LaRussell is Rewriting the Independent Artist Playbook

Whoever your favorite artist is, if you go try to book them right now, you can't. If your favorite artist is LaRussell and you try to go book me right now, you can't. When you just document, you don't have to create. You just have to live. I wouldn't say this is like the most joyous state of hip hop. Everything feels kind of like if you want to go major, you have to be willing to do the things that come with going major. Wow, he really is trying to get his canceled. On today's podcast, we have the king of independence. We have Captain Do It Yourself artist. We have LaRussell on the pod. Henry and I joke about the fact that this is basically the equivalent of Drake for the One More Time podcast. He's turned down multi-million dollar deals, but still managed to build an empire without the help of a label. And he gave away all the game for free about how he got to be where he is today. And honestly, so much more. This is the best episode yet. Henry, let's get into it. One more time.

Come on, man. Yeah, LaRussell on the One More Time podcast. Come on, man. Let's fucking go. Oh man, so you're in town uh on tour with T Pain. Yes, sir. Teddy Pendergrass. Yeah. By the way, I bender at. Oh okay. That's what he called. I had my tickets to this show like a month ago, by the way, before I I knew this was happening. And anything. I'll see you tomorrow. And you bought them to see LaRussell. You weren't really. Or to see T Pain. I just heard that T Pain, you know, I heard he's good. I'm playing not going, of course. One more time. Oh man, so so what have you learned about T Pain while on the road with him? Because obviously, I'm sure you know, just like us, you've been watching his career from a distance, but like being on the road with him on tour, like what have you learned about the guy? He's a genie of sorts. Cause he does so much and he's so creative, but you never see him sweat. Like he'll have his cup sipping, and it's like, this nigga working on that and working on that.

Every time we see him, he got something new. You know, like he's he's always working on something, but you you don't see him working. Like you, you actually you see him working too, but like he's chilling too, and it's like, how? Like he a genie, and it's really dope to just watch it at that level. Like everything you see at a T-Pain show, T-Pain hired that role. Like, that's within Nappy Boy. Like, he's running an independent operation at an extremely high level. 5,000 people, 6,000 people, 7,000, 20,000 Hollywood Bowl. It's an operation. Like, we really got a village on the road. Like when we go on tour, there's like my team. You know, there's sometimes upwards of nine of us, but that's like my team. T-Pain has his team and then the team that they need to do what they do, and then the team that they need to do they job. It's like we're pulling up to places with 60, 70 people, you know, and he's funding all of that.

And people just don't know what goes behind all this shit. Cause you just see the outward show, and it's like, man, that man had to do hella shit before it even got to there. Yesterday it stormed. They start having lightning warnings. They was gonna have to shut down the show. I had to push doors back and everything. It's raining outside. Thunder. Set that bitch off. Like nothing was happening. Set that bitch off. Are you in the rain? Man, we was outside in the crowd, in the rain with the people. Set that bitch off. Like, it's easy to get a nigga to walk away and just take the money and not have to provide, you know, because it's like that's the easier time. Oh, I ain't had to show up. He showed up when he ain't had to show up. So why do you bring you on the tour? What do you think fits about you two on the road together? We are really similar niggas chasing the same things. Like after you get off the plantation and you the only nigga on the horse, and then you see another nigga on the horse, it's like, shit, come bring your horse over. You feel me?

You're automatically connected. That's the unless, unless something's like wrong with you, that's like the natural process. You want to embrace that. And I think he just wanted to be around the energy and also give me an opportunity to expand my base because he sees where it's going. So, bro, it's 5,000 people plus out there every night. If I just went over 10% of them, I got enough fans there to come back and do my own show. Facts. That's how you should be looking at it. We've went to, I could come back and do my own show and sell that bitch out. At least 500 people. Have his fans been pretty receptive to you and your sound? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um because I didn't know. I was like, you know, I mean, me knowing T Pain. I'm like, it's not the exact same at all. Which is crazy. Before we went on tour, we was like, we got the exact same base. In our minds, because we're like, I know T-Pain from bartender, can't believe it. Shit like when I hear T-Pain throughout my life, it's niggas listening to T-Pain.

It's my mom and my aunties, the home. It's us. I didn't realize, hey, pretty girl, how you doing tonight? White people. I was like, oh, I only hear one version of T Pain. He's more when we got out there, and I was like, huh. Yeah. It's 5,000 white. It's, you know, and it it alters you because like we had to really revise how we get down, still be ourself, but like 10 still, you know, it's like you're here to entertain someone. So we had to figure out how to blend, and it made us better performers. We start mixing up that catalog and playing different rendition and cover and really just learning, but they've been hella receptive. Yeah. Does your set list change ever? Like you play a song and maybe doesn't do well? I don't have a set list. Yeah, you don't do set list, right? Is that still? I knew you did that at the pergola, but I didn't know if you did that on road. Okay, so it's crazy. Explain that approach for people.

Like, why do you do that? How do you do that? Right? Like just how crazy how does it operationally work and why? Because I start getting bored. Okay. And it was just like, it was funner that way. I never knew what was coming. Uh my DJ would just play something back then, like the garage. I just never knew. And it was like, let's just go. That's how you learn all your songs. Wow. And then eventually it got to that point where we just start doing it on the stage because it's like, this is our performance. This is literally us, like we take hella requests from the crowd and shit because we don't have a set. We can go wherever it needs to go if the show lends itself there. Y'all are. a band. Sometimes If you got a set list, you rigid. Imagine you you got a set list, and you get out there, and none of these people give a fuck about that kind of music or feel that they can't even catch it. And now you stuck because you're like this is my set list. You can adapt on the fly. And you never practice any other songs. So you can't even, You can't adapt to the game. Yes.

Most artists can't even do their set list well. So I can't even imagine. Like I can't even imagine. Like you have to adapt and do other songs. There's no way they'd be able to do that. Yes. And our set is all live music. Yeah. We have a DJ as well, but for the most part, it's live music. So we're really playing instruments. It's really being made in front of you. And like we've found out that a lot of artists can't even like perform to live music. No, but I think you said something amazing about like you only knowing one version of T-Pain, kind of, and then obviously this whole other percentage of the population knowing another one. That's what's so cool about music in my mind. Is that especially when an artist is diverse enough and has a you know deep enough catalog with different types of music, it's pretty cool that like I could only fuck with like you know, a certain type. He put me in front of a base that pays top dollar for shows. So when they love a LaRussell and they get to LaRussell's porter, and it says, What would you like to pay?

They're already like you they pay that for shows already. You feel me? Like, he's really there's several markets in the live space, and you have like some niggas who do 20 shows, some who do 50, some 75, some 100, and some a thousand. Opening that kind of market to someone who's independent and exposing this life, man, iconic. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I feel like both of you guys do. Like, the one connection I would draw from your just like personalities and even your artistry is like both of y'all do make music like fun. You know, I think he's such a fun. I mean, you watch his live streams, even you watch him performing. Shit, I went to a T Pain show back when I was like a teenager type shit, and it was the same energy, I'm sure. Wow. Yeah, he's been doing this for a long time. You know what I mean? Um, I think he opened for like Lil Wayne, maybe back in the day or something. I don't know. It was they had got money together. That's something that's crazy. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, do you do you feel generally speaking that music is lacking that like fun aspect to it? It's hip hop fun again. Man, for our listeners, that is a big nod.

