Shawn Barron Interview: Starting a Label with Ty Dolla $ign

So me and Ty, we go out, we find the talent, we nurture the talent, we give the talent all of our resources, and then we uh go to the label and they help with their side of their resources, which would be putting in rooms. Well, we could me and Ty, we know a lot of people put the artists in rooms, but more. I think people are taking Ty's calls, and probably Sean's now that I've met him, too. One more time, then we do it one more time. One more time, one more time. Spin the rock, spin the one more time. Take it, baby, one more time. Welcoming in on the 102nd week of the one more time podcast, legendary artist out of Harlem. It's Sheck Wes. Have you ever gotten that? No. Never? First time. Do you see it at all? Uh I guess. I I hear other people out here. D-Wade? Nah, Morris Chestnut. Okay. Oh, you're reaching there, bro. Come on. Who else?

That's a handsome motherfucker. I hear Mo Bamba. Oh, okay. That's ironic. There you go. Wow, because Sheck Wes is a hit single. Yeah. Wow. Interesting. Okay, the stars, the stars have aligned. Who else? There you go. Who else do I hear? Uh it's this guy. He played in this movie with Denzel. I forgot his name though. But never Sheck Wes. That's just for the record. Never Sheck Wes. We're full of firsts here at the One More Time Podcast. No, in all seriousness, we have co-founder of Easy Money Records with Ty Dolla Sign, former AR extraordinaire at Motown Capital, Atlantic. This guy has put in the work. We got Sean Barron in the house. Sean. Appreciate you uh coming by, man. I know you were here um, I guess earlier this week. This week for a session. So appreciate you coming back to do an interview. That's love. Right. I'm not sure anyone has like, you know, wanted to come twice in a week. I mean, they like us, but not that much.

Not that much. Yeah, you guys are definitely in the cut. So yeah, we're yeah. But once we, you know, checked out your Instagram, we see all the mutual people. I mean, you know, basically everyone we've interviewed on the executive level, so it only made sense to get you in. Yeah, so so you've signed artists like Wale, currency, right? No, no. So um, I didn't sign those guys. I actually brought those guys in when I worked at Koch to get signed, but they ended up passing on them. Oh shit. So I brought Wale up there, I brought currency up to Koch, I brought Drake up to Koch. Um I've heard of them. Yeah. It's a little household. names. A whole bunch of other people too. Yeah. What like how does it go when you bring someone in like that? Well, at that point, I was like brand new into music. So I think that was within my like first six months having a job. Um, I was working in the mailroom. That was my first job in the music industry. So it's not just like a joke that they make, you actually start in the mailroom. Well, I mean, that was my start.

So well, actually, I had an internship before that, and then I went to the mailroom. Okay. Is there still a mailroom? Yeah. Today, yeah, for sure. In 2023, there's a mail room. I thought it'd be an email room. I'm like, oh, it'll just be a bunch of computers. Yeah, you know what I mean? Sending out press kits and uh you know streaming links. You know, uh record labels get packages all the time, magazines, whatever it may be. But yeah, it's a mailroom. Wow. So me delivering the mail, I got cool with the uh the guy who was running Koch. His name was Alan Grunblatt. He was the president or whatever at the time. And I was like, yo, I want to do AR. Can I bring some artists up here? And he's like, all right, cool. Um so the first artist I ever brought up there was Drake. That's a good one. Yeah, and tell the story of how of like how you even got Drake to agree to come, yeah, you know, present himself to Koch. So I hit him up on MySpace, Oh, shout out MySpace. Tom.

Is Tom still around? What's Tom doing? Good question. Probably loaded. I don't know. Like, I'm sure he made out like a bandit, even though he's no Zuck. But yo, well yeah, wasn't MySpace supposed to make like a little comeback for a second? Like, wasn't there some like press about that? Did that just fizzle? they had like refurbished the whole thing? Yeah. It just fizzled out. I think Justin Timberlake was a part of it or something like that. People got pissed because they deleted all the music. People had music uploaded there and they lost all the files. Yeah, they had lost like all the previous stuff. Yeah. Like that was on MySpace at the time. Right. Yeah. So anyway. Yeah. But yeah. So anyway. I was just like, I was like, is MySpace still fucking around? So I hit him up. Uh I sent him a message. He he hit me back. He gave me his phone number and his email. He's like, hit me up. I don't have a deal. Whatever. Um. So he was coming to New York for Degrassi. Something they had, like uh, I don't know. I don't know, a filming or something like that. And the night before uh I brought him up to Koch. Um, we went to his hotel, me and my partner Danny at the time, and we met him.

He was super cool. We chopped it up for like an hour. The next day he came to the office, brought him up there, played us a whole bunch of fire music. Um, and after the meeting, he uh Alan was like, Oh, this guy is corny, he's uh in a wheelchair on TV. Wheelchair Jimmy This is never gonna work. Wow, so that stigma really did hurt. What a mess. Yeah, but it really did hurt his chances of breaking into the scene at that point. Yeah. Wow. He's like, Oh, this is never gonna work. This guy's in a wheelchair on TV, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, did you just hear what he played us? Like, yeah. And this was like it was at a weird time. So 50 Cent was still like the most popular rapper at this time. This was 2007. Okay. So um, yeah. This was still like when gangster rap was like, you know, a thing. Um yeah. Like, like, like, so how do you tell someone like Alan? I guess that like, do you tell him he's he's wrong? Or do you just have to accept that?

Yeah, I just kept bringing it up to him and kept bringing it up to him. And yeah, then a year and a half later he put out So Far Gone, and then everybody is starting to hit me You're like, whoa, can you get Drake on the phone? I'm like, bro, it's too fucking late. Damn. did you try? No. Why not? It was too late. I knew at that time. Damn. Okay, and and so like so you're bringing artists in at that point. But did you sign Ty? Yeah, I signed Ty. Okay, so you signed Ty Dolla $ign. But that was later on. So yeah, for sure. I worked at Koch for a year and a half. Yeah. Um in the mail room, and while I was there, I was doing like an unsigned artist showcase in New York City also at the same time, me and my partner Danny. And uh we had like currency come and perform, Nipsey came and performed. Uh this guy named Mickey Factz who had a huge buzz at the time. Nicki Minaj was supposed to come, but she didn't show up. Were they all unsigned at the time? They were all unsigned at the time.

