No Labels Necessary Interview: EXPERT Tips for Music Marketing & Branding

Why did your creativity stop at your music? Like this video's trash. This is very simple video. There's no concept to it. Like, give me a Tyler to creator. Give me a Kanye esque. You love Kanye, you don't see any bit of creativity. Standing in front of a car, right? One more time. One more time. One more time. Spend a rock. Spend a boom. One more time. Pick it be, baby. One more time. I am beyond thrilled to be welcoming in on the One More Time podcast from Million Dollars Worth of Game. It's Gilly and Wallows. Bro, here. Right now. Live. I said every video, they're giving like a million dollars worth of game. I didn't mean that fucking literally. What it's not Gillie and Wallo? It's just not Gilly and Wallow, bro. We got here today, man. We got the no labels necessary crew. We got the Brandman network crew. We got Brandman, Sean and Ja'Corey in the house. Sean and Corey. Yo, yo, What's up, man. We are having some like legendary marketing minds on the podcast recently. Like we're not the worst people to be compared to, right?

I mean, It depends, like, how you look at it. Who's who? Who would be who'd be Gilly? Who'd be Gilly. I'll be Wallow. Okay. I don't even know what that means. I don't either. I'll be real. Like, I don't even know what that means. I don't even know. That means you used to be a rapper. That's it. And that's all we got. Yeah. Exactly. Nah, man. Uh, you know, these these two fine gentlemen are like some of the brightest minds in music marketing, branding. Like, they are going to help you if you fucking tune into their channel. Like, if you're out there and you're an artist, if you're a creator of any sorts, right? If you're trying to build your brand, if you're trying to release content that drives business, these guys are the guys, right? So I'm excited to dive into this shit. I want to start off with, because like I feel like brand, we talk a lot about it, and like we know really what, but like what the fuck is a brand, really? Like outside of just like, oh yeah, Nike, Apple, like it's a name. Like, you know what I mean? Like, what what how how are we defining brand? Let's just like level set that before we get into everything.

I like to simplify it. It's just your reputation, period. Period. You build that over time. So I meet you one time, whatever I take in over and over again, whatever reputation builds, then that's the brand. Damn, I y'all wonder what our brand is. They just met us. Too early to say it. Yeah. Hopefully. Hopefully by the end of this, it's you know, it's it's positive. 10 out of 10 on Yelp. Yeah, yeah, Corey. Anything else from your end? Man, uh I just look at it as as what people think about you, you know what I'm saying? Before they get to meet you and say something else. But is it the same thing, reputation? Yeah. what picture have I painted in my head based on what information you've given me or put out there? Absolutely. So, you know, what are some of the high level components for like an artist, right? Because obviously I know you guys cater a lot to independent artists and kind of you know, DIY musicians. Uh, we do as well. Um, like what are some of the components that make up an artist brand?

Cause I feel like there are probably some similarities to corporate brands like Nike, Apple, et cetera. But like, what are the things that they need to be thinking about when it comes to their brand? Man, I think everything presentation based. So I mean you're talking about like your content. A lot of it today starts with content, right? Because that's how we start to build the initial idea of who you are and what you might be. Um, it's the way you speak to your audience. You know what I'm saying? Like certain artists have a certain reputation for telling jokes or being a certain way, right? You look at someone like uh, I don't know, like a DaBaby who's kind of known for being more comedic versus looking at someone like a Travis Scott, who's known for being more kind of like stoic and chill and things like that, right? But all this is based off of how they they talk to us, you know, or you know, Travis's case doesn't talk to us. Right. So I think I'll let you add to it, but I think it the big part of it is like everything that you kind of show us, you know what I'm saying? A lot of the presentation-based things, simple stuff, logos, pictures, you know what I'm saying.

But I look at it like a lot of it today, probably like 80, 90% of it today is content, you know what I'm saying? Because that's what the attention is, right? I mean, that's just it's it's about what are people consuming, you know, what how are you what what how how are people consuming who you are and figuring out who you are? And the eyeballs in 2023 are on social media. So the content you're putting out is pretty representative of your brand, right? Yeah, at the end of the day, like you mentioned corporate too. The best corporate brands, a lot of times have found them way, found ways to personalize themselves like an artist would, right? All these elements apply across the board, but when you're an artist, you don't have the ability to not go as deeply into the identity aspect of it. Because usually people are seeing themselves in you, or you as an artist are filling a void that they're looking for, right? Like, oh, he's courageous. Well, he's making me feel like I should, I could be courageous because I'm so insecure, right? There's a lot of people who like Kanye for that reason when he's like raging and standing up for art or like kind of combating his own insecurities, they like that because it feels like, oh, there's somebody who channels the energy that I would love to be able to channel, but I can't in my real life.

Yeah, They're a superhero. Yeah, I mean, it's also about living vicariously through these artists too, right? So I just talked to Kawan Prather as well, you know, legendary music executive, producer, songwriter. I mean, the the dude is a beast. And we talked about how like white suburbia loves trap street rap. And it's because they they want to feel what that lifestyle feels like just through the music, for example, right? So it's it's kind of like what you're alluding to, as far as if you don't embrace or sorry, if you don't embody those certain characteristics, the music can let you maybe either encourage you to do it. Obviously, in this case, maybe you know. Hopefully not. Yeah, I was like, I don't know, like whatever, I'm not gonna pass any judgments there, but you know, uh just either way, it's kind of what you want to be or want to feel, or like that void that you're mentioning, right? Like that's that's huge. I never I've never really heard of it put that way, but it actually makes perfect sense. We have heard it though. Um, what's the the three things that there's three reasons you might like an artist? Do you remember that?

Oh, you want to be friends with them, you want to be them, or you want to fuck them essentially? It's like which one are you, right? Uh I mean, we know who you know, you're not the they don't want to fuck. Alright. I'm just saying. I'm just saying, okay. Anyways, we didn't have to go that far. So obviously, a lot of independent artists work with your company because you guys started off as an agency, and you still have the agency side of things, I guess, right? Where you're helping creatives build brand, you know, market campaigns, market their music, you know, drive more sales, drive more business, right? What's the most common issue, would you say? Like, if you know, you have a hundred artists come to you as clients. What what's the like the common thread of of what they're missing, or like what the main I'm assuming there's like themes, right? Of things that you see on the regular, as far as like, oh, most of them just don't do this or don't have this, or like they haven't thought about this. So, like, what are some of those things?

Yeah, it's a few things, right? Okay, let's let's let's talk about them. So let's start with one, not marketing enough. Right? Just output and output per song. Yes. Right? So you see people move along from one song when you had more in that song. And they don't know. But the hard part as an artist is you literally have no context. So, us, we can see that an artist is getting results, and and we're like, yo, man, these results are crazy. But for the artists, they think it's horrible because they're just looking for some arbitrary moment of virality or some big obvious moment of success. And it could come, right? Because we see that you're going down that path, right? You're you're you're funneling, you're going through the tunnel, right? Picking away, but then that that picture with the diamond at the end, right? Everybody's seen the diamond at the end of the tunnel. We can see that they're going in the right direction. Artist is in the dark and has no idea because they don't have context.

We have worked with, I don't know how many artists at this point, right? Seen I don't know how much data at this point. So it's very easy for us to see that an artist is moving doing the right thing early on. So because of artists not having that, you you're looking for a quick fix, and it's almost like marketing your music for the same dopamine rush that they're scrolling through Instagram. Like, I'm just looking for some type of hit, and that's a horrible way to move in your business. Yeah, man. And it's it kind of these are the two things I was gonna say, which is really um no realistic understanding of what the outcome of the thing is going to be. No, to Sean's point, you get a lot of artists who might be like, hey, I put, I want to spend $500 with you guys. You know I'm saying? We're like, okay, cool, we'll figure out how to make this work in there, and they're expecting mountains to move off of a $500 budget. And we've had arguments with clients before we're like, hey man, we get it. You know what I'm saying? You worked hard, you stacked up this $500, you know what I'm saying? You took extra hours at your job. But the end of the day in music, this is a drop of water in the bucket.

