JBlack Interview: How Finger Drumming Changed His Life

I took a different route as a producer because I felt like producers need to get noticed in a different light. Yo, keyboarders don't really get the f*** like that. That's just not what it is. Content creation is not really necessarily having the idea or necessarily talent, but it's the f***. It really doesn't matter what you do in the NBA. It's like, oh, you're in the NBA? Yeah, bud. You like that? Oh, you don't you don't like that? No, you don't. Hit me, baby, one more time. I'm so thrilled to be welcoming in on the One More Time podcast. It's the Hawks in game music producer, Sir Foster on the pod. Let's go, baby. We're off to a bad start, Henry. I thought we got the Hawks in game music producer. He does have Hawks merch on right now. I mean. All jokes aside, we do have the uh in-game producer for the Atlanta Hawks. We have the founder of the Finger Drumming Academy.

We got beats by Jay Black in the black building. in the black building. Let's go. Let's go, bro. How you guys doing? Dude, I'm great. Now that we have a new setting on our microphones, courtesy of Jay Black, I mean, we sound crisp. I'm gonna get you guys straight. Yeah. I'ma tell you something. I'm gonna sit, I'm gonna, if I'm gonna sit here, we gotta make sure I sound good. He's like, I need a little low end in my voice. I'm a little high pitched. Here's the thing about podcasting. Okay, where's his team? You know, here's the thing about podcasting. You need to make sure your vocals are on point. So for me, I always had a struggle and a hard time trying to find the liking of my voice, which everybody probably does, right? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Took me like 100 episodes to finally not cringe every time we did a fucking episode. It's just a common thing, like people's voices never sound how they think it sounds right to them. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because hearing your own voice going into your ears, however, that works. What was that? It's different. That's my own voice going into my ears. Okay, yeah.

Yeah. Wait, real quick, what did happen? Did Sir Foster retire? Is he done? I don't think he retired. I think he's doing college. Oh, cool. He might be doing college. I was gonna say, do do in-game producers for NBA teams get like traded and you know, I think he went to the Pelicans, you know? We want a six-round pick and you're in-game music producers. Yeah, no, his contract was sweet. Oh my god. All right. So I want to kick it off with uh in in 2021, you tweeted, I'm gonna sell Finger Drumming Academy for 1.5 billion dollars in 2024. We are currently in what year, Henry? 2024. We're in 2024, Jay Black. So how how are we tracking against that that lofty goal that you said? And I fuck with it, bro. That's cool. That's cool as hell, because I forgot about that. I'm sure you do. So I'm sure it's bound to happen. Yeah, I'm sure it's bound to happen. How do I go about that? I don't know.

That's not for me to figure out, but I gotta keep that. I gotta keep that going. I love that. Is this is it still? I mean, do you think it's still a goal then for you to sell the sell the company? It's definitely a company that that's growing. Uh one thing I learned in uh 2023 was you need a team, man. What what what do you think you needed most? A team. I know, but to do what? To grow. What what did you find yourself not able to do? You know, what I mean, like what, what was hindering your growth? Like what what what has the team done if you brought them on, or what do you still need a team for if you haven't brought them on? Well, here's the thing, right? We're all good at we're good at a bunch of things, right? That's what makes us creators, artists, whatever it is. Yeah. Um, but there's something that you're really good at, and whatever that is, I feel like you should stick with that and master that. Yeah. Right. So with finger drumming Academy as a whole, as you know, just with podcasting and then with podcasting, you gotta you do the recording, you do the video, you do, you know, the editing, you do all that. There's a there's somebody out there who's a better editor than you.

So many people. There's a there's somebody out there who's a better engineer than you. There's somebody, and I had to learn. Give those people the job. Yeah, like you don't have to do that. You know, like for me, if it's the finger drumming, just keep doing that shit. You're great at that. So good. I don't need to sit here and no, there's gonna be times where I have to step in and you know, play that role and do the things. And do the things, but you definitely see a difference when I'm doing it myself versus like, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Having somebody else do it. And I definitely know the work. So shout out to my team too. Um that's uh helping me build this thing and well, helping me because I built it, but putting it on the right track where it needed to be. Yeah. Um the right marketing. Um, so I wasn't really into the whole Google ads and you know the what would you say? SEO.

Yeah. That all that stuff. Yeah. You need to be popping up first when someone types in finger drumming, right? That part. first result. That part. Yeah, that's a whole different science, right now. Yeah. Oh, 100%. Yeah. It's a whole different science. People get paid lots of money to master that science. Why didn't you tell me that at the beginning? Right. I didn't know you. I would've fucking do it. Someone gatekept that shit, bro. Gatekept. Gatekept? I've never heard that in the past. Gatekeeped? No, Captain, you had it. It was gatekept. They kept the gate up. Um, but no, man, it kind of reminds me of something that we talk a lot a lot about on the on the pod, is like there's artists out there that really do pride themselves almost and like almost try and use it as like a bragging right of I engineer myself. Yeah, I write my own lyrics, I'm the artist, I mix my own shit, I produce my own shit, I shoot my own videos, I'm the man. And it's like that's probably why it's whack. Yeah, like to me I think you've already hit the nail on the head of like you need to really focus on what it is that like your superpower is.

Like, sure, maybe you can do all those things. And like, I think it's good to know how to do all those things. I think it is actually a blessing that you did have to like know how to do a little bit of everything when you started the company. But I do think that like eventually, and this is something that we're going through too with with the podcast in the company, is that we don't want to necessarily be in final cut editing every single fucking clip. Like it, because to your point, there probably is a better video editor or or were better time spent elsewhere, right? And that's where I think you know you realize that finally, and I do think that is gonna, I mean, you've clearly already seen it help you scale, and it's gonna just keep like exponentially helping, I would say, you know. Right. So how I'm I'm curious, how uh did you go about finding your team for people out there that are like, okay, I need a team now. What did you do to do that? I guess I'm the worst person because I hate asking for help. Okay, okay. So I think I probably would have found a team a lot sooner if I would have spoken up. But um, luckily, just my social media presence, having a lot of cool people that will reach out and be like, hey, I see where you're lacking. And that's one thing about me.

I'm not afraid, or uh uh what do you call that? I wouldn't say insecure or anything. Like, if you tell me I'm fucking up, or you tell me, hey, you know, you you're doing this wrong, you could I'm gonna listen. I might not always agree, but I'm gonna listen to see how, you know, how I can grow. So um I met this team that was like, hey, what if you what do you think about putting out a course? Um so I do have a course on teachable, FingerDrummingAcademy.com. Make sure you tune on in. Tune in, maybe I have a course where I teach, and this will be catered to the beginner learners. But I wanted a course because I loved, I believe it was Grant Cardone. That's my guy. Oh man, Grant, 10Xer. he's a character. Yeah. Love him or hate him. This guy. No, he's a character. But this guy got me sitting right here. The whole funnel thing about Yep. ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels. and it took me a while to, I think the hard the easiest thing is just taking the information, but I feel like the hardest part is to use what information he gave you into for your own business, right? So I was like with Finger Drumming, right?

such a weird thing. Right? Right, buddy? Right, baby? Right, little buddy? Such a weird thing. Um goes everywhere. It just follows me around. Right, right. Just sat right next to me. I mean, there, there, there. But uh, it's a weird thing. So I'm like, okay, how am I gonna take uh a ClickFunnels strategy and include that into Finger Drumming Academy? But it's actually quite simple. I mean, it makes sense. You you give people something free. And I already had the free. I was doing free YouTube videos. And the reason why those were already like that is because I tried to do my own subscription based platform, but it fell on his face. Terrible idea. Subscriptions, you gotta really know what you're doing with subscriptions. It's easy, you can start a subscription, but the e the I think the hardest part about doing subscriptions is the retention. What are you gonna offer somebody next month? Yeah. Hell, people cancel their Netflixes every month. All the time.