Shit, yeah, the potential. Damn, so how did you find folks like that at that time? Um really MySpace. Wow, yeah. Everybody was posting their music on there. It was like a way to search MySpace. So I don't know if you guys were like on there. I was on there, or you were on there. I I was probably on there, but not at all thinking of how to actually utilize it for any real purpose, other than maybe like friending people, I guess, at the time, right? Like, yeah, I wasn't deep into the music thing at that point, right? So there was like a music category, and you would go there and they would have three columns. It was like signed artists, indie artists, and unsigned artists. Oh, and what I would and it allowed you to like search all the unsigned artists city by city, which was fucking crazy. They don't even know what they had, like the technology was fucking crazy at the time. Damn. So Drake was like the number one unsigned artists in Toronto. So I hit him up.

Um currency was like one of the number one, number two unsigned artists in uh New Orleans. I hit him up. Like, yeah, shit. Yeah, because I mean I'm thinking if Spotify had they don't even have that. No, like that, you know, Apple has like the new Atlanta playlist. Mm-hmm. You can probably find where people are from, but they're curated, yeah. Which is different from this is just unbiased like numbers, yeah. Damn, it was crazy. They really didn't know what the fuck they had. They didn't. It was like a gold mine on MySpace back in the day. Damn, they dropped the ball. Yeah, so you just were taking advantage of something that you didn't even know that that was so special at that point. I was like, shit. I mean, I don't even know how if many people even utilized it. I I just found a way like how to do it, and yeah, yeah, that's crazy. That's that's rare, right? There, you find a little loophole or something, you just use it, man. Yeah, like it like broke it down city by city, which was like the crazy part. I was like, Yeah, and and then did it rank it by like who was most yeah, it ranked it like one through like maybe 50.

Okay, and it gave you like 50 artists, like who were buzzing in that city. Damn, you could do it by country, city. It was, it was crazy. It was thinking about it now. that's wild. Shout out MySpace, yeah. Shout out MySpace. Yeah, so obviously, I know it's fast forward a little bit to you know to the point that you signed Ty Dolla $ign, but I do want to talk about the fact that going from signing him to then starting a company together. I mean, I started a company with this guy, and it took a lot of deliberation to be like, hey, should we be doing this? You know, it's it's just a it's a big leap of faith, man. I mean, you're putting a lot of trust into someone, you're spending a lot of time, money, effort, energy into the business. So, you know, how how did it evolve, right? From like, I signed this guy because he's super talented, you know, dope artist, I'm an AR, whatever, to then fast forward and you're starting a company together and getting into business together. I feel like how did that evolution happen? Uh I feel like it was just a natural progression of like our friendship.

Like we literally been friends since 2011, you know. So, you know, me discovering him in the studio. He used to come to the studio and like write songs for other artists all the time. That's how we connected. Um, to me signing him and then, you know, him taking off and having a successful artist career. Um, yeah, it was just a natural progression. He was like, why don't we come together and do this? And I was like, let's do it. Damn. So I I know every AR and artist's uh working relationship is different. Yep. I want to talk about how did you and Ty work? Uh like, you know, when you first signed him, what was the dynamic between you all when it came to like you're the AR, he's the artist? How did that work? Um it it was never like that type of dynamic. It was always like we're partners in everything. Like my success is your success. So um, just going back to the beginning, like me just helping curate his sound and like putting him in with certain uh writers and producers, and you know, just curating his sound, and then him and mustard had what they had going on, and then mustard took off and the summer smashes of like 2014, 15, 16, so that you said tie propel at the same time. Well, Ty, YG and Mustard at the same time. Yep, um,

but yeah, it was it's always been like a partnership, it's never been like, oh, you work for the label or whatever, whatever. It's been like, yo, you believed in me from the beginning, you gave me my shot. So we're in this together. Is it pretty common that the stigma or yeah, exactly? Yours, your version's uncommon, right? No, it's not common at all. Yeah, most of the times artists in their ARs fall out and they never speak to you. You did your job, you signed them. I signed them. Uh, I'll collect my point on the back, but somebody else could take on the headache of of dealing with with that artist day to day. Damn. Why do you think that is? Um I I feel like I'm I just have good people skills, first of all. Um, a lot of people, a lot of ARs don't have good people skills. Which is crazy. Yeah, which is crazy. It's like your one job. Yeah. Um be the people. liaison. A lot of ARs want to be the artist at the same time. I never wanted to be in the spotlight. I always just wanted to do my part and step to the back, you know.

Well, thank you for agreeing to do the one more time podcast on that note. Yeah, so so where does that come from? Would you say? Were you a like team sports kind of guy growing up or something? Or like where do you think you get that play your role type of approach? I played basketball my whole life. Um, I played varsity basketball from sophomore to senior years. Shooting guard? No, point guard. Okay. So yeah. So you were used to dropping the dimes. Exactly. And getting the assists. And I know I could score if I needed to when I needed to. But yeah. Okay. Yeah, because I do feel like now that I'm thinking of all the ARs I know out there, y'all do want to be the artist sometimes. I'm just saying. Fall back. Fall back. Yeah. For sure. Man, that's interesting. Um, so I I don't think a lot of people probably have a misconception about like how these joint ventures work. So like when it when it's easy money is joint ventured with I think capital. Capital. Yeah. What what is that if you could summarize what a JV between you know a company like yours and a bigger label like you know, capital? So so me and Ty, we go out, we find the talent.

Um, we nurture the talent, we give the talent all of our resources, and then we uh go to the label and they help with their side of their resources, which would be putting in rooms, yeah. Putting them in, well, me and Ty, we know a lot of people. Yeah, for sure, we can put the artists in rooms, but more. I think people are taking Ty's calls, and probably Sean's now that I've met him too. When it comes to like, you know, like playlist and streaming and stuff like that, they have their relationships that we'll use. Um they have the marketing team, which will use their marketing people, even though we have our own too, but they'll make some TikToks. Yeah, they'll help us with TikTok. What's what's the biggest uh value that they've brought to you all so far? Um I I think just overall support just in general, if if it was ever anything that we needed, they would like help us see it through. Um in terms of like shooting music videos, artwork, like that type of stuff. Okay. Yeah. So some of the more, you know, letting y'all focus on what it is that you want to be focused on. Exactly.

Yeah. Like we're we're mainly focused like on the creative and then bringing in our relationships. So more like the I I guess you would say like maintenancey type of, you know, just uh more grunt work, I guess. Yeah. And then in return they get is it master points? Yeah, I mean we we split, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, just because I know people probably hear joint venture thrown out all the time, and I just want to make sure everyone like understood how this can work, right? Um, so Hitmaker, I think, tweeted recently recently. Oh, so y'all just gonna sign a bunch of artists and not develop them? No artist development, no artist is artist development a lost art. It is, and he's absolutely correct. Um yeah, I mean, I've always been in the artist development game with any artist that I've had, I've always put in the work in the studio, and then artist development just isn't studio work at all. It's it's also like that artist getting in there and you know, practicing performing, uh practicing, speaking to to media outlets.