You know what I'm saying? So a lot of times the marketing agencies and the service providers, you're the one that's kind of like breaking the roads and the glasses on what realistically comes from, let's say a Facebook ad or an influencer campaign or something like that. And it's a Sean's point too, uh, patience. You know what I'm saying? Like marketing is a marathon. You know, it's one of those things where we'll tell clients, like, hey, the things that you do today, you're not gonna realistically see the results of until like three, four or five months later, right? And then the results that you really want to see to Sean's point, like let's say like the big viral moments or some type of mass snowball effect, you're not gonna really see that until you do this same thing consistently for let's say seven months or a year, or we've seen clients take like two years of like doing the same thing every month, running like damn near the same type of campaign, and then two years later, like the thing that we're looking for from day one starts to happen. So this is that that meme is like perfect, bros. Like you'll literally see, like, hey man, but if you just do, you know, four months of campaigns and you know, based on what we're seeing, you keep doing XYZ, you'll get what you're looking for, but then you start to run into issues of patience. You start to run into issues of budget, right?

You start to run into issues of um, it's like real life shit happening to the artists, and the artist yet hasn't learned how to balance all that stuff. So, it's understandable because like you, you know, you spend the money and you want to see the results immediately. So it's frustrating if it's not just immediately in front of you. Like, like here's the data, it's working, my my song is finally not less than 1,000 on Spotify, you know, and they want to see that shit. not really, man. I don't know. Like, I I used to think that, but then like we get artists that give themselves the benefit of the doubt of not getting immediate results and other things they do. Right. So like if you're an artist and let's say you don't you you can sing well and you decide I want to play the guitar. You know what I'm saying? You don't think that after three hours of YouTube videos and you know what I'm saying, three hours of practicing the guitar, you're gonna be amazing at it. You understand that, hey, this is gonna take me two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight months, maybe a couple years before I get good at this thing to start producing the sound that I want to produce, right? When they take on artists, from what I've seen, you know what I'm saying?

Y'all let me know what y'all think, but they give themselves the benefit of the doubt in creative aspects, right? They don't give themselves that same benefit of the doubt or the process the same benefit of the doubt when it comes to the business side of things. Yeah, yeah, it is. But yeah, but you know what's fucked up? Content marketing is creative. That's what pisses me off. Yeah, right, yeah. Man, that's what pisses me off is and we just talked about that as well. Uh, was it with J, I don't know who it was with JR or whoever. But the point being is that like, why do we dread making content as artists? I think it's full of shit, man. I say this all the time with artists. Like, even when before we needed to do content as much as we need to do now, you would see so many artist videos, and I'm like, why did your creativity stop at your music? Like this video's trash. This is very simple video, right? There's no concept to it. Like, give me a Tyler to creator, give me a like uh, I don't know, uh a Kanye-esque slant. You love Kanye.

I don't see any bit of creativity. standing in front of a car, right? Yeah. Like I don't get it. with the homies. With the homies. With the girls. So basic shit. Like content is like, it's up to you. It doesn't have to be low quality in terms of the idea and concept behind it just because that's what everybody else is doing. You're supposed to be an artist, so that means you're supposed to be the forward thinker and do what nobody else is doing. The format isn't you can't blame the format. Like everybody has always had to work within restraints, but restraints is the foundation of the creativity. So I don't understand why artists, why they fight any form of artistry or another additional, um, another way of expressing their creativity. I guess because it might be it's like telling Picasso, like, okay, you gotta sew these garments. It's like you gotta be the most, you know, make some clay pots. I get that like wanting to do what you want to do, right? I understand that and being more comfortable in what you're familiar with. But this is what something me and um, Ja'Corey have noticed over time.

Like, and we get a kick out of it. Fans, they don't give a fuck, right? The artists are so entitled and they don't want to hear from us, the marketers, right? The music execs, any of that stuff, right? But when you pay attention, look at the comments, right? Start paying attention when you see like artists complain about things. Fans don't give a fuck because they are working jobs that they don't want to work to get somewhere that they want to be. And you're like, you're doing something in the bucket of what you're supposed to want to be, right? And you're not willing to post some videos to have a career fail. I'm working at a bank, I'm working at McDonald's. Like, why do I like go fuck yourself? Oh my god. Bro, Russ's tweet. I don't know if you saw Russ's like vibe. I just saw that today. Oh, So good. That's it. That's what sums up exactly what you're saying. Yep. Of like, oh, I'm sorry. You don't want to make 15 second clips with your iPhone to do this dream that you claim that you want so fucking badly. Yeah, you know what?

You don't want it. You don't actually fucking want it. Yeah. But did you see I tagged you in the Slack with that? Yeah, yeah. I saw uh I saw it when it came out, but I was I was there. He was on it. I was there, bro. He was next to Russ. Who's coming? My comment on it. So then what'd you say? I was like, it's perfect timing. Yes, just yesterday we were recording some stuff, right? Yeah. And I was I was talking about how artists, they admire many of these indie artists. If you look at a Russ or a La Russell, right? But I'm like, these guys that you admire, y'all really are accepting this because they're saying it versus maybe an executive or something. But the guys who move like that, they think way closer to an executive than most artists will be comfortable with. They do. Then the next day, Russ drops that exact section. Yes. Just like perfect. This is like because that's how you have to be. Anybody who's like they're strong on their self-determination, right? They're thinking like that. You're not gonna let something get in the way. Like, I want to get where I want to get. I know I'm doing something that I don't want to do right now, but it's for a purpose.

It's not like we're just telling you to do it to check a box, right? It's supposed to be getting you somewhere. Yeah what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, and it's funny too, man, because like artists today are living the dream that artists in like the 70s, 80s, 90s, whatever. Hey, I wish I had media access to my fan base. I wish that I could jump into the industry with no real gatekeepers. I wish that I had, you know, a way to um, you know, a cheaper means to express my creativity. So like we're seeing artists today have to deal with the thing that artists of yesteryear have been working towards making accessible to artists, and then a lot of the artists of today just don't want to do it. You know what I'm saying? It's almost like, you know, like that's how a lot of generations feel, man. I was about to say, bro. It's like your granddad being like, bro, I worked hard for you to not have to, you know what I'm saying? Like walk to school and you tell me you want to walk the school, bro. Like, what are you talking about? We're spoiled. It's crazy though, because yeah, to your point, the closest thing the artists of the past had was like a fan club where they would like send out a newsletter in the mail or something. Like that was like their direct to consumer shit.

Now you can literally just DM. DM anyone. Freaking video message, video chat with your fans. I mean, there's so much cool direct-to-consumer, direct-to-fan engagement that that's happening right now that, yeah, like the artists of the past would have killed for that shit. But my favorite thing, way to put it, I love saying this shit, but you know, because artists love um, what's the one I'm looking for? Um, living in the past, bro, like uh fantasizing about the past. Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? And I always look at it like, bro, if you go back to let's say, I mean, I go too far back, let's say the 90s, right? Like the average artist that wanted to make in the 90s was probably waking up at like 10 a.m., you know what I'm saying, going to their nearest downtown of their major city, popping the trunk, standing on the corner all day, you know what I'm saying? Trapping mixtapes, trapping mixtapes. Sweating. Trapping CDs. Yeah. And you'll see a lot of artists like, man, I miss the industry of the 90s to 2000s, whatever. I'm like, bro, you you can't convince me that you would have stood out on the block for eight to 10 hours a day when you won't even take 10 to 15 minutes to make a TikTok, which is a lot easier. In a comfortable room with AC. Right. Snacks in the fridge and shit.

You know what I'm saying? Like, way um easier of a of a of a people reaching method. You know what I'm saying? But you want me to believe that you would have survived in these years where gatekeepers were really a real thing. You know what I'm saying? Like uh music in in in general was a lot more inaccessible from a standpoint of reaching people and just like making it and putting it out. It's like you want me to believe that you would have pushed through all these very real barriers that artists of yesteryear had to go through when you won't push through the barriers that are a lot thinner, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It still takes work. It's it's merit-based. Like it's always been. Here's my thing, man. If you talk to any executive who's like really done this, somebody who's blown artists up and they do it consistently, right? Not the lucky ones, but the ones who really have a feel for it. And they have investment, right? They might have their own label or they might manage or whatever. You talk to any of those guys or gals, and whenever they're signing an artist or working with a new artist, they're planning about two years until that artist blows up. I'm talking about with investment, with the experience and connections they have, they're always thinking about two years at least in today's era, because that's faster than the three and five years that it used to take.