You know what I'm saying? I just canceled HBO Max. See? Oh yeah. We've we've been very calculated right now because we're looking to launch a subscription, but we have a lot of that uh fear uh or just like we want to be prepared. You want to be prepared when we do launch so that we're not just launching, we maybe get a good amount of people that come in first month, right? And then it's like now what? And that's exactly what happened. I want to bring people the most amount of value I possibly can for $5, $10 a month. and have the roadmap to do that already at least in our mind. And some people might look at you like you're wild for that, but I always feel like you should at least have a whole year, 12 months of of what you know that you're going to do to keep somebody there. Because if you're doing a subscription, you know, 1099 a month, you know, somebody's gonna everybody's gonna sign up, especially the first month. Yeah, but then you know, the next month, it's like, okay, well, I got my first thing out. Okay, well, you guys are not uploading anything, so I'm just gonna go ahead and pull my $10 back.

They see their credit card bill, like I don't use that shit anymore. Yeah, I think the worst thing is what happened with me was sometimes people would be like, Hey Jay Black, man, I'll put it on autopay. I didn't mean to, and they'll give you the whole story. Hey, man, can you here's your $10 back, brother? It's okay. Oh, you did, yeah, of course. Bro, you gotta have good customer service. You gotta have good customer service. because they left it on. I don't know, that's tough. They could be completely different. That's tough. It is like, trust me, I I want to deliver a good customer experience, and if they didn't get like what they if they didn't get value out of what I provided, or if we you know committed to something that we didn't deliver on, obviously, right? But if you just like what me hitting up Netflix, Netflix, being like, didn't didn't mean to leave my shit on autopay. people do it and they get their money. Stranger Things was weak, bro. I want my money. They might actually do it. They might give it back on that. Well, at least offer you a free month. A free month, yeah.

Yeah. That's one thing I had to learn too. Just like how you're thinking like that, I found a lot of these billion dollar companies, they will do that because the customer service is a lot higher than just in kind of sticking to the point of, hey man, you know that agreement that you signed before you freaking those small terms. You gotta keep people happy, bro. No, why do you eat a Chick-fil-A four times a week? Yeah, no, I feel you. Because customer service is alright. Chicken's okay. Hey. It's just that excuse, that excuse really pissed me off, though. I was like, Those motherfuckers, man. Taking advantage of J Jay Black's nice heart. You know. I was like, fuck that guy in his autopay excuse. Yeah. I hear you. But no, if you guys leave your shit on autopay, we'll we'll at least refund like a month, maybe, you know. I like the free month. Yeah, give him a free month. Yeah. so when did you start the finger drumming academy specifically? I started finger drumming academy in um 2019. And when did you start finger drumming? Finger drumming myself, I would say 16 years ago.

16 years ago. Yeah, so I'm 31. Okay, yeah, yeah. So like what are there are there famous finger drummers that you like looked at seeing at that time, right? Because I'm like ignorant to the space in general. So Rick Feds. Rick Feds is dope. I I I think I kind of just found out about Rick Feds not too long ago, just because we uh we had work at in Bodmi, we did a project with their touchscreen board. But um I knew about him, and then um David Haynes, David Haynes, now he's the originator, yeah. David Haynes. D fingers, yeah, D fingers. Yeah. The originator. Yes. Um, you got A-Rap music, you got Cal Elliott, you got Jeremy Ellis. Those are just some of the legends, but now you got Trizy Track, you got uh OG Dosakis, you got Odd Kid Out, you got uh So it's a whole world. Yeah, and then what you got Fred again doing some shit now. Fred again, he's doing some finger drumming. He's doing some finger drumming.

He's everywhere, bro. I think the amount I've heard about Fred again in the last like month is insane. No, he's he's doing his thing. He's he's doing his thing. I love that finger drumming is kind of a niche, just like how you're like, yo, what the you know I had to kind of hit myself on what necessarily is what's going on here. Like it looks cool, yeah. What the what the fuck are you doing? Right, right. And I wanted to make this a thing where it wasn't that. Um, a thing to where if you do see somebody with these, but oh, okay, that's a finger drummer. Keep keep it walking. Instead of uh, what the hell is that? You know, I think about like this you got DJs and you have producers. Red Bull and all those guys, they sponsor stuff like you know, uh DJ battles, producer battles. But if we can meet in the middle and do finger drumming battles where you're not necessarily DJing and you're not necessarily at a laptop, you know, on FL, but you still get to showcase a really cool talent. This is finger drumming, where you're making your own beats, uh somewhat of a melodic uh nature too, if you have some samples in there. Just a cool thing where you can show off beats in a different type of way, more of a way of uh uh a performance avenue.

It's more it's tactile. Tactile. You know, it's not clicking shit. Because let's be honest, man. Yo, keyboarders don't really get the puss like that. That's just not what it is. It's like if you go down the line of of lead singer, drummer. You know, you know. Lead guitar. Exactly. Rhythm guitar. Bass guitar bass, maybe on the same level. Yeah. Keys. Dude, but why? He knows. Keys are last. He knows. He's not sexy. He's not sexy. It's not. Keys get no puss. Zero. No. What's messed up is you're using your fingers too. Yeah, you know you're good with the fingers. That's the crazy part. You're come on. You're going crazy. You could do some. Okay. Yeah, we don't have to get too deep in that. I completely agree. Maybe we should see. It is extremely like performative, though. So so how is finger drumming received within the traditional producer community? It's growing, right?

Because I want to say a lot of my um well a lot of the even the legends nowadays. I'm even seeing them pull out MPCs and and and try to finger drum to the beat. It's a cool way of if I got a beat to show you, right? And I say I play the beat. And now I just look at you awkwardly. You could perform the beat for that. Exactly. Damn. Now it's a more, yeah, I wouldn't say, oh, it's cheating, but it's like now it's more of a way of you're gonna respect the beat a lot more than me just pressing play and me looking at you like you like that? Yeah. Oh, you don't you don't like that? No, you don't No. All right. Let me go to the next one. no it kind of reminds me of like the old school like you know, the old school record label meetings where artists would like stand on the desk or something. No, we don't want to be we don't we don't want to we don't want any Bobby Shmurda. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I don't know. For any age, it's just more of like this is the new bonfire instrument right you know you got the guy at the bonfire playing the guitar yeah okay you know what I'm saying this is like the hip hop version this is the hip hop version cool thing about MPC right there's no genre I do hip hop yeah let that ride out that reverb yeah they want to talk over the reverb give you some room to edit that yeah yeah yeah yeah but this is the new uh the you know you you could do anything with this so hip hop um or MPC does gravitate a lot towards hip hop or or commercially shown um but this could be a techno machine house machine yeah country machine why not anything you want it to be um as soon as you open it up it even gives you uh different type of presets to even just do just that with different genres I think I think that like uh you know when you play an MP3 for an artist right it's easy for the artist to forget like the blood sweat and tears that you put into that beat like next your soul's in that beat next but you're just sitting there playing it and and they're like looking at their phone and they don't care. But I think when you're performing it and you're like in it it's so much easier to be even if it's like I saw you hit that double kick. I saw you hit that double snare that ta ta like oh yes now if I just played that for you in MP3 you're like oh cool. Yeah but if you played that live it's like cooking in front of you it's like me bringing you some some some food I said I made for you and you.

You're trying like this is good. First of all you saw me cook that shit up over there. If you saw me in the kitchen, he was flinging that dough around. Flinging the dough, whipping, flipping spatulas. He'd be like, oh, this guy. Right? Yeah. But but I guess my question would be, and I'm sure a lot of people wonder this is like, are finger drumming beats like typically are they made for artists or are they made question to perform? That's an amazing question. I feel like that's the beauty of this. You have that choice. Now, for me, I took a different route as a producer because I felt like producers need to get noticed in a different light. I have been blessed to have opportunities to produce for a lot of people. There's a lot of people that I didn't even take advantage for, uh, take advantage of. I mean, I had Raekwon, Ghostface, like, oh bro, send me the beat. Like, he's he's getting front. Shout out to Ghostface. You denied Ghostface Killer? Definitely did not. Don't say that. Did not deny it, but I definitely took long on getting him the beat. Okay.

