Adam Ivy Interview: Music Marketing Masterclass | How to Deal with Trolls

If one video of mine or 80 videos of mine are enough to discourage you from not making music, go f yourself and stop making music. What is my opinion matter to your music career at all? Yeah. If I say it's hard, if I say you need to put in work, if I say most musicians fail, no lie told. Zero. But you don't like how that sounds. You don't want to face the reality because you're fing weak. Then we do it one more time. One more time. Spin it, spin it, one more time. Hit me, baby, one more time. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the one more time podcast. I'm your host, Playback Ben here with my co-host. Henry with a three, because Henry with an E was already taken. Henry, who do we have in the hot seat today, my friend? So pleased to announce for our 96th interview. 45th president of the United States.

It's Donald J. Trump. It's a pleasure to be here. Off camera, he was doing a gnarly Donald Trump. impression. it is awful. It's not. Audience retention just went through the floor. See, I wanted Henry to go with Jimmy Neutron because of your hair. Have you gotten that before? Yeah, uh before it went gray. I got it a lot more. An old Jimmy Neutron. An old Jimmy yeah. grew up. Yeah, I grew up. That's like my new uh Instagram handle, old Jimmy Neutron. It's a good brand. Yeah. But in all seriousness. In all seriousness, we have a content creator, YouTuber, entrepreneur, music marketer, producer, a guy that has his hands in a lot of stuff. We were talking about some of his other, you know, ventures off-camera. A good friend, honestly, uh a long-term friend of the podcast and of Henry and myself. We got Adam Ivy in the motherfucking building. It's a pleasure to be here, gentlemen. I'm glad that I could uh finally make my way up to uh beautiful Atlanta, Georgia.

Indeed. Thanks for stopping by. Of course. You had some other business here, but um it's a time to uh stop by our humble little abode here. Yeah, I figured this would be the best time to come and uh hang out with you guys before I have a child in two months. Indeed. Yes. I was expecting. Once again, congratulations as someone who has a infant myself. Your life is absolutely about to change. Oh, without question, but I couldn't be any more excited about it. This is like one thing in my life. I've taken a lot of risks in my life, and this is one thing I've been so ready for. My wife and I are just super stoked, and I'm gonna be one of those dads that's like getting matching Nike outfits and stuff. It's gonna be annoying. Are you gonna incorporate him into any or her into any content? Uh probably not. Leave her private. Yeah, I'm going to try. yeah. I mean, uh the personal stuff, we'll share that. I mean, because friends and family, and some people that have been following me and my journey for a long time that I'm closer with, uh, you know, I want to share that stuff, but I'm not gonna be the guy that's just you know, family vlogger all of a sudden. No, but I I am thinking about starting uh baby product dad review channel.

Ooh, yeah, this guy's always thinking, man. He's got ideas. How do you get a bunch of free stuff? Review cheaper stuff, and then the nicer brands want you to and then you their stuff. Next thing you know, I'll have a garage full of uh UPPAbaby Baby Vista twos, which are like 1200 bucks strollers. Yeah, like the Lamborghini is strollers. I got that one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we we just we just got one too. Um, yeah, I don't I'm not gonna defend myself for that. We you know, I no, the the fucking generic brand is just as good. My homie has it. Yeah, no difference. Well, admittedly, no matter how well I've been doing financially, uh, we got it secondhand. It's in great condition. There you go. There was, of course, a catch. Grow up very quickly. See, that shit put me behind uh about 1400 bucks. But but no, man, you know, you came up from uh your humble abode down there in Central Florida. It was funny. I was actually just in Orlando and I texted Adam. I was like, yo, I'm about to leave your city. Like you're looking forward to the interview. And he was like, funny as you know, funny enough, I'm about to leave Disney World. So I gotta ask, like the most stereotypical Orlando thing to do.

You go a lot. Yeah, like what did I just happen to catch you on a random Disney World day? No, so um my in-laws are close to Disney fanatics, right? They love it. I have an annual pass because when I first met my wife, one of our first dates was the first date was Disney. Um, and it's just one of these things where even though there's a lot of like politically charged conversations about these huge corporate entities and capitalism and Disney's in always in the mix, I like the fact that you could just like kind of shut off and be part of the experience when you're there. Don't get me wrong, nobody loves you know, back sweat and waiting along lines for rides that are like two minutes long. But um, you know, we have a lot of great experiences with the Disney properties. Like, we love going out to Hawaii, and there's a Disney property out there that's just like you you feel like you're in a whole different world. Um, we've been on a Disney cruise, so it's like I'm I do have some Mickey Mouse shirts and stuff, but I'm not the guy who's I don't know, man.

This guy sounds like Captain Disney. You got some ears in the car. Uh well, now it turned into a therapy session. You know, I gotta open up for you guys. This is an intervention about your love for Disney, actually. We don't want to talk anything about music. We need you to really admit the first step, man, is admitting you have a problem. Well, no, here's the thing. I'm super introverted. So believe it or not, uh, the YouTube stuff. I don't believe it. Yeah, I everybody says that. So I'm super introverted, shy. I'm kind of a recovering introvert. I'm more uh, what do they call it? An an ambivert, which is like right smack dab in the middle. That sounds like some progressive shit. I don't know. I've never heard ambivert. He identifies. Yeah. I was like, what the fuck's an ambivert? Oh god, that's funny. Um it it like if you've ever been part of the amber alert, you become an amber. Yes. I don't know where my mind went with that one, but go ahead. So um, you know, with with the Disney stuff, the annual pass, like the one that I have is like 800 bucks a year, but I live 20 minutes away. So it's something to do when especially when you start you understand the patterns as a Floridian when it's gonna be a little slower.

And so it's like plus oh he knows the cheat code. If we're if we're talking about content creation, which admittedly I haven't done, um a few people on my team have Disney Annual passes too. You can go to any of the properties, the resorts, the clubhouses, and just shoot content. So if you're looking for a place for oh, so they're not gonna like trip about it. If you're like bringing in lighting and like but it if you're shooting off your phone or just kind of low key with it and know how to use a camera without lights, or you you're laved up and they don't even know because it's under your clothes. Like you can do a quick hitting little video or photo shoot or and look like you're at 80 different places in the world. Damn, just that's pretty cool. Cheat code Disney properties. Yeah, wow. You can do that for free too. Like you can go to the Hilton or the Omni or W or whatever, and if you're slick with it, you just go into the lobby and like click click click, okay. See ya. Yeah, yeah. I got a room. I got a room. I've I've definitely I've definitely helped a few artists to, you know, do that for music videos.

Of like, stop thinking you gotta like rent these locations out and shit. Like just show. I mean, you're already doing a run and gun video where it's just a guy with a camera, anyways. You're not coming in with like, you know, studio lighting and shit, anyways. Show up to some dope locations. Worst thing that happens, they ask you to leave anyways. Yeah. And if anybody cares. If you wear an orange vest, you can pretty much get away with anything. That's your strategy. That's what we did at the um, so they had the, when the Olympics were in Atlanta, I think like 95 or something. Shout out to that '96. Yep. They um they had a tennis event right up here, and there was just these tennis courts that were sitting there just rotting forever, and they finally were going to tear them down. So there was a big like construction zone blocked off. And we had uh some artists I was working with at the time. We kind of just wore some vests and hopped over like in the middle of the day and shot some crazy footage on these like half-torn down Olympic tennis courts. Yeah. And I I played tennis tournaments at the Stone Mountain tennis complex. Yeah, so I know exactly what you're talking about. Rest in peace.

It's now gone. So Henry, tell us the origin story, right? Of like the relationship here, because obviously I, you know, came into this post you all already, you know, having a relationship. So, you know, tell the people how it is you know Adam. I've known Adam longer than you. I know. It's wild. Yeah, it's amazing. So take that suck it. Yeah. Well, fuck me. Um, yeah, so tell the people, you know, exactly kind of how how this all started. For sure. Yeah. I want to say it definitely started on YouTube. I was trying to, you know, um, I was struggling engineer producer. I was I'm getting by off the engineering, but I really want to get production going, so I'm YouTubing every possible strategy to just get more, you know, attention. And, you know, not just for me, but for the artists I'm working with so I can enlighten them. And I stumbled upon a video, and then that led me to the Instagram, and I stumbled upon the Instagram content. Do you remember the first video of Adams that you watched? There's no shot.

