Kato On The Track Interview: TikTok’s Most Viral Producer (4B+ Views)

I don't like it when people downplay how good an artist is at the content side of it. Just like promoting their own music. That's really what it is. Like, are y'all trying to be broke and undiscovered? It's been I'm beyond thrilled to welcome into the one more time podcast. This is our first time having professional golfer, professional jeweler. It's Ben Baller on the pod. Ben Baller did the chain. God, I've been looking forward to getting a jeweler on the pod. Yeah. Well, we had Scotty ATL, but you know, people actually do make that mistake a lot. They're like, yo, Ben Baller, right? Is that like a racist thing, you think? No. Is it a racist thing? No, I mean, do all Asian people look alike? Kind of. I mean, all Amazon. Me and Ben Baller do a lot.

You definitely do it. Kato and Ben Baller, but in all seriousness. In all seriousness, we have, I mean, at this point, like entrepreneur, extraordinaire, um, just viral producer, um, just I mean, music educator. I don't even know what titles you like these days, but we got Kato on the track, Bish. Kato. What's good? Let's go, man. We are excited about this one, man. Seriously. Thanks for coming, man. I appreciate you. For real. Yeah, we've we've been, you know, wanting this interview because I just think your story's so powerful and what you're doing for the community, it really aligns with like the majority of our audience, like we were talking about off camera. So you have been making a name for yourself recently as the self-proclaimed and honestly like publicly, you know, proclaimed king of remix challenges. Yeah. I mean, I saw some statistic in like keep me honest here, like four billion plus views. What are we at right now with original Kato sounds on social media? How many views have we accumulated right now? I mean, it's somewhere around there.

It might be more than that by now. Yeah. It's just, you know, every day I'm seeing new remixes or duets or you know like people taking my beats and doing their own thing and flipping it like it's crazy dude it's a cheat code it's absolutely nuts yeah we're dope yeah yeah absolutely were were other people doing this when you started seeing success with that style of content not really and that's what kind of gave me the idea to do it because I didn't see anyone else doing it at the time so I was like this might be dope for me to do because no other producer that I saw on TikTok I'm sure someone out there was doing it first you know sure but it wasn't like how it is now for sure. Oh you were undeniably early yeah and this was probably 20 this was 2019 yeah right when tick to I mean when did TikTok come out right maybe a year before that or less or yeah something like that yeah what was your view of TikTok before you started seeing success oh I hated it hated it right I hated it I mean you probably were like all of us where it was like oh that's stupid dancy corny yeah gimmicky bullshit right that's kind of what it was at the time still it was when you started getting success crazy to see how it's evolved like over the last couple years but yeah back then it was still like you know teens doing these like funny dance moves and shit and I was like the fuck am I gonna do on this app like not that yeah not that and that's why I wasn't like feeling it at first. And then my business partner Benton was like, yo, man, like get get on TikTok, start putting your beats up there.

And I I did and just took off. That's crazy. Yeah, because all a lot of these apps start as you know, Facebook started for college kids. And then before it was Facebook, Instagram was just for photographers. Right, right. TikTok was for kids doing funny dances. That's true. That's how these things begin. And apparently Benton was had the foresight to be like, yo, like let's get on this now. Shout out to Benton. One time. What's crazy is I'm assuming it's Benton James, right? Yeah. Uh there's another Benton. We're we're not gonna, yeah, yeah, we're not gonna dive into this on camera, but I want to tell you about our connection. Okay. Um, he's from North Carolina area. He is. I went to school at UNC. Yeah. And we crossed paths. Like I told you, I was doing the music industry in college. Yeah. And we connected and shit. So like I'm very curious to know if he like remembers so yeah, yeah, we'll have to, you know, cross that cross that bridge. But um, so do you do you you know, looking back, do you feel like you had some foresight, or was it just sheer luck that like you leaned into a platform that ended up exploding in a in a different way than what it was, you know what I mean? Like, I think it was I think it was just good timing, bro.

Yeah, like I I caught the wave early before anyone else, or at least any other producers were putting their beats on TikTok, and so I was kind of at the forefront of that, and I was doing it pretty consistently, just like how consistent? Probably a couple beats a week, a couple beats a week, just throwing them up on TikTok, and nothing really happened right away, but over the next I'd say couple months into going into 2020, yeah, when we hit the pandemic, basically, that's when shit started going crazy. So I think it was just the timing of me being early, and then everyone was just on their phones at the time because they were like on the phone. Can't go outside. Yeah. So I think combination of those things, you know, call it luck. Yeah, fate. I mean, I I just think everyone out there, we we've talked about this a lot with a lot of our guests in that luck is really like you can set yourself up to be lucky. 100%.

Yes, you know, it's not really just preparation and timing, bro. Thank you. Right. So I just want everyone to understand that, like, even though he's sitting here saying that there was a lot of luck and like timing involved, if he wouldn't have been consistent, because like you said, you were still being at least consistent before it was a real thing to be doing what you were doing on TikTok at that point. Yeah, or if my beats were just trash. If I was just like I wasn't gonna say it. No, I mean it's true. If I was just some kid that just started making beats the other week, like would they have taken off like they did? Probably not, because you know, at that point I'd already been doing it 10 plus years. Yeah. So, you know, I I did the work, yeah, for sure. Yeah, we were laughing about the work you've put in off camera, and we'll get into you know some of that. Um, so speaking of like the beats, like, do you think there is a style of production that works best on the platform? I think there used to be used to be.

There used to be. Okay, I I think it's changing now because it's so broad now. Like, like the user base, the user base is so broad, like every type of artist, every type of rapper or singer or lyricist, or just normal people. Like I I can't tell you how many times I've seen people duet my beats that aren't artists or rappers. That's the best. Yeah. I like those videos the most. Like you inspired this person to sing or rap. Doesn't even sing or rap. Dropping bars, bro. Just on their way to their nine to five. Those have honestly been some of the biggest, most viral videos Because people just don't expect it, and it taps into a different audience, a different demographic. Like I've seen anime lovers, I've seen like housewives go in. I've seen um recently there's this girl who keeps using the same beep and it goes viral every single time. But she talks about like uh she talks about like the stars and and star track and like you know, it taps into that. It's like some astrology, shit. exactly space, like wow, which I know nothing about, but she goes in.

Wow, those those have always been uh kind of surprising and dope to see. Yeah, TikTok loves. I mean, this isn't necessarily exactly this, but like they love an underdog of like something they don't expect, and they want normal people, yeah. They want normal people to go viral and shit, right? And then they'll and they're just so interested in whatever it is that's happening that is this like seemingly normal person doing something that's like off kilter. you know what I mean? 100%. That's that's what it is. Normal people, god that's bizarre. Um, so unlike the normal people side of things, you know, who who are some of the most famous people that have like hopped in and duetted a you know a video or like remixed a reel, for example. Man, I think uh the most surprising one, maybe for you. When when the So Pretty challenge took off, yeah. Um shout out to uh what's her name? Ariana Maria, Ariana Maria. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When that took off kind of like at the end of 2019. Okay, yeah.

Um man, that became a whole thing. Like a lot of Hollywood actors started doing the challenge. Like who? Give me a give us like a couple, you know what I mean? What's her name? I'm so bad with names. Um Gabrielle Union. Oh, Dwayne Wade's uh wife. Oh, I love her. Loved her and uh what was she and uh Bad Boys 2 Bad Boys Original? What was she one of them. Yeah, one of the bad boys. Oh yes. Um God, I'm so bad with names. Who's that chick? Something I'm bad with uh actresses, by the way, so hopefully you got this. Go ahead. She's like the redhead actress that was in the movie Sloan. Uh you know who I'm talking about. Come on, you're the movie guy, bro. Yeah, this is why I want to have like a laptop. Like the fact checker in the middle of episodes.