You know, and if yeah, not on my part. Okay. I think for me though, is I focus so much on the creative side, being the visual part. I'm a producer's producer, bro. Yeah. I like producers. I think it's the best market to be in. And let me tell you why. We spend the money. You're a producer. Yeah. This is your crib, right? My point exactly. It wasn't cheap. Exactly. When we went over there and we were, you know, we took a little shot earlier. What'd he say? Hey man, I want to get some lessons from you. Yeah. That's my guy. Yeah. 100%. Those are the people I want to surround myself with. I don't want to surround myself with. And this is, you know, working with artists. I love working with artists, but there's a thing with um, there's a lot of waiting games. There's a lot of um, trying to get paid as a producer is insane. Trying to get paid as a producer is different.

You gotta get your lawyers straight. I feel like there's too many producers who won't actually admit that they're producer producers. Like, bro. What like YouTube producers? Some of these, some of these producers name drop. I mean, there's there's just too many of them. There's there's too many of them that I feel like are making beats and are tapping into shit like Superstar O's live streams, for example. He's all about producers. There's producers in there. They're only producers, it's only producers in there. That's who's funding them. Yeah. And exactly, and that's fine. And I think he would maybe admit it, but I'm saying even a lot of them, the fact that they want to impress other producers who they know are the ones in the chat, like y'all are producer producers. But he does that because he sells drum kits and sample kits. I understand. But those same people, those same people that are in the chat and shit, I don't feel like they're acknowledging that there's other routes to monetize their producing. Yes. And they do think that, like, oh, I gotta send my beats to artists. And unfortunately, the beats that they're making, producers might fuck with them because like they're so crazy, and like, you know, it's all the producer things that like, you know, we like in beat battles, like because beat battle beats are not actually made for artists They're not placement beats ever. I don't think enough people are like maybe just admitting that that's okay.

Yeah, I feel like they there's like a stigma around like I don't want to be that producer's producer. Yeah, placements are not the only route. It's they it's a weak route, actually. And don't get me wrong, if you want to make songs with artists, like that's cool too. Like if that's your goal, but it sounds like that's not even necessarily remotely near the top of your list. I mean, is it? Like on the list. Like it's on the list. Yeah, like where does that rank? Like making a hit. record? It's almost like having a college degree or just like being verified on Instagram. It's like uh it's like, oh yeah, I want a Grammy, right? But so you can say you have a Grammy. Have a Grammy. But are you actively working towards a Grammy? actively working towards Grammy, no. Mm-hmm. Um I think that's okay. I think that's okay. Here's the thing. I do things to put myself in place to help other people win Grammys. So I definitely understand the difference of you know, show battle beats, and I tell people this all the time. When you make a beat, um, you should always be creative.

Um, don't overthink what you're making, right? But I want you to keep like five things in mind, right? When you're making a beat, are you making this beat for somebody? Are you making this just for a video? Are you making this for promotion because of work? Um, are you making this for a beat battle? Or are you making this for I don't know, a movie scripting, whatever it is? At the end of the day, you want to categorize what you're doing that beat for because that's gonna help you uh have a better vision of okay, this is what I'm trying to achieve. Yeah, because I feel like the biggest thing is, you know, we can sit there and be creative and and make a dope beat. But like you said, I can't really picture somebody getting on it, but I can definitely picture this on Netflix. Yeah, I can definitely picture this in the opening for this type of movie right here. Do you think people should do that, like deciding what they're going in to make before they start making something, or can it happen after? I feel like that's a depiction after, just for the simple fact that I would hate to take away from anybody's creativity.

Okay, so it is okay to just go be creative, be creative, whatever you're feeling, but then but then we need to be like honest with ourselves about life after. Is an artist gonna hop on this. Because here's the thing we we we do do that. You called that out, right? Of producers do do things for other producers. Yeah. Which I think is fine, but like it's like that this weird stigma. But it's almost like a producer safe place. Yeah. You know, if we can hear those double roles and all that extra shit, that doesn't matter. We as the producers are like, I'm gonna I'm gonna be honest, bro. I'm gonna be honest. You put like a Mike Dean synth lead in a beat, and it's like, oh my god, that melted my face, but like there's no room for a vocal. There's no one, no one's rapping on that. Bro, I'm I'm I'm a say this right now. You can't shake ass to that. Right. Look, but it's beautiful. Artists need to take a page out of the producer's book, bro. There is not enough artists that like are looking at other artists and being inspired and wanting their validation and shit. I feel like it's so much more divided within the artist community.

The producer community, like I fuck with the producer community. It is so tight-knit from what I see from like a like a third party. Like, there's so many like producer pages, like producer grind and producer culture and all these like different like Instagram platforms, even and YouTube channels that are like all about producers, but like, where the fuck are the artists at, bro? Like, why are we not collaborating? Like, yeah, you might be clicked up with like your little homies that you do features with, and like you got your little exclusive group that you rock with and like do songs with and go to the club with or whatever, but like where the fuck are y'all at? Like actually supporting each other and like giving each other feedback and tapping into like each other's live streams and wanting feedback from you know, like other artists. Like, I think they need to really look at what the producer community is doing and try and implement something like that because I feel like we'd be having better music if we could do that. I think there's a you know a thing with artists where it's like you kind of have to have that vision that you are the shit, you are the greatest, you are the one. But producers have it too.

No, but no, producers are here for the artist. If I were to play you a couple instrumentals, yes, you would say, Hey, that sounds like a Lil Wayne beat, or hey, that sounds like a Jay-Z beat, or hey, that sounds like a future beat. Why didn't you just say that sounds like the actual producer who made the beat beat? You know what I'm saying? Black beat. Why didn't you say it sounds like a Jay Black beat? Why does it have to be a future beat? So that's the thing. We as us as producers, we were never the ones credited. So that's why it's more for us to come and communicate. Like, come on, man, let's let's band together. That's what I'm saying. Versus we're getting taken advantage of it, especially especially before the age of social media. Like now producers can actually build a brand around themselves. Bro, back in the day, you were in the studio, you were working slaving over the making these great records, and but no one knew who the fuck you were. Yeah, your name was on the credits, but like you didn't have videos of you showing your greatness and have fans like that. Yeah, and now it's easier to build a brand as a producer, so it's starting to shift a little bit.

I think it was almost like there was a union that was necessary, like a producer's union, you know. I'm with it. Yeah, if you look at a Beyoncé's, like a track list and you look at how many producers are involved, It's insane. it's like 10 to 12 producers a track. Yeah, we have to work together. We're bringing in this, we're bringing in this guy to do the open hi-hat. And you're gonna celebrate with everybody who's on that 12. Like, hey, brother, we made it. Hey, we made it, hey, we made it, versus a whole bunch of artists, they pride themselves. And even I even think it's funny too. You see, sometimes artists when they come out with albums, they don't put the feature name of whoever the feature was. So it's like either had to guess it, but I'm like, it even gets weird like that, where it's like they don't even want to include somebody else's name on the feature. You know what the craziest example of that is the most brand newest, insanest example of that is the Kendrick not being on like that. No, well, he's not on there. He's not credited? He's not listed. He's not listed. That is wild.

Yeah, but that they did that for like surprise, like Kendrick's on it. See, that's why. I get that. I get that part of it. That's the only one where I'm okay with it. Right. Because it was it was at the highest level. Like, you know? What I was gonna say is MGK and Trippie Redd just dropped a project. Ew. And there's an uncredited Jid feature. Oh, really? Like, I would be like, everyone know Jid's on this project. I mean, no, Jid probably didn't want everyone to know he was on the project. Damn, bro. Man, shout out MGK and Trippie. I don't I don't mean anything by that. I actually I actually kind of no, I actually You do. I no, because I I did I did watch the MGK uh documentary, and that actually like turned me somewhat not like it into an MGK. fan. I watched it too. I loved it. It was actually It was well put. I like the documentary. It was really well put together. Sure. And that just like, I mean, just sidebar of like the impact that documentaries can have on you as like a listener, bro. Like, I watched the Lady Gaga one, and I was like a lady gaga stan. like after I didn't even know that I liked Lady Gaga that much until after I watched her documentary, bro.

