Creating an Unforgettable Artist Brand ft. The Bashmen (Jidenna & Swanky)

Swanky always says that the measure of success is when people dress like you on Halloween. Yep. You know how privileged it is that you get to put a song out and one person listen to it. True freedom comes with structure. By studying what has been, you will not do what has been. You'll mash it up in a way that can be new. Like they just move different there, bro. I couldn't believe it. I'm like, how do y'all dance like this? Like, it's just like it's just different. Last year I dropped the album, bro. I didn't promote it. Nobody heard it. You throw a voice in 11 Labs, which is another program that can change your voice. Like I can sound like you and you can sound like him. F*** With people who f with you. One thing every successful artist has is a strong artist brand. For some, I feel like brand can be a very theoretical term. So on today's episode, we got Jidenna and Swanky, who break down every single element that's gone into launching their own new brand, an artist producer duo called The Bashmen. From their visual identity to the production of the music to the songwriting elements, we cover it all.

And what's great about these guys is they both have a proven track record of success. I mean, Jidenna is a globally recognized artist brand with hundreds of millions of streams, tours under his belt, and an engaged fan base of his own. And Swanky, even though he's a little bit more behind the scenes, I've firsthand seen him help build an artist with no following, no streams, no tours, to hundreds of thousands of followers, to millions of streams, to sold out shows. These dudes are the real deal. Get out your notepad because these guys give game you can apply immediately to your own career, whether you're just getting started in music or whether you've been doing this for years and just want to strengthen your existing brand. And with no further ado, Henry, cue the intro music. One more time. Then we do the Wombotech. One more time. Spend it, rock. Spend it, Wombotech. Take it, baby. One more time. Was that before or after your AAU career? That was in the middle of that. Simultaneously. I went straight from the gym to this uh talent show performance dressed up as a blues brother. It's a rehearsal.

That's awesome. But this isn't this isn't about me. This is about the Bashmen on the podcast. We got Jidenna and Swanky in the building. Let's go. Bro, I was so happy when Swanky hit me up and he's like, yo, I got this new thing going on. Because obviously I'm super familiar with you and your work with Kennedy Ryon one more time podcast alumni. On a fucking run right now. We'll get to that later. But um but no, so when you hit me up about this new, you know, kind of project that you've been working on with Jidenna, I was like, and it's with Jidenna? Although you could have just told me you were doing something, I would have already been like, you know, interested and been like, all right, yeah, let's let's let's try and make something happen. But yeah, when you're like Jidenna's part of it, and he's gonna be in town next week. I was like, let's fucking go. So appreciate y'all coming on, man. Appreciate y'all coming on, seriously. Thanks for having us. Even though both of y'all have been doing music, you know, for a while, right? I do think that the storyline I'd like to just, you know, kind of share with our audience is really one of like the origin story. Like you guys are pretty much starting with the Bashmen in particular from scratch.

Like you're building something organically, it's new, it's fresh. You didn't just do a collab project between Swanky and Jidenna. So it's like a very much like intentionally curated uh brand. So I just want to like dive into all the details so that any artist out there who's earlier on in their career or once again wants to start something new, I want to get some like game from you guys as far as like the conversations you had amongst each other, um, the decisions that you had to make as far as like how you were gonna bring this to life, right? So let's just start with like how did this you know, like the origin story between Jidenna and Swanky, right? How did y'all meet? Like, why why did you decide to go on this journey together? Yeah, nah, uh, so the way we met um is that uh I made a beat a long time ago in high school in my friend's living room. Um, and my friend who was an engineer played the beat for him, and they ended up sampling the song, and that was actually my first placement called Susu. Say his name.