Uh it's so many different things that comes with that. So, yeah, we always put our foot forward to like develop our artists. Yeah, so if if I'm an artist, right, who's independent, I'm not signed. How can I be developing myself? Would you say like what what would you recommend I be doing to almost have my own artist development like course going on? You know what I mean? Um, I mean, for sure, you want to be in the studio every day. You want to at least like get an idea down, no matter what. Um, that's number one. Number two, um, performing, like spend 30 to 30 minutes to an hour, like just practice in front of a mirror, like just getting your performance down pat. Um that's fucking underrated. So underrated. Because God, y'all are not good at performing. Nobody is good at all. Yeah, like nobody rappers, especially. It's the easiest to be boring when you're one dude with a mic, even like a mediocre band. There's there's a lot of elements going on. It's easier to kind of get into it.

It like distracts almost, right? Yeah, like you can distract from if the music's not that great. Yeah, you're like, oh, they're in synergy, they're doing their things. One dude, one rapper's up there with a mic, and a DJ is just pressing play, and the rappers just not like going crazy, looking like they're having a good time, then I'm not having a good time watching it. Exactly. Period. Yeah, and I feel like not every artist has to have insane breath control where they can rap every single word or whatever, right? Like, there's gonna be some people are good at that, and some people aren't, right? But I think that we talked about this, I think it was on the last episode we did about self-awareness, being aware of what your strengths are and leaning into them. Exactly. Because you're not gonna be good at every part of everything, right? Unless you, of course, get to you know, the super stardom level. But even them, they probably have been very good at just leaning into what it is they're good at. But this is what we're talking about development. It comes with practice, you have to practice at the things that you aren't strong at. Um, a lot of artists will, you know, punch in their bars kind of bar for bar, and then it comes time to wrap the whole thing, they're like, Oh shit, I can't wrap this whole thing straight.

I was punching this in, exactly. But there's workarounds if you're practicing, you know, and you know that like oh, the crowd might know this bar. You can, you know, hold the mic out, take a breath, let them finish the bar. There's ways around it, but it is being aware, which I think is the main factor there. Yeah, so so putting up the you well, you know, putting up the jump shots in the studio, obviously practicing the performing side of it. You know, what else can they be doing to make sure that they're they're leveling up? Yeah, I feel like most artists don't know how to talk to the media. I feel like when they get in front of these people, they're fucking mutes and like they act like this generation of artists are like too cool for school, and I hate it. Me too, man. It the execs have the better podcast interviews than the artists, I swear. I hate it. I hate it. They get in there and they smoking and like, bro, show some personality. Like, yeah. Yeah. So, whatever way you can practice that, like maybe getting in front of your friends, family, having them ask you questions, like watching interviews. Watching interviews, you know.

Like, I I think some of the best artists that I know that perform really well, they've told me straight up all I do is watch YouTube videos of concert performances. Exactly. And so to do a good interview, same fucking thing. Like, do your homework. Like, I I'm not saying I'm by any means a pro interviewer, but the way that I've gotten comfortable interviewing people is by listening to fucking interviews, bro. Anything, and I think I think this was like a Joe Rogan uh podcast with with Neil deGrasse Tyson, who's like the astrophysicist. Oh, yeah, I know Neil. He said some fucking heady shit that was basically just like it's so obvious, but you can get better at almost anything with practice. For sure. You can literally, whatever it is, you can get better at it by practicing. I totally agree. Yeah, so it's just I don't know. Is it laziness? It is laziness. Ego. It's entitlement, it's ego, it's a bunch of things, but yeah, these the new generation of artists gotta get it together. Man, y'all need to prove us wrong. Yeah, get off your ass and do some fucking homework.

So Berg is completely right. Yeah, man, that's that's interesting. So um, so did y'all know you and Ty Dolla, Did you know that you wanted to sign Leon Thomas as your first artist? No, we didn't. We knew we were gonna, you know, start the label. We didn't know who our new artist was. Um, our first artist was gonna be. So it's funny. Um, during the pandemic, it wasn't a lot of people outside. I think I was going to the grocery store or something like that. In your hazmat suit. Yeah, exactly. Do you remember scrubbing groceries? Did you scrub your groceries? No. I didn't do that. Bro, my wife and I were maybe, I don't know, maybe we were on the little bit crazy side, but like sounds like much. We literally like sanitized our like cereal boxes straight the fuck up. Sorry. I just I'm just like flashback of like, oh Jesus Christ, the pandemic grocery thing was this guy vaccinated his fruit pebbles. That's amazing. Jesus. Uh proof of vaccination, fruit pebbles. Anyway, so yeah, you got the grocery.

So yeah, I'm driving in the car, um, and this is literally nobody on the road. And Leon pulls up next to me. And this is like maybe two or three weeks after me and Ty say that we're gonna, you know, start the label and find the artist. So he rolls down his window, and I haven't seen him in a long time. I'm like, yo, what's up, what's up? And we chopped it up and he's like, yo, I'm about to drop this project. And I was like, all right, send it over to me. And he sent it to me and it was amazing. And I went and played it for Ty. Did he like throw you a thumb drive through the window or something? I don't know if you meant to send it over right now. He texted to me later on. He sent me the link to it. It was a SoundCloud link. Um private playlist. Yeah, there you go. But um, yeah, he sent it to me, and him and Ty had already had a song from years ago, but they had never put it out. Um so yeah, I played it for Ty, and Ty was like, man, this kid is amazing. Let's let's let's make him the first artist. So wow, okay, because I was wondering, some people I think start a label and know that we're starting it around this act. No.

But it sounds like y'all had already just agreed, hey, let's do this thing. Yeah. And then by happenstance, you know, Leon rolls his window down. Say, I got this dope project. Check it out. Damn. That's exactly what happened. That's awesome, man. And Leon's fire, by the way. Everyone go check out Leon Thomas. Yes, seriously. He's amazing. Because I was asleep apparently, and I was not familiar with him as an artist. Gotcha. And his discography is amazing. Yeah. Pretty sure he just got shouted out. I don't know. He just gets so many cosigns too. Like the Ziss. Scissors shouted them out. LMA shouted him out. Snow Allegra, Ariana Grande. So the ladies seem to like him. Yeah. He's for the ladies. Yeah. That's a cheat code for sure. Those are the fans you want. He's actually opening it up for Ella Mai on her tour a couple spot dates coming up. Nice. Okay. So what's the product? because I know he was already obviously in his artistry. So I don't know that he was maybe in like the true sense of the word, a developing act. But at the same time, it sounds like, you know, what did that onboarding process look like, right?