Same thing, Taylor Swift. I was like, oh my god, this is incredible. You know what I mean? Yo, shout out Jeezy. I saw his shit too. I fought with you Jeezy. Isn't it wild? Isn't it wild what a fucking documentary can do? I saw Jeezy. He was over here doing a whole bunch of coke and shit. It was crazy. Oh my god. What you guys really need to take away from this is storytelling is important. If you could tell a story in music and video, whatever, you can win. Well, and have someone recording at all times just in case you make it. Um, all right, so finger drumming 101. Let's just do like a quick, like, you know, I guess, you know, glimpse into what people might get out of some of the courses or some of the, you know, I guess one-on-one sessions, whatever it is that we do through the you know, finger drumming academy. So, like, what's like the first thing? Like, I I want to start today. You want to start today. What do you, you know, well, a thousand dollar MPC. Yeah, you got to get up in there, brother. Um, necessarily, if you want to start today, it really matters. It it's what level you're at. The bottom level.

If you're at the bottom level, the worst level. Don't spend any money with me yet. Okay. Make sure you like it. That's what I tell people. That's a good word. Make sure you like it first. I'm not here to take your money. Yeah. Um, but I do offer free stuff on on YouTube. Uh Beats by Jay Black on the YouTube too as well. Beats by Jay Black on the YouTube. Well, I mean, I would need to buy equipment though, obviously, right? Yeah, but they make equipment so accessible now. Now you can get a MIDI controller necessarily and you can hook. Yeah. Um they have a thing called MPC Beats, which is free. Okay. Look at me giving free ads out to Akai. but you have MPC Beats, which is a free software. And if you're able to equip yourself with a uh a 16-pad controller, or I've even seen people do like, do you know the MK Mini that everybody has with the eight pads? Two by four. Yeah, you know everybody has that little guy there. You can start with something like that. How much does that run me? That's gonna get you what, 100 bucks, 100 bucks. Oh, okay. maybe 60 to 80 bucks.

Oh, wow. It's going to get you in the game. So Facebook marketplace that boy, 60 bucks. Okay, 50 bucks. So do that and fuck around with it enough. Watch some Beats by J Black YouTube video once you get inspired. Like me. Yeah, and and understand if I actually enjoy this. Mm-hmm. Okay. I'll offer that first. Okay, so then like let's say I enjoy it. I've I've soaked up like as much free game as I can. I'm practicing, I'm getting into it. I'm fucking with it. Like, how do you start to elevate someone's like finger drumming career, right? Like what does take someone from like interested in it, practices at least, enjoys it, right? Like has soaked up the free game. Like, how do we elevate their their you know finger drumming skills? I think what that's gonna be is a lot of repetition on that part. But I mean, I mean, so when you say that, right, as far as how to elevate, because that's really up to the person, right? Because finger drumming can go. So there's no there's not really a one path way, and I think even just following if you see a little bit of my career, there's no really right way of on the right market for maneuvering and finger drumming, right? Taste plays a big part.

I didn't know I was gonna be producing music for the Hawks or being the defense. I literally am the defense for the hawk. When you watch live Hawks games, when you hear the do, do, defense, that's me. Yeah, that's your boy. I meant to ask, are you finger drumming live? Are you finger drumming live? I'm finger drumming live. I knew it, I told you, bro. He didn't believe me. Put a little video clip. You probably seen I have videos real time. I wear the GoPro chesty. Yeah, strap that thing on, extreme sports. That's crazy. That's easy to go back to your question of there's no really right way of what what gets that career started. That was not in the blueprint. That was not in the blueprint. I didn't say, hey, I'm gonna start finger drumming so I can start drumming for the Hawks. Yeah, right. Um that's funny. So I I guess it's about what you wanted to do with it.

I feel like finger drumming is really cool if you want to incorporate it with your DJing. So that's one of the client one of the top client bases that I'll have is DJs. If you know on DJ controllers, they always have their little eight bars right there at the top. And you know, sometimes you can cue little things, and sometimes usually they just have their tag or something. Sometimes they have their tags, but sometimes when they're hitting the pads, it's like, hey, I wanna trigger a sample. I wanna trigger a sample. Like, how can I? And I see you doing this, how can I incorporate this in my DJing? So you have that one way of it. You have people that just look at this as therapy, like, hey, I just wanna, you know. Um, then you have because there's different levels. Some people just wanna do this just as a just like if you were to pick up uh uh regular musical equipment, you know, or a regular music instrument, sorry. Guitar lessons, guitar lessons, hey, piano, what keys lessons to get no pussy? Yeah. If you- I want to get no pussy and spend money every week, you want a dry summer, learn that keyboard. Dry summer.

Is it dry summer? All right, go ahead. But yeah, so but same thing. It it it goes, it you can almost ask that with any type of music equipment that you would pick up, yeah, would be is okay, what will be the next thing that's gonna get me to the next thing as well? It's like, okay, well, what do you want to do? So give me that example of okay, you're even though you're new and you never touch this thing, when you see this thing, what am I trying to achieve out of this thing? What how am I trying to grow from this thing? And you don't need to necessarily know the whole blueprint right there, but you do need to know what type of vision that you do in play. So, hey, I want to use this uh on stage when I do live looping. Right? So, what I would teach you if we're gonna be doing one-on-one classes probably be catered to a little bit differently if you were a DJ. How do I do this to blend tracks or transition tracks? Right. Yeah. God, the vision is everything, bro. Vision's everything.

The vision's everything for pretty much in any, like any any part of your life, really, but just like specifically in the music industry, it's like the people that we talk to, man, like the ones that have vision. And once again, that vision can start to evolve and take different shapes and forms. Like, you know, you didn't have the vision to be the in-game producer for the Hawks, right? At the same time. But it's like at least having that initial vision to fuel the work, right? And like to just justify the hours or the money or you know, the just the time and energy that you are putting into something, like that's so key, bro. And like it's okay to have different vision than like the average person, too. Because I feel like a lot of our community thinks that like the only way to make money in this shit is to be an artist who's headlining arenas around the country or some shit. And it's like there's so many other fucking ways to make music. Like you can literally write songs that are only in reality TV shows. Like y'all have all heard those pop EDM songs that are in every single reality TV show, right? And you've never heard of the fucking artist, but they're in every single one, and they're making money, they're making a career out of doing that.

Right? And like that's okay. And I think there shouldn't be any like issue with that, right? If that's if that's maybe what you have in mind for yourself, right? Um everyone just wants to be at the top, everybody. And then we need more of a discourse around just being successful, having enough money to be comfortable, you know. You don't need a mansion with 12 bedrooms. Like you can make music in a lane that gives you a happy life. And you're being creative and doing art for a living. How cool is that? Like, yeah, be happy, be humble, humble. Come on, man. Yeah, everyone thinks everyone thinks they want to be famous. I feel like, right? Yeah. Fuck the fame. I don't know if they even like those people that are making those reality TV syncs, like they're not famous, most of them, and they still are making money. So it's like yeah, it's it's an interesting, like weird paradox that exists within the music industry. It's like I feel like too many people need that like clout, right? And shit, we've talked to so many people on here that like so many famous artists are just broke as fuck. Still, you're like just being famous and being like I guess rich and or like successful financially are so different.

Like, you know, like I mean shit. Even you as a content creator, like you know this, right? There's people with millions of followers that make probably a fraction of the money that you do with even you know, half a million on Instagram, for example. You know, you know, it's like that that that that number is so just clouded, like it just it doesn't mean anything. We get we get so obsessed. People think that like our eight million view video like made us more money than the the 20 people at a time that we had in our live stream last night. I love the 20 people. We made a few hundred dollars in two hours off of just a die hard community of people that like want to support us and value our like feedback of their music versus eight million people that watched a single TikTok that went viral for us, right? It's just right. Do you get caught up in that shit? Like, you know what I mean? Is that hard for you to like not get caught up in the numbers? Oh, for sure. Uh you know, I I would be a liar if I said I didn't. Because you're like a hell of a content creator.