I've watched, I've consumed so much ad Adam Ivy content at this point. There's no shot I could do that but I do remember the feeling that's what people say that they you don't they might not remember the words some people say but they remember how it makes you feel okay and I remember it's like a good song. Like butterfly kisses. Sure. Yeah we can go with that I remember but I remember thinking like you know I don't know if this stuff works but one thing for sure is like it made me very interested and it hooked me. And a little horny it worked on me. Yeah I got a half chub as well so you know clearly like it's done something so maybe there's something to this and then yeah fast forward um we ended up doing the we ended up doing the course and that was right around the time I started working with you. I remember we I called Adam and I was like listen Adam I got this guy he's working with me now is there any way we can like both take the course maybe for the price of one kind of thing. Yo how'd you describe me were you like were you like yo this guy I don't really know this guy's intentions like should I remember that conversation he's like dude if you have you ever seen Channing Tatum he's like my my boy Ben is nothing like him but I was like wait this is about to be the best compliment I've ever had it went south. Yeah no no honestly man I I do remember taking the you know sell music master class so you know tell people what the program is that you've been working on for the last how long has it been so I I did music full time for about eight years.

Right. And in that time I also have had other businesses I did corporate gigs and like marketing to me at some point intersected with music as far as like I'm passionate about both these things. So in 2008 or 2016 I went deaf in my left ear I had a uh calcification of the estation tube after a bad ear infection. Say what side note I'm getting surgery in April to get most of my hearing back finally. So I'm like super stoked. Shout out like healthcare technology at this point. I mean, yeah, I've been going to the ear, nose and throat since 2016, and they're finally like, hey, I think this is gonna work. Anyway, we'll we'll see. You know, fingers crossed. Good luck. Yeah, um, that's big news. When that happened, I was like, fuck this. Can I swear on here? Fuck yes, yeah, yeah. So I was like, fuck this. Um, I'm just gonna teach everybody everything I know because I'm not worried about competition anymore. So I started doing because people would uh producer buddies would would email me all the time. How do you do this?

How did you get that big? How are you making money? What are you doing? And I or like what cameras are you using, whatever, or um, you know, audio gear. And I would start emailing back and studying. and I got really annoyed with it, to be honest with you. You're like, I'm just gonna make a video that I can point them to the one instead of answering all these questions. 100%. So when I started answering questions on YouTube, that led to like I started seeing patterns. I was doing more consulting with producers and artists, a bunch of different influencers, small businesses, like I had been. Um, and I'm like, there's patterns here. So I started just jotting down the questions or jotting down things that I would feel like I'm repeating myself all the time. And then I created this like curriculum that took me, I don't want to exaggerate, it wasn't, but like probably close to a year and a half to 250 years. No, it was I I started building the cell music masterclass curriculum in 2016 and I launched it in 2018. His hair wasn't gray when he started working on the program.

No, it wasn't not really. I know. It's not a joke guys. That's how long it fucking took him to put this shit together. Yeah, it's like a Moses, right? 12 music marketing commandments. Obama before and after, yeah. Presidency. Oh Lord. Oh, Obama. God, this guy can do all the president's uh impersonations. I have mediocre impressions of everybody. No, but um, you know, the the Cell Music Masterclass I launched in 2019, and I thought it was just everything, right? It was like 12 modules at the time with a bunch of videos and some resources. And then students were like, Well, oh, you know, what module do you talk about this? Well, how about this? And the entire time I'm like, I grew up kind of a people pleaser, and I never want anybody disappointed in me, right? So, like in my life, disappointment is like the worst emotion over anger, over fear, over like disappointment. That's why I never asked for anything growing up for like presents. Just if I if I didn't ask, I couldn't be disappointed if I didn't get it. So yeah, but like where did that dislike where did that come from?

We we got like a family we didn't grow up with a lot of money, and I'm the oldest. Speaking of therapy sessions, like let's just unpack this disappointment thing for a second. I'm the oldest of three boys. Okay. My mom is one of 12 children from a farm family. My dad is one of like seven kids from a similar type of family. Wow. So we didn't have my parents never made over $30,000 collectively growing up. So it's like you had to provide, you had to do it, you had to just put in the fucking work. I've been working since I'm 12 years old. I took a paper route and I tell you about that later if you want. But like the disappointment thing came from asking for this stuff, whether it be for my parents or people or or even coaches, you know, playing group sports and saying, Hey, you're gonna do you're gonna play this way. and then never you played. So it's like when you bump into that feeling over and over again, you just stop getting yourself in that position where you you know you avoid it. You learn how to avoid it. Yeah, so like disappointment. Um, I didn't want to disappoint my students, so I would start building more modules. Hey, you guys been asking me about this?

Here's another module. Hey, you've been asking me about this. I don't know everything about it, but I talked to this person, we put together this. And now the Cell Music Masterclass curriculum is like 30 modules compared to 12, hours upon hours of content, resources like worksheets. I've partnered with companies that usually would offer me like a bag for a YouTube channel or a YouTube video on my channel. And I'm like, no, no, no, you don't have to pay me anything, but you have to give all of my students like 90 days free. Right. So like they and a lot of them sign up after the fact. So it's like a decent business relationship. Um, with like no affiliate income or anything from that. Well, one of them I do, but like uh they get 90 days on this thing that I'm teaching them. So they're not, I don't want people to be like, oh, you're teaching me how to use this, but I gotta pay for another membership. It's like, no, use it three months, see how you like it. And if you you know, if you took it seriously, then you'll have no problem paying 10 bucks or whatever. Um, anyway, rolled that out. Then the students are like, How do I work with you?

I want to work with you directly. How can I ask you questions? How can I bounce ideas off you? So I came out with what I call my accelerator program, which is my personal mentorship program, where for 12 weeks, three months, work with students such as Henry, and uh, we get everything ironed out and like everyone's case by case. We go through the curriculum. I say this a lot, you know, to people that are asking me about it. But it's like the program is if you were go if you were going to school to become a doctor, Ricky actually said this back when when I had Ricky on the team. He's like, if you were going to school to become a doctor, you'd be familiar with the medical encyclopedias and journals and case studies and all this stuff, but you don't become a doctor just from reading books or watching videos. You actually have to put in the practice and shadow a real doctor for X amount of time before they allow you to do your own thing. So that's really my mentorship programs. Like the curriculum is the core information, and then I make help uh my students to make sense of what that looks like for their brand and their, you know, targeting and their content marketing and their inbound strategies and business frameworks and what strengths they have and things they want to avoid so that we can try to make it make sense. Like if somebody never wants to be on camera, doesn't want to be like I'm picky, and that's why we go through a long process to find the right people.

But you know, I got to work with uh, you know, Henry for several months and you know became friends as as you know, as it be. And uh the Henry with the three thing, I think we worked on that. We did. Yeah, yeah, that's where it came from. Yeah. So I'm always curious about this for someone like you, who obviously, you know, you've definitely pivoted to spend, I'm sure you still make music, you know, on the side or whatever, as as a hobby, more so more than you're like your predominant professional, you know, income, right? Who who teaches the teacher, right? Like, who do you learn from? Right. So when it comes to music marketing, yeah, I have a vast group of people that are still doing it, people that like it blows my mind how many huge artists. I'm not talking Drake, but I'm I don't want to name drop, but like artists that are very successful independently have DM'd me. Oh my God, your YouTube stuff is so helpful. I didn't know how to do this.

This gave me the opportunity. Thank you. So even the people that have worked their way up, luck is like 100% involved in everything we do in life. But I believe that luck is the water that spills over the bucket that hard work fills. So it's like you have to bust your ass over and over and over again. Just like athletes. You're in the gym, you're practicing, you're working on your psychology, you're working on your movement, your dexterity, all that stuff to hopefully have a chance to thrive, hopefully get noticed. Yeah, you can set yourself up for more opportunities to get lucky. That's exactly what it is. You can't control when it strikes, but you can be in position for it to strike more often. So is there like are there people out there? So is it like peers of yours that you're also always learning from, right? Thousand percent. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not I'm the guy, even even to students that come into program, like I don't know everything. And there's people that I've learned from, like sync. I don't know everything about sync.

I have a mentor and a very good friend named Michael Elsner, who's like the grandfather of Sync. He has over 2500 placements. Yeah, not a whole lot of people in the industry have more placements than this gentleman. And I told him I'm never gonna teach it myself because I don't know everything, and I'll just bring you in to teach my people because I trust you as my mentor. But when it comes to the marketing side of things, you have to look at other marketplaces for innovations to then trickle into a certain niche. Right. So like content marketing. Musicians didn't start with content marketing. Yeah. Right. They started with audio, and then they're like, oh, maybe I'll get a photo shoot for a magazine, maybe I'll get an interview on a radio show. It's like, no, you look at other industries that it mattered more, whether it be modeling, whether it be you fill in the blank, right? And then you trickle that down. So um I'm part of a couple very I'm not saying very, but in my opinion, higher end mastermind groups, and I've networked with a million different people in and out of the music space because I own businesses out of the music space. I've I've owned apparel brands, I own a tech company.