Yeah, yeah. You look this up. You go ahead and be our fact checker guy. For Sure. Anyway, her. Yeah, her. Um it just it it the other thing about that time is that it happens so fast. Could you even see them, like the notifications? I could see them, but like literally within an hour, like someone else was duetting it and doing the challenge. Jessica Chastain. Yes. Okay. That's who it was. See, like, just yeah, just be like, you know, yeah, I'm here. Yeah, you go. Okay. This is the first time we're actually like, I'm actually like saying. He like leads the, you know, the questions and I, but I kind of do the sound effects and the, you know. But I'm saying, like, lock in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can check the facts. Exactly. Color commentary, make sure he's Make sure he's like telling the truth. You know, like fact check Kato? Fact check Kato. I mean, just I don't want to do that. Just in case, bro. Just in case. I mean, we want to make sure he's being honest with real. Tell lies the whole part. I mean, if they go viral, uh, we're down. Not with Henry here, you're not. Yeah, right. Just we'll show you the door, my friend. Oh, damn. Okay, yeah.

So everything's happening so fast. How many videos were made? To that one. Total to that one. I mean, that one probably accounts for at least I don't know how many videos were made, but it probably accounts for at least a billion views just for that one. For that sound. For that one sound. Yeah. Holy shit. Sanity. Can you like wrap your it's tough to even like when we've had quantify a billion? Yeah, like when we've had just you know, several videos, uh, do over a million views, even we were like, Yeah, this was like what the fuck is happening type of deal. Like, you know, are we famous now? Yeah, the notifications are happening so quickly. Yeah, just everyone's like tapping in, you know, whatever. I mean, a billion, dude. It's pretty crazy. Crazy. It's pretty crazy. How did you feel during that? Like, what were your like what were you personally feeling? Um I mean, obviously, I was fucking hype as shit. Hype as shit, right?

You know, like I was just happy that one of my sounds was, you know, like going crazy like that. Yeah. Are you good at celebrating milestones? Are you kind of just pound grounded pound, just in your work? I'm trying to get better now. You know, I think I think early in my career, I was just so focused on getting the work done. Now it's like I can kind of step back and breathe and kind of appreciate how far I've come to this point. So, you know, I just I take things a little bit slower now. Yeah, yeah. I think that's for the best. Yeah, you have to, because then you get burnt out and it's no good. We promised ourselves we'd start doing that. We said, you know, thank you for 6,000 followers on Instagram. Thank you for 7,000. Yeah. 8,000. Some sometimes we have to, or at least I don't know if you do this, so this is awkward if you don't. But sometimes I rewatch our like posts that we make that are basically talking to our audience because like we need to listen to the shit that we're saying. It's like, bro, we don't we haven't done that in a while.

Like, you know, we'll like say some shit that's kind of like some like, oh yeah, like good point, but like we don't do it for maybe like another like couple weeks, or like we'd been following it, but maybe we fall off. Just make content for ourselves, basically. It's like anything. So people connect. No, literally, anytime we're like struggling with something, we're like we're like, oh yeah, we probably need to make like a clip about that or something. Yeah. Um, but no, man. So, like, how did it impact the business? Like, did the offers start rolling in? Did you actually be getting like were you getting paid on these, you know, views because of yourself? Like, how does it work like economically, right? Yeah. So I think the the most direct result came from the brand business. So doing a lot of brand partnerships after that. Because I kind of became known as the producer that everyone duets. Like literally around that time, you know, I can still pull up the tweet, but Instagram was launching remix, which was kind of the competitor to duet on TikTok, right? So they reached out to me and they were like, let's poach TikTok's biggest music producer.

Literally, they were like, yo, we see what you're doing on TikTok. We want to pay you all this money to help us launch remix. That's beautiful. And so I was the first one that helped them launch remix. And uh yeah, that that was crazy. Um, that was a big brand deal that I did around that time. And then it was they just kept coming. Like Fortune 500 brands were just hitting me all day long. Like, yo, we have this jingle. Can you flip it and like turn it into its own thing and do a duet challenge and post it on TikTok? And I was about to ask you, how did they actually how did you integrate it? So that's how you did it. You know, most of them was like some of them, yeah. And then and then my my audience just kind of started to build more rapidly. And at that point, I was doing more than just duets. Like I was still very much talking about the business of music, you know. So then brands like you know, Spotify reached out to me to help them uh promote a certain product that they were just launching. Um, I did brand deals with Walmart, with ATT, with uh Spotify, Red Bull, um Keep them coming, Henry.

Slate Digital, Steven Slate Audio. Let's go. Uh who's one of my favorite um just in the audio space by the way. Oh, I love it. I have their all plugins bundle. Yeah, are they as good to work with as like y'all feel about their products too? Yeah, no, they're great to work with. It's a good good partnership too. For sure. That's beautiful. I want to reach out to him. yeah. All right. Cause I'm genuinely a fan. Steven. If you're watching this, Steve. Can we call you Steve? We're not, I don't know if we're cool enough with him yet to call him Steve. Do you call him Steve? I call him Steven, but yeah, okay. Well, so we're definitely calling him Steve. So we're not calling him Steve. Okay. Um DC. So this was easily the biggest uh trajectory shift for you. Right? It had to be. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Like that time of when all that was happening and you started being known as the guy who, you know, the producer that makes the duet and remix videos, right? But this overnight success was 10 years in the making. Little did they know.

Oh, we know Henry wore my hat. I'm so drop a bomb. Yeah, I'm so surprised he didn't wear the hat. Like you thought for sure. Because I just got this hat. I was like, it's fly. That's a nice hat. I love that hat too. Did you go to that resort? Nah, dude. Yeah, Ah, Come on. I don't even know where it is. I love it. I love it. I was like, is that North Carolina? Colorado? I don't know where that is. This is part of my new job to look shit up. Well, you know what's crazy is that also, you know, like all it it kind of breathed new life into my career. Because at that point, like, you know, like Henry said, I was I've been in the game for over 10 years at that point. I'd produce records for all these artists. And, you know, more or less, I was kind of still like an underground producer. Yeah. Like most of the credits in my catalog were working with guys that were independent, kind of had a more niche underground following. And so when the TikTok shit happened, it like exposed me to the complete opposite demographic.

I just fucking made a record called So Pretty. After working with like Jarren Benton and my pops. Yeah, he probably called you like, bro, you really gonna call it so pretty? Really? So pretty, bro. I was after Schizo, you're going so pretty. I need to take a pause in the that's a perfect segue. I got a call today from Jarren Benton, and I thought, oh shit, he uh must know that Kato's coming in. Really? He didn't. He didn't know. It was unrelated. What was it about? But I told him that he was coming in. It was about so I just was helping him with a little computer thing. But he did have a You're like his IT support. Yeah. Like I don't even know what you are to him. Bro, Jarren is the worst. Yeah. Dude. Anything involving technology. You give an inch, he's taking a mile with this IT support thing, huh? He did have a special message though that I would like to play for everyone. Here we go. This is great. Here we go. Fuck you, Kato. You Korean homosexual. Oh God.

Drop a bomb. Are we canceled from Jarren Benton? That was Jarren. That was Jarren Benton. Henry didn't say it. He probably made me promise I would play it. I didn't say it. I just thought it was funny. It was today. That sounded uh very homophobic, Jarren. Yeah, Jaren. I mean not in 2023. If he was scared of being canceled, I'd say let's cancel his ass, but I don't think he cares. He did. I think he's built a brand. I think he's got more stuff to worry about. Yeah, yeah, facts. Yeah, he said some other uh wild shit, right? I still got some CDs, some mixtapes, by the way, that y'all did. I've got Grandma's Basement, I think, physical copy. Classic. Um, I've got uh Kevin Freebasin with Kevin Bacon back there somewhere, man. Like those those album titles amazing made me so happy. Like when I was researching the interview with Jarren, I was like, oh my god, this because I didn't know so much about his story, yeah, and obviously, like, you know, how you were involved and whatnot. And I mean, he he talked about like the Roc Nation stuff and how that was a sketchy situation with you, and you know, like, do we really want this guy on the album cover and shit? I mean, he was kind of like very in, you know, he was an open book about that shit.