Right. I love your content, yes. It's really good. I appreciate that. Yeah, man, it's fire. I appreciate that. It's not only is the music super fire, but you always look like you're just having fun, bro. You're smiling, and you're, you know, you there'll be a gap in, and you'll look at the camera and then please go back in. Like you're just enjoying this shit. That's me letting you know I'm fucking it up. Yes. Yes. Like. Like messing up? No. No. Lingo. Lingo, get them. Urban dictionary, bro. I gotta help that sometimes. Urban dictionary, this guy. I didn't know if it was like literally fucking it up. I was fucking that shit. Fucking that shit. No, no. No. Just holler. I let people know I'm doing really good. All right. I'm doing a great job. Yeah, say it real white. Real white. I'm doing a great job. Finito. Spectacular work. Spectacular work. Okay. Okay, our white fans are back. They're probably like, wait, fucking it up. Wait, wait. Why would he fuck it up? Why would he fuck it up?

No. We lost our black fans when I started talking. Typically. Wait, why would he fuck it up? No, no, no. Fuck it up in a good way. In a good way. In a good way. Disclaimer. Yes. Fucking it up good. Okay. All right. Yes. Now fucked up. Bad. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's the difference. The it is everything. In the middle. Fucked. And then fucking. So I do want to briefly touch on content before we get into a little more into the you know hawks real quick. So, like, I mean, content's a huge part of your business, it seems, right? Mm-hmm. Like, what what percentage would you, you know what I mean? Just like round numbers. What kind of percentage does like the content, you know, because you've done partnerships with fucking BMW, you've done partnerships with Splice, you've done partnerships with Beat Stars, right? Like, what what percentage of the like J Black business would you say comes from your content? Uh, majority of it, I wouldn't say I probably wouldn't have anything of it if I didn't Robert. Cause

I lived in um I was I was born here. I was born in uh Piedmont Hospital, Fulton baby. But I did move early um to Virginia. So Virginia, that's a type of place where music is not really a thing where you're gonna blow up. So social media was that thing that got me out. Now I came back to Atlanta and Atlanta showed me all the love, brought me back to where I needed to be. I think about Virginia, Virginia is a, a working state. That's where you go, you go work. That's the type of place where you show them your music and they're like, okay, cool, but what's your real job? Versus here, no one really versus here. Nobody asked what you're doing. What do you do? Even though like I know you have a real job, but what do you what do you like to do? What do you like to do? What's your fun thing? Yeah. You know what I mean? you know, what do you what do you do? So um this was definitely the right place to start that up. But I I will say the presence of social media.

Social media is so funny because it's like a um it's like high school. It's like high school in a way, you know, just the little things. Like I got verified back in like 2019. And it was funny because when I got verified, I told myself, I was like, oh, I don't care about that stuff. And it's funny, it happens to people who say they don't care about it. You care, it's important. I didn't care until I got it. And then you cared. And then I cared. I was like, oh shit, let me flex this. Yeah, you know, and then you see it because it is kind of like having a college degree, right? Like the college degree really doesn't matter in some places, but it looks good. Yeah. Right. How'd you feel when they started selling college degrees for a monthly subscription? Man, you know it was cool. College degrees. Right. Blue checks. Ten bucks a month. Selling the blue checks. Well you know the cool thing about that is you still know because I think what like if if you bought it, you gotta have your full name, your full government. So oh is that a thing?

Oh really? Yeah. What if that's why people that have small followings have their full names? Yeah. That's why they have their full first and last name. Oh so in order for you to get a blue check So can a business not like if we want to buy I've I wanted to buy one and now we missed the boat and they're not selling the boat and they're not selling it to just anyone that there's a wait list now. Yeah I thought we should get one for the business. Right. But there's a wait list but do we I thought it was corny and then I it was corny but I still wanted one. Well see the blue check It looks it listen it's nice we comment on someone's post we like someone's post and we have that check bro they're gonna look they're gonna click our profile they're gonna click your profile. They're gonna do it. It's so true. Are we serious about this business? I click every blue check of course you do no you want to know how sinister it is what on the and I don't know if this is on yours I don't want to say I don't for everybody's but you need to have categories and you can select blue check only yeah no only blue checkers can only blue check only dude literally it's fucked up that you're in like such another class like it's just like insane. I didn't know that I heard I heard that recently some podcaster who's verified of course was talking about how like he missed a DM from like Justin Bieber but it was in his like blue check DMs or something like there's some sort of like we have a whole different little thing.

Yeah like all of us go that we're all verified. Some Illuminati shit, bro. No, no, it's up there. Yeah. So, you know, I mingle a little bit. Yeah you know see what's what's going on here. Yeah. Pull up to a meeting. Yeah. That's why not. Why not? I feel it, man. No. That's and it's like if we're $10 shoes, If I have a free expansion pack, you know, to my social media. Yeah. Am I not going to use it? Yeah, I'm going to use it. So man. So then, like it helped you kind of, you know, make a name for yourself while being outside of a major like music city, you'd say? That's like how social media played a role for you? For sure. Yeah. For sure. Um, for sure. Cause social media is such a big outreach. I travel to, you know, I was just in Taipei. Um wow at the end of the year, uh last year. Um, you know, I traveled all over Canada, you know, Mexico, um shoot. I mean, all over the states for this.

Um, oh, I did, you know, commercial. I mean, I work with, you know, uh uh McDonald's, so I'd shot a commercial in Amsterdam, which was really cool. So commercials in Dutch. It's really cool. I gotta share it to you. All off the fucking NPC. Yeah, off the NPC. And here's the thing. I'm in the commercial. I know. So I wanted to be the brand. So that's the thing. You know, going back to that question, I always keep referring to cut it. Because it was a good question. And you said, you know, where do you go after that? And it's like, yo, you it's really the cool thing about this is I know, I know, I'm explaining. The cool thing about it is you can go where you want to go. Yeah, you can use this thing just to cue noises, you know what I'm saying? Just to cue noises for you can use this for the pocket. Just like what you're using right there for the sounds. That I'm finger drumming. He's finger drumming. Don't don't tell him that. But I have more pads, and I can do it, I can put all those sounds he has right here. Yeah.

Plus more. Times two. So it's it's it's really about what you want to use out of it and what you're trying to gain. You can be a full DJ. I can upload 16 tracks right here and be a DJ. Yeah. I can pitch them, cut them, trim them the right way, to where when I hit pad one and go to pad two, it's gonna cut pad one off, go to pad two, and blend in with the next song. You got a 30 minute set right there? I have that control. Yeah. That's crazy. And that's not me necessarily finger drumming, that's just me pressing the button for the next one, right? But that's what we're doing is pressing buttons. That's what it is. Exactly. You just happen to be a very good at pressing buttons. Yeah. Yeah. So I do want to dive into the hawks a little bit. So how you know, how did that role even come about? TikTok. Okay, so so what happens? Uh they found me on TikTok and then they reached out to me on Instagram. Did had someone had the role before you, or they were like, we're gonna create a bro. That was my whole intro. No, but I'm saying, but but so he did also like was he also a finger drummer, or was he just an organ player? Okay.

He played keys, yeah. Okay, cool. So it was like he got no he got no pussy, bro. Bro, we lost all of our keys audience, bro. Every key keys player, unfollowed, bro. Bro. Foster got no pussy. No, I didn't say that. Shout out, Foster. I fuck with Foster Heavy. I used to get standing room only tickets when it was only shit left in the playoffs, and I would stand right next to him, and he would turn up and turn around. We would get a bucket and he would high five us and dun dun. Let me let me just ask you. That's what I do now. Yeah, you do that too. Let me just ask you this though. Were there any girls in the booth? So were there any girls in the booth? Next question. Okay, okay. So they find you on TikTok, they hit you up, and is it like just uh a one meeting close where it's like Mr. J Black? I love your content? Yeah, sure. And we want to talk to you about potential offerings and working with us. I mean, was it a no-brainer for you?