Like I have a nonprofit. So you want to learn how those can thrive and grow. And I think the Achilles heel for most musicians is they don't look at their creativity as a business. They think it's they're like it's like if they were a traditional painter and they're just getting super pissed off that nobody notices them. It's like, well you're not even going to a fucking art show. Yeah. Like what what are you expecting? It's like people standing in the living living room waving at cars waiting for somebody to stop and give them a record deal. Like that the so I'm constantly trying to evolve not only my knowledge but systems. I never understood you know before I had multiple businesses like systems are where you need to find the solutions not like this isn't working. I don't know like no no the solution is within the system just like in a relationship just like parenthood just like your fitness if something is broken and fucked up in your life figure out what the system is that you need to fix and then it'll get back to normal. Like it'll get back to good.

Yeah. Yeah I guess you know I'm just still curious as to it's changed so much from when you were obviously in the thick of it as a creator right. So when you started answering your buddy's questions you were living that shit. So for me I'm curious as to how you stay up to date and up to speed with what's working right are you constantly like studying use cases of like hey how did this artist break? Or you know what I mean like how do you actually level up the like the most current up to date stuff. Right. Because I'm sure that's like very important because people are like, hey, you know, XYZ might have worked then, or you know what I mean? So you're probably constantly having to like evolve and you update the master class. I update the masterclass at least twice a year. Yeah, for sure. Uh I'll put it this way this might piss off some people. Foundational marketing is always relevant. So what this one person did that went viral on TikTok and blew up and got I don't give a fuck about that. I'll soak it up a little bit.

But that person scratched off a lottery ticket, won a hundred thousand dollars, and can't teach you how to do it. Just like Russ, love Russ. Shout out to Russ. He has a whole book. He has 80,000 music or uh videos explaining how he blew up on SoundCloud in its infancy. Why is no one else done it? Yes since he did it. Like I unbelievable talent, handsome man, charisma through the, but that's the soft skills that all these other fuckers don't have. And he doesn't talk about the shit that he had to go through behind the scenes that wasn't as sexy when he was emailing a ton of people, when he was on all the blogs, when he had a not a team, but a group of evangelists that believed in him. Like you could go post eight songs a day on SoundCloud now. Nobody gives a fuck. You will not become Russ. That guy exudes confidence. That guy exudes charisma. That guy exudes self-belief. Three things that if artists have even one, they have a way better chance than most.

Yeah, and and those three things that you just mentioned, yeah, are so much more important than the frequency of dropping music that he touts as his reason for blowing up. Yeah. We talked about Russ before. Who was it? I can't remember. There was a guest that we had on the pod, and he was just like, Russ needs to cut that shit out. Right. He is dangling this fucking fake ass like success model that isn't actually what contributed to his success. A great way to stay ahead of everybody is by giving them the sauce that'll never get you get them to where you are. Hmm. If you, if you, Right. You, if you're, You think he's being intentional about that? No, no, not necessarily. Like, so not malicious. I don't know, Russ. Russ, we love you. I think he's a handsome man. We'd love to have you on the podcast. I think that uh he has great hair. He has great, uh, he has a great heritage behind him ethnically, right? Yeah, what is he? I don't even know, but he's just godly. Looks like Polynesian.

I'm just trying to like, I'm not trying to make enemies here. Cause I I'd love to talk with him. I'd love to sit down and have him on the YouTube channel and for sure. And try to just play nice in terms of like, what, what do you really think works now? But I think he's really honest about that in a lot of his videos now that I see on TikTok and stuff, because I follow him. I'm a fan of his music. Yeah. But I think that if you don't look at foundational markets, I'm talking VCO, I'm talking visibility, connections, offers. This is what I'm preaching any business, any business, especially creative business. If you don't have visibility yet, you have connections and offers, you don't have enough people to make a career. If you have visibility and offers with no connections, well, a lot of people know who you are. These are the people that go viral on TikTok. They have crazy numbers. Nobody gives a shit. They're 24 karat golden. Can't pack out a 500-person venue. Yeah. So shout out to Mood, but dude's not selling tickets. And that's the thing. When you blow up super fast, you're probably going to drop just as fast. But people don't want to put in the work.

It's the oven versus the microwave thing we talked about. If you look at artists, 70s, 80s, even 90s, Richard Marx was like what in the 30s? Like, don't get me wrong, he's been doing music forever and he's like a god. But like you look at these artists back in the day, you're like, why do they look so old? Because they fucking were. Like it took. I mean, how many fans were you gaining going and playing a smoky bowling alley on a Thursday night? Like, they weren't looking at follower counts. They were just like, if I keep going, this person's gonna tell that, I'll come back next year, later this year, there'll be more people. And you just kept schlepping through, and now it's like only it's 600 views on that video. Some fucking bullshit. You can't fit 600 people in that one bedroom apartment you're living in. Like it's it's this entitlement. And I'm getting off subject here, but like when it comes to VCO, that's all it boils down to VCO, visibility connections offers. What's the other combination I didn't use?

So visibility and connections with no offers, you know a shitload of people, they know you, but you have nothing to sell and no way to make money. You see a lot of people like that too. So yeah, and I mean, that stuff we talk about of just even like with our business, right? Is like, all right, bet if we go viral as fuck and we grow this audience and there's tons of people that know us. and then we got the podcast where it's like we can call anyone, bro. I'm like one degree separated from Drake, fucking, you know, like I know Drake's tour manager, whatever. I don't even mean to like pull that, but I'm just saying sure. if you don't have then something to like, what is it that we're doing here? No, you have to have intention. Intention is everything. What are our offers straight up, right? And maybe it's a Crown Royal sponsorship, but for the uh sponsorship, it's not real, but we're manifesting it with the bottles up there. No, okay, so so you've already kind of you know suggested that this is somewhat of your approach. I mean, you are, I would say, at this point, at least in your in your content career, like you're the definition of tough love, man.

You give it to the people, whether they want to fucking hear it that way or not. And I think it weeds it weeds out the week pretty quick. A lot of people that don't like me because of it. They're like, sure, you're an asshole. You're discouraging. I'm like, if one video of mine or 80 videos of mine are enough to discourage you from not making music, go fuck yourself and stop making music. What is my opinion matter to your music career at all? Yeah. If I say it's hard, if I say need to put in work, if I say most musicians fail, no lie told. Zero. But you don't like how that sounds. You don't want to face the reality because you're fucking weak. Yes. You're on the edge. And instead of instead of working up the intestinal fortitude, if it's it's like going to the gym. If you go to the gym first day and I say, you're fucking out of shape, get in shape. Two realities.

Getting in shape, not getting in shape. So many people love just sitting in the fucking pool of media mediocrity that they're used to floating around in. Pissed at everybody else that learned how to swim and get out of the pool. Like, I'm not my YouTube video trying to help you. Let's say one of my YouTube videos where I don't even pitch anything. Like, yeah, I have a paid program. But if you go and you watch a YouTube, a YouTuber that's a fitness YouTuber and you want to work out with them, not doing it for free. Oh, what's your content? Let's work out for like, no. That's entitlement. If you watch all my free content and don't do anything with it, it's like having a bunch of salads in the fridge that you just let wilt. It's not the salad's fault. You didn't eat the shit. So this reminds me a lot of a situation that just kind of was developing yesterday. Oh, I'd love to get y'all's opinion on this. Let's hear it. DJ Academics. Ooh. Shout out to AK, Big AK. He calls himself Big AK. now. But go ahead. Keep up with AK pretty frequently.

Sponsored by Proactive. He um I had Big Ack in high school real bad. Accutane? Yeah. He was on Accutane. Yeah. Go ahead. Basically, Metro Boomin commented on one of his posts about because he's a media guy. So he's posting about everyone. Of course. You know, that's his job. Yeah, gossip Queen. That's his job. Metro basically says, I'm politely asking you yet again to please stop posting me. And AK essentially goes on to post like five pictures of Metro in a row. Amazing. Fuck you. You don't control what I post. It shouldn't matter to you what I post. I'm a media guy. And he took it pretty far, but I think he had a good point at the same time. Yeah. So, you know, it's like. He loves beefing with. He does. In this case, a producer, but mainly he's beefing with artists. But yeah, so you know, is is you know, should Metro man up and not cry about he's a famous person. You know, media people are gonna post about him. But he was just so polite about it to get that response. I I've been kind of conflicted on that since last night.

