Art is 10% Substance & 90% Editing?!, King of Trap Music, & Candle Costs

Yeah, so I basically had to tell Suge Knight, you know, no deal. No deal, Suge. No deal. Can't do it. Oh God. Welcome back to another episode of the One More Time Show. Gems, takes, and a little bit of bullshit. Sprinkled on. Man, so we were interviewing Super Mario earlier today, and this came up, and we've actually talked about this, I feel like several times, either on camera, off camera. I can't even count. But um we talked about really like why people think that today's music sucks. Why it suck? There's a lot of people out there that that do think that, you know, that the output of music right now is just subpar. And we're sure it's not just, you know, people growing up and hating the the last generation's music, because that has happened since the beginning of time. For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think there's there's people of all ages, all shapes, sizes, colors, creeds, whatever fucking sexual orientation, right? That do have this opinion, right? It's it's a widespread opinion that people think that, you know, today's music's suffering. So we talked about this with Mario, and and basically something came up that I think was really interesting.

So we did a little more like homework around the subject, and we have a couple other examples of it. But he mentioned that like the speed at which artists are making music are almost required to make music to stay relevant. Exactly. The the pressure that us as consumers are placing on them to meet certain statistics and certain metrics of output, right? Like how often they're dropping uh that pressure, that demand that we've created on them. Even even us, you and me talking about, you know, telling people they should be dropping more, you know. Oh, I mean, we're we're definitely part of the problem. For sure. I was listening to it, I was like, fuck, man. Yeah, we tell people to drop all the time. Maybe I'm the reason music sucks today. Uh maybe it's Henry, I don't know. But but no, I mean, it it just made me think, right? And so you and I were we're doing a little bit of research, and you know, there's there's a couple other examples of like, you know, ways to combat that, right? Um and I I came across a clip with ASAP Rocky essentially saying that the best music and the best art that is created is 90% editing. Wow. I think he said 10% substance.

10% substance. Substance being the other 10. I saw that headline and I was like, that's crazy to just read 10% substance. Yeah. Like what why do you have to put it that way? I know you could have left it at 90% editing, but it made for a way better like clickbait uh headline that made me want to watch. Yeah, but so explain what he meant by that. Yeah, so I mean, you know, it's pretty self-explanatory, but it's just you know, your first ideas. Don't patronize us. Your first ideas are are what they are, their first ideas, right? And they don't need to be taken literally, they don't need to be sat as is. We have all this technology now that allows for the easiest, it's easier than ever to change something and hear something another way and pitch something differently, rearrange this beat like this. It's not recorded on a tape. a physical tape that's like, well, fuck, we gotta spend another thousand dollars on a tape to record this shit again. Like, no, you can get back in the fucking booth, yeah, you can show up to the studio, you can do this shit from your home, right?

So, yeah, I mean, I think he talked about like why it took him so long to make an album to make an album. A couple years. And let's not get into whether we thought A$AP Rocky's album was good or not, because maybe you think that his music sucks. And that's not the fucking point, guys. That's not the fucking point. All right. So get off your get off your A$AP Rocky, you know, hate hate train for a second and and just understand what what he's meaning. by that. He made a great point He did make a great point. I'm interrupting this podcast with a very special announcement. February 9th, here in Atlanta, Georgia, at the center stage vinyl. We are putting on our very first concert experience featuring headliners Suave and Ben Riley with support by Will Hill and Cam the Artisan, DJ set by Dos Diaz, hosted by Manny Akeo, all six of which we've interviewed on this podcast. Tickets are available now at omtpresents.com. Go cop yours today. And now back to the episode. With the amount of experimenting that you you're doing, like if you're not editing and you're not trying new things, you probably won't stumble upon the cool shit that makes you unique or makes you like, you know, defines your sound even without that experiment. Here's my opinion, right?

It's like even if the first take and the first version ends up being the best, that's cool. That's fine. But why not have more shots? Why not shoot another shot? Why not try this? Try that. Why wouldn't you? Yeah. It's like it's almost arrogant in my mind as fuck to think that like the first one. My shit don't stink. What's The best one. Like, how insane is that to even say that like that a hundred. There's nothing to compare it to. Exactly. Like there's nothing like that's the only. If you think that sounds good, then, that's that's great. you're just pressing the print button, and that's over. Like, or you could have 10 takes, you know, try a different vocal tone, try different inflections, try something else. Like sing it if you're just rapping it. rapping it if you were just singing it, like, you know, and then you have different shit to compare to, and you'll you'll unlock. Absolutely. What becomes probably the best version. For sure. I mean, so you know, Billie Eilish, there was a clip that we saw about her, and I mean, she's doing like 100 takes per song. And like, say what you want about like, oh, well, I make hyper pop rap, she makes fucking pop music, whatever.