And if it happens faster, great, but their expectation isn't anything less than that necessarily. A new artist with nowhere near the resources, nowhere near the artists. Um the uh the uh the connections and things like that, the money, after a couple of months, they're getting discouraged like they were supposed to have blown up by now. It's like the people who really do this, who have all the resources in the world, they don't think you should be blowing up that fast. But so you shouldn't discourage yourself. But I think there's a lot of advice or in a lot of things that artists see that make them feel like they should be where they aren't. It becomes discouraging. Like some things are like motivating, but then it flips on on the um other end, and you're like, man, is it me? Is it me? And sometimes it's not you. It's just like, no, this is the path, this is the process. And I think it hurts um more artists than not sometimes, like the Russ method, quote unquote, always talked about that. Because it's not Russ spreading misinformation, not at all.

Like, and I always try to make that clear because stupid people think I'm hating on Russ when I say this. It's Russ had a different circumstance when he dropped on music on uh not Spotify, SoundCloud, the virality was different. It was in an organic space, right? It was basically like TikTok was TikTok today. A little while for me, or even now. And I was saying this for years, and I was happy when Russ actually said TikTok is like what where uh SoundCloud was when I started. Yeah, right. He pointed that out. It was a true discovery platform. That's what matters. But if you're dropping right into the abyss on Spotify with no marketing, you're dropping into the abyss on SoundCloud today, you're not gonna get that exposure, right? So that means you have to do active marketing to get your your exposure. And a lot of people were thinking, I can just drop music, and if I drop music every single week and it doesn't pop, it's me. Something's wrong.

And it's like, no, it's like you gotta get exposure too. He just happened to be moving in a space where the exposure was organic, and now you have a lot of other artists, the Connor Sprices, the Nic D's, the Manny Wells, all these guys who are in an organic content space, but they're using TikTok. You can't just drop music now. Now they're firing content. You gotta package it with content, yeah, right. So like I always like to put that out there because you know, artists again, they I understand the pain of feeling like what's going on, how come it's not happening? But a lot of it's just mismanaged expectations. Yeah, and I mean, I I also think that you would probably arrive at that conclusion very easily if you just thought about your own anecdotal experience and if you talk to like five of your friends. Literally ask any of your homies when was the last time that you just discovered someone's music randomly on SoundCloud these days? Like it's not the same place that it was. Yeah. So I think if you ask the most, you know, most people, they would say, Oh, I found this sound on TikTok. That would be like a way more frequent answer.

And I'm not saying, like, you know, everyone's different, so I don't want to think that it's all 100%, you know, black and white, but at the same time, like there's gonna be trends that you can see, like where is music being discovered. And TikTok is the new SoundCloud in that sense, where it's like organic reach is still there. Music discovery is happening on that platform more frequently than probably any other platform right now. And I think that yeah, to to artists who just don't, I don't know if it, I don't know why, like, do you think they just don't want to accept that because they don't like making content enough? Yes. Is that the is that's I mean, that's a lot of people's reality though, right? It's not just an artist thing, and uh, but of course we talk we're talking about artists. So there's people who just don't want to accept the things that they have to do, all right, to get where they want to go. And again, I think some people think it's a forever thing. Sometimes, yeah, you you can drop content every day, get yourself to a point where you blow up and you have a different level of leverage, and now you're only dropping content once a week, or maybe you're all full-blown mystery and I could just drop out of nowhere and everything is good. Like, but you gotta work to that point, right?

You have to make a connection and it's on you to come over to me, right? Like, shake me up, get my attention, right? And then take me where you want me to go. Like, because I got a life, right? I'm doing all these different things, you know, from family to work to friends to podding, to just chilling trying to find some me time or watching new movie, right? Everybody has their lives. So like to sit over in the pro on the proverbial island, hoping people come and save you just because you have some dope music, like that's not enough. Yeah. I want to mention too, just on a higher level. Um, we are in this world where Instagram is very much like a highlight reel. So if you're consuming, you're seeing all the best, you know, from everyone's lives. And there is a little bit of a toxic trait. I mean, they've done studies, you know, that this shit is not good to be consuming this shit too much. So on a musician level, I think when you're seeing people get a million streams and get and do this and went up and get a plaque and whatever, and you don't get it quick, you know.

I think it it's it's easier to be discouraged. Yeah, but he says something I think touches on that, right? It goes back to who can you talk to to kind of bring you back to reality, right? So we've seen the rise of like the introverted artist, you know what I'm saying? Like the it's me in my room, you know what I'm saying, working on this. I don't have too many other people. And like that sounds cool to say, but then you start thinking about all the things they're missing out on. Shared information, you know what I'm saying, uh shared expertise, uh being able to learn from this artist situation. Oh, like you spent the hundred dollars on this thing and this happened, like, okay, cool. I did the same thing, and this is what I got. So I was tripping, you know, this this did do well, it did do okay. Like, I've literally talked to artists before, and you know, we've had like a long time ago, artists that would work with us and not be happy with certain results, and be like, oh, this is crazy, this is a scam, whatever, and then leave, and then they'll come back months later and be like, Man, you know what? Like, I talked to like this artist or this person. They were like, No, like you were kind of tripping. Like that was that was good, or that was about average, or that was whatever, and they come back and go like, oh, like I just didn't understand because of where I was in my career. You know, and so like we didn't know.

Hey, people don't even hit you up saying, Yo, man, this other person scammed me. Can you help me out? Oh, yeah, we'll look at him like, no, he didn't. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is being on both sides. Yeah, that's what comes from it. You know, and it goes back to like context. That's one of the best things about being on the marketing side of it, is that we we see the same situation like 20, 30, 40 times over. And so sometimes, you know, we'll be talking to artists, or I'll be doing like a consultation or something, and I get mad and I have to remind myself like this artist hasn't had the same experiences that I've had, haven't had the same conversations that I've had, you know what I'm saying? They haven't been in this thing for as long as I've had. I have to understand, like, I may be here, and they're talking to me and reacting to things based on them being here, you know, which I think is what makes a mature industry person like the ability to see that and then respond, you know, in a pleasant manner, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, like what you get from. Well, shout out to us for uh, you know, having this podcast and adding to the shared information, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, no, I mean, I I think it just to piggyback on something you were saying, as far as like everyone's seeing kind of the the glitz and glamour, right?

Like making a shit ton of content is not sexy, like y'all know it. The the grind is fucking real. I mean, we are trying our best to pump out you know two pieces of content a day across platforms, and like I'm telling you guys, it is hard. I might have moved to Japan. Yeah, like Henry is quitting as soon as he can. Like, I think he's just saving up to seriously quit. And that's fine. Like, you know, do what you gotta do, man, for your mental health. Because this is hard, man. This is this is a hard. Um, but to your point, like, it's always been hard. It's been different kinds of hard, right? It was, you know, trapping mixtapes out of your CD hard back in, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, right? Uh, it's just a different kind of hard. Um, and it's just the output that requires, you know, or that's required that I feel like a lot of people don't understand it. Like, because they do see the viral successes, and they're wondering, like, why aren't they getting that? I don't know, man. See Sean nicer than me, man, because I always look at it like the internet is is fast. You know what I'm saying?

Like, you look, you you brought up Instagram. Instagram is a great point, right? Instagram is it's turned into a highlight reel. But what you can do with most accounts on Instagram is scroll down, and a lot of times you can see where these different creators started, right? And then you look at platforms like TikTok, where TikTok is not as much like that. So you can literally see like regular people damn near turn to superstars or influencers damn near every week on TikTok, right? And you can you can scroll through their account and see a timeline of when that happened. You can see them experimenting and trying different things. You can see, like, oh, like, damn, eight videos ago, like his video quality was shitty, and then all of a sudden it's crisp as fuck. Something happened between January 1st and April 15th to where, you know, the quality upgrade on on here. And like, you know, you guys uh brought up like you're you're looking at other podcasters in the space, and you can you can see. Yeah, I'm pretty sure y'all have seen things with other podcasters that made you go, like, okay, like we're we're doing good, like we're cool, you know what I'm saying? Like we're on the right track.