It's all it's it's the shock jock mentality. The dog that barks the loudest gets the attention. And so um act AK barks super loud. He's allowed to be like, that's, that's how he stays relevant. That's just like Joe Budden, yeah, yeah. Shout out to Joe Budden, Joe B. Shout out to Big AK, Big AK. I think what you're doing is great, but I think behind closed doors you would agree that you exaggerate your actual feelings, and then you take the headphones off, you turn the mic off, and you don't give a fuck about what you're outraged about. That's the life of an entertainer. Right. Like, look at the Maury show. Yeah. People come out like Maury doesn't give a shit. He's just like, oh, this is a great rating. I mean, I I'm dating myself. I don't even know if there's a Maury show anymore. But like, um, I think that opinions offend people, but there's a huge difference between being offended and affected. And people don't know the difference because everybody has a voice now. Well, I'm gonna talk, I don't give a fuck.

Yeah. Like, I earned my voice for those that actually listen, whether they love it or hate it. You you're not entitled to have a voice. You you have one. Don't get me wrong. Everybody in this world has a has a right to love who they want, uh, express their frustrations or love for whatever. But don't think that it your opinion weight matches up with my opinion weight when you're coming to me as a consumer, and I'm the creator. Yeah. We've run into a lot of this on our TikTok. We've had some TikToks do very well lately, and wow. Some people for, for just posting our opinions. We do like rapper drafts, yeah. Top five like bald rappers, or really rappers, great strategy. Oh, they're they're doing numbers, great numbers. When you're polarizing, that's exactly that's how you go viral. But oh my god, some of these comments. I've been we've been able to brush them off. Who was who was the rapper draft? Well, I mean, oh I got too many. We've done a lot of, but just I mean, and the the biggest thing that kind of thing is, it kind of like hurts me the most because it's just so opposite of like who I am as a person, yeah. It's the racially charged comments, of course.

Yeah, I mean, we're now three white people talking about rap. I thought you were Ecuadorian. Yeah, just a very, A very pale Ecuadorian. Hold on. I mean, I mean, but yeah, man, it's it's the white people, you know, taking rap from us, culture vultures, all that stuff, appropriating. I used to get that a lot, not so much anymore. Cause like is that because you've distanced yourself slightly from just mainly I well, because I know you you produced rap music and stuff a lot. Like you're going, you know, you know, getting your start, is it because you've maybe like not been so all in on like you know, hip hop, I would say. I love hip hop. Hip hop shaped my childhood. Yeah, and it it to this day, there's so much good hip hop out there. But hip hop is also one of those genres that it's the lowest threshold of entry. You can go and record an entire album on your phone, and people are now, I'm a rapper, I know what I'm talking about. No, you don't.

You really don't. Like, you have an opinion, or you we all have an opinion, but when it comes to the insecurities, the things that they were raised with, the things that really bother them internally, they start projecting that when someone's when someone says something that they don't like. It doesn't matter if you're white, doesn't matter if you're a woman, doesn't matter what your sexual preference is. They're going to try to find somewhere where they can hurt you because something inside of them is broken. So they're gonna come in and they're gonna try to hurt you. And so the racially the here's the thing most of the people that are talking, because I I used to get it, right? Like I said, the most of the people that are saying it, if you were in person, you don't have a problem with you at all at all. They could actually be like a great person, it could be a great friend, but it's like you see it a lot in knee-jerk reactions, and that's the thing I wish I wish that social media, not really, but like it'd be cool if social media had a reaction timer, was like, oh, but you had to wait five minutes before you react. You know how I know that's true?

Is some of the meanest comments in the world that will come in, and I'll just respond, I'll hit them with just like a thanks for watching. Yeah, and they'll and they'll be like, just a thanks for watching. Yeah. Thanks for stopping by. And they'll say they'll just go straight to I'm sorry. You know, like I didn't really think you'd see that. Or like, you know. Yeah. And they're like, they immediately have just flipped. So it's like, what made you do the first one? They had a chance to calm down and actually come to come to their senses. Um, in terms of my content, I don't think I shifted away from rappers, maybe my verbiage a little bit. Cause like when I first started, I was addressing producers. And I was like, producers, rappers, singer-songwriters. You're like, what's up, my G's? I think a lot of we throw some 808s in on that shit today. Let's go. Yeah. Oh my God. This is why they don't like us. Stuff like that. All of a sudden you start having a thick Hispanic accent for no reason. No, no, no. So, like, I want to know about your experience though with the negative uh comments. You know, obviously you're talking about it with the, you know, kind of how you got your start, but even just as you developed your program and stuff, man. I mean, you you tweeted, I think, hold on, let me see this.

Uh oh. You got some tweets in the bag. You tweeted last. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Follow at Adam Ivy on Twitter. There's a few tweets I want to run through eventually through this episode. But last month you tweeted that you have a choice in life, either to bring others down or lift yourself up. And it was in reference to how, you know, some people dissect every fucking thing that you say. Yeah. And we were even talking about this off camera. They'll go to lengths to discredit you. Dude, they'll make it their fucking mission in life to prove that Adam Ivy is a motherfucking scam artist. This dude's taking your money and he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Look at his this, look at that, look what he said here. He doesn't know this, he doesn't know that. Which, like, we've taken the fucking program. You're all full of shit when you say that because guy knows what he's talking about. We've taken it, and you know, once again, we talked about this too. A part a part of it's probably that you don't like the fact that, oh, you have to actually go like do some like right fucking work together. I was looking for the magic button to press. You actually have to work.

But but so how do you react to, you know, like you were mentioning in one experience that maybe you weren't the most you know, you were in an interesting spot in your life, but how do you generally react? Because I'm sure that that one that we talked about wasn't the only one. No, I mean I I grew up bullied and and beaten up, and I had acne growing up, and my teeth were jacked up, and um I didn't I didn't have any strong like older, like I had a few older brother figures. I was in martial arts and like had a great family life, and there was a there was more love than, than money in the household, like I always say, but um I I mean I used to get chased at recess, my shirt ripped, spit on, all these things. So even though I'm at a much better place in my life and I've worked through some of those demons, when somebody attacks me, I feel bullied, and what do I want to do naturally? I want to defend myself. How can you do that through a computer?

You try to be the smart ass, you try to be overly machismo, like you know, it's easy to say pussy. Like that's not good. that's just feeding the fire. Trolls, losers, critics, people with negative feedback, people with an opinion. I'm doing the whole gamut here because they don't, they never consider themselves trolls or losers. They're always like, I was just giving you critique and feed, and I'm not gonna let you into my house to fucking break my shit. I'm Not gonna let you into my house to disrespect me. Go fuck yourself. But here's the here's the thing. Here's the thing. Easy, Henry. That was well timed. Yeah, that that knee jerk reaction as you build your following bigger and bigger. You have to like we we always talk about in the office. My team and I, we say don't water the gremlins. Because if you remember the 90s movie or late 80s movie where the gremlins were cute and fuzzy, and then when they got wet, they turned into like killers, right? And so you don't water the gremlins.

If somebody says something that's hurtful or rude, I'll just block them right away. Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. There's nothing wrong with a good block, right? We don't do that at all. I've started. You've started It depends. you're hitting the block. If it's if it's if it's a negative opinion, not malicious or like hurtful. No, I'm talking about like the like the like bad ones that we've done. It's only the bad ones. Here's the thing. And not constructive bad. Like this is just like yeah, you're just a terrible person. Two fucking idiot white people talking about you. Yeah. All right, Jesus. That's pretty neutral. Right. Doesn't even sound that bad. It's objectively true. I would I would say, like, recently in in that tweet, you know, you hit the nail on the head. I had a guy, I know who it is. It's the same person that like I keep blocking all their stuff, they make new emails, and then the email, like they they emailed me, and I read my emails, most of them. My team sorts through a couple of my folders. I don't see those until they're ready for me because I get a lot of spam and BS. Yeah.

Um, but I had an email come through and it was like, you recently tweeted, what was it? You recently tweeted this this person, if they ever watch this, they're gonna get a kick out of it to be jacking off. I bought the email that I sent them. But like you know, same with our, you know, same with our uh racial haters. Yeah, they're definitely listening to this, like just getting off. So fuck you, TikTok. Yeah, no, you the email said something along the lines of um You recently said that you can make a living as a music creator without very many people knowing who you are, and then just two weeks beforehand, you said that um what the fuck was it? It was like uh trying to he was trying to find a thing, right? But the the the issue was I said in my tweet, I said, you know, those that make 40 for 40 or 50 grand a year with their music are still in the top 10% of creators, and you don't need to be famous to be sustainably uh taken care of financially, right? And so, and then my other one was like anyway.