So like, you know, so we sign him. Actually, before we get into that, how did the signing process go? Because I feel like artists out there don't really know how this actually works. Like let's give him some game. Yeah, no problem. Uh it just went with us going back and forth on terms. Uh first of all, he had to sign to me and Ty. Yeah. So we put that together and then we had to bring him to the label, and then we did the partnership with them. Okay. Okay, so he was going to be signed to y'all regardless. And then it was like he was going to be signed to us regardless. And then y'all are having to pitch him to Capitol. Well, uh, we really didn't have to pitch him because you know, we already knew we were doing that partnership too at the same time. Yeah. So it was just hammering out the specifics. Yeah, it was just at the same time. Separate negotiations. Yeah. Okay. So so his maybe seems like because you hear stories, right? Or at least, I don't know, maybe it's just the juicy gossip of like the bidding wars and the you know it wasn't like that. So, but have you had that experience at sure. I've been I've been a part of a couple of those. Yeah. What's that like, man? Like on the A and R side. I mean, do you have a good feeling of if a deal's gonna happen?

Or have you been totally blindsided thinking this is a slam dunk and then it's like Yeah, I I've been on both sides of it. So yeah, um me thinking something was gonna go down and then you know having another factor play into that and then it not being able to go down, but also like where something like just gets too high in price, and you know, you know, not wanting to be a part of it, you know, because you're really taking a huge risk the more money you give somebody up front. You have like a hard limit in your head going into it? Not really, it really depends on where the person is in their career, but at some point you you have to know, like, yeah, that's probably not, we're never recouping that shit. We're not gonna recoup that money. What what's the biggest advance you've seen given from me? Uh let's do from you first. From me, $500,000. Okay. What's the biggest one you that I've seen? Yeah. Millions. Yeah. Like how many millions? Tens? Yeah.

I mean, NBA YoungBoy, he just got 50 million, 60 million. Yeah. Damn. Yeah, I guess there's the publicly facing deals that I I always wondered, because yo, did you see something about Lil Wayne uh you know, you know, like checking out his net worth on Google and being like, I ain't got a cent close to that shit. That's too high. Yeah. So I always wondered if those deals were capped too. Cause like if the net worths are capped, like I don't know. I I think that you don't get all that money up front. You probably get it like in sections. It's like the lottery. Yeah. Well, not necessarily. You know it's guaranteed money, but you probably gotta hit certain benchmarks for you to get all of it. Yeah. They'll probably like give you probably like a lump sum of like 10 or 15 million and then you get the rest as you go along you deliver projects whatever it may be birdman has that shit figured out at this point yeah so then you know you sign Leon right what were y'all's first moves together like you know you tie and Leon like what's what's the game plan first moves uh you know just listening back through the music and making sure everything is perfect uh which we did and you know his pro he pretty much delivered us what you know was gonna come out his project is coming out in May um so he made your job a little easy on that. Yeah, he made it easy like he made it super easy He's got his producers and people and he produces and songwrites also so it's kind of easier but yeah we didn't have to do anything too much in in terms of that so next steps were uh ingesting the music and finding the first single which the first single we put out was X-Rated featuring Benny the Butcher I wouldn't have got Benny on there for him so nice yeah we dropped that um second single was him and Ty which was the record they did years ago Oh, wow. but we just brought it back yeah did you make any changes yeah any touch ups no no touch ups it was perfect I love that shit man I love hearing these stories yeah like an old song like don't sleep on your old music It doesn't matter. it's good it's good yeah period in most of these songs he's had this project he told me for two and a half to three years and it still sounds brand new and it's getting the reception like it's getting great reception from people so wow it doesn't matter how old your music is if it's great it's great. Damn.

There's certain like it I feel like if it, you know, you were doing like trap beats from like 15 years ago. Right. They would sound big. Well, yeah it's also the type of music too. Right. He makes, you know, R and B like. That almost has been. I'm not saying RB hasn't changed, obviously, but like. Well, he's definitely in the new wave of RB. I wouldn't say that he's like a traditional, like uh, Sade or something. No, Sade is almost like left to center to me, too. Yeah, true. Dude. Um, who's like a traditional RB? Like Jacquees? Yeah, yeah. Like it's not that the king of RB. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Jacquees, we'd love to have you on the pod. Another shout out to Birdman. Jesus. Pretty sure XL Eagle could make that happen, but he hasn't yet. Anyways. Jacquees, uh, I've recorded you, by the way, 10 years ago. I don't know if you remember that. That old song should make the project. Um, you know, so obviously the you know, the music was kind of set. So then you got the singles coming out. Got the singles, went and shot some videos. Yeah. Um, got our marketing plan right, um, got right with the DSPs, which is Apple, Spotify, etc.

Yeah. YouTube. Um what's been the hardest part so far? Um because this is your first label you've started. Yeah, first label. Clearly, yeah, there's been maybe some learning curves. Yeah, so what's been the the most difficult or surprising aspect? that you didn't expect? I think being able to like, So our our latest single Breaking Point, which we put out, um, we we did it with uh Beats by Dre commercial, which featured Lebron and his son. So the music was synced in that, and that's how we released the uh the song, and it got a great reception. It's a good way to do it. That's fire. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, wait, is this a is this a bad thing? I'm like, what? Bron and Bronny? Yeah. No, so I'm just to uh get to my point. So the song it it came out the gate hot, and it got a lot of great reception. That's when we got all the scissors and Ariandas to talk about like the song and all that stuff, but then it started to fizzle out, and it's like we had all of this heat. I I hate to see it like fizzle out. What are we gonna do next to like keep the heat going?

So yeah, I feel like artists need to hear that, right? Because your careers are so much built on the moments that you can create for sure, and that momentum that you just gotta you gotta keep building off of it, right? You gotta keep Finding moments, yeah, it's like a moments thing now. That's what I tell people. Like for you to break it has to be like seven or eight different moments that people remember for you to like hit it on the head. Then it's like, okay, maybe I should really check them out. They've been right popping up in my life. They pop up here, they pop up here, they pop up there. My friend just told me about them, and you've already been seeing them, so yeah, it's just a bunch of different moments. Yeah, and yeah, I just don't know that they think it they I don't know that they think about it that way, right? I think maybe that obviously every artist just wants to create the best art that they can, and and that's amazing, and I I I love that part of it, but then to make sure that it gets heard by the right people, the most amount of people, whatever your goal is, right in your artistry, because some people have different goals. I think it's all about the moments, man.