Yeah, for those that are listening to the podcast on the show. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you don't really um you don't come across much that bring you joy. A lot of negativity out there. Like you come across entertainment, you know, some of you gotta you come across entertainment, but you don't often come across something that just make you joyous that you want to go share that you gotta see, you know. It's like we don't come across it often, you know. Otherwise, we'd be sharing even more, you know. Um it's just um, I wouldn't say this is like the most joyous state of hip hop, everything feel kind of like like standoffish in a way, and it's not really that because everybody fuck with each other, it's just like the energy through the music and through the it's just like every yeah, everybody nobody really wanna be like the fun nigga, you know? Yeah, so I mean it's safe to say you're you're borderline one of the kings of independence in like DIY, right?

Come on, man. Wah, wah, wah. I put you in the same category as like, you know, the Brent Faiyazzes of the world, obviously, like even you know, the T-Pains of the world, clearly, that are really trying to like bootstrap the shit, Connor Price's Nic D's, et cetera. Like, had you always been that when you first started your career? Or is this somewhat of like a newer thing over the last couple of years? Like independence? Yeah, just like being so about it, right? Because you're you're like a spokesperson for independence at this point, right? I think that yeah, were you like that early on? Through time. Hell no, I wasn't like that earlier. Like everyone's goal who gets into music is to get signed. Yeah, for sure. I was gonna say, right? That's that's almost a part of like the process, like coming of age process as an artist. That was for so long, it was a part of it. So, you know, I've always it's like it's a dream to be signed to a record label. I'm more so when did it click? And that wasn't the dream. I think it just clicks and clicks more and more every day, you know, because it's like still to this day, we have discussions of like, ah, but we could go sign and do this, did you know? So it's still clicking to this day, but the more independent I became, the more independent I became.

Yeah, so I've obviously seen, you know, he passed on a 1.5 million dollar deal, etc. Like, what what deal would make sense for uh a LaRussell right now? I just need to be able to do everything I'm doing now. You got me on the edge of my seat, my friend. See, because because look, as I'm as I as I'm growing, my perspective on it is changing. Like, if you want to go major, you have to be willing to do the things that come with going major. Which are what? And um not dropping when you want to. Shit like shit like that. Um, not just that, but being open to them bringing in writers and and trying songs that they want you to try and taking their ideas and taking the meetings and hearing their their rollout and pitch requests, you know. It's like if you go there and that's what they do, that's what you should be ready to do.

I was looking at it opposite, you know. It's like, no, I want y'all to come be indie, but that's not how it works. You know, that's a hundreds of year system. It's like if you want that result, you go and you do the things that the system do. And I'm just not willing to do that. So I don't know if there's currently a deal that would even work for me, be which I feel like has been the issue because it's like I get it, but there's nothing that really works for me. You know, I had a discussion recently, and I was talking to Troy, Troy Carter, and he was like, There is no amount of money or anything that could give you that's worth your freedom. Like just how you move now, like man, we've been working with Venice lately, and you know I move, I'm always dropping something. I'm moving things here, shit moving here. So just having to keep up with that, I don't think it exists in this current form. Like what I'm building now is what that is gonna look like in the future. It's gonna be indie artists who find this company that does this and this company that does this, and this one that does this, and we all figure out ways how to split the pie of this independent thing versus indoctrinating me into this system and and and you know, yeah, it's just a different game.

But if I want the major result, I have to go do business how the majors do it, and just find a way to make it fitting for me. Um, but for what I want, it don't exist. Like, I know if I'm going to go play in the major game, I'm gonna have to share master. I'm going to there's just certain things that it don't make sense for them to invest that sum of money into you without stake. So, but do you think every artist can do the independence thing? Hell no. Okay, good. I just needed to get that. Boom, boom, boom. I needed to get out of the way. Hell no. Hell no. So you gotta be built for this shit. Yeah, it's a it's a specific lane. Hell no. I think every artist can. Okay. I just think every artist won't. You know, like break that down. I don't even know if they can. Oh, shit. It takes like a certain level of creativity and passion to be able to like some artists are just like lyrically creative, but when it comes to like a music video shot or a rollout plan and stuff, they're just like they just don't have it, or it's gonna be corny, and it's like you you need a team. Some some people work for companies, some people run companies, some people own companies, and some people build companies, and some of us do all of those.

So it's it it's like if you don't do all of those, it's not for you. If you want to just work at for a company, like as an artist for hire, you make songs, we release it, you work for this company, you go major, and then you could just make your songs, you know. You really never have to do more. You gotta do more than that, but for the most part, if you give the machine a great song, they could do a lot of the other things. You feel me? But that's the thing, and today it's like even that has become a hard task, you know. So um, it's just a different state. But yeah, I don't, I don't think, I don't think everyone should be indie either. You know, like some people really need some people are so good, it's like, bro, go just go get that help and and and you know, figure out, but this need to get to the world urgently, you know. But I don't know. I I think it's still necessary because if you take away the majors, you lose a lot of great talent too.

Yeah, you lose a lot of people who change the sound, the culture, you know, like you lose a lot of that. I think it's a giant game of self-awareness. I think we need more self-awareness in this industry. Like, no one wants to admit maybe they're a great like number two or something, you know what I mean? Like, or they're a better employee. Everyone wants to be a boss. It's sexy. It's like, I run this shit. It's like maybe that's not you, and that's okay. No, I mean, for me, it's just all about expectations, right? I think you need to understand what you're getting yourself into and what it really takes to operate at a high level independently, man, right? Because I mean you're not doing this all alone. You even mentioned just on the road alone, you're gonna bring nine, ten people. So, like, there's still teams, right? It's not like well, Russell's doing every single thing. Independent doesn't mean you have a couple people here with us today for this, you know what I mean? So it's like you didn't show up by yourself, like, oh, I gotta selfie style content, I gotta, you know what I mean? Do this sort of thing.

But yeah, I think that's that's my biggest thing. You know, when I talk to artists that are like rah-rah, independent and like fuck getting signed and fuck a label. I'm like, just do you really know? They're like, I'm independent, I'm gonna go shoot this selfie video. Yeah. No, for sure. Hey, but you know, it's like that's how it starts. When I first started, I used to have to do a lot of shit, dolo. Or I had a homie that's like, come with me to do this, but it's like they didn't know how to do shit. I just they were just there to can you hold this? I need you here. You feel me? Like, that's the start of it. That is literally the start of it. Hey, Henry here. Sorry to interrupt this podcast, but there is something I have to address. As many of you know here at one more time, we love doing live music reviews. We love hearing the music from our community and providing helpful feedback that is hopefully helping you further your career. But if there's one piece of advice that we are tired of giving, it's that your master is too quiet. We shouldn't have to turn up the volume for your song just to have to turn it back down for the next song. That's not good.

But Henry, good mastering engineers are so hard to find and so expensive. Enter DistroKid's newest tool called Mixia. I master music myself. And while I don't think AI mastering will ever replace the quality you get from an experienced human mastering engineer, it's pretty damn good. And if you already distribute through DistroKid, you can now master unlimited tracks using Mixia. And if you don't, we have a link right here. You can sign up for DistroKid with 30% off. Upload unlimited music yearly for an insanely cheap price. Humans perceive louder as better. It's dumb, but it's true. Use Mixia for a clean master, and you won't sound weak on that playlist. Let's get back to the episode. So, you know, me not even knowing like too much about your earlier career. I guess like one point I did want to ask like, was there like a viral moment you had? Was there like a cosign you got? Did you just like slowly build buzz like in the bay? Like, you know, what was your kind of rise to even be, you know, nationally known at this point? I think Wallow was the spark. Okay.