The whole point was I I said on Twitter, you don't need that many people to live off music. And he and like he was like, You're a hypocrite. It was like a fake email, right? I tried to email back. I said, hey, um, in a world of eight billion people, even a hundred thousand following is like not that many people. That was my whole point. Yeah, yeah. God bless. But like, there's a great quote that I heard a long time ago, and I'm gonna butcher it, but it's like you can't you can't be bothered by people that are determined to misunderstand you. You'll never get them to please you. Or get them to please you, you'll never be able to please to please them. And like, I think a lot of people that are so offended by something that you believe in, no matter what it is, it could be religious, it could be your views on parenting. There's somebody out there that has a completely different background. We're raised by completely different people with a completely different outlook on life.

And because they don't agree with you, but you have a voice and you have an audience that you've built up and put in the hard work about, they're really, really mad about it. And so, you know, it's you mature, hopefully, you mature to a point where you're like, okay, like you said, thanks for watching. Thanks. Like, or just ignore them. Ignoring them sometimes escalates. But like I fell into a trap. I went through a very dark period of of time, which I was talking about, you know, off camera, um, a couple years ago, where my wife and I went through a little bit of a uh traumatic experience together. And um at the same time, I got bombarded with two or three of these negative, um highly critical, out of nowhere, I don't know who you are, things trying to discredit me. You don't have to, you don't have to agree with me. But you also have to put in the work from my free content to be able to discredit me and say it doesn't work. Also, like I said earlier with Russ, hundred people can do all the stuff I teach on YouTube.

Will a hundred people succeed? Abs-a-fucking-lutely not. No way. Because there's gonna be people that are just awkward, they might deal with Asperger's. they might be on the spectrum, they might just be lazy. And I'm not saying autistic people or saying all artist autistic people are lazy, Adam? Everyone with Asperger's is a lazy piece of shit. No. Adam Ivy. If you put if you put that, if you put that out on a clip, I'm going to, we're clipping that. I'm going to make a fake account and call us all honkies. Fucking ugly honkies. talking about rap. I'm autistic, you fucking honkies. But yeah, it takes culture vulture. it takes the work. It obviously takes the work. And that's the thing, man. Lead a horse to water, you can't make a drink. I always use fitness analogies because I was a certified personal trainer for like a couple months back in 2008 before going all in with my music. Oh, you were scamming people at the gym? Oh, yeah. I never got to that point. I got to the point where like this this lady Christine wanted me to walk around. It was for a Gold's gym.

She wanted me to walk around the parking lot for the entire shift, handing out flyers and trying to get uh trying to get uh what is it like trial memberships or like trial sessions. I'm like, that's how you became a great marketer. No, I did it for like a day. I'm like, f this. Like, I'm not this sucks. This is not this is not what I trained for, but um, yeah, it's just like fitness. It's just like you know, anything that you want to be good at. If I want to be in the NBA so bad, I'm not five'eight. I'm five'eight white guy with bad knees. Like it's never I'm you know, going on 40 here in a few years. So it's like I know that's not gonna happen. I can't be mad if I watch the developmental league be like, you know, you don't you you double dribble, you don't even know what you're doing. Like, what, what's the point? Yeah, it's like people that yell at their TV for sports. The sports teams have done a great job with the marketing if you're that passionate about something that has no effect on your life. They have to care to hate to some degree. They have to care a little bit. All these people hating on our post, they watch the entire post at least once. It's the repeats for me, the ones that say you guys have never done a good draft.

I'm like, wow, well, how many are you watching? TikTok knows that you're watching every single one of our drafts. But anyways, my biggest thing is this, man. Yeah, like just I watch almost like a lot, like a lot of your content. Right. Like I've watched a ton of your content, I see what you post, I see what you say, and nowhere in anything, are you guaranteeing or promising anything as far as like significant results that are like claiming to so cause he can't, because he might be trying to teach a 38-year old white guy with bad knees how to join the NBA? It's just it's just so mind-boggling to me that these people can like if you don't think that it's valuable, don't sign up. And if the people that sign up think that it's valuable and it ends up not being valuable, honestly, that's gonna probably happen. Like, we've all bought something that at the end of the day, maybe it was you know nothing like we expected, or maybe it was more than we expected, or maybe if it or maybe it was right on fucking par. That's just life, bro.

That's just purchasing any service ever. I mean, people get mad that I have a uh a paid course. I am Jesus Christ incarnate when they see all the free stuff, and then I send an email saying, Hey, we're opening enrollment for my cell music masterclass. Oh, I knew something was going on. They turned into Macho Man Randy Savage. Yeah, I was waiting for the semen? Just keep watching the fucking YouTube and the Instagram clips. Yeah. If you that don't want to invest the the money that it takes to be part of the course, and you think that it's not gonna, you know, give you the ROI that you're searching for, whatever. I mean, bro, I fly Delta all the time, right? This guy's flexing And he's got the fancy stroll. No, no, no, but listen, but but the the point I'm making is like have I had a shitty experience on Delta before? Sure. And did it not maybe deliver sometime? Absolutely. Yeah, but like, you know, did it did it for other people, did it over deliver? Like that was the best fight they've ever had?

Absolutely. Yeah, Delta's top notch. Uh, you know how many JD Power and Associate Awards they have? Probably Ed Bastion. CEO of Delta, uh, doing great things for the Atlanta community here. So, I mean, Ed, if you're watching, you know, we'd love to get sponsored here on one more time podcast with uh not only with Henry and Ben, some of the most loyal podcast uh broadcasters here in the uh Atlanta area. Delta.com slash one more time for 30% off. That was the best ad read ever. It was fantastic. Okay, so I I I gotta talk about this, man. Yeah, talk about it. Shadow banning. Yeah. Is it a real thing? Hmm. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, they've come out and said it. Yeah. I I on my YouTube channel years ago, side note if you've watched my YouTube content, there's a video that's you're like, that's not how it is. Look at the date that it was uploaded. If it's more than like two, three years old, don't judge me. Things change.

Things change. Although a lot of it's still good. But um, shadow banning exists. I think what Ben is getting at is is the amount of people that like to use it as an excuse for lower engagement, and no one looks at my shit. They don't show my post to anyone anymore. It's like make more interesting content. I had a gentleman uh message me. He may or may not be a student. You know who you are. And he had uh, you know, off the top of my head, I think like 2700 followers, respectable, You know, he's working on it. He's like, Oh, dude, I think my account's shadow banned. I did like an awesome video and it's not getting any views. And I go, look, it's like six or seven hundred views. I said, uh is this the one? Yeah, I think I I'm like, hold on. This is where you romanticize what you think the content is. It's really good. I bought some new lights. Oh, I got the new camera. And you think that that's magically viral content? It's like, no, they're still like a platform based on ads. They're not gonna show your stuff to all the people that follow you. Because otherwise, what would any why would they ever have the booster promoted post?

Right. Like they're they're teasing. I mean, it's safe to say that you know, about 10% of your audience sees your content within like an hour. Yeah, I mean, that's just like a standard post. It's just pretty much a good post. YouTube, but I'm saying like the 600 to 700 views, it sounds just like no. I mean, I and here's the thing. Sounds just like pretty good for 2600 followers. Average engagement overall on Instagram is between somewhere between like three and twelve percent. Yeah, yeah. So if you're getting if let's say you have 3,000 followers and you're getting 600, I mean, that's what 10 uh uh 20% engagement. It's pretty good. That is pretty good, but that's why 600 in our minds are like ADHD, everybody's famous minds, like that's not even a lot of people. Yeah, you all you need is what 5,000 people to give you 50 bucks a year, and you make a quarter million dollars. 5,000 people in the world. Yes, there's like 5,000 people within 30 minutes of this, like like easy. 50 bucks a year breaks down to what seven bucks a month or something like that.

It's like no less than that, less than like 350 a month, four bucks. Like, no, it'd be like $4.25, something like that. Anyway, I'm not good at math. He's losing me. Yeah, all right, it's been fun. Yeah, it's the law of a thousand super fans modified. Yeah, kind of Kevin Kelly made it way too simplified, and that's what screws people up too. You just need a thousand fans to pay you a hundred bucks. You got a six-figure salary, but they think that what they have a thousand followers that's like super fans. I did uh I did a video called a thousand fans at 90 days, and in the video, I'm like, look, you're gonna need a lot more people because not all these people will be fans, but now you have the opportunity to turn them into fans. It's worth nurturing. People don't get that. They're like cold to warm to hot. That's it. I mean, uh the way I look at things when it comes to VCO visibility connections offers, it's like stranger, eventually a follower, our job to turn them into a fan. And then the next step is what I call family. It's like they know your content. They sit there and mouth your intro. When you watch you what's up, guys, is Adam Ivy.