It is, yeah, yeah. It's literally like, I mean, we keep seeing Ice spice pop up for whatever reason it was her hair. We just did a piece of content on her yesterday. She wanted to date SpongeBob. That's what we did. Yeah, yeah. We've got like 15,000 views on just saying the fact that I spice had a crush on Spongebob. There you go. Like the internet is a weird fucking place. But yeah, she had just uh accumulation of moments in a short amount of time, and it's like we're seeing like the the response. I heard that she's on Taylor Swift's next single or something like that. Wow. So see, but but like that's the yeah, like you gotta capitalize on it. Yeah. What do you what do you think about the term industry plant? Um, I don't know if it's a real thing, but I the idea of it. Yeah, I understand it. yeah, I understand it. Yeah, I guess I just see these people pop up and like even sometimes it the music isn't as good. There's just this unstoppable force behind them. But I'm just like, what is that?

Yeah, it is just propelling. Not to say her music's not good. No, I think the fans like could tell what's authentic and what's not at this point. Um, if you see somebody their first song out, they got fucking future on a song, like it's not authentic, like it's yeah, some type of money or some type of relationship, behind it. yeah. But but my point and my counter argument to all of that is if every artist simply needed connections and money, then major labels would never miss. Yeah, that's true. That they wouldn't fail. But this goes back to moments, it's not all about because I wish I mean we had we could go get whatever rapper on whatever song for Leon, but it's not gonna like catapult him to the top. Yeah, like you have to this goes back to artist development too. You gotta build it step by step. Yeah, brick by brick. And it also matters. This is a discussion we've been getting into a lot lately. How much does the artist's personality and likability factor matter? Is it like you know, in real in relation to just the music being good?

And Ice Spice has that, like super like a body was making fun of her, and she took it on the chin. She didn't make a big thing of it where you would have had other artists who would have made a big thing and it would have made you not like them. This is why you like her, because she can take it. Like, yeah, yeah, she's almost just like a good sport about it. The sport about it. She does seem just kind of like, I don't know if it's like in her own world or whatever it is, but she's just like, whatever. I don't give a fuck. Her second single, people made fun of her. Like, what is this? A Spongebob type beat? What kind of weird beat is this? And then she just came out and said, Yeah, I had a crush on Spongebob growing up. There you go. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. She's probably smarter than we're giving her credit for. She's very smart. Yeah, I'm like, I'm like, I think she's like masterminding this shit. Yeah, now that we're saying all this, though. She actually put out the uh Spongebob type beat memes, maybe even started it. It could be crazy. No, she's smart. Damn. Yeah, no, you know, for me, how much would you say it it is the quality of music versus the you know artist personality? Would you say like they're equally important or which which way do you lean? I mean, uh, it's hard to tell now because so much of the music that I hear is trash to me.

So but they like the person, but they like the person, so it's hard to it's hard. Certain artists, I believe it has to be the music, but certain artists, you know, it will be their personality. Damn. Yeah, yeah, because like then her personality will make you listen to the music because I would never listen to Ice Spice in my life, but I listened to her. Like he pulled up listening to it. You know, we heard him blasting ice Spice. Bumping it at the Beamer. Yeah. Oh, I thought it was the McLaren. Sorry. No, no. So, okay, so signing acts these days. You know, we talked about this recently too. So I feel like I feel like signing acts in today's climate is all about the numbers, it's about the data. How many streams you got, how many followers you got. Do you subscribe to that approach? Um no. When we signed Leon, I believe he had like a hundred thousand monthly on Spotify, which is not a lot. It's still pretty good.

It's okay. Um, but he hadn't released music in like two or three years. So yeah. I thought it was okay, but yeah, it wasn't anything crazy. We just heard the quality of the music, and that's what got us. But do you see labels kind of looking at data of overvaluing? That's all they look at. Not not really knowing not being tapped in with what people are actually liking and who's really making moves. Yeah, just looking at that stuff. This is like a full circle thing. So it goes back to what Berg is saying. You're gonna keep signing all this stuff and not developing it. Like they go, they get the song that is a hit, then they can't get another hit on that person because they don't know what to do with them. You know? Is that Hitmaker's real name? What? Berg. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, who the fuck's Berg? Hitmaker was Young Berg. Like sexy lady. No, I'm asleep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, Hitmaker was an artist before named Young Berg. Okay, wow. He had hit records. Yeah. Okay. And then he made hits, and that's why he's Hitmaker. Yeah, he started writing songs. Okay.

What's up with him and like Hit-Boy beefing? Is that like a thing? I don't know. Anyways, I don't believe any beef I see these days. I feel like that shit is all marketing. That's funny, man. Um, all right. So how do you think that the uh the role of AR has changed since you were working in the mail room? Yeah. To now. Um, it's changed like two or three times. Uh what would you say are the most, you know, fundamental changes that have happened? I mean, research is the number one thing. Um, it's always was it was always some level of research, but now it's basically all research. Like you said, everybody is looking for the numbers or looking for what's trending up or what's going viral. Um, that's the number one biggest change to me. Yeah. Yeah, there is a whole department that is AR research, right? For sure. So those people are just looking at data. Yep all the time. Looking at data all the time. They come back if anything is trending upwards or going viral or growing or whatever, they put it on the report and then they bring it to the traditional ARs that then are responsible for going and trying to make connections with those artists. And then sometimes the research people are signing things too, and that gets tricky.

Yeah. It's just gonna be robots signing people soon. Damn. So they can do that? Yeah. Yeah. Oh wow. There's gonna be an algorithm where you can just apply for a deal. And it's you're gonna put in all your numbers and your stats and your and what you're doing, and it's gonna say, here's your offer. It's way. So I know that you you know you made the uh the hip hop double XL uh hip hop heavyweights at the end of December 2021. How much do accolades like that matter to you? Um, I mean, that was a big deal for me. Yeah, I've been reading that magazine since I was a kid. So for me to actually be on the cover of it was that was tight. Yeah, no, that I'm like, I'm thinking, yeah. And you had some good company, yeah. For sure. Just to even be in the picture with some of the other people Yeah. It was dope. So it it obviously means that you were recognized as someone who's you know made an impact in the industry. What do you think you're most proud of with regards to your career up to this point?

Um, that's a good question. Uh I mean, of course, Ty, will probably be like my biggest thing that I've been a part of. Um yeah, we had a lot of success together. Yeah, it's been great. But yeah, just putting together, I put together a lot of songs too that you know went on to do well. So yeah, he made sure to grab the aux cord in the session the other day and show some heat and he had some heat here's some producers, here's some songwriters, some references for sure, a bunch of good shit. What what's a song maybe that you worked on that you thought was gonna just fucking go? Yeah, that's a good question. That just didn't go. Like you know what I mean? That's a good question. It was the song called Stand For that Ty did that I thought was amazing, and it didn't like go all the way. What do you think? Why not? Um, I felt for the time that we were in, it was like so different. Like how so? Um, just the production. Yeah, it was like very, very different. Experimental.