But so you started off as a rapper, right? I did. Bro, did you have bars? Like, did you? I had bars. Really? Okay, good bars. There were um, I was like very much into underground hip hop at that time. Like who? Kind of like who are your, you know, like your go-to's. Y'all remember, y'all remember Def Jux? Def Jux? Like uh it was LP's label. Oh, like LP from Run the Jewels LP? Yeah, uh he had his own label. Wow. Way back in the day. It was like a hip hop label. Okay. And he had like all these dope underground artists. Anyway, like Def Jux was one of them. Def Jux was the name of the label. Oh, was the name of the label? Okay, cool, cool, cool. Um, but you know, like I was super into Jedi Mind Tricks. Oh, yeah. Immortal technique. Yeah. Like all that was my shit. Okay, that was your vibe. Yeah, that was kind of my vibe. I know who you were. Like real backpack rap. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, you were like a you know, you were kind of like an elitist of like a little bit, the pure, like just Purist. rap, yeah. A little bit. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, again, like when the TikTok shit happened, it was just such a wild change from what I was used to. So you had to be laughing your ass off, like inside, being like, bro, that immortal technique version of me is like kicking my ass right? now, bro. I should have gotten Immortal Technique on the remix. Yeah, yeah. It's so pretty remix. Can you imagine? We still can, bro. Can you imagine? So you can't. Instead we got Tyga. Yeah, it's like the other way. Makes sense. Yes, it does. It does. Wow, man. Holy shit. So yeah, a couple of the um, I feel like you have a couple records with Caitlin. Yeah, who obviously also has just been crushing it. Big shout out on on social media, on TikTok specifically. Uh, do you have a like a commercial, like a business relationship with her now? Or or is it just producer artist relationship?

So I actually I discovered Caitlin on TikTok because again, around that time she was duetting to my beats. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, yo, who is this white girl? Yeah. Looks like she's in a sorority. Dropping bars, dropping just crazy bars. And I was like, With some attitude, too. Yeah, and I was intrigued by that. And so um I reached out to her and I was like, yo, let's work on some some music. And Big Mad, which was her first single that she dropped on Russ's label. Yep. Oh, it was Russ that signed her, right? Russ signed her. Okay, okay, cool, cool, cool. Sorry. Um, and so that was her first single on Russ's label, and that was coincidentally the first song that we did together. Wow. It was Big Mad. Okay. So yeah, we just dropped another record two days ago uh called New Phone. Oh, I know.

Connor Price. Because you know how I know, my wife's obsessed with Connor Price. Like she would leave me for sure. If Connor Price would leave his, I think he has a wife and and a kid, even or whatever. If he would leave his wife, yeah, for sure she'd leave my ass. No, like she loves Connor Price, bro. And she doesn't even like rap. He's dope. She loves him. And yeah, and he's figured it out too, man. He's cracked the code. Him and Nic D. Yeah, Nic D. They've cracked the code. Seriously. Holy shit. They're very good at what they do. Yes. I mean, I just think that people say what the fuck you want about like, oh, he's a TikTok grabber, he's a TikTok this, you're a TikTok producer. I mean, bro, got eight million monthly listeners. Thank you. Drop a bomb on that shit. Drop a bomb, man. Come on, bro. The music is still good too. It's Fire, bro. But they take the time to make the content good as well. The content. They recognize the importance of having both. It's almost like they're competing of like, hey, can we make a better song or a better video uh like series or like content, you know, roll out with this song? Yeah, it's beautiful.

I I don't like it when people like kind of downplay how good an artist is at the content side of it. Yeah. Or just like promoting their own music. That's really what it is. Like, are y'all trying trying to be broke and undiscovered? Like what what like you're supposed that's what you're supposed to be doing as an independent artist. Like, no one's gonna do that. for you. The word post is in it, supposed to. Okay. Come on. Thanks, Henry. Sorry. I heard it too, but you didn't have to fucking say it, bro. That's my job here. Yeah, yeah, no, but it's true, man. I mean, you know, we talk uh like I said before, uh Zeke of since the 80s manages EARTHGANG and Jid and is the you know independent label imprint um for them as well. He said it. We just posted a clip about like it's not about the music and the talent. Yeah, like and he's operating at arguably, I mean, JID's poised to be the next like superstar of rap, right? So I mean, he he gets it, and he even understands that like he's like, dude, we're running a million tricks to like raise to gain popularity and to gain exposure. Like the music is good, which is a bonus, but it's all these other things going on in the background to market and to just discoverability, man. Yeah, that's all it is.

I can't tell you how many times people hit me in the DMs and they're like, yo, I'm next up, I'm the most talented uh kid out here. And I'm just like, nope. If you say that, then you just don't understand. Like it takes more than that. Yeah. You know? God, the I'm next up. Oh, dude. I was on live last night asking people if they had any questions for you. And people were just in our comments on the live being like, yo, I'm next up. Like, you know, check my music out. And I'm just like, ah, like this is like a ticket to me not doing that. Never checking it out. Yeah. Yeah. And I hate that for those people. And I just wish that they would understand that that it clearly is not working for you up to this point. So I don't know if they like think that just they're hitting up the wrong people and that the that eventually someone's gonna take that exact same message that hasn't been received well 100 times, and the 101 version of that is gonna work. But so you talk about this a lot, and you're very transparent about your opinions when it comes to the proper way to network in the music industry.

And I love when you post that type of content, bro. Yeah, because it's so important. Yeah, um, because it's half, I wouldn't say I don't even know if it's half the battle, but it's a big part of like establishing, you know, collaborators, right? Like finding the right people to collaborate with. It's the you know, it's what you have to do to obviously like get the attention of other people that you're maybe trying to work with in other capacities, right? Yeah, so like for you, how many how many DMs do you get that it's like yo, let me hop on that beat, or like let's work or whatever. I mean, I mean, uh, I'm I'm getting somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 DMs a month. Oh Jesus. Is there a way to track that? Does Instagram tell you? No, Instagram doesn't tell you, but I have I use like platforms that give you stats and reports. Yo, he didn't he didn't want to drop their name because he wants the bag, bro. You saw that? No, I'll drop the name. Okay, come on, come on. So some buddies of mine created a platform called Communique. Communique? Communique. That's a cool name.

That's kind of cool. Shout out to SJ and Plex. Nice. Basically, it does like email marketing. Um DM marketing. Yeah, DM. Okay. You're messing with that. And it's working. Yeah, it is. Bro, when we got that one from Kato, we like oh, shit. He was planning to come on the pod. Like, fuck. But then he finally did. Yeah. Actually, the human replied. You know what I mean? after 10. Hey, that's what you have to do. Mass DMs. Look. You gotta be fucking persistent in this shit. But yeah, so okay, so they have they have metrics then that can help uh track like how many you're getting. Yep. And I also use Sprout Social. I use a bunch of tools that just like give me more in-depth analytics. Cause that's one thing that I've found that I'm not naturally a numbers dude. Like I'm a creative. Most creatives aren't good with business and numbers, right? So I had to learn how to become um better at that kind of stuff because it's like it tells a different story by looking at the numbers and shows you what's working, right? So um that's so important what you're saying right now.

It's super important. Listen the fuck up, guys. Like please, because I'm soaking this shit up because he you're like a weird hybrid of he actually does understand the numbers, even though he is the like more creative. And I'm even though I understand the numbers, I'm also more of like a strategy and operations person. So I understand the numbers from like a productivity perspective. I'm not so big on like the dollars and cents. Like I don't want to be a CFO necessarily, right? Like I can wear that hat, but I like the COO type of title, right? Where it's like, how productive can we be? Yeah. And how do we reach goals that we're setting for ourselves by working backwards? It's like if we want X number of followers and we get X number of followers per organic post, how many times do we need to post a week, a month, a day, whatever? I'm the disorganized type of creative. Yeah. No, I get it because I'm the same way. Messy room type of deal. Like those are the most creative people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, I mean it's it's just so important. There's so many tools out there. Yeah, exactly. And you know, I just took a deep dive on like, all right, what are the tools out there that can help me? Because I'm just not good at keep staying on top of it myself.