What's going on, guys? Adam. I was so good. Dude, you gotta do the arms. I can't do it. I'll hit the mic. True. Yeah. What's going on, guys? Adam Ivy. Grab my small hand chair. Grab my strong hand child. Yeah, exactly. Um, but uh further faster faster in your music career. What's going on, guys? Adam Ivey, sell music.com here to help you go further faster in your music career by helping you. Uh we're sharing. Uh I haven't done it in a while because I stopped doing it. Um, why'd you stop? Because like the algorithms changed a little bit, and I watched slowly but surely audience retention would tank when I go into my intro. Uh huh. And now it's just like go right into one first one to two seconds. And yeah, and I've actually thought about that. I'm not sure if it's as applicable to super long form stuff like this. I think people probably will give you a little bit of time if they clicked to get to the stuff. It's an hour, they clicked an hour long video. They know that you're not just gonna maybe be like right into it, but I I have considered you know not doing our but but we also start with a hook, so it's like different. I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, the pe here's the thing, it's more casual. Yeah, people use me as a tool, and I'm like yeah, they want you to get to the fucking goods. Right, it's all that shut the fuck up with your intro, bro. Put Adam Ivey on 2X speed. Give me the top three, you know. You know, speaking of all right, I'm an artist, I'm starting my career today. Yeah, give me my top three like things I need to be doing right now. You need to focus on your brand and what differentiates you from every other asshole making music. Number one was number two. That's a great one. Focus on your visibility, the avenues that you're gonna get out in front of the people, as far as like what three platforms do you want to be on? What is your content look like in your head? How are you gonna make that a reality? What is your time look like? So it's like branding, who you are, that's where people go in between mus. Like people don't become a fan of you because you're one song. Everybody's liked one song, and you still don't know who fucking sings. That just comes on the radio. They like your song and then they go look into you.

That's why all these artists, all these actors, all these athletes do interviews. What the fuck is an interview? It's an inner view of who that person is. Ooh. Damn, that's nice. That's why the people care about that, right? And that's how you gain the connections. That's why the artists that have documentaries that come out, all of a sudden their numbers start going back up on the charts. Oh, bro. Like Lady Gaga. Like you. I actually went in to like MGK's and like Juice WRLD and like XXX, you know, Tentacion, and like all the people that had these, like, and like Kid Cudi. I streamed Kid Cudi like a motherfucker. Again, you know, I was a big Kid Cudi fan back in the day, but like I went ham after, yeah, like oh man. Shania Twain recently. Yep. Now she's back all over the place because she had a documentary drop. Damn. So that's the thing. Your brand is gonna allow you the flexibility to grow with opportunities. You think music's gonna like pay the bills the rest of your life, like you're gonna get rich and famous off the music?

Like, maybe. Probably not. But look at you need an exit strategy. That's not even an exit strategy. No, it's just like being realistic about like what happens. Look at look at Dolly Parton. How much, how many different things she has her hands in. Brand, yeah. Jay-Z. Yep. You look at you look at Kanye. Look at Taylor Swift. You look at guys like Bret Michaels. You got guys like Jimmy Buffett, like a billionaire, not on his music. His music is what got him to that popularity. But Margaritaville, bro. Right. Resorts, bro, with like thousands of rooms or hundreds of rooms. Yeah. So I think so. Yeah. Brand, visibility, content, strategy, I guess. More or less. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, so what are you posting? What's three? Uh probably direct right to monetization. How are you going to make money? Yeah. Is it people like sitting around with their thumb up their ass? I'm gonna make all my money with streams. Like you quit. Yeah. Because I I said this in one of my YouTube videos. It's like streams are the ranch dressing at a Buffalo Wild Wings.

You don't go there for the ranch dressing, you go there for like you need to have merch, you need to maybe tour, maybe have a podcast, and you can monetize it. Like you need to have things that you can control rather than some guy giving you like a fraction of a penny in a you know, spot like I'm I'm about to do a YouTube video. Like, what is a fair rate per stream on Spotify? Bro, you just that's one of the tweets I wanted to bring up. Oh, yeah, yeah. So this is the perfect segue. Adam tweeted, how much money should Spotify pay to artists per stream for you to consider it a fair payout? Oh god, yeah. The reactions the reply tweets were absurd, bro. The average response on that was between one cent and five cents. Yes, which I think which break that down for the people. Insanely unsustainable. Yes, so um, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but um God, I think uh Spotify did 12 million dollars, or I'm sorry, Spotify did 12 billion billion dollars in 2022, okay, I believe. If every so they have over 60,000 songs uploaded a day, right?

They have over 900 million streams a month. Okay. I did all the math on this. It's gonna be a banger video. Yes. If Spotify paid one cent for every stream that comes through their systems, they would be in the red about 20 billion dollars. They haven't they haven't been profitable for the last six years. They've never been fucking profitable. Yeah, yeah. Title can do it because why? Uh no, they have they have like five million users. Spotify has something like 456 million active monthly listeners a month. Yeah. Users. Why can Apple Music pay a little bit more? Because it's fucking Apple and they're worth a trillion dollars. Mhmm. Yeah. And they and they only have I think 58. And I'm probably skewing this, so don't. I mean, they only have like 58 million active listeners compared to 456 million. Yeah.

You have this, it's like it's like a big bank. Spotify pays out. People are like, I I mean, you've probably seen the responses. Some people like a dollar. Yeah, that those are the funniest things. Five dollars a stream. I'm like, I was like, I wouldn't pay five dollars to listen to a Kanye album. I mean, maybe I I definitely would, but like, um I wouldn't. Well, he's been canceled, so like I don't know if we're a lot. Am I allowed to publicly like Kanye anymore? I'm probably like ugh, no, he's he's bad. The Jews are gonna really flame you in the comments. Amen. But he made graduation. he made graduation. My people, your people. I'm born and raised Jewish, so shout out to my mom. Yeah, born. Yeah, shout out to you. I'm a half breed. I'm a half-breed. Okay, so if your mom is Jewish, but my mom's Jew, so like that makes you full. Yeah, yeah. It's like juice world, but spelled different. Juice. Jew world. I can't, you know, we're going off the rails here, guys. I said juice, by the way, but take take that however you may. Um putting Adam with Kanye.

Yeah. Oh, God, yeah. Uh just give me some Yeezys. But like with the Spotify payout, people don't understand basic economics, and what's fair to them is based on the romanticization. of what their life should look like. Yeah. That's it. That's gonna be a great video. I can't wait. Yeah. So I know you're not, I know you like the foundational side of marketing, meaning there are a lot of things that even though the platforms have changed, even though like slightly like different approaches have been in place, you know, over the years, there is still some concrete fundamentals. And I know that that's something you maybe, you know, preach, right? That like at the end of the day, it's gonna be like VCO type of stuff that you talked about. But I do want to get your take and see if you have an opinion. What are like the top three trends right now in music marketing that you're seeing? I mean, you just need to be a content machine, unfortunately. Yeah, like you gotta have good content, you need to have quality quantity, it's all about volume. Alex Hormozi, I think he's a freaking genius.

But I don't agree with everything he says. He's uh but we all have opinions. But he he says it right. I mean, quality quantity, need volume. However, a lot of people don't know what quality quantity looks like. They have like a dope set and everything looks the same. Well, now you're just making mind-numbing repetitive content. What are you saying about our podcast right now? No, the podcast is different. Are you guys having multiple cameras? Are you saying are you saying we just spent thousands of dollars for nothing? Yeah, uh I mean, I this brand new multi-million dollar set that you have here. Yeah, I said thousands, I really meant millions. Yeah, all right. So, you know, content machine. What's like another trend you're seeing? You got to really connect with your audience. You need to talk to 15 people like you're talking to 15,000 people. You need to like have an appreciation for them. Because if people don't be if people don't be seen, if people. I'm gonna get some like culture vulture shit on that. If people don't feel seen, they're going to go the other way. Because if there's no loyalty, if there's no acknowledgement, like just liking somebody's comment to say, hey, I saw this, goes a very long way, and people become legends in their own minds too fast.