Wow, that's my dog Zane. My dog Zane. Shout out Zane. He would hate you. That's my guy. My friend is crazy. That's my guy. That's love. Yeah, that's why you guys are such a good team. Like Jidenna's making a great case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm in the Bashmen with my friend over there. Okay. Yeah, and so that's how we met. We that's how essentially how we met. Uh, that's my first placement ever, actually. Wow. Which is really crazy. Super full circle for you then, obviously. I know. But so then, like, from first placement, you know, your beat getting sampled with the Jidenna record, to then being like, hey, we're gonna. I mean, dude, because creating an artist brand with someone, I mean, like that's like doing a podcast with someone in Jesus Christ. You better be sure. We We get it. And I'm still not sold. Yeah, yeah. but no, I mean it's a huge leap of faith that you're taking for sure together, right? Like reputations are on the line, like creative decisions are gonna, you know, you're gonna probably get into it over like, hey, it should sound like this, it should look like that. So, like, what did that look like? You're

Giving me an anxiety attack, right? I don't know if I want to do this with you. I've been meaning to say it on the car ride over. This is actually the moment that we figured out. Thank you. Rest in peace to the Bachelor. That was nice. That was nice. They had a great run. We had a good run. Yeah, yeah. Um, man. Oh, I think we thought that it would be fun to not just be um, you know, just Swanky and Jidenna. And, you know, we had some blueprints like Silk Sonic, I think. Um, and there's a lot of like producer DJ or sorry, artist producer combinations that are happening with Kaytranada and Amine. And I think we liked that. We liked seeing that it used to be like that in old school hip hop, and then they would create like a little duo name just for that project. So we said, why don't we do one of those? Yeah. And I think we used um Claude or ChatGPT to try to figure out the name. Yeah, but I I actually think we got it.

I realized when we're using FYI, which is Will.i.am's platform, and which is great if you haven't checked it out, and we're we're just tossing out ideas somewhere in that we realized, oh, what if we just take the word bashment, which you know is is like the the bomb party, Jamaican party, all Caribbeans know what a bashment is, and a lot of times it's in the basement, it's sweaty, especially growing up in New York or the East Coast, right? And we took the T off it and we were like, that's it. That's cool. The bashment. Yeah. That's fire, bro. I got chills. Me too. Thanks, man. The way he just told that, just the smallest story was epic. Um, so yeah, obviously, we'll get into AI because he's already mentioned ChatGPT in the first two minutes. It's not gonna stop. It's not gonna stop. I know I love it. I can tell. Okay. So you come up with this name, and then like, how do you then start to you know work on you know, did the music come next? Because we've got the name.

We know we want to do this thing together, right? As a collab, you know, brand and project. What happened next? Like what piece of it fell into place? So before that, before we even came up with name, um we went to Ghana together. Okay. So we went, I was part of this broke program called Birthright Africa, where you send uh people of African descent for the first time to Africa to experience it for the first time. Um, and uh he was actually one of the people on the trip, and that's um so small world, so you had no idea. Yeah, and the guy you had sent the beat to and it sampled it. Yeah, he was on this. The irony is I think we like while we were in Ghana was an anniversary of 85 to Africa. Yes, which was even more full circle. Wow, yeah, and so this was meant to be, yeah. And so we were just like talking and nerding out about like all the coolest things and like music and the way you're underselling me is crazy. Oh shit, you say more. He said, What did you say?

He was on the trip. By the way, I tend to undersell. I'm hosting the trip. I tend to undersell. I'm on the board of Birthright Africa. This is what I do. And I got And I applied. He was on the trip. It's crazy. He made it seem like he had like just gotten accepted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, this is me, guys. And he applied, and I was like, he's going. I told the board he's going. The reason you were there. That's crazy. Holy shit. It's true. He's he's like the king of uh I do that. Yeah, I do that. I know that. Under promise over deliver. That's him. He's the mascot for us. Yeah, but we really built out there. We built um uh for that 10 days in Ghana. For sure. came back, did a bunch of music. Did you do any music there? No, no, I don't think so. So just straight, straight, like getting to know each other, yeah, yeah. Living life. Living life. Living life, um, touching the soil. Yeah, we came back. We did a gang of music. Initially from my solo LP. Yeah.