Um, like it was happening, and people was like tapping in preemptively, but not majorly. And when Wallow shared it, my life changed that day. Like from that day forward, my life hasn't been the same. It's crazy what that can do, right? And Wallow Wallow has a percentage of 2021 freestyle. Ooh, man. I'm early on, like I put that in, and he was like, nah, I don't want nothing. I don't want that. And it's like, I still did it anyway, and it's gonna be beautiful to see 10, 20 years, like when the legacy is done and running. I just just like that was just because he posted it, nigga. We didn't even know each other, but that changed my life. He's gonna remember that forever. And I'd love for you to like talk about how you will add just any producer that you work with as a main artist on all your music. I started that trend. That's the coolest shit ever. As a producer, man. No, you didn't know. I feel like I don't know anyone, I can't name anyone else.

I've never seen people putting producers or ride sing as main artists before me. Whoa, yeah. Every song, bro, you can't find a song that just says LaRussell. Maybe if it was like Dr. Dre, because it was his album, but like as someone like I didn't see a nigga go make songs with a producer and like this is their song too. Like we kicked that shit off. Even on YouTube, all my songs say LaRussell, producer, producer, song. In the title. Everybody else should just say artist song. Yeah. Like I I don't know, I ain't never seen that shit prior. So why'd you do it? It's they shit too. Like, like they made half of it, you know. It was just, I just I remember I had did like pub hella shit. And um, and um I started studying more and more, and I realized I did everything wrong. Like, I didn't know I was supposed to give out publishing to the producers and split the composition this way, and this goes. I just didn't know.

You feel me? So when I finally found out that shit spun me. I remember talking to my pops, and I was like, this was around the time I was like, I'm finna change my name and shit because I was like, I just want to dump all the music so I could restart because I felt bad. I'm like, how the fuck do I do it? But I figured out how to go retroactively and submit everything. But I after that, I was just like thinking of ways, you know, I could do this. And then I think Tope was like the first project that we uh did it with, like this a joint project, and and I really that that's really what it was. Like meeting Tope and seeing somebody as passionate about it as I was, you feel me? And he had the whole second half. It was like, let's try this shit. I remember us going into that shit. Like, I'm finna list it as this. You know, that was my first experience with it. Because prior to that, I was all it was just YouTube beats.

I was never working with anyone directly to have the connection to where it was like this should be a joint thing. You feel me? They were beat makers, they weren't really producers. What was crazy is like after that, now all the YouTube niggas get the same thing. Like, Scott is it's dope. You feel me? Like, it affected everybody. Yeah, that's huge, man. As a producer, I'm absolutely like love that no one would no one I work with ever even considered. Ain't that the coolest shit ever to make a song with a nigga and then see and you have bro, and it's dope because it grew Tope's discography. It's like he has catalog now. Yes, it grew. That's those assets and those numbers are leverageable. Yes. And it doesn't hurt you, it doesn't bring you down. And I remember even me when I first start like thinking about doing it, like you you consider things that really that never should matter when it's doing what's right. Like you consider aesthetic. Like how how does it look though? It's like, who gives a fuck how it looks? You feel me?

It's like that's the right thing to do. Dude, I mean, there's artists that don't even tag the producer when they announce the song on social media. Don't even tag them. I'm like, just at the, you know, sometimes you forget, sometimes you forget, but yeah, a lot of niggas. That's fair. But it wasn't Goddamn it. You're putting him on as featured artist. Sometimes I forget the tags. Like, oh god. The fuck, bro. You just completely fuck my point up, bro. Oh god. But it was like, even that, I noticed that trend. Like, if you go look at certain artists' posts and you see all the credit after, song, album, time. Look Like you ain't never seen that shit. I don't have it. We credited everyone. And now I start seeing I be seeing it on label artists, everybody. is like, assistant engineer, director, intern. But you know what's crazy? Even that, it might not be fully from me because I had influence. I remember I I start doing that shit later, but I remember my inception of seeing it was uh Micah from Vivo. Like I was able to reach out to some of the companies because that nigga would tag everybody that was involved, and I would go click every tag and be like, hey, check out my music.

Oh shit. That's amazing. And then secretly, like, what a cool way to get all those people to also like want to promote your shit more, just naturally. They're gonna be telling people in person, posting about it more. They're evangelists. Like it producers for so long be unidentifiable. I met DJ Monte during his tour with T-Pain, um, oomp camp. Yeah. I never knew DJ Monte was. I only knew the tag. There was never like a brand attached to it. And you can't go on Spotify and see DJ Unk, DJ Monte. You know, it doesn't show that way. So it's like it really helps and benefits everyone to do that. Yeah, no, it's so true. With no downside. No, for sure. So what do you call the people that listen to your music, buy your merch, buy tickets? What's your name for humans? Those people humans? You know how they have like. Just no, no, I'm not even going with the corny side of this. I'm more meaningful. No, but do you call them fans, supporters?

Like, what's your customers? Like, do you have like a name? Like, how do you refer to them? Niggas. All right. Well, I can't use I can't use that term for the follow-up questions here. So you and all your niggas. Yeah. Wow, he really is trying to get his canceled. Off camera, he already tried, and now on camera, he's trying. Okay, so you're, I'm gonna just say fans. I'm just gonna say fans. Okay, so when you know, at what point and how did you like first start monetizing your fan base? Your niggas. Your fans. I should start monetizing your niggas. I said fans. Now someone's gonna deep fake me. saying this. Yeah, it's AI this together. God damn it, bro. I'm gonna, I'm going home. I don't remember the inception of monetization, but like I monetize my base in every way. Just through me being a human.

Like, like we was in Baltimore. We went on a walk to get smoothies. A nigga seen us and was like, yo, I watch y'all shit all the time. We love y'all shit. We've been learning from y'all. And I was like, and uh found out he was an artist. I'm like, what you do? He's like, I'm an artist. I got a studio up the street. And I was like, all right, when I'm done getting a smoothie, I'm finna pull up. Pull up and made songs. That's me monetizing the base. Like I was able to have a studio, an asset, a connection while I'm in the city. That's one form of monetization. Selling you merch is another form of monetization, giving you something to watch is another form of monetization. So we opened the door for people to be able to book us directly, get a feature directly. You could be a producer and hit me and say, hey, I really want to hear you on my beats. I'll pay you X amount of dollars to get on. I will take that and listen to the beat and find the beat I love and lay the song and get you the song. Hey, I really want to hear you on my beats. Fill out the fucking form.

That's man, but we opened the door for everyone to be able to book us versus having a CAA WME. You know, those are for like the more business things, but I looked at it like the people who support me are the people who support me. Like I don't have to wait for a festival because there's someone in Atlanta who's like, I got 15 grand and I really want you to come to my backyard. Can you do it? This is the first time niggas had that type of opportunity to uh like just someone regular on a block could be like I booked LaRussell and I'm pulling up. Yeah, but do you think there's such a thing as because I think it was like JR McKee, who I know you know as well, right? Um, so I think it was JR that talked about like training your fan base to financially support you like early on. Do you believe in that? Right? Uh it's worded kind of. It's it's he said it that way though, because it is like the training is in is interesting. It's it's conditioning. Okay, that's that's a better word. It's it's conditioning. I don't know why it's that much better, but it sounds so much better than train.