Pretty much like was that something you were super excited about? You know what I mean? Like, of course. Yeah. Everybody there has been really cool. You have to go to every game. I get to go to every home game. That's work. Yeah, it's work, right? I mean, you're going to every game. It is work. Yeah. It is work. So, how early did it to show up? My call time is three o'clock. And the game's at seven. 7 30. Okay, 7 30. So I'm there for a while. Damn. Yeah. We have the Delta Lounge right after the games where sometimes the buffet where some of the celebrities and stuff like that go after the game, which is cool. So we'll start. Yeah, how good has it been for like a networking perspective? It's pretty cool. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Um I have this ego thing. I walk in there like, uh, you should know who I am, because I was just on the DJs on the Jumbotron. You know what I'm saying? But everyone in there is someone. Everybody in there is someone, so I don't give a fuck about me. You know, being a part of the NBA is something that uh is like that college degree type of thing. And so it really doesn't matter what you do in the NBA. It's like, oh, you're in the NBA?

Yeah, bud. You know what I mean? There's a check. There's a check. By Adam Silver, signed by Adam Silver. You know? I mean, like that sweatsuit looks custom. You can actually get it from thehawkshop.com. Really? Yeah, he really can. But he didn't pay for it. I mean, I'm sure he didn't, but that's yeah, I mean. So so there are fans that just like absolutely, of course, know who you are, love, love you. Right, right. Cause you gotta understand you get the the ticket holders, and these are people too, like, you know, real basketball fans and just fans in general. There's a lot of people who are just into sports that just don't really be on social media like that. Yeah. So there's a lot of people that never even heard of me and never even, you know, they're not gonna think to look for production. These are sports people. So it's cool that you're I'm reaching out to a whole different audience now, and it's introducing them into it. Cause some, you know, I get it all the time, almost every day. I'm like explaining what I'm doing. So just like the fan section, you know, they would come up behind me and they'll watch me, they're like, yo, you just did that real time. Yeah, you know, just you're done, and they're recording.

So it's it's it's a cool thing to um, you know, slowly but surely build up that real fan. Because I always feel like you know, with social media, it's a cool thing. It's a but it's an ADHD following. You could like what I'm doing, like maybe two or three videos, and it can be one video that you just don't like in mine, and you can unfollow me. Boom. Just like that. I don't, uh, he's repetitive. Ah, I don't like this about him. Ah, he's wearing those shoes again. Whatever it is, right? Fucking shoes. Fucking why is he wearing those, right? Um, but when you actually have a fan physically see you there, and then I give you a high five after, or we talked about it, you might not like that beat that I just posted, but you're gonna be like, yo, that dude's a cool ass dude. Felt that connection. He's a cool dude. Yeah. I'm never gonna unfollow this guy because he's real. Having an in-person, in real life presence, like you can't beat that. You just you just can't. Like people that meet us too, like they infinitely fuck with us more than they did when they just saw clips and they were just coming on their feed, just in between every other video that was coming on their feed, right?

And to your point, it's so impersonal when it's just online where they can literally just click that unfollow button. Right. It's like, nah, I don't think I like these guys. Just that quick. Yeah, you can make a remark about something that they you know could be small, controversial, make a joke, and it's just like, boom, all right. But if you pull up to an artist's show and then you have and you do a meet and greet with them after, yeah, the connection there compared to just like seeing clips of them. because now you're like, okay, I know his personality. Yeah. I know how he thinks. Oh, he's trolling right now. Mm-hmm. If me meeting you off social media, if I've never met you in person, you said some stuff I didn't like, I wouldn't know that you're trolling or not, because I don't know your personality. Oh, God damn it. That's my problem. We get into this. No, I mean we get into this a lot though. Because I like trolling, but they don't know that I'm trolling. They don't know that you're trolling. They're gonna think you're absolutely serious. Yeah, no, I mean that, but it's also like, you know, we used to take a good amount of offense to like people calling us out for being white people that talk about rap. I'm gonna be honest, we got a lot of like racially charged comments that really bothered us because it's like if you meet us in real life, you know we have nothing but utmost respect for like hip hop and rap culture, and like you just would never say that to us in real life at all.

Like they're just but if you see a clip of us, maybe and we're just like being silly and funny and drafting rappers and whatever, right? It's like here comes the racist shit. You know what I mean? And it's like I used to get very triggered by some of those those comments because I knew I it's like I wanted to prove them, I wanted them to know that they were wrong so badly, you know what I mean? Right, right. But you just can't fucking get that online. You're not gonna get that. No, that's why I think it's. I always learn to stress yourself out trying to get that too. Yeah, the biggest thing that I run through is uh yeah, what kind of hater? like you know the only hate that I get, right? And like how could you get hate? How could you? With your content. Listen, listen. You're just with your buddy over there? Listen, listen. No, I got him. I'm gonna let him know. I'm gonna let him know. No, this is how I get the hate. Look, this is how I get it. I'm gonna talk my shit. Let's go. I play so damn good. That's a little bit of a weak clap there. Yeah. Look, here we go.

Maybe if you have more. Try that again. There we go. It was like a golf clap. Yeah, it was a little bit of a golf clap. Sorry. Can we get a more enthusiastic clap? I felt like somebody was like, I guess. All right. All right. There's a guy. But no, so I'm not as good a figure drummer as you. So here it is. Here it is. The only hate that I would get is the hate that I put on myself. It's like I had a goal for myself, right? And I didn't know I was gonna get hated by it. And this is what I mean. I said that I want to play so well that you would not even think I'm really playing. All right, quick lesson. Yeah. All right. So this is called an MPC Live 2. Okay. All right. And they're not paying me for this. I'm not endorsed, I'm not sponsored by MPC. This is just my weapon of choice. All right. So this is the MPC Live 2. The MPC Live 2 is a battery-powered speaker operated machine. So if you see something that looks like a power cord, that's not the power cord, that's actually my uh headphone auxiliary jack, which is a quarter inch coming out. So nine times out of ten, if you see me making a video with one of these guys, I don't even have power hooked up.

So is it plugged into speakers? Or are you using the speaker No, speaker is totally in there? So the only thing I have plugged, I don't even mind giving the secret because I did this to myself. Like I said, the only hate that I get is people thinking that I'm faking, you know? Um because I I play so well and so on point. I'll talk my shit. I'll show you right here. No, we know you're about to. Yeah, that it does sound like it's pre-recorded. Yeah, but everything is coming from the headphone. So the same way that we're gonna plug right into that is how that right there is gonna look. So I use an iRig HD. And an iRig HD is a thing that you can record it directly to your phone. So basically it's uh it's a mini interface for your phone that basically interrupts the signal from your iPhone and now um lets you take anything that you're recording from an external source, your your MPC, your keyboard, your guitar, anything you want, and you can now go straight into your phone through just simply your camera recorder. You don't have to have any app, you don't have it have anything.

So as soon as you plug this in right into your iPhone, the other side of this iRig is gonna have either uh a lightning jack if you still have an iPhone 14. Well, we big 15 over here, baby. So we have that USB C, baby. But we had that USB C, baby. You know what it is, big C. Bro, wait, so yeah, so that cuts out all the you know, need to sync the audio with the video. Yeah, oh yeah, records. the audio directly. And I told people that too. So that makes sense. That is actually it would actually be harder for me to fake or try to play on top of something that I already played. That's what we're talking. That's what I was saying. Is that like finger drumming syncing? That would be damn near impossible, especially the delay of wherever your speaker would have been to then coming to you to know and like well for me, just the pocket that you're in too. Recreating the pocket, swinging or like swing. Yeah, no. I will admit the only things that I don't do live or I haven't did live is I had a I had a gap commercial and a McDonald's commercials, but these are actual film televised commercials. So they wouldn't let you do it.