But we decided to take a bundle of those and do like the easiest listening, the least serious, like not meaningless, but more like, you know, the the the carefree side of life. A good time. And we took those and we're like, let's just put an EP out because this will probably be easy. And of course, it took a year. These songs are almost done. All right, we'll get it out in 365 days. Yeah. But so even those like small group of songs, yeah. Like, was the Bashmen and the duo in mind at that point? Or was it still it was just we like these songs, we made them together. Yes. They're not gonna make your LP. Yes. We want to do something with them together. Exactly. That was it. Yeah. So I'm still missing the like the moment. Let's create this whole fucking thing. I'll tell you what it is. You ready for more AI stories? Oh yes, we want them, bro. I know some people might not want them. Begging for it.

But we want them. It's cool. I'm ready for it. Yeah. Let's do it. Because that's what everybody said about social media. And now look at us. Exactly. Facebook's never gonna be a thing. It's controlling your whole life. People said the internet was gonna be a fad. Do you even remember when Facebook had the poke option? Yeah. Y'all remember that? I remember how weird and creepy is that. Who pokes? I poked, I poked girls. I don't know about it. Wow. Wow. Pause. Am I the only one that's gonna am I the only real one on this podcast? Creep alert. To say I poked girls out loud. On Facebook. But it's a crazy statement. Whatever. I'm keeping it real. On Facebook. He's he's being honest. I get it. Thank you. Jeez. All right. Well, I didn't. I didn't poke anybody. I didn't do that. Because I just don't poke anybody in real life. Um but point being is like, you know, a few pokes and a few years later, everybody's got the algorithm is making us do things that we don't even want to do with our daily life. You know, when I when we grew up, that was not what an artist was. And now it is what it is.

And uh we have to adjust. For us, we started the year like, all right, well, what are we gonna look like? We didn't have a name or anything. And so I hopped on Mid Journey, and for some reason I don't even know. I was like, oh, I got an idea. Uh I'm gonna prompt it. It's Scottish Rasta. Like, what would a Scottish Rasta look like? Whoa. And so I just like prompted Scottish Rasta, a gang of Scottish Rastas. And Mid Journey is the AI image generator, right? For those that don't know. Yes. Um I thank you for that. Thanks, Andrew. Um for all the AI haters out there. All right. So I prompted that, and then it was a it was a bunch of men with dreadlocks and had leather jackets and kilts. And it was really cool looking. So we started building um the way you you know you build a prompt out. I'm a prompt engineer now, and so are you, you know, if anybody's looking for uh a couple prompt engineers. We are your hires. We are your guys. You can hire the Bashmen for prompt engineering too.

And so we we started building out some prompts and getting a little bit more um granular with it, yeah, and fine-tuning what it looked like, adding the the the black ties and whatnot. And after a while, we're like, yo, that actually that joke is really it's not even funny anymore. It looks kind of cool. And that to me is always a sign of a style that's gonna cut through and that's gonna work. If it's absurd but also cool, it's really gonna work. For sure. You look at the most um signature artists of our era from now all the way back for the last hundred years, it's always been a little bit absurd, and like you don't look at certain people as absurd, but Tupac was walking around shirtless and he had a nose ring and a bandana tied around a bald head. Like now, like that's normal, but in that era of hip hop, you didn't really see that. Madonna had lingerie on at a time that women didn't feel the freedom to just be out on stage like that. You know, Prince was a short guy with platforms, you know, and his butt cheeks out like Tyson in the fight.

Yeah, You know what I mean? and now Tyler the creator with his hats, and you know, recently with his his hair and that that kind of um it's like a like a triangle type of thing. Yeah, and some people are saying it's like uh is either Namibian or Zambian or somewhere in southern Africa, I think, where they they shape their hair like that traditionally. Um, so every every time it's absurd and cool, you know you got something, and so that was the beginning of the bashman aesthetic. But you removed the kilts. No, I wear it. I rock it. I had one on yesterday. Really? Yeah, yeah. But I knew I was gonna be sitting in this seat. Okay, fair. And I was like, that's not a great view. That's not the best view. A good up-kilt on Instagram, bro. Could go viral. Fucking up skirt, let's get an up-kilt, bro. Up-kilt. Wow. Oh my god. No, yeah, you definitely wear the kilts. I mean, that's that's a thing. Love it. Yeah, I just we've talked about this more recently than I think we had talked about it on the podcast for the like last three years that we've been around. Is that visual identity part?