That goes back to these artists will a lot of times try to stay in their own bubble. I'm only paying attention to me, you know what I'm saying? I'm only paying attention to what I like, my interest, what I think is fire, and they miss out on context because they won't go dig deeper into like other artists and like what they have going on. These artists make it worse for the other artists sometimes, though, because you know they like to delete their stuff Act like the zero post or every post did well. Uh huh. Make it look like that. He's going to see you all are making it worse for your own community, man. Yeah. This is why I love bringing up Mr. Beast, who still has videos from when he was like 13 years old on YouTube. And just being a cringy Minecraft like player. And Nobody cares. No, they love it. People go back and watch that shit now. It only works to your favor. You see the journey. It's like, yeah, it's an it's if you really fuck with the person, it's like, where did they start? It's like, holy shit, this was a little kid that wasn't making any sense. Like you're not saying any crazy shit. You know what I mean? You know, some stuff that needs to be deleted. That might be cancel worthy.

Like, keep it up, bro. Take the cancel worthy shit off. We give you permission for that. Otherwise, the zero post shit, like, let's dead that, please. So, so you know, from from y'all's perspective, I think all of us in this room right now can agree that like content marketing, to your point, is like 80 plus percent of like brand building. It's gonna be a huge percentage of like the way that you're converting people in, you know, from fans into actual like listeners and consumers of your music and your business. Um, but like I I guess my question would be like how much short form content do you think that people need to be posting, like for each release? Because I think you alluded to like people are giving up too soon on on releases, right? Like, what's your what's your thought process around like how long should they be pushing uh a record? 30 pieces of content at least. 30, okay. Right? And that I like the higher numbers because it forces you to go past your initial barriers and when you have that quota, so you at least get a minimum amount of test. Now, that doesn't mean that content 35 couldn't have been the video that popped off, but you it gave it a fair shot, right?

And we're able to analyze from all those posts, was there something that did better? And out of the posts that did do better, are they doing good enough for me to say I want to keep pushing this, right? You got to get a certain level of feedback, and you try to do that with every single song. Now I know that's hard for some artists. Yeah, this shit's hard. That's just how it goes. Right? But come on, at least try to do 10, 15. Like maybe you have to work yourself up and build the muscle. But the goal is to be able to put out as much as possible, right? To each individual song to get enough information to determine if it's worth moving forward with that song. So if I post one piece of content on TikTok Reels and YouTube Shorts, is that one piece of content or is that three? That's one piece of content. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Y'all hearing this, right? Just saying, but like a tweet is also a piece of content, you know. So it's content, a lot of his content, live, stories of content, right? YouTube community post, super underrated.

We've never done one of those, by the way. Yeah, it's insane. It's posted on YouTube. Don't even. Why would you even say that out loud? Because we're learning together right now. We're pretty we're soaking a game. So you know, so with content market be marketing being so in, you know, just like so important, like um, do they need to be creating music with that in mind? So everyone's like, you should make a TikTok song. Like, is there gonna be a TikTok moment? Like, do you recommend that they keep that in mind on the creative aspect? No. Well, that's a hard question. I think I think sometimes you can add elements into it, or you can think ahead to like what parts of your song may make a lot more sense in certain concepts of TikTok. So if it's like, hey, you know, I don't know, people always like to bring up dance trends, right? Like, hey, I know I want to push it to dances. This part of the song seems to be a bit more dancey. So I'm gonna make four of my 30 pieces of content of dance to this part of the song and see what kind of happens. But in terms of like making the music, I don't think so.

Like I hate when artists say, you know, use the term TikTok music. It makes me think they fucking hate it. Y'all remember when people were calling like SoundCloud Rapper, SoundCloud Rapper. Yeah, that shit was stupid then. You know what I'm saying? It's just stupid number one. It never makes sense. But like, all right. I say that there's three answers, right, to that question. There's three strategies you can approach, uh, three strategies that you can take it when it comes to music making, right? In today's era, one, you can reverse engineer the algorithm and create something for TikTok, for reels, right? And do that with every single song. Yeah, hoping to get a hit. Now, the part that sucks is when you do that to make a hit and you don't get a hit, right? So now, as an artist, you're probably gonna feel shitty. That just is what it is. That just made me sad. when you said that was like an option. you sold yourself out to the algorithm, right? And it didn't work, right? Then option two is I'm gonna create music, but I'm gonna add those elements, right? So it might be at the end of the song, I might find something to be TikTokable, right? Or it might be Caitlin's? Are you talking about Caitlin's?

Someone mentioned her, you broke ass, cheap ass. Someone mentioned her, right? And that was a perfect example. Um the end of her song. I still haven't heard the song. It was at the very end, even if you were to listen to it, you might have stopped listening by, you know, think like, oh, okay, this is a cool song, two minutes. You also could have it at the very beginning, it could be in the chorus, right? It could be a bar, it could be anywhere in the song, right? But it's up to you to know where that is, and then you market that part of the song, not necessarily um, you know, the whole song, right? So that's adding it into the song intentionally, option number two, or some of the songs. Yeah, option number three is just completely ignore all of that shit, get in your bag, make the music, and then see what everybody reacts to and try to find it retroactively after you create the music. Because here's the thing it's happening regardless, right? Even if you create music in a hole with nobody's consideration, the part that's gonna go is gonna be the most TikTokable part, right? Or the part that resonates with people the easiest.

Yep. Just because you didn't consider the algorithm doesn't mean that when it gets packaged and it works, it's not gonna be that same formula. You just get to feel better about it, which is cool, right? So you have those options, consider it completely, go a little hybrid, or completely say, nah, I'm an artist and I do my own thing. And see that last option, that's the one just based on like seeing comments on some of our posts, and just already know that artists hate the idea of changing their music at all to match any type of platform that is the ultimate, like stab in the heart. But why not grow? Like, I see it as growth. I'm on your side, right? People see it as like selling out, I see it as exercises, and the best artists and writers, they have exercises. I remember we did the video on um dang uh that Rants 1500, where he was talking about use 40 words. I saw that one. right? And I think what a lot of artists missed is it's an exercise, it's not a perfect formula where every single song, just because it's 40 words in the way that he meant it, is gonna go off, but even to force yourself creatively to have a restraint and think through that, you're gonna learn something in that bag.

Or if I'm collaborating with Ja'Cory on something, I'm gonna pick up some science from however he's doing things naturally. Us being here, I'm just naturally gonna see, oh, I like how they do this, or I like how their position or their flow, right? I like how he's pushing that button and he and he's he's one with the button. I don't he's one with the button. I don't like it, right? And the dynamic it creates. Look at that. But look, I can turn his mic off. So now what, motherfucker? Now what, bitch? That's kind of hard. I hate when he does this, he's like, this is like a newfound possibility. I got the power. It's a toy. Yeah, he really he really figured that one out, and he has not stopped the last like five episodes. You talk a lot, and there's plenty of moments where you need to stop talking. So I like how I'm sorry, you want to switch seats? I'm comfortable. You want to be closer to the guests here? I think more Sean and more Corey would be great. Fuck you. Just replace you with them. Oh god.

You guys want to be on another podcast? So, yeah, so you know, so speaking of like the algorithm, are there any recent algorithm changes that y'all are seeing that you want to kind of share with our audience? Cause I I don't really stay too tapped into that type of shit and like hearing what is you know, the algorithm is doing recently, because I almost don't believe some of the like gurus out there that said that are making the videos of like TikTok algorithm change, and here's what you need to know. But like, but like are there, but are there some? Because like maybe we could use them. I don't know. It's not like the people who are updating you every week, that type of thing. That shit ain't real. That's what I thought too, but I didn't know. There's overarching things where, oh, right now they're really trying to push for overall discoverability for a period of time. Now the platform's more mature. They're putting a little bit more emphasis on followers. Like little things like that, or they released a new feature. Now it's like a time to run it up because they are trying to incentivize people to use whatever that feature, whether it's real as when it first dropped.

Yeah, new features are always big. They're always trying to push the new shit. There's some of those little things. And then beyond the actual algorithm through and through, there's also culture of the platform, and that's what people miss, right? Just like when people were like, oh, I gotta do dances on TikTok. It's like, Oh, well, by the time that you figured that out, like kids were tired of dancing. You know what I mean? Like they were. I remember I told always tell people when I was when I think about my teens. I remember when there was songs where everybody's dancing. It's like Soulja Boy boy shit. And I also remember when Fat Joe was like, we don't dance. I just pull up my pants and like there's a not dance, like you age out, right? And you do a different thing just because it's different, right? It's always gonna be like the antithesis, like you're doing this pendulum swing, but you have to pay attention exactly. Hipsters exist. And the youths are the youth in general are like hipsters without trying to be. Right. Like they're always gonna go the opposite just because that's what cool looks like. Charlie D'Amelio doesn't get the same amount of likes anymore.