So, you know, I get help. I have uh I have an assistant, I have um my business partner Benton. Um, he has his assistant. I have agents who help me on the brand side. So it's like I kind of lean on certain people for my shortcomings, you know, because I know what I'm good at. It's not paying attention to the numbers, it's not uh, you know, doing cold outreach for brands and negotiating with for the terms and that kind of stuff. Like, that's not my skill set. Yes. So I stick to what I'm good at and I find other people or other tools that can help kind of fill the gaps, you know. Yeah, the business with Benton, is that is that business like the Cato on the track brand, or is it more than that? Is that pretty much like, yeah, it's exactly brand. Yes, dope. No, that's that's huge, man. I think we just talk about this so much as far as like being self aware. Yeah, that's what's key is the self-awareness.

It's like whether you're, and this goes for just the music making side of it, right? Like if you're a producer and you don't like, you know, your strengths are not melodies, for example. You need to find yourself a melody, a loop maker, uh, you know, a website, a platform that has the stuff that you need to be successful. You better be paying for splice. Yeah, I mean exactly. You better be on looper man. And then maybe you're the producer that really is good at relationship building, and you're the you're gonna be the one that can be with the artist, and you're gonna be the one that's just playing the right beats. Yeah, but you know, maybe you have more like an AR type of uh, you know, skill set. Like just be aware of what it is that that you're good at and your superpower, and then find those other people. And like we've struggled with this too because how hard was it for you to relinquish some of that control though? I mean, I'm still working on it. Yeah, that's the hardest part, man. Yeah, yeah. I'm still working on it. Because even if you acknowledge what you know you need help with, yeah, it's like who's good enough to do it, you know. Right.

Who's gonna represent me and my brand on my behalf? It's that's tough, man. Yeah. And sometimes it takes you a minute to even figure out what it is you need. True. Yeah, like because you're so used to doing everything yourself that you almost it's like you don't know what you don't know. True. So until you get past that point, then you know, you're always gonna be playing the same game, and you hit a ceiling of how productive or how much money or how many responsibilities you can handle on your own. Yeah, like no one can do it all themselves. Yeah. No one. And I think nine times out of 10, that first hire should be doing the tasks that you are like the most dreading doing, or you are the most uncomfortable, or you feel the least competent. Yeah. It's a good place to start for a first hire. I would say, right? 100%. How um how long did it take you to find the team that you kind of have in place right now?

Um were these the initial folks, or have you so I've known Benton for probably almost 10 years now? Okay, so he's been around, and obviously he's more of the like strategic partner. Yeah, he's been around, but we didn't start working together until the pandemic. Oh wow. And so once the pandemic hit, he just reached out and he was like, yo, let's work, let's figure out what we can do. Like, and and I trusted him, obviously, at that point because I had known him for so long, and he understands my brand. Like he understands what I was trying to do as a producer. So it didn't really, there wasn't a process of like getting to know each other and like making sure we're on the same page. I already knew that from jump that he was on the same page. So that's why we still you know work together well, is because he he gets it, and there aren't too many people that get it on that level, especially with my business, because it's not really a traditional producer business where I'm like just playing the placements game, trying to get placements with the biggest artists. Like, I just don't give a fuck about placements anymore.

Like that's it, just it doesn't interest me at this stage in my career. Um you can be a successful producer without big placements. Say it again, Henry. You I mean, no, say it one more time. We're here on the One More Time Podcast, bro. Just say it one more time. You can be a successful producer without big placements. You can. It's a hundred percent. True. Yes, yeah. That's important for people to know. Yeah, I mean, what are your kind of very if you're comfortable sharing, like, what are your various revenue streams at this point then? Because I want people to understand like how this might work. The brand deals is big. Yeah, brand deals. That's a big part of uh my business. the Cato business. Yeah. Okay. Um, and then I have kind of like my own services and products that I offer. So I just recently launched offer-based services. Yeah, why did you do that? I saw that. So actually, explain what it is, like how it works, and then why you decided to go that route. So basically, anyone can go to Cato on the Track.com, which is my website, and they can submit an offer for a collab, uh a custom beat, a consultation, a music review, and it goes straight to my inbox, and I can choose to accept it or decline it.

So whatever you think any of those services are worth, you just submit an offer and it goes to me. I accept or decline. So my whole thought behind that is like I'm trying to maximize the opportunity cost of every minute of my day. Because I don't care what anyone says, you are not worth what you think you're worth 24-7, 365, right? Because the opportunity costs of like if you're if you're sitting at an airport terminal waiting for your flight, just waiting to get on a flight, right? The opportunity cost of that time is not the same as if you have a hundred things to do in your day, right? You just don't because you're sitting there waiting to get on a plane, like you're not doing shit else. So if someone comes by and pays you $500 for a music review, like why not? Yeah.

You know, like I'm trying to maximize the opportunity cost of every minute of my day. So when I have 60 offers in front of me for a music review or a B collab or a consultation, I can choose what time of my day that I want to do any of those. You could do a music review in an airport terminal. Yeah. Or if I'm sitting in my car, like waiting on my food, I don't know. Like, or if I'm just taking a shit. Yeah, taking it. I mean, talking about talk about like the most profitable shit ever. This dude's reviewing music for $500 whilst shitting. That's what I'm saying. Like, I next time they submit a music review, they're gonna be thinking what you're doing. You know what's funny? All of my music reviews are video. Uh so while you see what I'm doing, okay, like while I'm if it looks like a bathroom, it's a bathroom, guys. Just get a good face up angle.

If there's tile behind him, it's a fucking bathroom. And he decided I got 20 minutes. Exactly. I don't know how many videos were made, but anyways. Oh, damn, that's funny. man. That's amazing. No, like maximizing. Yes. Holy shit, I love it. Shout out to the Russell. You know, there's independent artists like the Russell who is doing the same thing with his shows and with Dude, what a genius he is. Yeah, like does he get enough flowers right now? Like, I don't know. I do. I think he is. Okay, everyone's like giving him the flowers because now he is. He's like a mastermind of this shit. You know, I want to give you your flowers while you're sitting here too, because I feel like you've like started to really figure this shit out. Like, once again, this is not an overnight success thing. Like, this shit has been years and years and years in the works, but like I can see even just me having been tapped in with you for like we were joking about like I've, I found out about you like so long ago, and then seeing your trajectory and how you've like really you've just started to take your business seriously. Yeah, not that you weren't when you were starting, but you didn't know really what it was.

I mean, just like all these people that are out there, like you're not trying to figure it out. Yeah, um, but I think that you know, what when did you really start leaning into the entrepreneurial like side of you? Was that happening back then? But it just didn't seem like it, like to, you know, the the outside of um after funk volume. Yeah after funk volume is when I realized like man, I I just I don't have my shit together, you know. Like I was getting placements, I was getting a lot of cool looks, I was getting to go on tour, but after that whole situation fell apart, then I I didn't have any of that anymore. You know, it was just me. So I had to figure it out, and I realized like I don't have my business put together. I I was actually the most broke in my career right after funk volume than any other point in my career. Wow.

And so for those that aren't familiar, um, what was your affiliation with funk volume and what was funk volume? Like, just because our audience might not know exactly what we're referring to, right? So if you can break it down, like what it was and what your role, what an epic independent label story this, holy bro. Yeah, so funk volume was an independent record label based out of LA that was co-founded by um Hobson, who is an artist, and then uh Dame Ritter, who was the business partner. Yep. Um, so I signed to Funk Volume as an in-house producer in 2013, 2012, 2013. Um, if you don't mind, what does that look like? Is that like an advance? And then I don't even think I got in advance. Probably not then, bro. Like I didn't get an advance. Are people still doing in-house production deals? Like labels? Is that even a thing? Not that I know of.