It's something that I don't love that it's as important as it is, just like some people don't love that content creation, and how you do that is as important as it is. But like how you look and the unique style and aesthetic and the visual brand identity is just so fucking critical like y'all are do like you're showing up in uniform like I I uh Dave Blunt's giant you know large large man track suits he's got the two styrofoam cups with the track you know velor track suit uh Nasan has his um cardigan sweater exactly he's got the star little sticker on or whatever right like always in uniform and like it's it's a it cuts through it's a re like it works and it builds community and that's that's what's really cool about it because we did a uh show last night we were DJing and we saw people pull up in leather jackets and pull up right and they're looking like us like the bashman and so like that's the really cool that's the coolest part I think is like you're really building community and you're really like with a group of people experiencing something together. Yeah Swanky always sorry Swanky always says that the measure of success is for us and for any artist is when people dress like you on Halloween. Yep.

Oh was it you that I just read that from because I was about to comment that literally and I was like I saw somewhere recently that that's how you know that a visual brand identity is strong yeah is if you can dress like that person for Halloween. Yeah like post Malone talked about how the thousands and millions of people who like dressed up as post Malone right and there was like baby Malone's and whatever all these different like renditions of post Malone but same thing yeah like you know baby bashman you know I think about when we went we went to rolling loud earlier this year and um Friday was Nicki Minaj headlining day, how many people were wearing pink, dude? Like, yeah entire I mean, tens of thousands of people just had pink on, just repping that that. That's like a more general example, but it was still very powerful to see. It is. Yeah. You pick a color, you pick a texture, you pick a silhouette, and you just own it, you know, just like certain celebrities own holidays. Just pick something and put your flag on it. What's y'all's holiday? What would you think?

I think St. Patrick's Day. Wow. Is that what you're getting from all the black that we're wearing? It's more like a funeral. The kilts, but that's Scottish. Right. I didn't. I have Scottish and Irish ancestors. And that's the other thing, interestingly. Like, as a this is our fellow Jamaican right here. And Jamaicans have a lot of uh a whole history with Irish and Scotland. Yeah. So it all worked out. It did. I agree. Damn. So when it came to the music then, once we figured out that like that batch of songs that weren't gonna make his LP, they were then gonna be actually for the Bashmen. Like, how did the conversations around like what are we doing sonically? Right? Like, what did those look like? Because I think that's another place where there's a huge opportunity for artists to really craft a unique sound that's distinguishable, right? Or I can be like, hey, that sounds like the Bashman. That sounds like Tower the Creator, that sounds like whoever. And I think it's really important early on in your career too, right?

You can evolve, you can grow, you can shift genres, you can do different things down the line. But I do think like early on, if if you go back to any successful artist, you can really pinpoint like what they were doing with those early projects where they were building that like super strong core uh fan base. So, what what did those conversations look like? Talk about like how y'all were thinking about it, so that maybe some of our community can apply that to their own, you know, artistry as they're starting out. Yeah, I think we have a unique through line is the fact that we're both first generation Americans. And so that experience is really interesting because you kind of grew up American, but you also grow up in the place that you're from. I told you that was a risk. Well, hopefully you can hear best out of your right ear. We'll be right back. And we're back. I'm gorgeous. You're handsome, gorgeous. Bitch, I'm handsome. There it goes. Come on, man. Um, but what I was saying is I think there's a like a really unique through line between both of us is that we're both first generation Americans. And what's really interesting about that experience is that you feel like you grew up in these two different worlds.