Yeah. I feel like it will fit more now with what's going on. Yeah, how often do you think that artists and or producers just are making a sound at the wrong time? Yeah, I mean, it happens all the time. They say when you're the first, you're like the person falling on a sword, you know. And usually the person who comes second and third behind you are gonna, you know, reap the rewards of you know, that that whatever it may be. Yeah. Yeah, because I'm I'm just starting the um rap caviar presents Hulu series. Yeah, so I I'm only on episode one with you know, Tower the Creator, and his episode is titled Breaking the Mold. Yep. And so he of course was in a time period where you know, West Coast rap and rap in general was was one thing, and he and his group of weirdos came in and were doing it very differently. So do you think that it may be, you know, and it's no shade to Tyler or anything, but it's just do you think that he had perfect timing potentially with like people wanting that newness? Um, or or do you think that he like forced them into it almost?

No, I think that people did want something new. Um, but also in those first couple years, it was like known, but it wasn't like on a grand scale to like where it is right now. So it really took him 10 years to get to this point of his career where he's at right now. Yeah, he just wasn't getting nominated for Grammys back then. He wasn't getting nominated for Grammys back then, you know. That just happened, I believe in 19 or 20 is when he got nominated for his first Grammy, but um Igor? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it it is it's really a testament to him, like just sticking in it and you know, seeing it through. in the episode, he he said that uh he was just making music, but then he really sat down in self-awareness. He said that I'm not really making great songs, and then he went and studied great songs, and then he applied that to his last couple albums. And yeah, you know, yeah. I mean, on that same note, what he also said was essentially I think he went on uh Rob Durdick's ridiculousness show. Yeah, I've seen that and he went stupid viral, and people uh like like have you seen the show yet? Of course.

No, not the one with Tyler, but I know the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it just came out. Oh, well then yeah, no. Okay, yeah, yeah. It just came out literally like two days ago. Um, so he talked about how like when he would go out in public, yeah, people would be like music. Exactly, people would be like, oh yo, like I love you on ridiculousness, and he was like, What the fuck, bro? Like, I make music, bro. I'm a very nominated artist. No, but but he wasn't. This is back in the day. Yeah, this is back in the day. So he literally said for a whole year, he said, fuck all this silliness, this bullshit, like, you know. I mean, it was Ridiculousness. It was him, yeah, exactly. Nice one. It was him being himself. So I don't know that he was, you know, basically like saying, Oh, I'm gonna stop doing some gimmick shit. It was just, I need to not let that overshadow me, the artist. Because this is what I fucking care about. You know, so that's what I also so then it comes back to the whole personality versus quality of music thing. It's like we we tell artists to be these amazing personalities, but then we're like, but maybe not like too much, but then they might not think of you as an artist. Yeah, so it's like, damn, I don't envy the position that artists are in right now.

It's tough. Yeah, it's tough. It's harder than ever for sure. Um do you think that? Yeah, I mean, back in the day, uh, artists would put out an album and then they would disappear for two years, and you know, they would come back and put out another album and disappear for two years, and that was fine. Now you have to keep going. Better put out content every day. You better better be putting out a song every four to six weeks, especially if you're a new artist. Like, yeah, you gotta keep it going until you like could get to a comfortable point. Yeah. Do you think that, you know, we talked about the um NBA YoungBoy versus Playboi Carti release strategies? Opposites and how they're similar fan bases, right? Yeah, slightly similar fan bases, uh, but you know, young boys dropping hours and you know, like hundreds of hours of of music, you know, in any given year. Playboi Carti is dropping once every what couple years, whatever. Um, which do you think that it can work either way? Or do you think that Cardi is maybe some, you know, I guess it could work both ways.

You just have to build yourself up to that. Like it took him how what album is he on now? Like three or four. So three, I think. Yeah, yeah. It took him, and I'm pretty sure he put on mixtapes before that. So yeah, it took him, it takes you a while to like build up to have like where people are like salivating for your music. Yeah, someone on here joked about because we talked about this before. Someone joked about how I mean he's really releasing a bunch of shit. He's just doing it through like leak snippets and exactly. So he's he's keeping it goes back to that moments thing. He still finds a way to have moments, even if he's not officially dropping a song or a project, right? He finds his way to like stay in the headline, whether it was him and his old baby mom or whatever it was, you know. He always like found a way to like stay in the headline. So, how do you know which strategy fits for an artist? Uh like what should they be doing? It depends on the artist, honestly. Yeah. To what what but if you're in the beginning, you should be dropping regardless.

Like if you're like just starting out and like don't have a big fan base, drop, drop, drop, drop. Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's for sure. I think it was our Sean from Kids Takeover, the uh media company. He talked about Playboi Carti, and he said, I mean, I love Playboi Carti, but like, can I really post about him every day? And that's coming from a you know very reputable media source. So clearly, Cardi has found a way to almost command like he almost feels like he's he has to post about him daily. Like that's fucking insane. Maybe we should be posting about Cardi more, bro. Because because he doesn't drive, he's this kind of mysterious figure. So when there is something about him, people like, oh, what is this? Like, I want to know what's going on with Cardi. Oh, that's interesting, man. Um, so his rolling loud set looked insane, by the way. Holy shit. So crazy. So you mentioned obviously that you know, maybe being most proud of how things have unfolded with Ty's career. For sure.

That was clearly a big W. Um, you you know, and you talked about kind of some of the learning lessons, you know, clearly with with uh with Leon's, you know, rollouts so far and just him as your first artist. But like, if you had to sum up some of the intangible things that have made you successful, yeah. Because like pointing to an artist that broke, obviously that's great. And you know, shout out to you. But there still has to be intangibles, like characteristics. So what what do you kind of look inward and you're like, oh, it's probably because I'm X, Y, Z. Like, what are some of those intangibles? I feel like I supported a lot of people early on, um, who other people probably want to support it. And uh was able to like put them in some type of position to where they were able to grow. Um, whether it be on the executive side, uh, artist side, producer side, whatever. Even if I wasn't like directly involved with their career, I like was able to like put them in some type of situation to know better themselves. Who was the first person,

Who was the first person to take a shot on you? Oh, that's a good question. Mike Karen. Mike Karen. He's at A, he's APG now, right? Yeah. Man, as a legend, what yeah. So what do you think he saw in you at the time? Um I sent him, I just sent a wide blast of my uh unsigned artists showcase things. Um I just sent the wide email blast. I didn't even know who he was. And I guess I sent it to him, and he emailed me back like this is dope. Um send me any artist that you're looking at. So this was around the the Drake time. So I sent him Drake and I sent him a couple other people. He hit me back and we did a phone call, and he was like, if you find anything else, um, I'll sign it or whatever, like that. And I found this artist named Amir Obey. He he his name was fresh back in the day, and he signed a Def Jam now. But um, yeah, I found him, he signed him and he gave me a job. So damn.