They wouldn't let me do it live. You're getting a check. I fought it. Yeah, I believe. And I fought it. Yeah. How many times do you like like how many takes do you have to do sometimes? Do you do you do multiple takes for like your just you know, content? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm assuming it's not one take. Like, I mean, I don't know, maybe, maybe, but like, it seems crazy. Do a few, pick the best. Maybe. Somewhat. I'm kind of a one-taker. Really? God. I'm I'm cold. I know you are. Bro, but like rappers that are cold still do multiple takes sometimes. It's not multiple. It's okay to have multiple takes. Definitely not saying it's bad to have multiple takes. You know what I'm saying? Don't do that. New generation of rappers. please. We know you're good. We know y'all like to punch in. No, I'm just fucking with you. No, they do though. They do. No, no, no. They do be punching in. They do be punching. Couplets at a time. Yeah. One bar. Half a bar at a time. Let me hear that. But no. Do you film yourself? I do.

See, guys. Tripod. Off Amazon 23. Tripod, something like that guy right there. Yeah. iPhone 15. That's it. IRIG. That's it. That's it. Boom. Dude. Because here's the thing. If I had to, and I have these cameras too, actually. Are these the uh 6300s? 6600. 6600s, yeah. Big six. Yeah, big. Oh. We don't have the 15. We don't have the iPhone 15, but we got the 6600. Would you get those 66 Hondos? Let's go, baby. All right. Well, I hope we know we only got like 30 more, Bailey, like 20 10 more minutes before these things get hot. That's actually. true. He's right. No, I have these. Literally. I have these. It's like God, man. Yeah, yeah. These things get toasty. Um. But it I feel like that's another thing that will slow up content. Motivational caption coming. The biggest thing of uh a content creation is not really necessarily having the idea or necessarily talent, but it's the consistency in which you put it out. And if I had to sit there and take this, take the audio from this, then take this to Final Cut Pro, then match this up, maybe do some light color grading, then export this thing out, then put it back on my phone, then post it on Instagram.

I'm less likely to be posting consistent content. Rather, I set up a tripod, I set up my iPhone 15. That's already pretty color graded. I would say it's pretty good. Yes. And I'm running straight to the iRig, and as soon as I unplug that iRig, I can hear that exact same audio and I can post it. Skipping half the steps. That's it. Yeah. So good. That's it. There's shit out there for y'all to be skipping steps. Make the shit easy. I just want to make sure that everyone hears that he shoots his content himself and he shoots it on an iPhone. Yeah. That's like. And he's consistent. Exactly. But that's just my but that's the reason he can be consistent to his point. He's not relying on other people. Because the amount of excuses I hear from our community about like, oh, I don't have anyone to shoot, you know, to like film the content for me. Oh, I don't have a nice camera. Bro, you have a smartphone. You have an iPhone. I don't care if it's on Lightning or USB C. Like you still got a fucking iPhone or you got a iPhone 10 looks pretty good. Exactly. We've shot plenty, plenty of stuff before on iPhone 10s. We

still do. I swear to God, I could do a Coke Pepsi test with that and some of these cameras sometimes, and like you wouldn't know the difference, but for sure. So I mean that's that's just like one thing I want to make sure everyone like understands is that bro, like let's not use the someone else needs to be there to shoot for me. Excuse. Like right. That shit's dead. Right. Yeah. Right. We've entered a final segment of the podcast. Jay Black. What a what a conversation this has been. I know, man. God, man. Seriously. I think the main takeaway is that keyboardists don't get any pussy. That was a big one. I'm Not gonna lie. Why was that such a like theme? bro? I don't know. We're entering a final segment. It's called the Rapid Fire Rampage. Let's go. It's gonna be a three-part rampage. I'll explain them as we go. We're gonna start off with some short answer questions. Let's get into it. Rampage. Question one. Why do Hawks fans hate Celtics fans so much? Because Celtics are number one right now. And because they fucking suck.

Fuck you guys. Fuck the Celtics. Okay. And we're probably gonna be playing them first round as it if we're the 10 seed and they're the one. You know we made the play ins, baby. Right. Let's go. But yeah, fuck the Celtics. Anyway, okay, let's get to some real questions now. Actually starting. Jay Black, give us your three best tips for content creators trying to grow a brand and make a living. Three best tips that I would give content creators trying to start a brand is to one number one, make a vision of what you're trying to do. What's your what? Um I feel like way too often we talk about what we want to do, but what's I feel like the biggest way to get you faster is what are you gonna do? And it's not to sound like a cornball here, you're gonna put some violin music on this shit, but what do you want to do for people? How are you going to inspire people? Because when you make your vision bigger than what it is that you feel like you can obtain, that's when you're gonna see the real results. So for me, I wanted to have a world of finger drummers, which sounds wild, right? Yeah, a world of finger drummers.

Now it's a little bit more common, but before, especially back in 2019, 2008, even when A-Rab was doing it. When A-Rab was doing it, it was a niche. Um, so I would definitely say, right one, map out what you need to do for uh map out your what. You don't need to know how. Don't worry about the how. Know the what. Lock that in. Two, start working towards it and staying consistent. Little steps at a time. I saw this thing the other day when somebody was like, man, the goal of football is not the touchdown. It's about getting first downs. It's about the first downs. Yes. And that. Saw that. that's huge. And that's deep. That's so deep. Bro, I've never heard of that. Just get to the next first down. If you keep getting the first down, you'll score eventually. You'll score eventually. You will keep getting the first down. So love that. What we're even doing right now. We're not out here throwing Hail Marys every play. We don't need the Hail Marys right now. We need handoffs. Get them yards. Yeah. So that's the that's the consistency. Yeah.

Um, and then the third thing is um make sure, and I guess this kind of ties in with the first thing is make sure you love what you're doing. Make sure whatever you that you're doing, right? Because burnout, you're gonna get burnout in anything you do a lot of. But you want to make sure if you are gonna get burnout of something, you love the hell out of it. Get burnt out the least. Get burnt out the least of it, right? Because even with music, even with this stuff, I, you know, I'll get tired of this. Yeah, watch a movie or play a video game or something. But you can't imagine a world without it. That's how much you love it without it. Yeah, yeah. That's how it has to be, right? Because like, of course, we all want breaks, like just like I can't imagine a life without my kids. I still want to fucking break every now and again. Exactly. But like, but I love them to death so much that it's like that's you have to, bro. Right. That's what makes me get up every morning and make sure that they're getting out of bed and going to school. And that's what makes me like stay up and work on this, like to provide for them and like work hard. So right there, using everything, those three things I just use in that um in that analogy. You can put that same thing as your kids.

Yeah, it's your what is I want my kids to be successful, yeah. I want them to be blessed, happy. Do I necessarily know how that's gonna happen right now? No. Because there's so many ways to do it. So many ways. Just like you talked about, there's so many ways to bring the finger drumming into like a career or into a hobby or whatever it is you're trying to do. Exactly. Yep, and then consistency every fucking day. Every fucking day. Or they'll die. They will not be happy if they're dead. Yeah. Okay, why am I talking about this for about my kids? This is like so fucking morbid. But then third love them. Love them. You gotta love your kids, bro. No, it's so true, man. Yeah, love your kids. Are we starting a parenting podcast? There it is. I guess. Moving on. Jay Black, what is the one piece of advice you could go back in time and give yourself when you first started finger drumming? If I can give them, I guess, like what everybody would say is I I guess doing it, doing it sooner, but not really, because everything everything has a time. Everything is uh, you know, timing for a reason.

Like I said, I'm 31. And I try not to look at all these young kids now, 19, 20, just I'm 33, so fuck off. But like, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, yeah. So we're all in the same age. I think the same thing. Did you see these young streamers nowadays, bro, making millions? Millions now, and I'm like, damn. I mean, like you've you know, you see it all the time. Like he started engineering and producing at a certain age, and he looks at these like 14 year olds that are doing it, and it's like they have trippy red and MGK placements. Well, yeah. I had to bring it back. That's fine. But yeah, it's a real thing. But I I I try not to think about that too, bro, sometimes, because it'll just fuck with me because I wish that when I was 22 and had no responsibilities, that I could just live on Henry on Henry's couch and podcast all day and make content and build this thing. But it's like, no, I started this when I had basically a kid, like already on the way, type shit. And it was like I had another job and I had a mortgage and I had a wife. And you know what I mean?