I don't fucking care. It doesn't matter. The the the point is the same. She also has like 20 stacks that she's actually keeping. Exactly. So that's fine too. Maybe you should keep more than one stack. Yeah. Uh, but no, I think once again, the point remains is that like she's giving it a hundred shots. Yes. A hundred attempts per song on average. Which, like, y'all just aren't doing that. Like, I have to put out music at a accelerated rate. And I only have so much studio time. How can I take my time with my music but put out all this music then? I I mean that it's actually a tough question. It's really like you're saying that's sarcasmally, but that's clearly the argument. I'm not, I'm sarcastic. I'd be playing, you know, the artist side, like seriously. But it's funny, man, because I don't think that's actually most of their opinions on the matter. Uh I don't think that's the excuse. I think it really is that a lot of the people that I know, a lot of the independent artists that I know, and we clearly have a lot of friends who are independent artists, and we've been in studio sessions with tons of them. I think it's actually that like they do think that that is gonna be the the best version.

Yeah, that like, oh, I was catching a vibe, like how am I gonna recreate this vibe, etc. So I don't even think that they don't even claim that the the money or the time or the energy spent trying it again. That's not even really that doesn't even really come up that much. I mean, unless you hear that more, I don't know. I don't hear that as much. No, that's very possible. I hear just like nah, bro. Like, that was the one. Another problem. Another problem I think that artists have is this um problem with like zooming in and focusing on little parts instead of focusing on the track as a whole. Because you know, typically artists are punching in a bar or two at a time, maybe four bars if you're fucking Jay-Z Jr. Like, maybe Jay-Z Jr. is crazy. Go ahead. Um, and you know, if they do a take and that that bar, those two bars sound good, you know. What's the classic? Like, oh, that's hard. Like those two bars, that's hard. So they're moving on. And then and that two bars, they don't exist. We're on the next bar now. We're focusing on this part, and we're doing that until that's hard. Yeah. And it's there's this lack of focus on the song as a whole because it is possible for one bar to maybe sound hard individually, but not sound good in the context of the entire track.

The rest of the song can sucks. Yes. So like I think we're losing that big picture. That's why when when I'm working on shit, you know, I'm c we're constantly like, if we're punching in bars, punching in bars, you know, it's like start me right there, start me right there. But then it's like, okay, actually, let's listen to the entire verse as a whole. Okay, let's actually press start from the beginning of the track. Yeah. And hear how it gets to this verse and and how it flows. Um, and doing that is so important to me, and not losing focus of the mission, you know, when you're on these little side quests. For sure. The main mission is still the main mission. No, for me, I feel like once again, I haven't been in nearly as many studio sessions as you and you know, other creatives, but I feel like I've been in enough to see that like it's also you're like in a zone when you're in that session making that song that time, right? Like it's to your point, it's even hard to step back out of the bar. My point is it's even harder to step back out of just the zone that you're in. You might be drunk, you might be high, you might be sad that day, you might be too happy that day, and like over excited and not really being like a critical enough of the actual end result.

So for me, I just I I really think that like you do need to just give it an I think you just need to give it another shot or two at least, bro. Like, start small, don't go full Billy Eilish and do a hundred takes. Like that might like overwhelm you. But I just that's a lot. I don't I don't think it's it's unrealistic to maybe like once again. I don't know everyone's you know, situation, right? Like, can you record at your house? Can you record for free for cheap, whatever? So, like I get it. If there's constraints, that's fine. But I would almost like really strongly recommend that like once you got the full idea of the song and you've like heard it and you know listened to it a bunch and and thought of ways it might be able to improve. I I would give it another go, at least like once, bro. Billy and Phineas do the traditional way of doing it, which is called comping. She'll record a bunch of takes and then they listen to the first bar, maybe not even the first bar, maybe the first word or two of every take and pick the best one just first word. What's the first which which take out of these hundred?