Yeah. Shout out Mike. Shout out Mike Karen. Yeah. I feel like he's he's one of those just legends in the game. For sure. Yeah. Oh man, that's that's dope. Um, okay, perfect. So uh a lot of people want to get into the music business. Obviously, they either want to be the artist, right? And some people on the business side feel like they want to be the artist too, like we talked about. But like for for those that want to get into the music game, let's maybe talk about on the business side. What are some of the the misconceptions about working in music? Um that is easy. It's not easy at all. Um, it comes with a lot of stress. Um, it takes up all of your time. Um, yeah, and you're gonna be stressed 75% of the time. Damn. Yeah, it's like when you have a nine to five, you get off work at five o'clock, right? And you could just decompress, completely decompress, focus on like mental health, whatever you've been lacking in your life, family, whatever it is. Yeah, Anytime that I'm like doing something non music related, in the back of my mind, I'm it's like, well, you could be doing this, you could be doing that.

Exactly. That's tough. That's I guess that's any entrepreneur, though, you know, when you are trying to make something work. So I can relate. Yeah, I feel like music feels the most. Once again, I I live in a fucking bubble. I feel like I live in an Atlanta bubble in a music industry bubble. So I'm like completely projecting right now. But it seems like the music industry is extremely entrepreneurial. For sure. Right? Do you do you think so? Yeah, it's built on the back of entrepreneurs. Yeah, I agree. Because, you know, we had um we had Jason Reddick who's over at uh ASCAP. It's my home. Yeah, yeah. Great, great guy. And we talked about he sat on a panel that was titled Artistpreneurship. So even from the artist side, it's you're your own business. I mean, you're an entrepreneur. If you don't look at yourself like a Brit, a business or a brand and you're an artist and you're doing yourself a disservice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't, like, don't you feel like that's kind of the majority, sadly? Yeah, it is.

They don't even know like what they're doing, they're just doing it, you know. And we've even had to take a step back sometimes because I I do feel for them because sometimes you do get caught in the rat race of just gotta make music, gotta drop music, gotta post content, gotta. And it's it's you don't really, you don't really think about why am I doing these things and what is the actual what's the business plan here? What are we doing? What's the what's the approach here that we're taking and why? What's the goal that you want to get to? The goal, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And who's doing it right? That I like I just think I always go back and forth on this, you know, the Jimmy Iovine quote about you know, basically running your race with blinders on, right? Because you know, the second you look left or right, like you're tripping over yourself, whatever. But I do think that there's something to be said for at least like it goes back to the research side of things, like just fucking do some homework right of like what's working, so you don't live in this delusional bubble. Like I'm all for innovation and doing things differently and maybe seeing what's going on and then trying to do something new, but you're a big success modeling guy.

I definitely am because I mean, bro, like there's so little things that have been done for the first time. It's very true. There's like just what is actually nothing. What's actually been done for the first time? Like, as much as we all want to think we're being so fucking creative and innovative, at the end of the day, someone's done something at least somewhat similar. For sure. I think the creativity comes in the stealing, if I could use that word. Yeah. It's like, how are you using what's already out there? How are you learning from what's working? And there's creativity in that, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's just interesting. I I feel like it's because we probably live in a such a creative world and a creative industry that people take such offense to hey, you sound like him. Right. Or hey, maybe you should try doing something like that person. That's like fuck it. That's like a sin if you say that. Artists hate that. They do. Yeah. And then they go and sound like somebody else in you. Right. Exactly. Yo, the best speaking of A&Rs, you know, you guys love to say, like, yo, we need something new.

You know, we don't want to sound like the last project. Give me, you know, give me all your fresh shit. Then the next project sounds exactly like the fucking last project. I'm sorry, I'm just calling y'all. No, because most of the time the artist doesn't want to, you know, grow. The AR wants them to do something, and then the artist's like, no, we're gonna stay right here. Oh, he's pointing the finger back at the artist. I mean, most of the time that's what happens from what I've seen in my in my, you know. It's a big finger pointing game right now. Let's get a artist and our celebrity boxing match set up, maybe. Or just some sort of like, or just some sort of panel and have them like, yeah. Go at it. Yeah, just some some controlled arguing or arguing, you know. We'll talk about that after that. Yeah, yeah, that's that's amazing. Um, so you know, you mentioned the stress and stuff, right? How do you deal with obstacles and challenges, right? Like when shit's going sideways, how do you deal? I mean, I learned the best way is just to tackle it head on. Don't let it like keep building up, or you know, don't like try to go away from it. Just tackle it head on and just get it over with.

Yeah. I think it's we like to procrastinate the things that make us the most uncomfortable. Yeah. And that just even goes to like tasks that we don't want to fucking do. Like, you know, we've been on these productivity planners in the past, in the past, you know what I mean? And that that approach is always like put the first task at the top of your list. the hardest thing, whatever's been bugging you the most. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a book, there's a book that's called um That's interesting. Eat That Frog. My dad put me on Eat That Frog. It's a great book. I don't remember where it comes from exactly, but the idea is the one thing that's stressing you out the most, that one thing that's bugging you, you just you just have to jump in and do it. Just start. You have to eat the frog, kind of thing. Yeah. Sounds weird, man. There's a there's a meaning behind it, but I'm gonna put you on. Keep searching. Yeah. I will. Yeah. So um, so what's the plan uh for the rest of this year? Yeah, right?

Easy money. I know we're going crazy with Leon. His project is set to drop in May. in May. Yep. Okay, so be on the lookout for that. Um we have a name. Yes. It's called Electric Dusk. Electric Dusk. It's an old drive-in movie theater in LA. That's fire. Named it after. Yeah. What's what's the vision behind the project? Yeah. Um, it's real cinematic, real it's really telling the story of him. And I think I don't want to go into his personal life, but sure. Him and the ex, you know, telling that story. Okay. Wow. Yeah, well, yeah. Where is he from? He's from New York, but he lives in LA. Okay. Yep. All right, good deal. And so is the plan for the year to just focus on like all in on Leon, or are we are we looking for other acts? Of course, we're gonna be all in on him, but yeah, we're looking for other acts, and we're putting out a compilation project, Afrobeats, which is super tight. Um Afrobeats is killing it right now. Yeah, the first single is amazing.