And it's something that no matter how big you get, myself included, you have to put yourself in check because you become complacent and you're just like, ah, it is what it is. Like I have to go like multiple times a year. I'm like, shit, I'm not responding to these people. I'm not DMs are piling up because you want to escape it, but then you have to re-center yourself of like, why am I doing this? And I think people get caught up focused on how do I get new audience members and forget to nurture the ones they already have a lot of times, which is equally important, right? Yeah, but I also think the thing for us, even right. So just you know, on the the viral TikToks that we've been having, there's so much like we talked about, there is at least like a good amount of negativity or just like people disagreeing with us. Once again, there's there is a difference between disagreeing with us and being like just overtly an asshole and negative and toxic, right? So I I I don't want people to think that we think you can't disagree with us. Those were opinions.

We'd love to know your opinion, right? But like leave the fucking racist hate shit like elsewhere. But anyways. Maybe you should embrace it. No, we definitely have to start wearing robes. I thought about yeah, changing our pointy white hats. Oh, I wasn't saying that type of robe. I was talking about bathrobes. I was thinking about changing the uh slogan and changing the slogan to like two white guys that know nothing about hip-hop or something. That's too long. That's not a good acronym. I know, I know. But like the essence of that somehow. Yeah. Two honkies, no hip hop. But spell no K N O W. Oh. But but no, so I was just gonna say, you know, we need to do a better job of for the people that are fucking with us, and you do a better job than I've been able to do of tapping in with those people. Yeah, making sure that anyone who is leaving like a thoughtful comment, right? Like, even if it's just a like, I know you, you know, you've been wanting to be like slip, but he makes a good point, man. Like, people do, you know, appreciate that. shit man. You know what it is. We're we're in

and Chico, shout out to Chico. Chico always says this. He's like, you're on stage and you have 5,000 people just singing your praises, some of them emotional, because whatever you've done has impacted their life in in a positive way. And then one guy comes in the conference room, the the the huge cut convention center. Yes, comes in the back, and in the back he goes, fuck you! It's the Barry Hefner tweet from the other day. You stop listening to the the roar of positivity and you focus on that guy because in your mind, that guy is going to infect the entire group. But it doesn't actually happen. But in our psyche, that's what we latch on to. So like a thousand people could say, I absolutely love your stuff. That was so funny. Shit, like I love your new set. And then the one guy's like, you know, fuck you guys. You have no right to talk about the you have no right to be in my comment section. Goodbye. Yes, facts. Barry Hefner showed it. Don't be coming in our fucking comments anymore. You're getting blocked like motherfuckers. They're gonna, I mean, So the thing is the more of that you get, the bigger you actually get.

Because if you look at the Breakfast Club, if you look at like Trust me, that's why we're kind of embracing it a little bit. We s we take it as a sign of succeeding. I would say. Yeah, yes, we got haters now, baby. Yeah. Let's go. You do that, and then like 30 seconds later, you're like, fuck. Can't I can't believe you said I can't believe you said that. No, it's definitely it's definitely like nightmares. It's definitely sad sometimes, man. Like, I do I do catch myself being like, I can't look at this for a minute. Yeah, yeah. Oh no, it will affect you, like yeah to the point where it's fucked up my like mental for a second. Cause it's because like I said, it's just so opposite of actually who I am, and anyone that knows me, bro. And that's the thing. I I love they don't know you. I love hip hop. Like, I fucking love this shit. Who's your favorite rapper? I study this. I mean, I'm just such an outcast Stan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just being wrong. But you know, I mean, the list is long for sure. I'm such a mood guy. Yeah, like yeah, it just kind of depends on you know where I'm at, headspace-wise. But yeah, it just that's what really that's what gets me, you know, to your point of just like you know, wanting to fire off that reaction. And like Henry and I talk about this, I want to clap back like so bad all the time.

Just because like settle them down sometimes. Yeah, just because it's like, man, I love this shit, and I study this shit and I know about this shit. And just because us making a fucking like funny video of drafting our top five rap groups, and like we left off whoever, right? Bone thugs, we left We left off. But but yeah, so you know, it's just like, man, get the fuck out of here, bro. Because it's like you don't know me, you don't know how like tolerant of a person I am that you're gonna come in here with this intolerance. It really just like fucking rubbed me the like it just rubs me the wrong way for real. So I you also don't have to reply to user 235794. It's always the user 235794. With a no profile picture, no content, no profile, no post, private page, private page. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the worst. But yeah, Adam Ivey, we appreciate you coming on. Henry, we have entered a final segment of the podcast. Okay. What do we got? It's my favorite part. Buckle the fuck up Adam. Oh shit.

Love this part. I think this is gonna be great. I don't think I was prepared for this. You weren't You weren't supposed to be. Okay. Because that that's how it works better that way. This is the rapid fire rampage. Bum bum bum. Three part rampage. Okay. I'm gonna start with some short answer questions. Okay. Move into a this or that. Okay. We're gonna finish with a word association. Oh shit. It's gonna be great. Okay. You're gonna love it. Yeah. Starting with the short answer. Genuinely kind of nervous. Yes. Good. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. And then, yeah, you there are no correct answers, but you are judged on speed. You are judged on everything. There's definitely correct answers. Okay. Okay. Okay. Starting with the short answer, episode 96 with Adam Ivey. Rampage! Adam, if you were an object in a music studio, what would you be and why? Uh I would probably be a baby grand piano. Ooh. Because I have such uh just affection for pianos. My grandmother was a pianist and an organist. I grew up with a great uh baby grand piano in her upstairs. Uh I have a cool little Baldwin upright that I found at like kind of a Craigslist find.

Um, so I just think that everything about a piano is just like something there's this an emotion behind it. And when it comes to producing even the hip hop stuff, I'm I'm way more in tune with like doing Neo Soul and R&B and you know that type of thing. Lay down some some Rhodes chords. All day. All day, all day. Love it. It's a great answer. So that's good. Starting off hot. Adam, you have a hundred thousand dollars to roll out a single. Give us a basic breakdown how you spend it. Um, probably so I would spend on a hundred thousand dollars on a single. Um, yeah, big budgets around here, boy. Yeah, big budget. 100,000 on a single. This is going to help no one that's listening. No, what I would probably do. Yeah, can we just can we change the question for like independent artists? 10,000. I'll give a jokey answer and then I'll give a serious, more serious answer. 100,000, I would spend whatever it costs to get my real estate license and just go make money faster for a very long time. Quit uh quit while you're behind.

No, but the the serious answer, I guess that's kind of a serious answer for some people. Right. That's probably a better idea. Get a second opinion on your music, folks. Side note, I have so many people that in the YouTube comments or emails are like, I'm in med school and I'm doing this for my parents. I just want to be an American rapper. And I'm like, finish med school. Yeah, use med school to pay for whatever the hell you want to do. Run away from that studio. I never tell fucking found. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So anyway, um, 100,000, obviously some good visuals, but I I'm I'm so scrappy in terms of like staying independent that like you can't just hire a PR firm to actually get you anywhere. You can't just hire a manager that's going to give a shit about you. So it's like take the hundred thousand, set it aside, learn from that single that may or may not flop. Don't go and pay for a big fucking feature. Don't pay for a bunch of influencers to share your stuff that are gonna share the next person's stuff the next day and the next person's because that's how they make all their money. I would take that $10,000 and buy a good camera, update some of your gear so that you can be more effective and efficient yourself.

And then obviously, like submit hub and all these things, you could go fucking crazy. You could do Facebook ads to get people over Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, even TikTok and Twitter, you know, ads to get them to your single. But here's the thing. Conversion at that point. How are you gonna retain them? Mm-hmm. This is a bunch of people that have like 100,000 streams a month and have like nobody that actually gives a shit. Yeah. So $100,000 doesn't replace the work. It doesn't like funk flex could play your shit tomorrow. It doesn't mean you're going to be successful. So I think it's I think it's kind of a misnomer that, oh, if only I had the money. How many people are signed that just get shelved? And here's here's another thing. Another YouTube video that's coming out. How many people are saying, Oh, I just need my chance. I just need exposure. Name 10 American Idol winners that are relevant anywhere on charts. Right. Right now. You can't. Maybe three. Did Carrie Underwood win? Carrie Underwood did. She's definitely up there. Kelly Clarkson, she's not on the charts right now.

But she's a fucking fire daytime TV show host. The personality and her brand led her to new opportunities. Yeah. Just like the Jay-Z thing. She crushes it. The only reason I know that because she's like on my parents' TV when I pull up to the house. He actually had a Kelly Clarkson hoodie on before we started recording. We made him take it off. But I mean you got it's it's a misnomer that you just need your big break. They all had their big breaks. Yeah. Yeah. I've had multiple students come through my program that have had record deals. Doesn't mean you're gonna be successful. Yeah, labels sign audiences, they don't sign songs. So it's like you need to have that audience already. Anyway, that's a good one. that's my answer for that one. Labels sign audiences, they don't sign songs. Yeah, big one. Yeah. Okay, moving away from music a little bit about you can only wear one outfit and eat one meal for the rest of time. Ooh. One outfit. I'm like pretty basic.