Oh did I say the first word the best? Yeah. And keep that. And then okay, second word. We're listening to all hundred of them again, picking the best one, and you're kind of comping them together. You're making a compilation of all the tracks and picking the best one. So, how do you feel about that? I I always thought it was it was dope. I used to do it. Um, singers always did it more than rappers, but I think it still works with rappers, but both are just not doing it as much as they used to. I think just we live in this fast-paced society now that people just ain't got time for that, you know what I mean? And it's easier than ever to do it, you know. Just record and record again, record again, listen back. Um technology's quick, man. These DAWs are impressive. So I think there's some lessons to be learned from the old days. Yeah, and and I and I think you kind of hit the nail on the head where it's like I hear so many takes where like, oh fuck, like at the beginning of that one was good, yeah, but the end of the other one was good. So they gotta redo the whole thing exactly every time. Why? I hate that. It's fucking dumb. Well, the beginning of that one was hard though. So I I will step up and say, Well, I know I'm saving the first part of that one.

Yeah, and I'm keeping it, even if they don't tell me to, you know, and I'll end up splicing some shit together and be like, listen to this. Yeah. Because it just most artists aren't here for that. And that was that was some of the shit that I think Mario's doing, right? Where he's just asking the artist for like, give me as many vocal stems as you will. Yeah. Like as many vocal track outs as you will. I'm gonna make you a fucking song. Yeah. Like I'm gonna make the song. Yes. You thought that was your hook? Nah, bitch. Like this verse is actually now your hook, or like a bar from the from the verse is now a hook because I affected it, stacked it, repeated it, whatever. I don't know what he's doing. You know, what I mean, just spoiler alert for Germ's upcoming album. Uh I'm not gonna drop the name yet. I don't know if he wants me to do that, but uh should I do it? I have one song. Should I drop it? No, no, no, no. You shouldn't do it. He just followed me on IG. Like, we're just not friends. We're just good, fine. It's not official. After meeting 12 times. Three years of knowing Germ. So I have one song on there that I produced that um the hook is something that I made. I made the beat, but I also made the hook.

Um, we recorded a song at another studio. I can't say the name of the studio now. Shout out to AK though, AK mixed it. Um, and I thought the song was hard. It was like my favorite song. He snapped on this verse, and um, but he didn't like it. And what are you gonna do? If the artist doesn't like it, you know, what are you gonna do? I didn't even produce that one. I just kept telling him like this song is hard. So I ended up taking a piece of that song and making a hook out of it, putting it on a new beat fire that he did like, and boom, he this is like one of the hardest tracks on the album, in my opinion. Of course, I'm gonna say that, but seriously, I really think it is. Editing, so editing, bro, editing, reusing, try it. If you believe in something, but something's missing, like give it, give it a give it some time. Try it, y'all. Seriously, I I think that the the quality of music will drastically improve if enough of y'all out there like are just super critical of yourself and giving it more than one go, like not succumbing to the you know, speed at which like we even recommend that you need to be at. Like, maybe take a break from music and stack the fuck up so that you can actually come back and follow that like consistent schedule, right?

It's not as sexy to be in front of the computer moving shit around as it is to be in the booth rapping. For sure. But it's important. Yeah, absolutely. All right, moving on to the take of today's episode. We may or may not have had an interview lined up with one of the fathers of trap music. We won't still do. Yeah, I'm just saying it was actually we were supposed to be doing it right now. Yeah, like we're doing this instead. It'll happen. Uh it'll happen. I I know. I'm trying to be more positive and trying to have that manifestation bullshit that everyone talks about going. Um but yeah, I mean, I was just like, shit, what's a take we could talk about? And I was like, why don't we just debate the age old debate of who's the king of trap? I love this. Who's the fucking king of trap, I love this, man. All right, seriously, who is it? It's uh it's clearly um Flo Rida. He was on my list too. How'd you know? God damn it. Everyone knows that. Yeah, I mean, okay, but besides Flo. Besides Flo, all right, we'll leave him out because he's the clear answer. I mean, yeah, like um, yeah, no, in my mind, there's there's three names that are, you know, I think if you picked any one of them, you wouldn't be wrong.

Yeah, necessarily. And who are those three? Just for people sleeping under a rock. Go ahead. Those gentlemen would be named Mr. T. I, Mr. Young Jeezy, Jizzle Bay, Mr. Gucci Mane, La Flare. La Flare. Wap. Yep. Wap. Yep. Um, and to me, there's you can kind of put them in two buckets um because, you know, even just watching like Zaytovin interviews, oops. Oh, shit, bro. Oh God. You know, he talks about how him and Gucci were creating. I mean, you were just watching them, just because that's what I have nothing to do with what we talked about earlier. It's what you do. Him and Gucci were creating a uh like a more raw, unpolished, kind of grimier version of trap where T.I. and Jeezy had these kind of label situations where they had you know instrumentalists coming in and songwriters helping them create this real polished version of trap. So um those are the two sides of it that I see. It's hard to say, like, I mean, I think TI and Jeezy were doing that before Gucci and Zay started.