Yeah, because I did. I heard so many stories, like, you know, we interviewed a producer on here, Skato Wade. I think he had an in-house production deal with Boo Vision, which was Akon's brother Boo. Um, has a label, and he was an in-house producer, and he basically just got like free reign at the studio and was producing for all their artists. But yeah, I I don't feel like I hear that much. Yeah, I think it's more if if it does exist, it's definitely with more like it's with smaller operations. Yeah, it's gotta be. Which at the time, funk volume was it wasn't tiny, but it was still small. Yeah. Um, and it wasn't until a couple years after that that it was like a multi, multi million dollar company. Did you realize what you were a part of, like in it? I don't think so. Dude, because I don't think so. And I I look back at that moment, or I look back around that time and I'm like, God, I would have done so much more if I knew what what would you have done? I I I don't want to make you live in like regret land right now on the podcast, but what what you know, what what do you think about what comes to mind?

I would have just gotten harder. I would have from a work ethic perspective, yeah. I mean, I was working hard back then, but I think it was just I I didn't really realize how much opportunity was on the table, like how much potential opportunity there was. If I would have been doing the things that I'm doing now back then, I mean, I can't even imagine the types of opportunities that I would have had. But you know, it's all in retrospect. And I think it was uh it was probably one of the best learning lessons for me overall, just going through that whole experience, getting to tour with Jaron and and uh just kind of see the inner workings of the operation and just be a part of the whole thing and see how I think most important thing I took away was seeing how the artists interacted with the fans. Like that connection was special, and I took a big part of that lesson with me as a producer and applied it to my own career, which is why still to this day, like I'm responding to comments, like I'm in my DMs, just like responding to people. And I I really value that connection with my community and my audience.

So that's one of the biggest things that I took away from FV. Yeah, dude. Speaking of the tour, one of my favorite concerts of all time was at the old masquerade. Yeah, the whole funk volume crew Epic. in one place. I think it was part of A3C, maybe. Yeah, they had their own stage, fucking epic, bro. Great. show. We had some good times, man. And um, you know, everyone's still doing their thing. Shout out to Dizzy Hopson and Jaron and Were you there when we shot the uh half ounce quarter pound video at me and JP's old house? Uh remember half ounce, quarter pound? I don't God, was I there for that video? I don't think I was there for that video. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was that was Jaron and Alien Craft. Yeah. And uh Dizzy. Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was a good one. Crazy. Yeah. So, you know, we kind of got into this with Jaron on the podcast, but like from your perspective, I mean, what happened? What really happened? I mean, I think uh I think the fall of funk volume was like the perfect example of what happens or what could potentially happen when there's no communication, when there's a communication breakdown, especially between co-founders of a company, right? And they just didn't really like see eye to eye on a lot of things.

Um I think it happens a lot between creative people and business people. Yeah. It's like they just they disagree about a lot of that's the oldest story in the industry. Approaches, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The creatives versus the business minded, which is definitely why like every artist wants to say like fuck the label. It's like the oldest trick in the book to just like blame the label. Yeah. And it's just like maybe y'all just aren't seeing eye to eye from both ends. There's probably some like room to grow from like both sides of the house. Yeah, it's tough, man. I mean, I I still experience those situations where people on my team, right? That are more so on the business side. I have disagreements with them about, you know, how I want to build my brand, you know, because I'm very protective of what I've built. You know, no one else really has experienced that side of it outside of me.

Like I am pretty much solely responsible for just creating um, you know, creating the majority of the Kato on the track brand, right? And I can't take full credit for it because like you know, Benton will throw me all kinds of ideas that I think are super dope, right? But at the end of the day, I'm the one that has to execute for that to happen. Yeah. So um, it's like I have a different perspective on protecting my brand and my vision that no one else is going to understand. So end of the day, it's on me to be able to communicate that to the people that I'm working with or collaborating with. And if it doesn't, if if we bump heads, then I have no one else to blame than myself. And that's kind of how you have to look at it. Because if you just go around burning bridges with everyone because you don't see eye to eye, like it's a small, it's a small circle of people in this industry. Word gets out.

Word gets out, people know each other. If you're burning all these bridges, like it's just it's just not gonna work out. Yeah. I mean, I think the the key thing that you you know, maybe attribute the the you know, the demise, if you will, or the disbanding of funk volume is the communication thing. Like this is why I get on on you about like we gotta communicate, bro, because I think we do a good job. We we do, but I'm just saying like that's why I'm so big on it. Yeah, and like almost to like an annoying perspective of like, if you're gonna be out and you need me to cover for you or something, like we just need to communicate. Like it's no, it's no hard feelings of like if you need to take a mental break because shit's going on, like I got you, like we got to communicate. Like, what, you know, what are your thoughts on how we're doing? Like, do you have issues with what's going on? Like, let's communicate. Like overcommunicating is never going to be a bad thing in my mind. In a business partnership, right? Like, maybe you can say that it does in other cases, but like in a business relationship and even in a personal relationship, like with your wife, with your best friend, whatever. It's the same thing, really.

Like a a personal relationship and a business relationship, they have the same exact principles if you want to maintain it. It's a it's a hundred percent true. It's just humans, yeah, interacting with humans, exactly. Yeah, no, for sure, man. So I think that that's like key is that if you guys are listening to to one thing on that part of this, is like overcommunicate with the people that you need help from. Because at the end of the day, to your point, like you can do whatever you want. And it is gonna be your fucking face out there that you know, if you make some move that you felt really strongly about and it doesn't work, yeah, it's gonna be, you know, just no fault but your own, like you said, right? Yeah, but that's something you gotta live with. And that and that I think is also true of just the personal brand that you have, right? Your brand is you, yeah, exactly. You know, like hypothetically, one more time, like, yes, it's it's living off of me and Henry right now, but like at the end of the day, if we wanted to fucking fire me and get some other like host, like one more time, can like keep living on, you know, hypothetically, because it's not a personal brand, right? Right.

Um, so there's other companies too that it don't really like apply or don't really have to abide by those rules, but you in particular, like yeah, I kind of am the brand. Yeah, you know, so I I that's why you're so protective, and I get it. Yeah, I'm super protective of that, bro. Because I've worked my ass off to get here. Yeah. And I I can't just let anyone kind of anyone else decide how that's gonna go. But it's it's again, it's on me to take accountability and be able to communicate that to people that I'm working with for sure in an effective way. Sure. So I think that's something that um, you know, we we ran into this recently. I want to get his take on this. Can you explain the situation that uh Jarius ran into recently? I just want to get his take on this. I think I think money in the music business is super fucking funky. I just think that it's an awkward situation knowing when people try and get paid, just no one knows. Yeah, so so like explain the situation and like get his input, I feel like on what happened.

I'm working with an artist, um, super dope artist. He's been working with another producer for about eight months. They made maybe six to ten records that he felt really good about. And um, money was basically never discussed, never brought up by anyone. Come come over, let's make some shit, right? How it starts. Let's create. Um very creative environment, no business going on. And when, you know, now it comes time to hey, I'm putting a project together. I really like this one, this one, this one, I want to use this one. Um, the producer comes back with cool, 2,000 for an exclusive. And so, you know, if he wants six dog six songs, seven songs or something, I think he was like $14,000. And this is an independent artist that is has a job and like regular day job and like does not have $14,000 for seven beats. Laying around. Yeah. And the songs are already made, and he's attached to them kind of emotionally, right? So, yeah, so so what I want to get your take on is like you know, is there a right way?

Could that situation have been avoided? 100%. And and what would be your recommendation to like producers and artists that are maybe like, you know, starting to collaborate? How can we avoid that? That's just a whole lot of dope shit that's now never gonna probably see the light of day. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it that conversation just needs to be had much, much earlier in the process. You know, you guys gotta be on the same page as far as what everyone is bringing to the table, how everyone's gonna eat on the back end, right? Or if there is some transaction that is expected from either party, either group, then that needs to be laid out as early as possible, preferably before you guys even hit the studio and start working on music. But see, my my devil's advocate point to that is that that can kind of be a turnoff to even get started working on anything to just be like, oh yeah, we should totally work together, bro. My rate is this, I'd like this on the back end.