I like fresh hoodies. I will search high and low for fresh hoodies. However, that's a pretty fresh hoodie. That is. I appreciate that. Yeah. A little cotton candy action. going on. Cotton candy Randy. Okay. That's actually a thing. If you watch Good Mythical Morning, I don't watch that many YouTube channels. But anyway. Yeah, go check out Cotton Candy Randy on YouTube. It's hilarious. But I think that if it was just one outfit, it would just be a classic. It could be like a black t-shirt, probably black jeans, and then probably Air Maxes of some sort. Yeah. Yeah. And then one meal. One meal. Um God. Uh I'm a creature of habit to begin with. Um, so what's your go-to? Sandwiches, but I uh I have a thyroid issue. I have a I have what's called Hashimoto's disease. So like I'm not supposed to eat a lot of gluten. So I think that I think it would probably go to sushi, which I'm not sure is sustainable every day. Um, or like tacos, burritos, something like that.

Nice. Yeah, I know it's not a specific answer, but I'm not necessarily a specific kind of guy. We got the insight that we were looking for, I think. yeah. So there you go. Yeah, that worked out. Um, okay. For this next one, we're gonna need your phone. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, go to your text messages. Yeah. And then we're gonna go five threads down. Okay. Who is it? What'd you talk about? It is my friend Elvis, and he's redesigning the Cell Music Masterclass logo for 4.0 launching in April. The king. No Elvis Salek. No, Elvis Salek. Okay. He um he's been a dude, he's been helping me with graphic design and web work and stuff since uh 2008 or nine. Oh wow. When I first started taking like producing seriously, and he did like my first SoundClick, official SoundClick page and stuff back in the day. Do the Adam Ivy logo? Um, like the AIV thing. Yeah, originally he did.

Yeah. But like we found out later that it looks like a ton of other logos that already exist. So I don't use it that much, but uh yeah, definitely. Okay. You can only use gear and plugins from three companies for the rest of time. Which companies would you choose? Oh boy. Um boy. Ooh. Get some E40. up. Respond like I'm E40. Um what would I yeah, probably waves. I still like so like I have a ton of UAD plugins, which you know, shout out to Universal Audio. I bought the Waves Mercury bundle when I started making money with music. You actually bought it. I loaded up a credit card, bro. Yeah, I still use it to this day. Like, still use I and I only use like five plugins out of the entire bundle. It's really thousands in there. it was like 8,000 bucks when I bought it, something maybe not quite that much, 6500. Um, it's a serious bundle. Yeah, and and I was the guy talking shit like people using the crack plugins. Meanwhile, I had a bunch of crack plugins, but I had like two paid for ones.

Um I'd say maybe Spectrasonics as far as like VSTs and stuff like that. Yeah. Um what's the um what's the keys? Uh the expansion to Omnisphere. Um we talked about keyboards, Keyscape, Keyscape, yeah. That's the line. Keyscape is so good. Yes. Um, so yeah, probably waves, and then I'm trying to think. I almost, and I'm gonna get crucified for this. I'd almost say like Kyle Beats Drip plug in. Just two clicks and it's two clicks and it's wavy. Shout out Kyle Beats. Yeah, shout out to Kyle. He makes great content too. He does. Um it depends because like waves has everything you need for the mastering suite. True. And so, like Go production. I would almost go maybe Nexus 4 with like every expansion pack they have. Yeah. Because like between Is he getting crucified for that one? No. A lot of people talk shit about Nexus. It's been ran through, but they keep coming out with new stuff.

That's the thing. If you get the expansions. And they like it's gone, it's been gone through for like two different genres. There's a bunch of genres like dance. It has everything. You're not gonna reinvent any new sounds. Right. Yeah. Like it's all there anyway. It's true. And then obviously like stock plugins and logic or whatever. Which are fantastic. They were they're underrated. Shout out logic. Yeah. Okay. Last one of the short answer. What is your favorite curse word? Uh probably fuck. Part one. Part one. Solid. Good answers. Sometimes I say fuck. Yeah, what is that? That was a funny. You know what though? I will say this. If you ask Chico, I know it's not a curse word, but it's probably cocksucker. Because I say that so much. It is because that's one of the George Carlin uh seven things you can't say on the radio or whatever. Cocksucker is one of them. What a good bit. If it if Carlin said it, then yeah, I think that's that counts for sure. Yeah. Anyway, moving on to the this or that. All right. Um and I think I know the answer to the first one.

Okay. But let's let's find out. Run it. Guitar or keys? Keys. Indeed. Twitter or Facebook? Twitter. Delay or reverb. Reverb. Drake or Kendrick? Drake. Jazz or country? Country. Hot or lemon pepper. Lemon pepper. Dogs or babies? In what? No context. There's no further context. Provided. Dogs. He's expecting. Yeah, this feels like a well, you, she's going to watch this. She's gonna watch this later. You said you said babies, and my brain went to everybody else's baby. Okay. He doesn't have one yet. He's I think it's safe to say you can go up to anybody's dog at a dog park and pet them. You can't go up to anybody's kid and like hold that. Definitely not anymore for sure. Maybe he used to, but yeah, yeah.

Last one of the fish of that. Become the world's greatest death metal producer or the world's greatest marketer of plungers. I'd I'd like to be a plunge daddy. Part two. Daddy Ivy. Yeah. Part two. yo, I feel like I'm watching a tennis match where I'm like, yeah, I'm going back and forth. This one's how you work. You gotta do an edit like that where you're just like, yeah. Yeah. All right. Or we put him in the middle of the screen and then we go back and forth. Yes, I can see it now. Yeah, yeah. I'll do it. I'll chop that up. Well, yeah, I'll do it with this for the word association. Yeah, this will be the one. This will be the one. Let's make it quick. Make my head explode. Like I give you one word, you give me the first word, maybe two words off the top of your head. Cox up starting with hip hop, culture, hustle, flow, spider, Harrison. We're not gonna unpack that right now, but clickbait. Popularity.

Okay, now I kind of do want to know the Harrison spider thing. There's a radio host on XM that has this crazy voice. You guys go check it out. And his name's Spider Harrison. Really? Spider. Yeah, he's on like XM pop rocks or something. He's like, hey, everybody, good morning. It's Spider Harrison. He has this like weird inflection. He's but he has this like golden radio voice, but he probably I mean, he found his thing. But that's that's when I was like spider, I was like, here's the end. I love that. I love it. Wow. Politics. Polarization. Mm-hmm. Brain. Knowledge. Bass. I just want to say bass again. So bass. that'll work. Yeah. Podcast. One more time. One more time.

That was the only one that did have a good guess. X. Go and give it to you. That's fire. Jalapeno. Uh, no, thank you. Plug. I thought a talk. Plug Plug. Yeah. like Adam 22's uh fucking podcast. Have you ever heard of it? Is that the sexual one? Yes. Now I was talking about the plug talk. I think it was a little homie, Rich Homie Kwan. No, it's um uh not Roddy Ricch. Rich the Kid. Yeah. Rich the Kid, It's Called Plug Walk, but he says plug talk in the hook. So we'll that counts. I just thought you were uh, you know, Adam and Adam. Oh no, just no connection. I thought maybe that's what he liked to enjoy in his spare time. You know what I mean? I am a wholesome boy. Okay. I'm a wholesome boy, but wholesome midwesterner. Yeah, wholesome. That's my new podcast. The wholesome boy.

I'm a wholesome boy. Just a couple more here. All right. Lil Yachty. Nice. Magnetic marketing. What a what a fucking rampage. What a rampage. What an episode. Magnetic marketing. Wow. I feel like we're just getting warmed up. I know. Let's do it. Let's do a rapper draft. Oh shit. I'm down. We could On that note, Adam Ivy, appreciate you coming on to the One More Time podcast. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe. Smash that bell icon or whatever Adam says. Gotta smash the bell. Get these notifications. If you want to join the channel family, you gotta click that little subscribe button. Let me know what you thought of this episode in the description box or in the comments below, rather. Uh if you want to connect with me, I'm most active on TikTok and Instagram. Not only one more time, but Henry with the three. We got Ben here, my favorite Jewish compadre. Yo, that's easy. Until next week, Henry, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Getting the fuck out of here. Peace. Peace. Bye.