Because you train dogs. Okay, well, that's I'm literally fucking kidding. Henry, it's been a nice run. I enjoyed it, man. But it is He's like, how you train your niggas? I hate everyone here. How do you train these niggas? I've been trying to I'm God damn it. Hey, La Russell. You know what? Hey, I thought we were friends. We made it 200 episodes, it was a good run. It was such a good run. We'll rebrand under it, we'll just restart it. That's hilarious. We thought he was gonna be our like best guest ever. I am and then he canceled us. Yeah. This is going to be an episode that they like, bro, that was the one. yeah. No, but it is it is a form of conditioning, but I don't, I don't I don't think you have to do it like meticulously, or you could even plan around that. Like, I didn't I didn't set a plan to condition my base to support me early financially. I was in my garage and I was like, man, my car got repossessed.

I I want to make merch. I'll be able to make some money. Should I get these presses or not? I got presses, got vine, start making merch. Oh, I can sell this when I go do my show. Just do the things that you need to do, and all of that will flow because you can't condition somebody to financially support you. They have to want to do that. Only thing you could do to persuade them to do that is be someone they're they're willing to do that about, put out great things that they enjoy, but it's really out of your hands. You don't get to determine that. Also, if you listen to your fan base, they will tell you how they want to financially support you. Yeah, that's big. Facts. Your fan base will say, Do you have merch yet? Can I buy your album directly? Are you gonna do a show here? And it's like if you listen and you're actually in communion with your community, you'll know exactly what you need to do to serve them. My favorite shit about LaRussell, man, is just how it's all there's no like there was never this big blueprint for anything that you're doing, man. It's just like so much just feeling based and what makes sense, and no set lists and no.

Bro, I do everything I've done that people have gotten to benefit from on the on the other end and other artists was solely because that was what brought me comfort in a situation. We like, I want to do this, so this is why I do shows in the daytime because that's better for me. Not for the fan, it's like they get the benefit, but it's like nigga, I don't want to be out at 8 p.m. And that is the only that was my reasoning. You feel me? It's like I don't want to do that shit no more. Now that I've chosen that, I get to see all the benefits of it, but you have to really make them decisions on you as an as a human, like what works for you and the people who that work for will align naturally. I don't know. I I feel like you still are, you know, even though we don't want to say train our fan base, right? You know, you do say things like calling your albums products, like you know, like you referred to your like albums as like, hey, if I make 10 albums, that means I have 10 different products to sell. I think you said that on the Breakfast Club, right?

Do you feel like people criticize you using the word like product when referring to it? I feel like so many purists would be like, you can't call art a product or something. I don't know. Like, I don't give a fuck if someone thinks anywhere about it or not. You know, like that's too shit. That's ultimately what it is. It's Like, once it's out of my mind and my body and my spirit, it's just it's product in the world, you know. I didn't I didn't mean it as product in that aspect, I just meant like as a store would have product, you know, these are my things, and that's from merch, music, everything that comes out of LaRussell is something that's monetizable. Yeah, I mean, for me, I love that you call I think it may, I think it's how more artists should think about you know, to your point, don't go into the creative process thinking of it as a product. But once you've once you've made something that's like on your spirit and you've gotten it out and you're really satisfied with the art that you've made, then I think it can like leave the assembly line, and now it is an actual like product that you know can be sold. That that's better stated because when you first state, I'm like, I know, yeah, but it's like it's that it's that context, and that's exactly what it is.

It's like make the shit you love and then go share it. When you share it, there's a bunch of monetizable functions after it. There's a bunch of things to monetize prior. Like us opening the log for people to come book us directly has changed everything. The experience is different, you know. It's not a promoter, like sometimes we get bookings through promoters, but for most part, it's like people who really love us who watch this build who want to be a part of this in some fashion. So, what's like an example of like kind of the most unique show you've gotten books for? The backyard shows, other people's backyards. Just other people's, yeah. Yeah, you just pull up, yep. Pull up to the house. They set up, we set up speakers, or we bring what we need, and they call their homies over, and it's just like real communion and community. And it's it's some new shit. Why don't you think more people do that? What you know what I mean? Is there like a stigma on like, oh, I'm too how do you find those people? Oh yeah, well, that too.

But they haven't set up more artists would do it if they gave people the ability to do it. But they know it. like if you go, whoever your favorite artist is, if you go try to book them right now, you can't. If your favorite artist is LaRussell and you try to go book me right now, you can. Just make it available. Accessibility. Yes. Yeah. I mean offer the service. Yeah, I mean, even just on that whole thing, we had Mag from even on, right? And you know, he, he used this whole spiel about Tommy Richmond and how like when he found Tommy Richmond's million dollar baby song, he was like so excited about it, thought it was amazing. He listened to it like a hundred times. He was like, let me go see how I can support support this guy financially. And to your point, clearly couldn't book him, couldn't buy any merch because he didn't have it, couldn't do, couldn't even like Three tenths of a penny for a stream. That's it. Yeah, there was nothing more that he could do. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I do think like setting up just like the infrastructure is like half the Ain't that crazy? Because he's having a moment right now, and you could make more money from a thousand people than one person trying to give you money.

You know, if a thousand people want to give you money, like our log is I never have to wait on it, you know. And he's I mean, he's not missing that window, but it's like, man, when you have a viral moment, like every time we get a piece that go viral, all the logs get a little longer, you know, for that. Because everybody in that moment, oh, I want a piece, and I want to every you missing those moments. So it's like whatever he's generating now, he could have probably did a hundred X It's easily. anything to sell. I would urge an artist to get like an email list or something in their bio to convert a fan who wants to support. Like if you don't have a booking log, you don't have merch, you don't have anything, like if you can at least collect their data, data, so when you're ready, you know, okay, I have this amount of people who wanted to support me and I didn't have anything yet, and you can just go directly to them. But to have nothing is like but it's like, it's so artists, It's, we're not in the same. Like you could be a smaller indie artist and really bring it in now from what we said.

Like, I was just telling them in a car, I'm like, when we go home, I'm gonna take the first week and I'm gonna just knock out features. I'm gonna just make a hundred thousand. The fact that I could say that because it's just sitting there waiting, yeah, it's like, and you could do this now if you're an artist that only got 20,000 fans and you put a link in to these 20,000 people and say you could book me, you can get a feature. If you're a producer, you can send me a beat. If you're an engineer and you want to mix my song just because you want that, like I allow people to make an offer to do an interview. I pull up anything, birthday, ping pong. I get paid to play ping pong. Fire. I get paid to play ping pong. You feel me? And every artist, if someone loves you, if it's 10,000, 5,000, 20,000 and you open that door, you good. Like this is we we've been talking about touring. I'm like, this might be my last time touring, you know, and I could do that because I really don't have to tour. I could sit at home and there's millions of people who just love me and they just want to give me money for different things. And all I gotta do is be of service.