What's your budget? That's kind of like well, well, but at the same time, you know, right, as the artist, if your producer is saying that to you, then it's just not the right partnership for that time, right? Go go find another producer or get some beats off of beat stars, right? Like that person is like your partner in crime for that project that you're trying to do, right? So if they're not on the same page for something, you know, for the money for the financial part of it, then you can try to convince them, yeah. But you know, you can you can maybe negotiate, like, hey, I don't have a budget to pay you upfront for these beats, but we can split it 50-50 on DistroKid. Yes. Right. And we can both eat on the back end. And to me, that's that's like what I did with Jaron. I just thought he was dope.

I wanted to work with him. I wasn't trying to get paid up front. I wasn't trying to hustle him for some beats. Like, I just wanted to make dope music. And so I'd say for any upcoming artist or producer, look for people that you have that common interest in first. The creative side of it has to come first. If you're just looking for a quick payday or a quick check, like do that with someone that you know has some money and that you're not just trying to make dope music with. Yeah. Right. Like, that's it. You just gotta find creative partners that are willing to take the ride with you and eat on the back end if it does well. And to your point, like you can get creative. You were so creative with music, like get creative with the business, get creative with how you break it down, how how we all eat. There's a bunch of ways to do it besides just, you know, registering your 50% of publishing with ASCAP. No, and and honestly, now that he's kind of explaining like how it could work, I kind of want to, you know, renege how I was like explaining it to Jaren's in the studio in like my opinion.

I I think that actually if you do it before the session, or like before y'all agree to even like link up, if his rate is his rate and there's no like potential flexibility of like, hey, let's just maybe like make some shit. And if we both think it's dope, maybe we can figure something else out. If that's just like a hard no, then then just the timing and the fit's not right. Yeah. It's just, you know, that there's not, he's not the one producer that's the only producer that can make dope shit with you, you know. So like you gotta kind of just, you know, work with what you got. I mean, you know, what's that Adam Ivey saying about like, you know, uh basically um use what you have until what you have pays for what you want. Exactly. So like if you have to find a producer that is in a different financial situation than the one that you like think you really want to work with at that given time, then you just have to. I mean, it's just it's just reality. Like you have to figure out who can work within your budget, who can still at least get the type of sound that you're you know, trying to achieve. Yeah, and you just then maybe you circle back to that other producer be like, hey, I got this budget now.

Let's fucking let's let's make it happen, you know what I mean? Yeah, and it doesn't have to be y'all falling out. No, it does it should not be a burn bridge. It doesn't have to result in a burn bridge, you know. If y'all aren't on the same page at that time, it's just maybe the timing's off, right? Yeah, but um, you know, I think the burn bridge is gonna happen if you wait till super late, to be honest. Exactly. That's the worst scenario. Exactly. So I think honestly, if you approach it very early on in the process, like you said, I think that's gonna minimize uh the chances of like a burn bridge situation happening, right? Yeah, I think the the producer coming out of the woodwork being like, here's my you know, yeah, pretty hefty advance for like him knowing like you can do some math as far as like someone's streaming numbers if you're a producer and be like, does this person have the budget to pay me $14,000 for my beats alone? So that actually brings up a good point. Is it maybe can you maybe get away with that strategy for artists that have a major label or some big bucks behind them?

For example, we have I know a video guy who shall remain unnamed for now. He kind of he works with big artists, huge artists, shoots, you know, just links up, said, Hey, you want to, you know, let's shoot a music video for that song. Shoots a crazy nice video, spends a bunch of money on it, and then approaches the label, like, hey, we did this video, it's gonna cost you this fucking much, this many thousands of dollars, you know what I mean? And it kind of works that way. And the the artist doesn't get involved, he has the relationship with the artist, and the label is kind of just foots the bill at the end of the day. Yeah, but I think even in that situation, that conversation needs to be had with at least the artist management, right? Because that budget is still coming out of the artist's budget, right? So true. if the even if the label is footing the bill, like that money is coming out, like if you're paying $20,000 for a music, $10,000 for a music video, right? That might be $10,000 less that they have to spend on another video or ads or ads or for their recording of their album, right?

So if you those conversations just always should be had as soon as possible. And it doesn't have to be awkward. It's like, all right, bro, I know you're independent, I'm independent, like I don't really have money. You probably don't have money like that. What else can we do? Like what how how can we make this work? Because I really fuck with you, I want to work with you. I want to just make great music. That's my focus. And then from there, it's like if the artist feels the same way, then it should be a pretty easy conversation. It's like, let's just let's eat on the back end, let's make let's split the shit 50 50 and and make it happen, you know. Absolutely. No, for sure. So you've commented about like how long it takes producers to get paid. I think like it was uh Hit Boy or someone recently tweeted, and you like, you know, quote tweeted it, whatever. Um what what what do you think the shoot? What do you think the biggest problems are with the modern music industry still? Like producers getting paid on time seem to be you know one that I think everyone would kind of agree is still you know an issue. Are there other problems you you kind of look at?

I mean he looks taxed right now. This shit again. Yeah. I'm gonna say this. I just I I'm not anti-major label. I want to say that first because automatically when you see, you know, two producers like just airing out their grievances with labels, you're gonna think, oh, the big bad label, like they're fucking over songwriters and producers and artists, like, but that's not really the full picture. Yes, I wish that major labels operated more lean so that they could pay out distributions or cut checks to artists and songwriters and producers quicker. But the reality is that most of them are just so big that you have to go through 50 different people just to get your check cut, right? And that's just the nature of the business. That's not necessarily like that doesn't necessarily mean that all labels are bad. Um I think that the frustration comes in when creative people expect too much from a label.

We have to really understand what a modern record label is today. They're not in the business of artist development anymore. Correct. Like that is on the job of the artist and their team to do going into the label situation. So when artists have the expectation of like, well, the record label has all this money, they have all these resources. Aren't they supposed to develop the artists? No, that's not their job anymore. Maybe back in the old music industry it was, but that's they don't do that anymore. So I think we just need to get away from labels like from creative people expecting labels to do the artist development for the artists. That's not their job. To me, when an artist goes into a label situation already having built a fan base, already having leverage, that is the best situation to go into because then you have leverage to negotiate terms in your favor. And I'm sure there have been situations where labels will sign an unknown band or an unknown act, right?

But honestly, if you're going into it with that situation, you just don't have as much leverage. So you're likely going to get a worse deal in that situation than you would if you were going into it with an established fan base, with uh a touring history, with like all these things that the label can then go in and support with their resources. To me, that's the optimal situation. Yeah, no, for sure. So, you know, I feel like you've probably talked a lot of like, are these some of the themes that you're bringing up on your like sound advice tour, for example? Which by the way, revenue stream idea for producers go on tour. I know we didn't finish that that uh the revenue streams and everything. But yeah, all right. All right, yeah, yeah. Let's go ahead and actually get back into it. I mean, live events, touring. Yep. Um, obviously, you know, the royalties, yep, and the publishing, which I still own my own publishing. So shout out to you, hell yeah.

All of that is still a part of my business. Um the merchandise, the merchandise, the hats, the the beat store. Yeah. Um, all of it kind of works together in in harmony. Yeah. Right. And that's that's the way that I was I intentionally built my business that way. You know, did the beat star start going crazy when the remixes were popping off? Um, the beat store just it's it's pretty steady, you know. But the thing about running a beat store, it's like it's almost like having your own retail store. And if you're not in your own retail store, then who's running the business? Right? It's its own business entirely. You'd be surprised just because something might go viral on TikTok or my beats like are out there everywhere, that doesn't automatically mean that my beat store is going crazy. Because you still have to drive that traffic to the beat store.