But I just learned that um there's kids that do not use emojis at all because they think old people use emojis. Yeah, made me feel old. Damn. Damn. I'm only texting emojis. bro. I was like, emojis are bad. Are they going back to like the emoticons, like colon parentheses? Some of them. Yeah, or using emoticons. Yep. Those same people that have vinyl that are just only play records, and that's how you realize that counterculture is stupid. It's like, come on, we innovated past that, right? That was actually an advancement. Emojis were uh increased over uh like those emoticons. Yeah. Yeah. But they're going back to it apparently, or just not use them at all. But the but anyway, when you pay attention, right? What's check the temperature in the room? How are people responding to certain things? A lot of times people are failing, not just because of where their algorithm is, right? Because the algorithm is just people at the end of the day, like on the other side, and judging that, it's like they just don't know what's hot right now or what people are willing to say. You can say one thing back if we talk like our people in the 90s talked today, all right.

A lot of those people get canceled, right? Yeah, different temperature in the room. Yeah, you know what I mean. I get it. It wasn't bad when you said it now, it's bad today. That's all it is. Yeah, I mean, we're we're definitely gonna get canceled in like 2040 or something. We probably said some shit on here now that's gonna be cancelable. Oh, if you have a podcast, You're just waiting for it. Shout out Shane Gillis. It's gonna happen. Yeah, you could be edited, chopped up in any way. Like we don't really edit ours that much. But to your point, people getting mad at the algorithm when it's like the platforms are just designed to keep people on their platform as long as possible. They don't give a fuck what's hot. If this is hot, if this is what people are staying on the longest without fucking scrolling, that's what they're gonna feed people. They don't, they're unbiased to what it is. Yeah, I mean, you touched on it, man. Like the algorithm is a reflection of how people feel in the moment. You know what I'm saying? Like people forget that part, like the algorithm is literally controlled by mass groups of people going like, I like this thing, or I don't like this thing. Yeah, so it's it's there's it's a bunch of different people telling you, hey, I like your thing, or I don't like your thing.

You know what I'm saying? So that's what makes it so hard to kind of um microwash in that sense is the people's taste changes every day, you know what I'm saying? All the time. You know, going back to the earlier point about making music for the algorithm or for TikTok and things, one of the most viral songs on TikTok right now is uh JID's 151 Rum. Like it's it's been catching crazy momentum. Yeah, like two-year-old song. Yeah, two-year-old song. Nobody is getting just two? Is it or like that shit's even older, bro? It was on uh Forever Story, I think. Was it on the second one? It was on DiCaprio too, I thought. So that's like three years, maybe. That might be even older. Yeah, Yeah, I'm saying, like nobody's gonna tell me that JID sat down and wrote that shit just for TikTok. If you were listening to that song when it came out, there's no way you listen to that song and thought TikTok, right? But for whatever reason, people decided like, hey, we like this right now, or this matches a moment in my life or this matches a creative concept that I'll have. I'm gonna do something with it, and the whole temperature around it changes. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, my favorite is the Three 6 Mafia half on a sack, going stupid with like the penguins from Madagascar filter. I'm saying, bro. Three 6 mafia is such a perfect example, both of what y'all just said of that third option. I said in terms of creating music without the algorithm in the mind, because it's gonna happen regardless. Y'all just talked about instances where, well, Shakori, we know that JID didn't make it with the algorithm in mind in that way. But you go back to Three 6 Mafia, like when he was talking, I was thinking about in 2019, Harry Belafonte was going viral on TikTok. So like this is from the 50s, dog. Like in the other song that's going was going viral, uh, what's Kate? Kate Bush, Running Up That Hill, right? Like, yeah, TikTok did not exist. Yeah, so they were not making it with TikTok in mind, right? So it's like you can create if the music's good enough and it has those parts, it's gonna rise to the top one way or another. It just is what it is. Yeah, I feel like labels need a department of just creators trying to start trends. with music. We thought about the years ago, bro.

Just a whole department. The way labels are set up, though, it's just that they're not gonna do it, right? It's hard to make it make sense. As a label, unless you really have things unlocked, I could see it almost more for an indie label than a major label, or ironically. But the way business is set up, because every artist is their own vertical, right? Their own product, they're their own complete product. Yeah, so it's like I can't really take the money from this artist just because they're popping and then put it in that. That's dumb. Yeah, that's dumb. It's just the way it goes, though. I know, but like I mean, I don't even think labels are necessary. Well, we are with no labels necessary. Come on, bro. Catch up, bro. Jeez, pointing it out. Okay. They're not necessary, but they're an option. Yeah, they're not. You've got friends at labels. We get it. No, no, that's fine. we don't give a fuck about it. Real okay. Like, no. Hell yeah. It was never about like for us, because we're all uh we're really big on not telling artists one specific way because it forces people not to think. Like people are like, oh, all labels are bad, all indies bad, and that's just not true.

I hate that fucking narrative, bro. Everybody's contract is their contract. You you might actually meet a good person at this label, and the team, like there's all these other There's so many factors, bro. And I just want to give you the frameworks for you to think for yourself. Because I also don't want you to say, Sean told me to do this shit. No, I didn't. Right. No, I didn't. It's not financial advice. I don't want a $10 million. Yeah, right. No, I think what I love most about just the no labels necessary brand and just what y'all are doing, is that like the amount of artists who want to use not being signed as the excuse to not creating a successful business with their art, that's the issue. Yes, I just need a deal. the necessary part is the very key word in your brand. Like that was very selective of y'all to choose that word because that's that's the word. That is the word. It's not necessary. Yep. You can use labels to grow a career to you know add fuel to the fire, et cetera. But like they don't need to be there for you to build something that is sustainable on your own.

And like it's been proven over and over again. So at this point, like, come on, guys. We just talked about Russ and the LaRussell, and the guys who move like that, they move by any means necessary. Yeah, right. They're gonna do what they have to do inside, you know, inside of their personal ethics and character, right? Sure. We're not talking about some silly shit. Like that's by any means necessary. And people who move that way and think that way, like there's very little empathy for people who have the plate in front of them and they're not eating. Yeah. You think people just ha either have it or they don't, like I just feel like those guys would win in any circumstances, you know. Yeah, I think it can be taught hunger. Can be taught a little bit, yeah. But that hunger. Right? It's a muscle. You know what I'm saying? Like you can build it. You know, we we've all started off as something not feeling like we were the best or maybe the most motivated. If you liked it enough, you know what I'm saying? You kind of stuck it out and built it up. So I think there's certain mindsets that kind of come with it, right? Like you look at a lot of these artists who eventually figured out like they were very they had a lot of perseverance, right?

They were usually willing to educate themselves in certain ways, they were willing to experiment and try shit, They were willing to look goofy. Like you look at a lot of like the best artists or the ones who have um you know stuck it out for a long time and made it like they have like at least like two or three of those different characteristics when you talk to them or or get to meet them or even just like look at their history. And so, like sometimes you can look at an artist and you'll see the lack thereof of those traits, and you can be like, oh yeah, bro, you're not gonna make it. Unless you get lucky, right? There's I feel like there's always people who find their groove. There's always right. They're just they you end up in a groove and you're successful, right? To some degree. And then you have those people where you're like, no matter what, they're gonna have some version of success. Even if the circumstances were not favorable, they're gonna have some version of success. It's like, oh man, they were in today's era, they might have been a super popping artist, but they were they came in a different time, they didn't live in the right place, so they end up building like a nice business or became a became a music executive, right? That's a different type of hunger that I when you look at the guys we just named.

I feel like a Russ is one of those type of guys. Uh, I feel the same about LaRussell. Like, because a hunger is a whole nother thing. So you got the talent and and all that stuff, but somebody who has a certain level of hunger and vision, which I can't stand artists that don't have vision, right? Uh let me break that down real quick, like for artists who are listening. Like, so me as a marketer, like I'm actually personal, I can't speak for everybody, but like me, I'm actually highly creative. I just don't use my creativity on most people and things. I keep it from some things I got planned, right? But I can build a situation around an artist completely, a whole world. But the reality is if I do that successfully, there's a chance that you're not gonna like the world that you move into because it had nothing to do with you. It didn't come from you. Yeah. Right. And it's not gonna be sustainable. So you build out this plan, you get them to find some success, and even with success, they're running into a wall, and you see these artists, you've seen it before. Artists end up in these positions of success that they hate and they get highly depressed, right?