Our shit is just a Linktree link connected to Google Forms, connected to website. It's just a Linktree. Shout out Linktree. Shout out. Linktree. I've been trying to convert us to Linktree. We probably have to do it. now. Linktree is really great too. They also are like personable. Like they saw what we were doing with Linktree and they reached out. And they, Yeah. Listen, this pod. If you said, hey, instead of you looking specific sponsors, you say we put a link. If you love our podcast and you want to put your material on here, you want us to promote your business, you want to come on for an interview, put an offer in, how much you're willing to pay. I love offer. And we'll we'll go through them and the ones we love, we'll hit you back. Yeah. And you get an offer sheet because all these people watch your shit and they want to support in some form. And now it's just passive passive income. It's like me doing features. I do features, it could be anywhere from a range of $500 to $5,000, you know. And it's like I just have a list of them just sitting there.

All I have to do is sit down and do the work, and the money's there of just features. That's not appearances, that's not writing songs. I write songs, you know. It's like it's just you open the door for every gold card. We got gold card memberships. We got the monthly subscription now. We got stock, you could buy stock and songs. So there's so many ways to monetize as an indie artist now. You don't, you never have to abandon your ship unless you just don't want to do the work that it takes to build your ship. Yeah, I think you tweeted something recently about that, where it's like, if you ever want more, you'll just you'll just do more. Yeah. And I think And never be unsatisfied with the amount of work you put in. Exactly. Like, if you really break it down, the results are almost always directly correlated to. They're identical. Yeah, like how much work you put in. There's work. There's result. They look just like each other.

And the more you do over here, the more you get over here. It's like identical. It's quite literally like. Like if a nigga came in a house and said, Man, I've been outside all day building. And then one guy said, Man, I've been out there building for 10 minutes. When you walk outside, you're gonna see the difference. And the nigga who's been building all day out there and building for 10 minutes. Yeah. You're like, it's it's it's always reflective. For sure. Always. Always like you're only not where you want to be because you didn't work to get there yet. That's literally the only thing between. That time is work. I love that. Yo, offer-based services might be like my favorite part of what it is that you're doing. It's the greatest invention to the industry Since the TV invention, you know, it is it's the greatest addition to the industry and culture. The shows, like doing offer-based shows, bro, it changed everything. Like a nigga where I am and where I've been, how long I've been doing shows, I'm supposed to only have 10, 20, 30 tickets. It's like, bro, I've gotten thousands for a ticket.

Crazy. For one ticket. You know, so it's like it really opens the door for people to people who love you to genuinely support you. A lot of people are scared to go offer based because they know they haven't done that work in the community and within their base to warrant that type of support. You gotta earn that kind of. You gotta earn that shit. Yeah, you gotta earn that shit. For me to for me to deem your art worth anything more than free, you gotta convince me. That ain't just a given. It's like, nigga, what is this worth to me? Hey, Make me feel something, then it's gonna be worth a whole lot. And you gotta kind of manage your expectations, I feel like too. When you go offer based, it's like this is maybe I shouldn't bank my whole year of money on. When you go offer based, you leave expectation out. When you go offer based, you enter with the state of I have zero dollars. If they give me one, I won. And the best part about offer based is you don't have to accept a one dollar offer. Right.

You don't feel like you're what you're putting out is worth that. You could go blink. But if they offer if they offer double what you thought it was valued at, it's like wow. Bam. You care. Yeah. It's like let's say you're doing a hundred cap room and you only get 30 offers that meet your ticket expectation. But you have a hundred and fifty that didn't, you could still sell out that room. You don't have to sit there with a 30-person room because you haven't seen the offer price. And sometimes it's like sometimes niggas got $25 tickets, and it's like somebody wanted to see you, but they only got 15. Now they can't see you. And that's why we created offer based because we never wanted somebody excluded from supporting us. I'm like, shit, if you ain't got 20, give me 10. I'll fuck with you. Come on. By the time you get in, you're gonna realize it was worth far more than that. And next time I see you, you're gonna be like, I'm I'm a take care of you. Or even while you're there. We have people leave the show Donation. and hand us blues. Donation.

Wow. So I should have paid more. So so what platform do you use to do the offer based services? For shows, we use what's TBA. It's a ticket platform that I'm a co-founder and and uh a Brema, and it's just some dope shit that we created just to do offer-based shows. Like it's brand new technology. Okay. So uh we use what's TBA for the tickets, and then for like services, we use Google Forms. And they just literally type their offer in. We can make different Google forms to the Linktree and they got questions. What do you want? Do you want a show? You want an interview? You want this? How much are you willing to pay? What is your offer amount? There's your email, your phone number. And then we could once we got all that, we can get the business done. Mm-hmm. It's so simple. Yeah. It's not this like complex technology. It's Google Forms. It's so simple with backend like work. And as soon as you announce the offers roll in. Mm-hmm. The offers roll, like I can stay home. You know, and I'm not I'm not on the radio.

How do you promote the fact that you have offer-based services? How would I know? If I stumble across the Russell, your, you know, social media, I like the content, I like the music. Like, is there anything that you're making or saying that I just do interviews and people ask questions like these, and then it ends up and we post a clip because it's a good clip, and they like, oh shit, I could be a gold card. and they go click any link in my bio, and once you get there, it's gonna say, book this. You want to go here? Book this, find a consultation. Do you know, like everything's there? So people um just find their way to it. So, what all's included in your like marketing strategy, right? Like, I feel like you're cranking out content, for example. Yeah, right. So clearly you're active on social media, but like what else are you doing to, you know, let's say you get all that fan data, you get their numbers, you get email addresses. How are you actively like marketing to your audience? I'm actively marketing through content in life.

Okay. I'm I'm always doing shows. There's always a way for you to support me. Um when merch is running, there's always merch. So like my marketing is my life. The I was in the studio with Busta Rhymes. Share that. That's a big marketable moment. Some of the hip hop heads tapped in. You know, so it's like, I just use content in life. You know, every time I perform, it's marketing. Every time I do an interview and a podcast, when we first start doing interviews, I told T I was like, I'm gonna do seven of them. So I got one I could post for each day, and I cut the clips down, and I have this many days worth. And I ain't stopped doing interviews since. I allow everybody to interview me, book me, and I take the pieces that go from it, and it's that's marketing. So yeah, I just market through living. We don't sit and think of like strategies and plans to do it. We just really lit as shit. Yeah, so content's huge for you. But then like, you know, I don't know. I heard an example, I feel like from someone else that like, you know, you'll text the fans that have like, you know, you know, you have your phone number or like that you have their phone number, you'll text them like early access to stuff.

You know what I mean? Like what other things are you doing outside of the content? We don't really do it'd be through life. Like if I hit a fan, it'd be like real, like if a nigga over support, yeah, I'll hit somebody and tap in, or just I'm just kind of active, you know. It don't, it don't really be strategic. Like, we just start uh within we started our subscription base with even and there's a chat in there, so I'm a bit active in there every now and then, but we drop a bunch of exclusive content in there or everything first, It's the shows, like that's who we're feeding first, and it's a direct connection. So we just start building that. But prior, um, yeah, just like like we built our own super phone. I went to Verizon and just got an open line, and we imported all of our contacts from Shopify, from everything into that phone, and we just start tapping in what we need to or or send this share, you know. So it's just been really really natural. Wow.