Yeah. You still have to collect those email leads on the back end and follow up and email them and you know, do what a traditional retail business does. It doesn't just happen because my beats are going viral on TikTok. Like those two things are are not necessarily directly connected. Um, this is huge. That's a gem. Dude, this is huge. It's A big gem. Like, oh man, because I definitely was kind of on the same page as you, assuming that that would be a a natural, but to your point, unless there's a huge call to action, even about like, hey, this beats on beat stars. Like, we're fucking scrolling. Who would know? We're just we thought that video was dope. Me as like the consumer of your content. We liked it probably. We might have commented, we moved on with our fucking life. Exactly. Any, Any beat maker or producer that has a beat store will tell you that it's not, it's not uh what's the word I'm looking for? It's not um passive money.

Yeah, like it's not a passive revenue stream. Yeah, it's a very active you get out what you put into it, exactly. A hundred percent with a beat store. It's like literally owning your own retail front. I love that analogy, bro. Yeah, yeah. Because we're you know, launching a brand that we were telling you about, same same thing, you know, like you. I'm sure you're dealing with this even with the brand, is like you gotta actively be coming up with like ways to actually drive traffic, and then once you get them there, they might add a thing to a cart, and then they abandon their cart, and you gotta make sure you set up the appropriate like triggers to follow up with them and then like send out your weekly, you know, emails about like new beat, new product, whatever it is. Like, dude, imagine like how many fucking emails do you get from just the normal brands that you shop with? Like, think of it exactly that way. Yeah, they're not just hoping you come back to Nike.com, right? Nike's on your fucking ass, bro. About like Adidas lets me know twice a week that they got some shit that they weren't about. And that's why they're Adidas.

And think about how big these brands are. Like no one's thinking about the Kato on the Track beat store on their daily. They're not taking a shit. Let's just pull, bring it full circle. They're not taking a shit thinking about you. What if this motherfucker dropped anything on the store today? Let's check it out. That's not happening. Like, let's just be honest. That would be so good. You gotta you gotta stay on top of people. Yes. And you gotta follow up, and you gotta be constantly just like in their inbox and on their screen and on their feed, and you gotta drive that traffic. Yeah. Do you think a beat store is still a viable model for a producer right now? Like, or they kind of not as can someone start a beat store today and like did you do YouTube type beats? How would a producer do that in 2023? Yeah, a hundred percent. I think that producers can still build a successful business just having a beat store. Um who's killing it right now? Do you know of any?

Like, are you tapped into that? Like, who's really uh crushing? Cash money AP. Yeah, probably. Or is that old? Or is he like kind of not even still? I don't know about, I don't know about I mean, bro's got so many placements. I don't know that he's necessarily worrying about about his beat store. Yeah, yeah. He's not in his retail store right now. Yeah, he's he's out to lunch. Yeah, he closed the shop early, yeah. Um to work with whoever it is, you know, major label artist. You know, my homies beat demons, they're still heavy on that beat store grind, and I think it's working really well for them. Uh, there's a lot of just like new kids just throwing their beats on YouTube and like cashing out on their beat store. So I think it can still 100% work in 2023. The tight beat is still alive. You heard it from Kato on the track. There you go. Oh man. Uh Henry, I think we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Have we?

Man, yeah. This has been so fun. I mean, I could, I have so much, I just think there's so much I want to, you know, put fucking retention. We're not Joe Rogan with our three hour long episodes. How long usually is y'all's podcast? We've gone probably about an hour right now. Okay. About an hour. I don't know, actually. I think we're like an hour in. Yeah. Got you. About an hour for sure. Yeah. So we just, you know. But we still have to do the most fun part. This is the rapid fire rampage. It's gonna be a three-part rampage. We'll start with some short answer questions. Yep, get hydrated. You're gonna need some water for this? Absolutely. Shout out to Stanley Ross. Shout out Patrick CC, Water Gang. And Stanley Cup, drop the bag, please. Boom. Um like I said, this first part is the short answer questions. Starting with. You can ask Joe Biden one question. What do you ask him? I thought you were gonna say Joe Rogan. Yeah. I just heard Joe and immediately went to Rogan because of my the bigger Joe. Maybe actually, I don't know.

What would I ask Joe Biden? Yeah, you never thought about this have you? Never thought I would ask him. Uh I was just gonna say. I'm I'm gonna try to keep it pretty clean. Okay, let's go. I mean, maybe not, though. Maybe dirty. Maybe disgustingly dirty. I would I would ask him um if he's ever tried to make music before. Okay. Now, what would you ever drop? Any bars, Joe? Now, what would you ask Joe Rogan? You're hijacking my rampage. again. What would I ask Joe Rogan? I just I need to know this one now. Jesus. My brain worked that way. I'd ask him if I can be on his fucking podcast. Yes. Me too, Joe. All right, Kato Joe Rogan episode. It's a small step up from the One More Time podcast. It's Small. Small. I know, man. It's funny. We're

like naked. We're naked. Don't play yourself, bro. This is this is big. No. Honestly. So right when Killer Mike was dropping Michael, he followed us. Oh shit. Yeah. And then he DM'd us back saying, like, who can coordinate it? Because we shot our shot. And he said who can coordinate it. And then I sent him my info. Why even tell this story? Because it's something I think about every day of my life, bro. But he went on Joe Rogan. Yeah. And every other giant podcast. And he had at least said he would come on. And then he didn't fucking come on yet. Killer Mike, can you please just follow through with that? This wasn't the right time, bro. I believe it's gonna happen though. I think so too. Mike would be amazing. Mike, we're manifesting. He's literally the like I'll coordinate it. Everyone killer Mike. Yeah, I'm gonna coordinate it for you. Yes. Thank you. He literally is like everyone asked me, like, yo, who do you want to get on? Who's your dream guest? Like he actually is up there, man. Like, just what a what a guy, man. Sure.

All right, sorry. I'll this is rapid. I know. I know. You always literally make it the slowest I'm sorry. I get excited. God, I know. I'm sorry. Anyway, moving on. Let's get three quick tips for an upcoming producer trying to make a living producing. Just the top three you can think of to young people that would never expect like just something helpful. Hmm. I'd say number one, learn the business. Major. Number two, um, just master the craft. Like focus on the craft. Just be fucking dope at what you do. And then number three, just surround yourself with like-minded people. Damn. Amen. If you do those three things, you're gonna win. Yes. You have to. That was those were great. It might take 10 plus years, like we know, but 10 years in the making. Yes.

This is a new segment called Ideal Audio. We're creating, crafting the perfect song. It's gonna have two producers, you being one of them, and three artists, one on the hook, one on the first verse, one on the second verse. So who are you going to pick? You could pick anyone alive or dead. Oh dead. Or dead to co-produce with you, to do the hook, to do the first verse, and to do the second verse. You said so two producers, myself and someone else. Yeah, so just a co-producer here, who we who we co-producing with. Hmm. Alive or dead. Yes. Man. It should borderline only be alive, bro, so that he could like really make this shit happen. You should let me do my part. I'm just saying, bro. You know, just think this through. Like it could be valuable for him. He could make this record happen. Should let me have my part. And then we could ask for a few points on it. Okay. I'm just saying. Like if it happens, like it was our idea. You're distracting him. All right. Co-producer, who we got?

Co-producer. Yep. I'm gonna say Jay Dilla. Oh damn. So me and Dilla, you and Dilla You and Dilla. are gonna produce a track. Now are you happy they can be dead? Jesus. I mean, kinda. Are you gonna produce a track for three artists? Mm-hmm. One on the hook. Do I have to say who's gonna be? Let's just do it. Let's just do that. Yeah, let's do that if we can. Hook, I'm gonna put Doja Cat. Oh. Fire. Damn. Um first verse. I'm gonna put ski mask. Ooh. Ski mask in Doja? Ooh. With Jay Dilla and Kato? This is crazy. Third verse. I'm gonna put I'm gonna put Kendrick on there. God. Kendrick after Ski. I like that. Damn. That is some ideal audio. That's kind of a crazy line.