It's a it's a horrible situation. Yeah. We can talk about her, right? That's a whole nother conversation, right? But then on the other end, if it's in you, right, and you're projecting the vision out, now I can accelerate that or I can help expand on that. And you can inspire me. Like you, I don't think an artist, I don't think artists have the luxury of not being a visionary. You have to be a visionary and have something that can inspire other people, right? But if you aren't a visionary, it's not that you can't find some level of success, but you're not gonna be one of those greats. It's capped, right? It's very it's gonna be really capped and it's gonna be highly dependent on who happens to come by you, right? And if you just gotta hustle, I mean, that's still some level of visionary. People who got the hustle, they're they're they're hungry for something, even if it doesn't look like the artist, it might be, I just want a certain amount of money out of this in a certain way. But I I think you cannot be a successful artist without being a visionary, because your vision literally inspires everybody who's following behind you.

Yeah, It's a good one, man. It's a good one. It's been a big, you know, theme of people that have sat, you know, here on the show is is that, right? Uh every every successful artist that they've worked with, um, for the most part has had that vision, right? But then we talked to the head of AR generation now and said there's plenty of no vision artists out there that are doing their thing. And because it's to your point, um, he, you know, he didn't get into the longevity aspect of it, but he did say that people can create the vision for you. And if you if you buy in, you know, then if someone like you and you build this world for them and they just kind of have to step into it and do whatever it is that you you know create for them, then as long as they can sustain that, then maybe it works. Um but to your point, how long? How yeah can that last? It's a ticking time bomb. Yeah, for sure. So um I did want to, you know, if if y'all want to share, like, you know, you you know, you've had some very successful marketing campaigns, like specifically with TikTok, even, right? Like, is there anything you can point to?

Like what made some of those campaigns successful? I don't know if it's like high level or if you want to give like specific details around one campaign, but I did want to just understand like I think we've covered the output side of things, right? Like quantity, of course, matters, contextual to the platform matters. Um, but if there's any other things that y'all wanted to highlight as far as like what's been working. I'll start with some elements and let you sprinkle on. So a couple we talked about content, right? For sure, our best campaigns has an artist who has not only created content, but created content to the point of finding their audience, right? And then they continue to create content in the midst of all the other elements that happen, right? They're active. Yeah, you're just gonna be able to do more for less money. And when things pop, you will actually have a page that people can go to and follow and then fuck with you, right? It's like, okay, you just let me into a desert because you don't have any content.

It's like, what do I want to do here? I'm gonna just keep driving, right? But if you have that oasis for people to fall into, now you're gonna get more followers per view, whether it's coming from ads, influencers, et cetera. So that's what the foundation looks like. Um and then we've popped things off in so many different ways. I think that's the hard part. Were are ads always a big part of it? Let me just start there. Uh no, no, not even. Um, but they are one of the most consistent elements. Like they've been a part of more campaigns than not than any other element for sure. Mhmm. For sure. Yeah. So our marketing strategy is very simple. It's super simple. Well, I guess. For us, it's simple. Like, because our our marketing at its core is a battle of philosophies. You know what I'm saying? You talk to six different marketers, they have six different strategies. They believe that six different things should be the lead into it. None of them are really wrong, right?

None of us are really wrong. It's just about like, you know, where do you want to start? Like, what do you want to kind of kick things off with? Right. Our marketing strategy usually revolves around, like Sean said, content first. We start everything with content. Content helps us figure out who likes you. It helps us make sure to his point there's shit for people to come back to. There's no point in spending money if when they get to your page, it's two pictures of you from 2019 and like, you know, I don't know, a random meme or some shit. Way for money. That was so sad, bro. Because I've seen it so many times, bro. Oh, that hurt. That hurt. It also always starts with content. Content builds a foundation. Um, from there, once we see things moving, pay advertising, right? To Sean's point, it's probably in like 60 to 80% of the campaigns for a couple different reasons. One, you can't be gatekeeped out of running ads. Anybody could wake up today and start running a Facebook ad or YouTube ad. So it's one of the few marketing strategies alongside content and some other things where like no one can stop you from.

Zuckerberg will take your money. You will take your money, exactly, but they all will take your money. And that's uh, that's the other good thing about it. Advertising was here before Facebook ads. It was here before I learned how to run ads, and Sean learned how to run ads, and it's going to continue to be here. Every single platform, if you pay attention to it, new or old, they all always build towards eventually having some type of advertising system. So it's one of the few skill sets that if you learn it today, you probably will know how to run ads forever. You know what I'm saying? Like it's just about transferring the concepts and the KPIs over to whatever the new ad platform is. Like when TikTok ads came around in like 2019, 2020, it took us like four months, two, two to four months to get good at them, because like from a core concept, they look exactly like Facebook ads. they were measuring the same KPIs, you know what I'm saying I'm curious, like on that note, uh how they look. Because I know a lot of people will just like are the ads different than a regular piece of content, or are they you just dropping a bunch of content organically, and then the ones that seem to be responded to well, you make turn that into an ad. Yeah, and the best case scenario is that.

I mean, there are there are situations where you know you you try things out and you just kind of, you know, maybe we get five pieces of content that haven't been posted from the artist when we run them cold and see what kind of kicks off from there. But the best case scenario is the artist makes content, they are dropping content consistently. Something starts to organically spark, and it doesn't have to be crazy. A lot of people think it has to be viral, but it could be like if you're posting more than average. Yeah, exactly. If your videos usually get a hundred views and one gets 300, like we're like, okay, like something's happening here. You know what I'm saying? This is worth being amplified. And so, you know, you you set the ads up as a very direct, um, you you're literally buying data. You know what I'm saying? You get to keep the data. Once you know what to do with data, it it changes so many things for you. And then from there, um, we build into just influencer marketing. Because we look at influencers as the representatives of different segments of culture. So if there is a particular culture space that you want to tap into, you eventually have to go through some type of influencer. And we look use influencers very loosely.

So we look at influencers as like actual people influencers, like let's think of like a dancer or a skater or something. And then we also look at influencers as like meme pages and music pages. You think about like our generation music or something like that, where like they're influencers in a sense because they have a community of people that they do have influence over. So it's like if you are, you know, a person that's seeing from your content and maybe your ads that I don't know, like 18 to 25 year old women like my music, they seem to be resonating with it. Our next thought is like, okay, well, where do 18 to 25-year-old women pay attention to on the internet? We know they like makeup. All right, cool, let's go find some makeup influences to introduce the music to a larger segment of their audience, and then just kind of rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. That's the beautiful thing about marketing. Once you get like that core kind of like build down, you can literally enact it in any niche, you know what I'm saying, in the community. From there is like just knowing what to watch and having the ability to see it in the first place, right? And the being able to see it, and then you see it worse. you can see it, and then you can see it faster, right?

So then you can make moves faster because there's always windows, and you don't know that you might be missing out on a window if you don't know the window's existing. Right. So yeah, now, and I think you kind of touched on something. Our sauce, well, one of the areas I would say is our sauce. The way we approach influencer campaigns, we've learned over time is just way more granular and just different than a lot of other people. People generalize it, or I'm just gonna throw it to these same few artists or uh or my this management, yeah, these yeah, these influencers that I manage or whatever. But it's like every song and every idea and concept has a different match, right? Just like the algorithms that were really just doing a matchmaking dance, right? I'm trying to match you with a piece of content that you like on the other end. I'm just trying to make sure it works, right? So y'all can spend time. It's the same with an influencer, where we built a lot of great influencer relationships because we were ARing influencers the same way people AR artists. It's like, oh no, you'll be great for this song.