Ty is on it with some other artists I don't want to name, but it's amazing. Okay, um then we're doing that. we're doing another compilation project with Ty and this artist Joe Moses. He's like big on the West Coast. Um, yeah, they put out some mixtapes called Whoop back in the day. Whoop, okay, W-H-O-O-P. Okay, and yeah, we're gonna do the whoop album with him and him and Ty. Like Whoop, there it is. Yeah, exactly. And and is that under the easy money imprint? Both of these will be under easy money. Okay, dope. And so even though Ty is a co-founder, he's not an official easy money artist, is he? Or like how does that work? No, he's not an official but unofficial. Okay, yeah, he's hopping on every project. He's definitely gonna, you know, use his influence on our project. Okay, yeah, he's he's waiting until he gets out of his deal to uh yeah, right. I'm just I'm just putting that out there. Um and are the rumors true you're signing easy money sniper Kevin Durant coming out with his first project. I hope.

Yeah, it goes back to one of those things of like personality versus music. Like he could make some trash music, but I'm sure people would listen. Look, he's got he's got the I mean Dame Dame's got bars, so like maybe maybe KD does, you know, get them on a collab. Just use KD for marketing. Yeah, yeah, just sign him as an influencer, For sure. That's dope, man. Genius. Well, yo, you've had a legendary run so far. You know, shout out to all the success. We have entered a final segment of the podcast. Oh shit, H3. Oh shit. Where are we at, my guy? This is the Rapid Fire Rampage. Sean, it's gonna be a three-part rampage. Okay, I'll explain them as we go along, but it starts with the short answer. Questions are you buckled up? Let's go. Rampage. I'm going to start nice and easy. Just ease into this. What is the meaning of life? happiness. Damn. Actually, I was joking, but he made it easy. I know. That was so easy and just smooth. Perfect.

You can have dinner with any three people, dead or alive. Who are we going with? That is a good question. I'm gonna go Bill Gates. I'm gonna go Jay-Z. I'm gonna go. I would say a girl, but I don't want my girlfriend hearing this. Well, she just heard that. Yeah, she just... You might as well. Yeah, my you kind of just uh dug yourself a grave on that one. Let's go, Michael Jackson. He's got some girlish features, you know. Oh man. He's terrible. Yeah, okay. I'm going to hell. He's not gonna watch this. Okay. Okay, sorry. Did I dig it? deeper there? That's so bad. We are oh god, we're canceled. Moving on. Okay. Sean, you quit your job to pursue a rap career. Yeah. What is your rap name and what is your debut project called? Damn, that's a good question. My rap name. Uh let's go, Buffalo Baron.

Buffalo Baron. That's amazing. First project. Um Tales from the East. Straight out the buff. Hard. That is hard. I would listen just based off the name. Sean, what are three things an artist could do to get your attention? Um consistency. Uh be very talented. Uh what's the third thing? Um I don't know. Consistency again. That's how important it is. It's very so consistent. It took up two of the top three slots. There you go. Right. Sean, if we have another episode one year from today, what is an accomplishment you'd like to be able to report back on? Um I hope that easy money has a number one record this year.

Yeah. I think that's the goal. Dope. What do some of the videos in your current YouTube algorithm look like? That's a good question. Let's look. Let's find out. Let's let's take a look. Let's see. This is a good one because everyone's YouTube algorithm is different. Hopefully it's not really weird. And I like this song a lot. Okay. Okay. Um some music. We have Shame on You episode one. This looks like a podcast. Okay. It is. Damn, I wish the one more time podcast would have popped up. We have Westside Gun Type Beat 2023. Okay. We have I Show Speed goes sneaker shopping with Complex. Oh, that's the same thing. Speed is everyone's everyone's bitch. Yes. He's out of here. He creates moments, bro. He's a moment that's good. That's good. There's some good algorithms. Sean, what is the best fast food chicken sandwich? Chick-fil-A. That's a first.

That's the first one we got from there. last one of the short answer. What is your favorite curse word? Shit. Shit. Part one. Part one. It was good. Pretty great. Good part one. Let's see how Sean continues into part two. This is the this or that portion. Okay. Drums or melodies. Melodies. Lyrics or flow? Lyrics. Horror flick or anime. Hmm. I don't really watch either, but I'll go with horror. Ninjas or pirates? Ninjas. Three ninjas. Three ninjas. Yeah. LA or New York. Sheesh. That's tough. I'm going to go to New York. I didn't make these to be easy, Sean. New York. New York it is. Salad or smoothie? Smoothie. Give up ketchup or give up chocolate. Give up ketchup.

Give up showers or give up shaving. Shaving. To be clear, you can take baths. Still shaving. Still shaving. Yeah. Take on a quarter million dollars of debt or lose all of your industry connections. Quarter million. Taking him. Part two. Damn. His connects are worth it. Over a quarter mil. I'm gonna keep upping the amount until someone finally takes the money. Yeah, that's not even yeah. I mean, I thought that was a decent amount. You got to go higher, bro. Go half mil next time. This is Sean Barron, bro. This is Sean Barron we're talking about. This is some fucking bullshit. I don't know, what I was thinking. There's no Rolodex, bro. Quarter million? Come on, man. Last part is the word association. I'm gonna say one word, just say the first word right back off the top of your head. Here we go. Starting as always with hip hop. The best. Beat. Hmm. Dr.

Dre. Verse. Jay-Z. Love. In hip hop. Shadow. Hmm. You got me on that one. Toxic. Women. Your girlfriend's like, Jesus Christ, bro. We're done. We're done, son. That was a lot. That was aggressive over there. Like, relax. Now we have no women fans, thanks to you two. They usually don't make it this far anyway. Passport. Travel. Tequila. Casamigos. Prison. No. Tiger. Woods. Mars.

Blackman. Lil. Wayne. Easy. E. Henry loves trying to set people up. Easy money. Oh, yeah. We're going for easy, buddy there. You're fired. You're fired. Ty, he doesn't mean it. Easy is. Easy is a good answer too. He's a legend. He still wants to do business with you. No. Appreciate you coming on the pod, man. As always. Please like, comment, and subscribe. That helps us out a lot. This has been Sean Barron. Follow him on social as well. Yes. Appreciate it. At Sean Barron. B-A-R-R-O-N-S-H-A-W-N. There you go. Underscore. Nope. Straight up. He he owns it. He owns the shop. I got it early. That's Right. I love it. Henry, until next week. What are we doing? Getting out of here. Getting out of here. Peace, y'all.