That's the craziest. That song doesn't do numbers. We're breaking all the rules at this point. Right. And I love it. Kato, you are on your way to the electric chair. We won't discuss what it may or may not be for. What is your final meal? Hmm. My final meal. You can have anything. Anything in the world. I'm gonna go in on some Korean barbecue. Yeah. Staying true to your roots. Yeah. Anything. Anything specific? Yeah, Korean barbecue. Like short ribs. Oh. Yeah. That's what I'm gonna do. Damn. I already had dinner, but I'm hungry now. Kato, what do the pictures in your Instagram Explorer look like currently? You want me to show it? I mean you can just tell us if you know We'll believe you. Or if you want to check. It's mostly three things. Yeah. The First is cars. Okay. I'm a

Big car guy. Love cars, just like I've always loved cars. Um number two, like music, production related go figure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then number three would probably be. God, my wife's gonna hate this. Ass and titties. Asses. Come on, it's not our fault. It's it. They feed it. Dogs, babies, baby content. Yeah. No, but for real. Probably, probably dogs. Like that would be. Oh. Okay. Yeah. Okay, Kato. We're gonna cut that part out. Yeah, sure. Okay, last one of the short answer. Yeah, dogs. Last one of the short answer. You're a dog. Last one of the short answer. This is the cosign corner corner presented by Guayaquil, Yerba Mate. Give us a few, maybe young and up and coming artists or producers that you're just excited about that you want to shout out right now. Hmm. Artists or producers.

Yeah, there's some coming up, guys, that we should have on our radar. Maybe everyone else should go check out. Um I'm gonna shout out. I'm gonna shout out Caitlin. Yeah. I was gonna say, hell yeah. We just dropped a new song called New Phone. New phone, new song. Connor Price. Who dis? Um other artists. Or producers. Or producers. Yeah. There's some young talent. We should keep on the radar. Um I don't really know, to be honest, bro. Like, I'm not. I'm not really like doing that. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to say that I wouldn't do that. I just I just don't really know. Where do you find like people to work with? Just social media for the most part, recommendations, word of mouth. Yeah, social media, and then we'll like connect on email if I really fuck with them.

Okay. And they'll just send me loops. Like, um, there's this dude, Will Salski, that just that sends me the most fire loops. So shout out to Will, see? There you go. He's thinking of him as he goes, okay. Yeah. Will he didn't he didn't mean to forget about you for like five seconds there? We got it out of him, Will. Kevin Spears. Look, they're they're flowing now. He's got so many people he wants to shout out. They sound just like the most normal people ever. Yeah, Kevin and Will. Like, are these made up people, bro? Like these aren't funny, he doesn't even have John Smith. Kevin is a real person. I met he was the bass player on Anise's tour. You know, Anise? I'm gonna shout out Anise, too. Okay. Look at that. Anise. We got so many people. Dope artist that I found on TikTok. Killing it. Um, I pulled up to a show in Atlanta, and bro, is like a lot of people might not have heard of Anise, but look him up on How do you spell that? A-N-E-E-S.

Okay, cool. All right, yeah. I'm gonna check out so Anise is dope, man. Like he his music just kind of resonates on a different level. He's not a rapper. I he can rap, but he's not yeah, he doesn't make rap music. Sure. Like he makes just like feel-good songs. He might throw like eight bar eight rapping bars in at the end of a song or something. Yeah, bro is actually I I heard that he can actually go in on some bars. Okay, Wow. Okay. All right. I'm gonna check Anise out. Yeah, Anise is dope, and so Kevin was his bass player on the tour, and um, he makes beats and you know plays instruments, dude. Is super talented. Hell yeah. All right, part one. See, we got to an album. That was good. Yeah, yeah. We got part one. We got there. At first, I was like, does this guy actually make music? And then he's like, Oh yeah, all these people that I've been fucking with. Oh, yeah, yeah. Love it. Awesome. Part two is the this or that. Kato, I'm gonna give you two choices, and you just have to pick one. Okay, that's it. Starting with auto-tune or ad libs, auto-tune.

Drums first or melodies first? Melodies first. TikTok or YouTube? TikTok. Delay or reverb. Hmm. Reverb. Ten beats in two hours or one beat in two hours. One beat in two hours. Everyone, I want to make piece content about producers. Slow the fuck down. Everyone loves to brag about making a beat in five minutes. Like it's okay to do it. Or don't. Or don't slow down. Ben, god damn it. I'm just saying. Moving on. Stop. Fucking, you know. Clear the sample or drop it anyway. Ooh. Fuck it. Drop it anyway. Fuck it. I love that. Rock, paper, or scissors. Um rock. Musk or Zuck. Dwayne Johnson. Okay. Shout out Dwayne.

Jesus. I don't know what. Did you see he him, him and Mr. Beast actually played rock, paper, scissors? Gosh. And I think he threw rock. I love I I love DJ. Yeah, yeah. Musk or Zuckerberg. Musk. I was going to say he pulled up in the Tesla. Exactly. Yeah. Gotta represent. Make all of your beats in the same tempo or in the same key. Hmm. Never thought about this. Me neither. I don't know where I came up with that. Genius level, Henry. Same. Same key. I think I would too. I gotta be able to change the speed. Switch it up. Yeah. Oh, see, I would like I don't make music, and I was hearing it like, oh God, to be in the same key for every fucking beat. It'd be like the same mood. It'd be the same mood though. There's a lot. The tempo, the tempo of the track, I think dictates the feel more than the key. More so yes. Okay, so yeah. Yeah, yeah. So y'all everyone can feel the speed of it, but no one knows what key a song

is. You're right. You're right. And finally, produce exclusively K-pop or leave the music industry. Wow. I'd be a bad Korean if I didn't say, you know, what kind of Korean person would I be if I didn't go with K-pop? Yeah. Shout out. This was for your family. Like they're watching this question. Set me up for that question, Henry. Yeah, I did. Trying to get me canceled Yeah, it was. Just within the family, but yeah, no, and the whole country of you know. We were trying to get the clip, you know. Kato hates K-pop. Kato hates his own kind. Yep, nope, we didn't get that. We didn't, but it's okay. It was a great part two. Yeah, Part two. fantastic part two. All right, let's wrap this shit up, man. Here we go with part three. Trying to get into the rapid fire rampage hall of fame potentially. He's doing great. This is the word association. I'm gonna say one word. You just gave me the first word right back off the top of your head. First thing you think of.

Starting as always with hip hop. Uh Dr. Dre. Airport. Um, Atlanta Hartsfield. Glizzy. Hot dog. Shrimp. Trip. Shrimp. Shrimp. Uh Bubba Gump. Middy. Akai. Grandpa. Joe. I don't know why. Charlie in the chocolate factory. No, Biden. He came back from part one. Oh, I thought it was Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka. Okay. My mind went to Willy Wonka, but okay. Peach. Peach tree. Fraud. Fraud. Fraud. Um. What comes to mind?

Fraud? You can call someone out. I'm trying to think. Those fake ass hoes. The point is to not think. Feel. Feel the fraud. Feel the fraudulence. I don't know. Pass. Oh, all right. Good try. He just got lost out of the hall of fame. It's okay. If you pass, you're not in the hall of fame. Sorry. Koala. Uh cute. E-girl. E-girl. E-girl. Oh, like. Like an e-girl. Um, what's her name? Pinky doll? Yeah, I think that's. Yeah. I think, yeah. Does that count? Yeah. So it's like Amaranth and E-girl? Kind kinda, yeah. But like, you look it up. Okay. I'm like, am I old as fuck or what? Like. Just a few more here. Hulu. Hulu.

Hulu. Um. Fucking. I don't know. Doc, Umentary. Jaren. Uh bitch. Yes. Lil. Uzi. Sound. Sound of music. Bro, you're the worst at wrapping us up. Sound advice tour. He knew I was going for it. He knew I was going for it. God, Henry, why are you always gonna fuck this up? What a rampage. What a rampage. What an interview, man. Great interview, man. If y'all are not inspired by this story, like we can't help you at this point, man. Kato, what else can we do? We appreciate you for coming on and just dropping gem after gem. Ah man, I'm so excited to see where you take this shit, bro. So appreciate you coming on. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe if you fuck with these interviews. And until next week, Henry, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Getting the fuck out of here. Kato on the track, bitch. Bitch. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.