Not only will you be great for the song, based on what I see works for you, you should actually try this type of video. And then you do that type of video. I remember with 24K Golden, we had a chick that you know, she was doing a million per video, but then when we constructed an idea for her, she did like 60 million views off of it. Shoot. Damn. She was taking our campaigns for a good minute. So, what was the difference in the video? Like what type of video was she making, and then you know, how did that we noticed that people really liked when she did stuff around hair, right? Um, and specifically color. And like that was really it was this Russian chick. I can't remember her name right now. Um, but that was like the main elements, and then we worked and built something that made sense for the song around that. But she would do all these like crazy skits and the stuff with her boyfriend. We would use both of them, they had different pages, and sometimes we'd be together. And that stuff was cool, but I'm like, nah, bro, just you. And then like, nah, this super simple video.

I just know it's gonna go to this one. And then there was another one, it was a girl who had like um, she probably had 5,000. If it had 5,000 followers, gave her $50. But I was just like, I know this is gonna go. And it was, I think it was for Johnny's campaign. Yeah, I think it was Johnny. That one did like a million, and she had never gotten over like 10,000 views or whatever. But you could see it. And we even uh had an instance where we bought a we Amazon uh got her address and everything and sent her like a uh like a costume to wear. I forgot. Oh shit. Exactly. We were getting really like deep with it, right? They were really they knew, but they were really A&Ring these fucking influencers. Yeah, it's crazy. I forgot about that. Yeah, content ARs. Yeah, that's kind of a It's a bar. It's kind of a cool it's start. It's the same way you could look at an underground artist and see that hey, three years from now, you might be somebody. So let me get cool with you because three years from now I might want you on my podcast, right?

Same thing with influencer, bro. Sometimes you can look and see, hey, based on like your work ethic and your quality of content and the way you engage your audience. I can see that you're gonna still be here a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. You might be at 5,000 followers a day, but I can see that three years from now, you might have five million, you know. And so then it becomes the relationship thing where you get in early, and sometimes you'd like Sean said, we've gotten viral videos for like 20, 50 before just by being early to someone, and then and not that lucky shit, like the oh, I know that this is gonna go. They just don't know that this is gonna go. It's clearly like you're sending you're sending costumes to people. It was very calculated, obviously. It was not lucky. I'll be real. I think I think sometimes it's a mix. Like sometimes you just see someone. I ain't saying we never got it. Yeah, yeah. It's a part of it. Sometimes you're saying, you're like, bro, like, I don't know what what it is a hundred percent, but like you're just doing things right. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna have some faith and use you for this campaign, and you're not charging a lot. So you know what I'm saying?

Might as well see. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? What's gonna happen? And then two years go by, and they're an influencer with two million followers, and they'll respond to our DMs, they'll respond to our emails. They'll take our campaigns a little bit more seriously. They'll actually put energy into concepts that they they want to execute around the songs. And so you tapped in with them early. Yeah, early. And yeah, so shout out to micro influencers one time. Like tap in with them. Yeah, I love the micro influencers. Seriously. Oh, for sure. Yeah. The next macro, you know? Yeah. The future macro. Absolutely. Henry, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Oh shit. Where the fuck are we at? We are at the rapid fire rampage. God, don't say it like that. And um, this is yeah, I kind of edited it to work for two people here. Um but it's a three-part rampage. We're gonna start with some short answer questions, and we'll go from there. Let's just see what happens. It's like it's like back and forth or like one and one. I'll explain as we go. All right, my bad, my bad. No, no, it's good of you to ask because I've never done all like this before. No one's asked.

Everyone just signs up. I will mute your mic again. So okay, Sean, starting with Corey. How are you? I'm good, man. Can't complain. Good start. Mm-hmm. Sean, you can ask God one question. What do you ask him? Whoa. A little deeper than Corey's. So much deeper than Corey's. Oh man. Holy shit. One question. Just one. Mm-hmm. That's that's a crazy question. Uh Mm. dang. What? Just what? God, what? What? What can I? All right. What do I need to do to get to heaven? I'll go with that. Okay. That's a good one. I'm ready for it. That is crazy. Okay, this next one is for either or both of you.

Ben kind of asked it earlier, but I'm gonna ask it again because maybe it'll be in more of a clip-friendly format, and we'll get some good social media content out of it. Oh God. What are the three most common flaws in musicians' brands? Oh shit. All right. Um. the way they did that. Yeah. That's some shit we would do. It'll be in the clip. Number one, not good music. Oh. I feel like there's more bad music out there than good music. Sad but true. Um, Two, there's just nothing interesting out in terms of like the personality brand aspect of it. And what I mean by that is there's all right, here's a better way of saying it. There's a lack of focus, and they're just trying to throw everything out there. And it just feels like there's zero impact because you didn't focus on making somebody know one thing. You're just trying to give yourself out there and like give it all on the first date, basically. Mm. There's one left. I'm trying to. Corey, pick it up. Are you open? What's up, man? I would say um weak ability to tell the story.

You know what I'm saying? Like either they they don't know how to communicate to the audience, they don't know how to talk to the audience to get the elements of the brand story across, and then so the message and vision they're trying to build doesn't really hit. Yeah. That was like a summary of my second one, bro. I don't do that. I love it. That'll be great for the clip. Um Sean. Yes, sir. We need your phone for this one. Mm. Do you have it on you? I need more details first. What do the things in your IG Explore page look like currently? No capping. Oh shoot, man. You know, that's don't leave anything out, Corey. You can see. Let us know if he lies. Yeah, well, I got something wrong with it. No, it's not gonna be nothing crazy, man. Okay. We we work heavy on this thing now. Well, the the personal page, not the no labels page. I don't know. I'd like to clarify. It's a personal page. Is this not a personal page? I don't know. Okay. Bam. So what you need to say? Yeah, what's what's the look?

What are some few things you've seen? No, I'm seeing Dame Dash. Okay. A clip from Dame Dash when he was going off in the Def Jam office because he didn't get invited to the meeting. Yeah, fire. Um, I'm seeing her sing vocal moment of the week. Yeah. I also see a video of some elderly white boomers doing a line dance. Just fire. Just to you know, pep you up in the morning. Is there like a rap song uh on top of it? Because I've seen those videos. Let's see. Yeah. Call it. Go. Call it. Okay, that's that's good. You know, that's good. All right. Nice little refresh. So now we got a Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Uh Dre Post, Dame has replaced great. Okay, Lear Cohen, Alex Hormozi explaining how to never be sad in your life. Okay. And the prime minister Justin Trudeau asked what he considers an affordable price for a home in Canada. Okay, okay.

Some nice variety. Yeah, good variety. But you know, a good focus on like music executives, like you know, inspiration. Not one ass. That's crazy. No. Just old white people line dancing. Even better than booty. Right. You hear that, baby? Old white people. Yeah. Verified. I'm not sure if that makes. I don't know if that makes you feel better, actually. Okay, moving on. Corey. What's up? Do You have your phone on you. I do got my phone. What are all the open tabs in your internet browser right now? Bro, y'all don't got time for that. Too many. Man, this man be having like a thousand open tabs. Give us the top three to five. Uh I got a I got a GQ open. You know what I'm saying? Uh oh, flexi. I got a one rep max calculator. You're up. I was at the beginning, you know, what I'm saying? trying to do some numbers. Okay. Calculate your reps. Exactly, bro. Trying to keep up. I got scents open. I got a lot of fashion show on my mind. Truly though. Okay. Look good, smell good. Yeah.

Be healthy. Look at it. Yeah. He's not lying. Real life version of the man. I'll switch it up. Yeah, exactly. Do you have an Andrew Tate clip open as well? I got my uh my my light bill. You know what I'm saying? Okay. Responsible. Yeah. He's adulting over here. I got my Calendly on here from when I canceled a call. We were looking at him earlier today. Sure, sure. Yeah, bro. You know, a little work. Okay. He'll Look good and make sure he shows up looking good. Yeah. We were talking about Calendly the other day. Yeah. That's a good one. Okay, moving on. Corey. What's up, man? Back to back for Corey. Poor guy. Let me. What's the last song that got stuck in your head? The last song that got stuck in my head. Can I can I cheat and look at my Spotify? No. Okay. Oh, that's What a terrible rule. The last song that got stuck in my head. Give me a second.