Told you. man. just like there's no like master plan. There's this master plan No, bro. Like outside There's not. Like what is the strategy what are you doing, bro? Like I'm living, it's really word of mouth. Like if he comes here, you're gonna tell your friends, and then everybody on your platform is gonna see him now, so then they're gonna tell their friends, and when we meet somebody on the street and we go to their house, their studio, and we do that, it's like he's really just active in the community in such a major way that it's like everybody loves LaRussell. If you don't know who he is, somebody's gonna tell you about him because they love him, and it's like that's right, and you're always doing great positive things in the community. You're feeding the community. You you have the the clip with the little boy go by with the little girl go by. What's more marketable than just being a great person? Just a life, you know. What's more marketable than life? Yeah, that's the one thing we all have in common, and people are seeing me live. But also, you do you were doing uh seeding, like he was doing seeding through Flight House.

He also goes, When we go to all these cities, if we can, we're gonna touch radio stations, we're gonna do podcasts, we're going to like, we're gonna touch every city that we're in in a real way. We weren't just there and post it uh selfie and was like, seen Atlanta today. Like you really go into the community, and that's how you market yourself up globally. Yeah, but I think what what you're saying about like life, I think the way to break it down though, I think you're extremely good at documenting and having that be. I mean, you know, even our our guy off camera right here he's been recording since you walked up the hill. Like, I don't think I don't know how much battery you have in that shit, but like yeah, okay, exactly. Yeah, it's just like unlimited batteries and storage apparently because it's just been rolling. Oh, we we we spend on on storage and batteries. It's like that camera. We spent at least 40, 50. Yeah, to like we got 10 and we got two. Yeah.

No, I I get it. And I think more people more artists need to realize like the power of the documenting process. When you just document, you don't have to create. You just have to live. Yes, like I like we we we shoot like visualizers and live sessions and shit, and that is our content side, our creation side, but most of my viral pieces, like they're me living, and we captured the moment. It ain't things that we can really plan. Like, you know, with the autistic kid and his father in Oakland, that's not some shit you could plan. I was outside filming, and we heard the name of him down the street, like, yo, and he ended up just pulling us. It's like that. We don't have no merit in that. All we could do is film and hope we catch something great. I know if I'm outside making shit happen, something gonna happen. So do we have a documentary on the way or what? Yes. Several. Several, several.

Bro, we we do so much, and people have never gotten to really witness the the journey. Like, I feel like I'm one of the first artists that you could really Wiz Khalifa was one of those kind of, but I'm I'm I'm one of the pioneers in like showing the entire process, sharing all the information. In real time, there's people who watch our shit who could who could watch from home a nigga make it. Like you could literally watch from home episode episode of like, oh that's when it happens. We share our meetings. We have meetings with with Venice and our teams, and we don't hide that. This is the marketing they're talking, the marketing strategy you're talking about is we got videos, you know. It's like and half the video was us saying like, ah, well, we gotta we gotta just live. We can't do that when we gotta just you know, so we don't we don't hide none of that because my special sauce is life. It it ain't you know there's nothing you can't take it from me.

Why do I why do I just love being mysterious and just we used to all watch WWE and niggas had on masks and it was always a bit crazy I don't know what the fuck it is. It's like I I I We can't all be the undertaker. Man, I think it's it's cause it's not real. It's not real. So it's like if you see me outside of my costume, you're gonna know that I'm not Kane. Is it insecurity? You think naturally I think I think if you're not being yourself, you're insecure because you you don't you don't want to be who you actually are. So just yeah, and I think that's natural as a human. Like you as a human, you have to really learn how to embrace yourself. Unless you were raised like you're you're strong, you're this, you have to learn to embrace yourself and be able to stand in who you actually are, even if everyone else around is different. You feel me? So I don't blame, I know what it is, but man, that shit, you can't build, you can't build this with that. It's only short-lived.

I think some don't really see the value in their story either. Like we get up and do radio. We got in at 4 30 in the morning and we were up by 10 o'clock to get to the radio station. It's like his journey is a documentary in and of itself. Some artists have been sitting at home for the last week and a half and maybe went to the studio once. Haven't talked to their manager in four or five days. You know, it's like their their journey for them doesn't seem as interesting, or they don't get as many life moments, so they don't dock it. But if they were docking it, it's like they would at least be able to monetize the moments that they are working. But I think some artists just don't really see it. But do you think there's also some artists where, and it maybe, you know, you know, follows up what you just said, is like can can the documenting and the like showing your exact true self can that work for everyone? Yes, yes. That's why the Kardashians are famous. Yes. They were just the first family to allow us to be family. Yep.

Like they we followed them around. It was that's all it was. They were just living their regular fucking life. And people love your art. And they turned the cameras on. They're probably gonna love you. Yeah. Because your art is usually your heart. And it's like that, it it goes hand in hand. You ever seen when I remember when COVID hit, I started riding mountain bikes. And there was a nigga I found on YouTube that all he did was ride mountain bikes and test them out and tell you about them. And he was just living his regular ass life. Yeah. And he had a ton of subscribers because there's always gonna be someone who wants to do what you're doing who wants to get started and what you do. Always. Yeah. Even you guys. Yeah. We do we're documented. I've been I'm gonna just not even, I'm not even worrying about you stamping this anymore. Someone has to be here. Someone has someone has to be here to shoot like without him being here, someone needs to be here shooting every single thing that we're doing. Like 100%. Uh, one of the production managers on Payne's Tour, because everybody on Payne's Tour got a crazy job that someone like is in a line, they want to know how to do it. And I was like, man, when we go on tour, every person who's a main person needs a camera with them.

So you could see that flow. And I used to be in my room typing how to how to throw a festival, how to book there's no videos because no one documented them doing it and showed that process of it. Uh some of the homies own a company called Black on the Block, like Big Fed, they doing their fucking thing, and I was telling them, like, y'all need to doc all of this. Like y'all, y'all are black women throwing festivals and building culture and curating, and we not even getting to see how it happened. We just see the result, but we're not seeing everything that goes into making this happen. That's how you create generational structures where it's like there's another young nigga who's gonna make it because they just get to watch LaRussell do it and do everything I've done. Malachi is an example. Michael Prince is an example. Michael Prince does shows around the world. People book him direct. He used all of our blueprints and he's successful. Yo, Malachi's amazing, by the way. Holy shit. You hear me, Mallie? Holy shit, bro. I was like, I am so glad I did my research with these few songs that Malachi's on because he is nice for sure.

But no, I I I think it does kind of have to do with what you're saying, though. I think we as humans sometimes don't think our story is interesting enough. Yeah. I think there is some insecurities involved, right? Is that like it's natural? Yeah, like even if you are this artist and like maybe you do have a following, and so like you, you know, hypothetically, you should think that you're interesting enough when you're not doing the full-blown artist thing, right? You feel like maybe you're not cool enough. That's the best time. But yeah, naturally, it's hard to feel special when there's a million, a billion of them. It's like, what makes me? I'm just a you know, like I have to, I'm always saying, like, I'm a regular nigga. And it's like people around me be like, yes, but no. You feel me? But you just naturally as a human and that's kind of like how I stay on the ground because I remember that I'm human, and it's a billion other niggas who are human too. You feel me? But it's it's it's it's hard to find that. It's great that your superpower can also be what humbles you though.

