuff is the work. Because you're basically getting into this business because you want it to change your life. If you just want to make music and be, you know, cute, then you can just do that. You don't have to read no goddamn book. You don't have to follow no podcast. You don't got to look at, earn your leisure. You don't got to do none of that shit. Work your regular job, make music on the side in your bedroom, and then just play it for yourself. You don't have to be educated. But if you're planning to make a living out of this shit, to potentially.

Change the trajectory of your parent, of your life and your bloodline for your kids, for your family, man, you got to get educated about this shit, man.

Straight like that, man. Straight like that. I mean, again, the only reason why I want to frame it that way is to your point, not everyone understands that part of it. I feel like when you're in your room and you download these programs, you're starting to cut records and you're making songs. That is the work at first. But what comes after that, man, I feel like so many people don't really understand, or they have never been in front of somebody to understand. I don't know how many people can say they've heard an executive talk about business outside their front door. There's no one coming to classrooms. When I was in high school, there was no music executives asking the kids that was interested in rap, did they know what to do after, you know what I'm saying? Like, spelling out for people sometimes is the only way. They can't even understand what to do next. Cause all they know how to do is make a song.

This is what's crazy to me, right? What's crazy to me is if I take an artist that need a job so that they can pay their bills while they're making music. And let's say I worked at, I don't know, Trader Joe's. I'm the general manager at Trader Joe's. I'm hiring somebody. I need them to come into work. The same person that is in the music business that don't want to get educated or that's not pushing to get educated about everything that going on their business. They're going to ask the manager at Trader Joe's when they fill out their application, what day I work, what time do I work, how much are y' all paying me? And they're gonna. They're gonna continue to fill out all of the proper paperwork and do all the due diligence they need to do to get that job. Because they really, really need that job. They really, really need that job. When a really, really want to get on in the music business, they sign some shit and they don't ask no questions. I'm never gonna understand that shit ever.

That's interesting. I mean, I guess if I had to think about it, it's because people don't know what it's like to get something in front of them to sign. Like, they feel like, this is what I'm supposed to do. This is what's supposed to happen. That if I did. If I made this song, it got this amount of attention from these people. I was just actually talking to an artist maybe like a week ago, right? He's from New York, and he got a chance to perform in front of some A and rs. And they were like, we want to, you know, have a. Have a business relationship. We want to sign you to xyz. And for someone who has never had any kind of music background, he just had rapped some songs in the dorm room. Some people told him it was hot. He recorded a song, it got in front of somebody's brother who got in front of an A and R. And all of a sudden, he's in a different position than he was in when he was in that college dorm room. You know what I'm saying? He's not thinking about going to work at Kroger Publix. This is now a chance to sign with. With this big artist and be next to this big name again. When people have never had that experience before, and all you were doing two months prior was rapping in a dorm room, that might be the most enticing thing that comes across your eyes without even looking at the fine print. You're just enticed by the chance because you're thinking, I can make the most out of this. I can turn this, like, circumstance into the best thing that's ever happened to me. I think that's how a lot of. To me, when I talk to artists, that's what I hear a lot. This is a chance, and I'm gonna take this chance. You might not know where that chance leads to, but some people are just trying to see it through. And I think that, of course, being educated, that allows you to make the best opportunities appear. But I think music is like that. Like, sometimes it happens so fast that people don't even recognize how they should act how they should move, what's best for them. They just see that they got something that they never had before.

1,000%. 1,000%.

And I just don't know how many industries where that is just the reality where all of a sudden you could be just doing something. And again, it's like you can be taking it seriously, but some folks, again, it's like you just got a voice. You got to wait with words. You know, you got a good beat. Now you got a chance to be next to Drake, or now you got a chance to talk to a tie. Again, you might not have been able to process what it meant to even get there if you wasn't even like, if it happens that fast, I think just rap just happens so fast.

I'm just thinking about the basic concept that if you go get a regular job, you're gonna ask all the questions because your goal is to get paid.

Right.

And to get educated about what you about to do with your time so that you know what you're doing with your time.

Yes, sir.

But that same logic just goes on deaf ears when it comes to the music business.

I feel you. I feel you. It's not. It's not. I feel you. I do. Let me ask you this. When we talk about time, right? Let's say you have an artist or you have a group of artists and they're working on an album. How long do you think it should take to make an album?

Realistically, to make an album is not the same conversation as to collect about a body or a body work of songs.

Album is.

Is a very detailed expression from an artist, so never want to put a time frame on it. But I do think that you should be able to get songs done that can help tell the story of that album and find ways to be active in the market with those songs until that album is ready.

Okay. I like that.

You know, because working on a song for three. Working on the album for three years doesn't mean you can't release music for three years.

Right, Right. Being in the process of working on something doesn't mean being dead silent.

No. Once again, that's a part of the work. Find collaborations. Find ways to kind of get things done the way you need to get them done. You know what I'm saying?

Absolutely. I mean, it's just. It's the process. But, you know, I think it's. It's something about art or it's something about expressing yourself and trying to find the best ways that I think artists get in their heads and that's why I like that you mentioned Doja Cat earlier is because Doja Cat was signed to a label and the song that really jump started things for her was that moose song. And it was a song that she made because she had a shirt that she liked. She thought it was cute, she thought it was funny. She made it in a day. She was able to record the song and shoot the video at her house. Everything was self made, everything she did by herself. And again, this is not her thinking about, this is going to be for my album, or this is going to be the song that's going to start my career. This was just something fun that she did. Then boom, it blows up. So, like, I think sometimes looking at artists in those type of stories reminds me that the process is always trying to turn those things that you're thinking about or that intuition, creative intuition, is sometimes going to be the thing that's going to help you more than just overthinking the work.

Yeah, exactly. You know, Bingo. Listen, at the end of the day, man, this is your life and your career. If you want to take 5 years to work on the album, take 5 years to work on that album. But like, if you're trying to make a living out of what you're doing, better find things that is going to make your business grow while you're working on this body of work.

Because nobody said that you can work.

On numerous things simultaneously. You know what I'm saying?

Absolutely.

Very, very easy to work on numerous things simultaneously.

Yes. I think Nipsey called it juggling, that he compared his work ethic to juggling and that you kind of have to keep a bunch of things in motion, work a bunch of different roles when you're building your small business into a bigger business.

1,000%, yo, I think that's all we got, yo. We can go ahead and drop that record for the day.

Thank you again for everybody that tuned in to fuck you money. Make sure you get you a copy of the Culture playbook and we'll see you guys in a couple weeks.