I gotta sing in my head real quick. Was it the Jeopardy theme song? It's nice to hear this music when you're not the one. It's actually, it's actually. I can only get one. One. Damn. All right. The last song that stuck in my head is probably the um the concrete uh boys uh off the radar. With like caribou, uh-huh. Yeah. She can't be a good thing. Caribbean part, bro. Yes. That's it. That's fine. Bro, we would love a caribou uh interview. Yeah, she's fire. Sean, you can only eat one meal for the rest of your life. What is it? Hmm. There's some meal that means I get to pick elements. Sure. So French fries of some sort. Started with the sauce. Some sort? Yeah. You know. You mean like waffle versus... I just want to leave space for a variation of fries. I don't want to. Garlic parmesan with truffles. Yeah, I need a variation of... That's more like waffle versus like steak fries type of thing? Nah, nah, nah. I want Those two.

I want all, I want every variation of fries. I love French fries. Me too. Damn. you made me forget what the other thing was. Oh, you know, some some good chicken wings. Um I'm gonna go with collard greens. Yeah, you round it out. Nice. Yeah. Collard. It's good. every day. Okay, last one of the short answers. Every day. Well, you can eat something green. Oh, but he's just apparently he eats it every day. I don't know. Well, he eats something every day. So um this last one is for either or both. This is a branding exercise. I don't know how this is gonna go. I don't either. But sounds hard. Should do something hard. Give a... I'm cracking up looking at this on my phone. Give us a um like a quick you can't even get through this. It's a quick summary. How you would brand SpongeBob as the next hot rapper. Oh man. All right.

You gotta start with the look. Sure. You know what I'm saying? The square pants. I mean, Yeah, man. you can't forget about those. Make that a thing. If if if MC Hammer can make the parachute pants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The square pants. You gotta make the square pants. Square pant merch. Yeah. Yep. He's gonna gotta come with some crazy ad libs. You know what I mean? He does? Yeah. SpongeBob has the ad libs. Yeah. Hmm. you gotta do a cipher. You Gotta do a cipher. You gotta legitimize himself, bro. Bikini bottom cipher. Just imagine who's in that cipher. started from bikini bottom now. We hear. Like Spongebob was like, hey bro, I'm trying to rap. You need to see some proof. Right. Yeah. He needs to have a viral cipher. He needs a some street cred. He's on the radar.

You know what I'm saying? Freestyle. He needs to hang a mic. Hanging mic, sure. Going street cred route. So he gotta go that. So that means we're doing the starting from the bottom, bikini bottom, like you said. Yep. Right, we're gonna have the square pants, we're gonna make that a like a cool thing. We're gonna act like the sponges holes are really just bullet holes. Damn. Got shot 50 times. Fuck 50 cents. Got shot 50 times, exactly. Make that seem like it's nothing. Like it's nothing. I'm happy I asked this. And we gotta do some. Oh, uh, what is it? Uh crushed pineapple. Gotta do something with the pineapple. Like a tequila brand? What's the what's the the Ross Wale? Dice pineapples? Dice Diced Pineapples. Diced Pineapple. There we go. Yeah, we gotta do something with that so you can bring him a Rick Ross feature to give some credibility. Damn. You know what I mean? In the music video, they're doing the pineapples. Yeah. In the music video. Yeah, bro. Yeah. There we go. Damn. You gotta flex with the the money from the Krusty Krab.

Right. Oh yeah. Like you around it, like why not? You know what I'm saying? Damn. Probably got a key. And he's gonna get the MMG deal. Like the guy, like the cashier acting like it's his money, bro. That's what I'm saying, bro. Like he's there, he got to, bro. He's a high level employee, man. He got He probably got a master key. He got a master key because that episode with the hash slinging and slasher, bro. He was There you go. Store and shit, right? He does a key chef. That worked out amazing. That was way better than I expected. I was nervous. I'm so happy you asked that. Part one. Okay, part one. That was part one. That was a long part. So that was risky, bro. It was. It was risky. Part one of what? The rapid fire rampage. Of 10. Oh, I was gonna say, the interview? We got a second leg of this race. Goddamn. We're gonna be here for a few more hours, Sean. Did you clear your calendar? Hey man. We like being in the cut. Yeah. So okay, this next part is the this or that. I've kind of divided it up between two halves, so we're gonna start with Corey here. Look at you like preparing and shit, bro. I have to, it's no labels necessary, bro. You're right.

You're so good. Yeah, we can just show up. So this or that, you get two choices, pick one. Very simple. Corey. Jay or Nas. Jay. Hard work or talent? Hard work. TikTok or YouTube. YouTube. And finally, a million dollars or a drone that comfortably flies you through the air. Damn. Wait, how much is how much does that cost? You get it for free. No, I'm saying but like, assuming I wasn't getting it for free. Like, how much do you think that would cost? I said it assuming they don't have that yet. So there's uh priceless. I'd probably take the drone. Yeah. Priceless. Yeah, the way you said that. All right. Sean. Big or Pac. Pac.

Rich or famous? That shit was way harder than yours. Uh rich. Easy. Spotify or Apple Music? Spotify. Cookie or Brownie. Cookie. And finally, a million dollars or a robot that automatically edits content exactly the way you like it. Hmm. Damn. The way I like it or anybody likes it. You. It's your robot. You can change what you like. All right, yeah, I'll go with the robot. Robot, me too. That's him. Really? Fuck a million. Bro, I mean, are you in this for the long run? That's insane, bro. It's an employee, that's easily somebody that you can I guess sell out to everybody else. You need some content, I got a robot for you. Oh my god. I didn't even think about that. He's already whoring out the robot. I didn't even think about that. He's slutting out the fucking robot. That's why I was wondering what he was talking so long about the drone. I'm I'm charging people for the drone. Yeah. I guess we didn't say it could only fly him around and only make content for you. This is a businessman.

and buy a drone and get the best of both worlds. Yeah. I don't think Elon has made one yet. He was trying to get the price tag on the drone. I was like, he wants to sell the drone before he's even gotten the drone. Less than a million dollars on buying the drone. Right. Yeah. Jesus. It's the it's the ride share. Yeah. Okay. Okay, this last part is the word association. I'm gonna say one word, and you guys are just gonna say the first word that comes to mind off the top of your head. I thought it'd be kind of funny to just let it just be open. Whoever's see who says it first. I don't know. Well, once again, your other idea actually works, so I'm just gonna shut up here. I'm on a roll. Yeah. So well, here we go. You've got one thing you did well. Okay, calm down. I've got two things now because I'm muting your mic. Two things I did great. So word association, you guys understand how it works. Starting with hip hop, rap. Hotel. Lobby. Fishing. Hot. No, I like the same time, actually. If

We can do all of them at the same time. Light bulb. Edison. Damn, I was about to say that. Edison. I was about to say that. Riz. God. You say God? Riz got it. He got it, bro. Yeah, he got it. Not God has Riz. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna figure it out after he's I mean, he probably does, but Dagger. The dagger. Zelda? Ooh. I just thought Jamaican. You said Jamaican? Yeah. Gas. Weed. Weed. Weed and Bill. It's amazing. Kitchen. Sink. Damn, god damn it, bro. Uh table. Cybertruck. Elon. Same thing. President.

Obama. Bush. Ooh. Bush? Republican one demo. I feel like it wasn't top of the mind. You know, you gotta go a little unexpected. Snake. Oil. What are you trying to say about contraband? I just played. Are you referring to the logo? Sheesh. Op. Position. That is what it stands for. Yeah, it's better you talk on that one. I ain't wanna say what was in my head. Opportunity. Lil Cheeto. Is that a rapper? It's an inside joke. Y'all watch the pod, man. So I know you don't watch it, bro. We're going to make that joke like six times. I missed that episode. You don't get to talk yet. I'll turn it back on in a second. Hello.

And I need y'all to focus on this one. Real quick. What's the first thing you think of? No label. Necessary. Corey, what was that? Oh my gosh. I was I was envisioning both of them. Necessary. At the same time with enthusiasm. I'm just gonna go on record and say that. Part three was trash. It was so bad compared to the SpongeBob fucking brand. Bro, like, I'm gonna edit the whole fucking part three out, bro. Because you weren't in it. You fucking egotistical maniac. That was part of it. Nah, we really appreciate you guys. Appreciate you guys coming on, man. For real. No labels necessary. Love it. Podcast and content platform, Brandman network. We have Brandman, Sean and Jacori on here. Yes. Oh my god. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe. What a fucking gem-packed episode, bro. If y'all didn't learn a little bit of something about how to brand yourself and how to put out content, like please, please rewind that shit and listen back.