That's definitely like a blessing, right? Where it's like the the quicker you can, you know, ground yourself of like I am just a regular guy, like the billions of people that exist, but then that also helps you because it's your brand and who you are. So like you've you've honestly kind of got the fucking cheat code, bro. That's a good one. Like, and that's the thing, It's like these be the things that they be trying to plan and strategize around, like how to build this out. How, How do we build this artist into this? And it's like, you can't do that. That's just not how that shit works. What's like the biggest, or like what's the accomplishment that you're most proud of, though? Just like if you look back, that I'm still human, that I still go home and uh drop my daughter off and pick her up and see my mom and be outside and race against the kids on the block and buy bikes for the kids and feed the community and walk around the neighborhood and just build that energy of hope and joy. Like cars ride past, honk kids out the window.

That's literally, you know, like that. I stayed human. I didn't, I didn't disconnect and like I changed a lot. I'm not the same human I was, but I remained human. I didn't change into something that I'm not. And um, you know, I still got time left. Who knows? I might I might ruin it all. But you know, for now, it's like I really I really stayed human. Like I'm um in myself. I'm I'm I'm who I present myself to the world to be. You know, it's like I am me. Damn. Yeah, that kind of gave me some chills, bro. No, I I definitely feel like that is your your strength, you know what I mean? So it's yeah, it's dope to see. Um, all right. Lastly, I feel like this is a new one. The uh collab project with Hit Boy. Yeah, had y'all worked before? No.

No, so how'd that come about? We were supposed to work years ago uh through Noah at Def Jam. Like he was trying to make that play and it just didn't align. And uh this time it's aligned. This time it aligned. I've only been with Hit Boy three times in my journey. We made that album in five hours, and then the next time we seen each other was to shoot the content for the album, and the third time was the album release party. That's it. No, that's how he dropped so much music, he makes it fast. Shit. Are you usually that quick? Yeah, okay, okay. That wasn't like a rare, like unicorn sighting with Hit Boy or something. I make a lot. I make a lot. What percentage of the music you make would you say you drop? 95? Wow. 90? 90. That's huge. Oh, because I got hella unreleased shit. Give it 75. I mean, He's got a lot of shit out, 80. Seventy five, eighty. Dropping shit. I know. I know it. Yeah, I say 80 because I do got, I do got a bunch of unreleased. It's a lot. But you know, no way.

I be dropping shit. I go make the same amount I dropped. Okay, so 50. Maybe 50. And I drop a lot. That's why I said that. Yeah, I drop a lot. I still think that's much higher than the average artist. though, cause that unreleased. Yeah. 50 50 is realistic. Yeah. If I make a thousand songs, I drop 500. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And then go to the 500. So yeah, I mean, like, you know, other than him being a part of like incredible records, like just even being in the in the you know studio with him for five hours, right? Like, talk to us about like what a real producer, like a hit boy, brings to like a studio session. Great beats. That's it. Great fucking beats. I guess if you're making them that quick, like what else does he have to do besides play the beats and he was working the whole time? Like, he just bring beats and energy. Like to be in the space of another nigga going to get it. We both have the same thing.

You know how this go? We on that grind, and that that's that's what it is. Like he just in and if you ask him anything, he'll answer. You feel me? But it's really like we just locked in and got the work done. We both knew what we was after and how we work, and it was like, bro, we was only supposed to do like three, and then we just kept we was like, fuck it. Fuck it. You know, we don't know where it's gonna go with. Shit, we did three in 45 minutes. Let's do some more. We got the song five. We was like just finish it. Just finish it off. Do seven, and we got the project. Wow. So there wasn't a goal to do a project, or was it just a three-piece project that you thought you were gonna do? I'm always going into it, like I'm gonna try to make an album. Always. Every time I go, usually if I'm like, if it's a producer, like I'm linking with these niggas, my goal was always I'm always like five or seven. Three, five, seven. That's always, and I usually hit one of those. Wow.

Okay. So you did he know that that was the goal? Or is that just a little russell goal? I feel like he knew. I might have told him, like, nigga, I'm trying to make an album. Okay. Yeah, I think that was part of the DM. Like, I'm I'm trying to, I don't, you know, I'm never like mad if you if we don't, but like when I go, I'm ready to lock in. I don't want to waste, I'm I'm trying to get to it. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I guess this kind of ties into it if, like, you know, 50 unreleased, you know, 50% unreleased and 50% 50% release, but like, how particular are you, right? Like, are you pretty like critical of yourself or I used to be, um, but like lately, if I if I enjoy it, it can come. It can come out. Um, some things are a little bit bigger for me, like I'll be like, nah, this one need this, because I already see the vision of it, or it's just like I just need a little bit more. But for the most part, like if I love it and it's like, bro, we rocking that shit, I fuck with it. Put that shit in the world.

Let it start making money. Because every time I release a song, I open a hundred new streams of revenue. Wow. I sell songs by the percentage. So it's a hundred percent of a song, you know. So you're still doing that? Why would I stop? No, so like, yeah, well, yeah, explain the model of that. Like, what are you actually doing? Fucking stock. I'm selling percentages of royalty generated from a song. And how do you do it? Every distro, well, not every, but most distros have a split system to where you could pay your collaborators out. So after I pay my producers, engineers, and artwork, everyone who's involved with this on session players, background singers, and Once everybody get they split, uh, whatever I have remaining, I sell. I'll give some to my gold card members. I'll allocate randomly to some fans, people who support it, people like Wallow, who may have posted, or you know, and then I sell whatever's remaining. Or sometimes I don't sell it all, but I give it the opportunity to be purchased so a fan can have some or somebody who just wants to invest.

So you basically get like an advance on royalties, and you get like the biggest marketers for your songs ever because they literally get paid if it does well. They're telling everyone about this. No one's doing that. I'll give you that. No one else is doing that. Of all the things you said, I've heard of it. I've heard of it's it's brand new. You heard of it from me. Okay, yeah. No, like that one I'll stand on. There's no way no one else started that. We've been doing this For years. Yeah. This isn't like this isn't new. We've been doing it for years. Sure. Anyone else you see is new. And you know who has a great split system as a sponsor of this episode? DistroKid. Upload your music with DistroKid. You know what I'm saying? Yes and no. Oh no, yes. I love DistroKid. I I started on distro. I started on TuneCore, but I had a lot of time with DistroKid. I built a lot of catalog with DistroKid. I made a lot of money with DistroKid, but to get to like where I am, the uh split system wasn't accommodating enough. The system in totality. But DistroKid is also like they weren't trying to be that.

They just wanted to be the middleman to enable everyone to be able to share their music. So once you get to a certain level of artistry and you need something beyond tech-wise, you you are gonna have to go to these different places to find the distro that works for you. But dude, shout out DistroKid because they they really, you know, we got the build over there, and uh we fuck with them. Hell yeah. Henry, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Shit, is this it? LaRussell. My favorite part. This is the rapid fire rampage. It's gonna be three three short sections. I'm not good at rapid fire because I really stop and think about shit. Don't. We'll we'll we'll edit it so it looks like you were. No, just no thanking LaRussell. No, but we do. Like, this is how we get to the subconscious of LaRussell, you know, the core. So um now, this is where you get canceled. Yeah. Because you say some shit you didn't think about. Since we're already canceled, fuck.