Like I'm just I I try not to think about that because it'll it'll fuck you up, man. I gotta, I gotta just know that everyone's timing is everybody's timing is for the reason everything was set. And I always feel like and I don't have kids, but one thing, one thing that I know kids will do is you know, just being a parent is gonna drive you to another type of level that you probably didn't have before you you did. You know, it's a different type of steam because it's like all right, I can't just can't just just dick around right now. I gotta I gotta like, you know, I got people to go home to, so let's actually get it done versus me right now. You know, we can dick around, we can dig around a little bit. Hey, man, let's let's let's chill a little bit. Let's play some video games. No chilling, yeah, exactly. You know, yeah. I I thought I worked hard before kids. It's like you just have to, like, you know, you have to, If you want to get the things done that you want to get done, it's a different beast, bro. I believe it. It's a different beast. Yeah. moving on. What is something you've been meaning to do, but just haven't got around to doing it? I think UFC training.

Ooh, yeah. Yeah. You have to, yeah. I always think about that. Okay, let's let's set a goal right now. Yeah, UFC training. You're gonna get your first lesson in the next month. Yeah, promise us. Uh man, it's a little tight this month. I was kidding, uh, but I need to see. Playoffs are starting. Right. March madness again. It's crazy this month. Um I look a little booked up. Right, right. Catch you in May. You're gonna do May, right? I'm trying to motivate you to try this thing even. No, that no, that's cool. Let's do it, man. That's cool. No, no, I need to. I need to. Yeah. This is why he hasn't gotten around to it. I'm trying to inspire. I feel you. The way that he's inspired me. It's not working. I'm trying to inspire him. I don't know that yet. You know that thing of, you know, like when you always have such a already a routine, you barely can handle all this shit that's going on now. Yeah.

Stresses you out. Thinking of adding something else on. Well, something else gives. Something else does give. That's the life lessons. You've Inspired me, bro. And now even just bringing it up in your and just talking about it here for 30 seconds. You're gonna be thinking about UFC training in the next day or two. Watch. And he's gonna make it happen. I believe it could happen. I would definitely make it happen. Otherwise, I'll be let down. So think about that. Last part of the short answer. This is a new segment called How Many Times Have You Said It Today? And today's word is fuck. Oh, Man, I'm a potty mouth. Maybe what, six times? It's not bad. That's light. That's light work. It's light. I've said it's six since you got here. Me and Ben say that on a one-minute call. For sure. Um anyway, that was part one. Good part one. Yeah, great. Gems, um valuable information. Inspiration, UFC training on the way, I think. Uh, we're moving on to part two. This is the this or that. I'm gonna give you two choices. Okay. Pick one. Simple.

Starting with kicks or snares. Okay. TikTok or Instagram? Instagram. Chains or watches. We see both. Can you say both? Nope. Nope. Nope. Okay. Watches. The driver's seat of a brand new BMW I7. Or the backseat of a brand new BMW, I7. Probably the backseat for sure. BMW? Contact us. i7. BMW, we'd love to work. That was for y'all. I don't know if you guys are into the music podcast scene, you know. You know. Yeah. Hey, like, this is a cool little setting where I mean you can get a garage, you can get a uh uh uh car through these doors. 100%. People don't know there's literally a garage door right there. Until now. He just put us on blast. I'm leaning into it. No, no, he did it. Like I did, I said I directed it. I was like, hey, you can get something through here. I took it, I took it there.

You got wide door. Yeah, a big door. You know, door there goes up. You can put something in there on like a keyboard player, you know. what I'm saying? Yeah. let's go. Why is it like a keyboard? player? because they don't put things in stuff. Anyway, moving on. Oh my god. Coffee or tea? Coffee. Silly hats or silly socks. Silly socks. Eliminate all traffic in Atlanta or delete the Boston Celtics from professional basketball. Eliminate all traffic in Atlanta, please. Incorrect answer. Oh man. I was wrong. You hate the Celtics that much, bro. I will sit in traffic Fuck the Celtics. We beat them two times, though. Yeah, but we've also lost to them a lot. Yeah, we hate their fans. I know, the fans are so annoying. No, they're I'm not gonna lie. Shout out to the Bostic fans, because you guys really fill up the arena. They do. They fill up the arena. You notice them. I'm talking about when the Celtics come out, right? It's like half green. It's like the Lakers fans. No, but it's funny.

No, that here's different. Here it's different, right? Because you have to understand like Atlanta is such a mixing pot. Um, but it's funny because the Celtics come out. So when the Hawks come out, when you're in a home game, everybody goes crazy. Ah, right? And then when the opposing team comes out, everybody's supposed to boo. right. When I tell you the Celtics come out. Oh, it's loud as fuck, huh? And it's like, yo, what? I know you're confused. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no. We're talking about this is the opposing team. This is not our team. They're like, oh, we know. Yeah. Yeah. Damn. Oh, we know. I don't want to talk about them anymore. It gets, yeah, it gets, It hurts. All right. It hurts. Just a couple more here. Rich or happy. Rich. Oh, sorry, happy, happy. Sorry. Oh, see? Damn. That was deep. A little Freudian. slip. You just learned something about yourself. A little Freudian slip. Learned about yourself, right?

It was the whiskey. He's like, I want the money. Evan Williams also contact us about sponsorship. Anyway. Because you can be happy and be rich. You can. You can be happy in your richness. Rich and happiness, right? Yeah. You can be rich and sad. Yeah. And finally, click in all your drums with a mouse or give up music production. Oh. Like, I can't make no music. I just have to make it like through clicking and you can DJ. Only clicking. Ew. Yep. I wouldn't even know how I'd do that. Can I like finger drum with the mouse? Nope. Click. Clicking. You have to click it. Click. Like I'm like. Yeah. Tat, tat, tat. Yeah. Like the FL Studio, like this bubble, that bubble. Like clicking the bubble. Oh man, because I had to give up music completely. Uh-huh. Just production. Just production. I guess you could be a rapper. DJ rapper. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I might have to know rapper at that point. Yeah. Okay.

Is that the choice? Yeah. So yeah. Fuck with it. He ain't clicking. No. At this point, he's just giving it up. production. Slap in the face. Wow, okay. That was part two. Okay. Part two. We're entering a final part of the rampage. It is the word association. I'm gonna give you one word, and you just tell me the first word that you think of right back off the top of your head. Let's go. There's no correct answers. You're only judged on speed. Let's go. Starting with hip hop. My life. Atlanta. My home. Brick. Coke. Valid. Valid. Sundress. Yams. J Dilla. Fucking mogul. My head just went crazy. Mogul, fucking good uh fucking the great. The king. Sorcerer.

I love you. I love you. Right, right, right, right, right. Video game. PC. The letter Q. Q-Star. Celtics. Green. You couldn't say something negative. Like how is this such a Celtics themed episode? Because fuck the Celtics, bro. Fucking hate the Celtics. Relax. I hate the Celtics. God damn. The worst. Hey, move on. Moving on. OnlyFans. Subscriptions. Zebra. Black and white. Lil. T. Finger. Drum. Let's go. Let's Fucking go. What a rampage. What a rampage. What an episode. This has been Jay Black, your favorite finger drummer. The producer's producer. Yes, sir. The in-game producer for the Atlanta Hawks. The Atlanta Hawks. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe.

Follow us on Apple Podcasts. Follow us on Spotify Podcast. Leave us a five-star review if you fuck with this interview. As always, we are here each and every week. And until next time, Henry, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Play that shit like one more time. Play that one more time. Play that shit like one more time. Play that one more time. Oh.