So it's hard to say, and T.I. obviously has the album trap music, so he's it's very easy to give it to him. Um but to me, trap music doesn't happen without all three of them. So what do you think? What just you can't say all three. Why not? That's fucking bullshit, bro. Why not? Get the fuck out of here. I'm not letting that that's not an answer. No, I don't want to pick one. Fuck that. Man. Bro, come on. It's TI, obviously. Just because the album name? That helps. That helps. That's so what okay. Let's hear your reasoning. I mean, yeah, the album. And like happen to stamp it first. That doesn't mean anything in my mind. Bro, I just feel like when it comes to trapping, like, who I mean, yeah, Jeezy the snowman, Man, like no one gives Jeezy enough respect. So I'm gonna just follow suit and just not give him the respect right now. But dude, TI, you can't you can't think of like trapping and fucking bankhead Atlanta, like like deep drug dealing trap houses, like that just it screams like through TI's music, bro. Rubber band, man, like that's your fucking moniker.

Like, are you kidding me, bro? Yeah, like dude. I mean, for me, it's it's just it's TI, bro. I'm not mad at that. And I love Jeezy. I listened to so much more Jeezy, so that's why I know this is. I listened to more Gucci than out of all three. I know you did. I know you did. Yeah, that's why I know it's an honest and not biased opinion because I actually favor or sorry, Jeezy's music. So like I catch myself going back to you know, thug motivation 101, fucking recession, even like whatever, like just jeezy albums all the time, right? Um, but I just I think it's TI, bro. And I'm not letting you say all three. Seriously, you gotta pick one. I can't. You have to, bro. Yeah, you have to. Um what what's how are you framing the question? The Godfather Just who's the king? Who's the king of trap? Yeah, the king. Yeah, it's not godfather. It's not about who did it first, and it doesn't matter. The king of trap. Who wears the crown, bro? I guess by default, the man made trap music. Like yeah. You give it. I guess I'm winning, bro. Okay. I sold him. I guess I sold him. bro. I think Gucci perfected it. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, Gucci and Zay perfected it, though. All right. Well, you got any bullshit to wrap this episode up or what? I'm looking at this candle right in front of me, Ben. And it's not lit. It's not well, this is just an audio episode, so I know, but I'm just telling, I'm painting the fucking picture of what's happening in the room right now. You know why it's not lit? Why? Because it's fucking expensive. Why are candles so goddamn expensive, bro? Yeah, we are on a budget right now, bro. Fucking Larry June, uh, just I just dropped a thousand dollars on candles. I miss sex fifth. He probably got like four candles. You know what I mean? Like, dude, they're so expensive. Oh, yeah. And I love candles. Can someone out there create a cheap dope candle? I will buy so many of them from you. Please, like, where are the cheap candles? Why don't they exist? It's wax, right? Like, what what's, like what is it is it rare elements? Like, what is what is the fucking big deal? I'm not quite sure. I don't understand. Is it the the shit you put in it to make it smell good? Like the uh air fresheners aren't that expensive. Like, we we have had the same candle on the set for a while now.

You did, because I'm not lighting it right now when it's not on camera. No, I know. it's too expensive. I thought, yeah, I mean it's like a dollar a minute. I was wondering what was, I was wondering what was happening here without the candle. Literally burning a dollar a minute. Oh man, this has been another episode of the One More Time Show. You have no bullshit? No, I have no bullshit this week. You're always full of bullshit. I've got nothing, yeah. Yeah. I got nothing. Okay. I got nothing for you. I mean, you still haven't worn my hat, so I don't know. It's kind of awkward, but. Bro, I I don't deserve that hat. I know. That hat's better than me. Probably gonna give it to someone else with a fucking giant head that wears an eight. You cannot have it back. Anyways, as always, this is an audio only exclusive experience for y'all listeners out there. Please uh follow us on Spotify, follow us on Apple Podcasts, follow us wherever it is that you listen to our podcast. We appreciate y'all tuning in week in and week out. Leave us a five star review if you so choose. Until next time, Henry. We're going broken candles. We are spending all of our budget on candles. Later. Peace out.