Take him down, Henry. We need to get our leverage back. Take him down, Henry. This is where we get our leverage back for sure. Yes. Part one is just some short answer questions, real simple. Let's get started. Starting with Sup. my nigga. That's amazing. Fire. LaRussell, give us three things that a struggling artist could start doing tomorrow to become more successful with their career. Practice making better songs, shoot some content, run ads. Oh, it is. Run ads using Symphony and get a uh hit the referral link in the description of this video. Good job. Good job. Thank you. I was like, something say something there. What is one of the dumbest things you bought online? Don't look at me. Gotta be something in your garage that you're like, why did I buy this?

I don't think so. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know just everything makes sense. Everything is very conscious. Yeah. Not nothing. You got the hell of equipment that you don't. Dumb shit? Okay, splash talking. But that's equipment. Like dumb shit? I mean, that's not dumb. It's like damn. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't think so. You gotta have a ticket minimum. Yeah, but that's equipment. That's like Investing. that was all necessary at some point or invested. I don't I don't I can't think of no dumb shit. Maybe. Okay. I'm just saying. an OnlyFan account. Ooh. Yeah, dumb investment. There we go. We got there. We got there. Let's just toss all the stuff he said before. And just straight to OnlyFans. As if you didn't even have to think about it. Yeah.

You didn't even have to think about it. OnlyFans. I love it. That's that's crazy. I told you we're capable of this. We got it. You know, there's a thing. They say about the media. You ever seen that picture where it's like the cameras only showing half the image and it's on the real image? That's what that is. You must work for the label. Look, we uh we got editing power, so we can make we can flip this however we want. Let's go. Oh Jesus. No, no, no, no. But let's move on. Who are three unexpected artists in your rotation right now? I haven't listened to outside music in in a minute. Oh, me, Tietta, Splash. Yeah, I I haven't really uh I don't I don't really consume outside music that much. I make so much music, or I'm always listening to beats or like some shit I make. I don't maybe like when we in the car, if Tietta plays something, you know, but I don't I don't really listen to any outside music no more. There you have it.

I need to though. I I used to enjoy that a lot. That's hella funny. I don't know. Right? It kind of helps though with it too, because I don't have a lot of outer influence with music. Like when I enter different phases, like there's always like inspiration through things I've heard like in the past, but I'm not whatever sound is the sound right now, I don't know. So I just create whatever comes to me. Yeah. Invent a sport. Nigga ball. Like we're we're so fucked. Like, how do you how do we play what? The sport. The sport you invent it. Yeah. No, I fucked around. Fellaball. Fellaball. Fellaball. Apparently that's what you know. Fellas in Paris. Oh God, how do you play it? Yeah, it's very good.

Like, I mean. Do you actually have any rules? How's it work? That's hilarious. I wouldn't make nigga ball. Okay. Did y'all did y'all see that shit with Donald Trump saying black jobs? Yeah, of course. Oh my god. Bro, that had me dying. I thought that was the funniest shit ever. Because you know, black people instant, like we taking the joke all the way. Yeah. Lots of people in my group chat, like, bro, how do I get one of them black Were those white people? Were those white people in your group, Joe? Uh no. Okay. Right. I want to know what's up. All right. That's hilarious. Let's go to this one. If animals could talk, which species do you think would be the biggest assholes? I don't know. Bro, I was gonna say kangaroo. Oh. Did you see that video of the kangaroo out there? Oh my god. Where he like kidnaps the guy's dog?

And then they're like fighting. They're so strong, and they really would be junk. They would be assholes. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I couldn't think of one. I was trying. I don't have an answer either. I know. I was like, glad I'm not on the hot seat. Something would be something would be an asshole. Yeah. I don't know. All right, we'll move on. I don't know. Foxes, maybe? Raccoon? Raccoons. Raccoons is better. Raccoon. They're so cute, too. Right? They be cool niggas too. Oh no, they get in your trash and shit. Respect. Anyway. Respect. They're hungry. I get it. You've been given the power to create a federal holiday. Let's call it something that we can say. What day is it? What's it called? How do we celebrate it? I already know what he's gonna say now. What am I gonna say? What if you know? So what popped in your mind? Shut up.

I'm turning Ben's mic off. He said, Oh, I know this one. Chicken day. God damn it. Middle is Monday. Oh man. Uh what's your holiday? What's your holiday? Um, I feel like you all offer based day. Ooh. Pay day. Proud to pay day. That's what we do at home. So I think that worked. Proud of payday. Do it on Nipsey's birthday. We do it all month for my birthday. Okay, you're yeah. No, LaRussell's birthday. Yeah. Sure. Shout out, Nip. Shout out Legacy, Legacy, Legacy. Indeed. Last one short answer. What is your favorite curse word? Nigga. I guess I should have saw that. All right. I'm really like. How many times can you say it in one YouTube video without it getting I don't know. Well, the good news is the good news is the next part is the this or that. You will get two choices that I have pre-chosen, and you have to choose one of them. He's like, don't get caught in that trap again.

Starting with drums or melodies. Melodies. Drums or flats. Drums. Hooks or verses. Verses. In studio or on stage. On stage. Classic hip hop documentary or modern rap podcast. Classic hip hop documentary. Buy you a drink, or I'm in love with a stripper. Can't believe it. So good. Meditate or skydive? Meditate. Instagram or YouTube. YouTube. Clown shoes or clown nose. Heh. You gotta wear one on stage. At your show tomorrow. That's hilarious.

God. It's question escalated, Henry. Right. I added that last part just. a minute. I will say the nose. Okay. Because at least they know you're a clown then. You come out with the big ass boots. It's just like. Boy. Give up Crocs or give up ad libs. Um, depending on the day. I don't always do ad lib, so that's right. That's why. But you know, the other one's just a shoe brand. I libs every now and then, though. Yeah. Yeah. Probably ad libs. Give up ad libs. Yeah, I can live without ad libs, but you know, Crocs is in my, that's my day to day. It's just like It's part of the brand now. I haven't found another shoe that is just as comfortable and and I could just, it just accommodates my life. It's not even about like I love crocs.

I do love Crocs, but it's like it really, the shoe really accommodates my lifestyle. Yeah. The last one of the this or that. Become a full-time country singer or leave the music industry forever. I would fuck with country. You know, I set a little task for myself to write a country song. Yeehaw brother. Yeah. Somehow, somehow sounded racist. I don't know why, but Yeehaw. a little bit. I don't know what it was. I don't know what it was either, but what was your attitude about it. I don't know. Comment down below if that was racist. The final part is the word association. I'm gonna say one word. Just give me the first word that you think of right back off the top of your head. Come on. Let's go. Starting with music. Soul child. How's it going? Family. Business. Vacation. Huh?

TikTok. You don't stop. Lawyer. Bilal. Unicorn. That's it. The chuckle. Yeah, it was a good show. Pergola. You heard. AI. Number three. Flipped that hard. Canada. Ontario. Kush. Wiz Khalifa. Crocs. Me. Lil. Russ. Good Company. Come on. Let's go, baby. What a rampage. This might be our final episode of the One More Time podcast. We could be canceled after this one. LaRussell tried his hardest to get us out of here. Apparently he's starting a rival podcast where he and This was all boy for good for free game Friday. Shout out to my supporters and my fan base.

Or as he would say...