Where like your parent, wherever your parents are from, you have your part of that culture. But then wherever, but in America, you have a specific culture. It's really interesting. And the what was what we were inspired by is that idea of blending these different cultures together. So when we decided to make a house project, I was like, hmm, what is the coolest thing a house? And we were talking about that as well. And the one thing that re was so relatable to at least the dance hall aspect of it from because I'm Jamaican. Yep. Um, what what uh was Chicago House? Because those bass lines are so deep, heavy and like hard. It's like dum, dum, dum, dum. Thick ass bass line. And it's like, oh, I like this. Cause I I'm from New York, but I don't I don't want to say on camera, but I don't really like New York. Chill, chill, chill. Ooh, Shots fired. I like so I I prefer like Chicago and Detroit because it has that bass heavy stuff. Sure. And so I can already tell he's gonna ask us to edit that out, bro. No, we're clipping that. What do you mean? Nah, nah, nah. He's leaving it. Nah, nah, I don't care.

Stand on it. I don't care. I'm standing. I I like Chicago, man. More than New York House. I'm sorry. There we go. Okay. Fair enough. But um, and so when we were finding those through lines, that's how we kind of create that sound where we were trying to take things from uh afro and dance hall and house and put it together and just see what could come out of it. Do you listen to music together to then get inspired? Or like how does that work? I'm always curious. Like, I know some people don't like to listen to anything and like because I don't want to be influenced by other shit, but then others Yeah, we'll we'll share songs. Yeah, we'll share, we'll share songs. It's just regions. I don't I don't think I think if you mash up more than three things, it gets confusing. Um, but if you take two to three genres and mash them up, it usually works. So that Afro dance hall in house, and then you get a little bit more granular by sharing stuff because he went to Chicago and did the research, you know. And I had lived in different parts of Africa. Then I as a board member and a host of Birthright Africa, yes, I took him to Ghana for the first time.

For sure. And so we got the Afro experience, and um, and then the dance hall was we, you know, we both grew up in Caribbean neighborhoods. Um hip hop, obviously, we're in the hip hop generation, so that's just a part, a through line of a lot of music. You know, I will say with the hip hop, we we started listening to late 80s, early 90s hip hop um to get flows from there. Like, I'm not gonna say no words, but when it's like duh, I'm a no d no b like that. And that sounds really cheesy, but when you put like uh uh Nigerian accent to it, chair man, make you go sit down. I know you did, sweet boy deep down, you know it sounds way cooler. It's just not so cool, it's way cooler, right? In a matter of seconds. So that's what fusion is. Like we'll take a flow from one genre and then we'll change the tone, and then swanky will take a house bass line, but then it's kind of dance hall all at the same time. Yeah, wow.

Wow. Yeah, so I know you're like you're a nerd about this. shit, bro. I am a nerd. You're like, He's ready for it. you're ready. I love this. So when you mentioned like you went to Chicago to re to do research. Yeah, I don't think anyone even understood like what what did you what does that actually mean? And what did you learn from your time spent there? Yeah, well, first off, I don't know if you have you ever have you guys ever been to Chicago? It's literally the one major city I've never The food is amazing. I just want to start there. The food is It's true. It's amazing. I just know that there's a giant bean. I've heard about the bean. Yeah, I've heard of it. There is a giant bean. That's true. Yeah, that's true. But I think what it's for me, if I'm making anything, yeah, it's really important to study. Um, I think if you don't know what's happened before, you're not gonna do a job of making what's happening after. Right? It's just not gonna be a thing. And so it was really important for me to be like, okay, if we're gonna do this, can let me go to the essence of where I of the house that I love and go to these parties and go next to these DJs and just listen. Like they just move different there, bro.

I I couldn't believe it. I'm like, how do y'all dance like this? Like it's just like it's just different. And it's like just uh experiencing that, you go back into the studio, like, okay, if they move that way, then that kick has to be on there, and that snare has to be on there, and that high has to be on there, and then you start getting nerdy, and you're like, oh, now I can see the parallels with dance hall and afro, and these are things that nature. So I had to go there to experience it because I did I wanted to really know what it felt like, be there and actually experience it so I can make a really good version of it. Do you think uh more people need to be studying yes than are today? Yes. Yeah. Wait, yes. okay All right, we're going to go crazier there it goes. I think the you know playing devil's advocate an argument I've heard is that people don't want once again like they want to create something new so the argument I've heard and maybe you can articulate this better than I but like I don't know who's said it on the pod but someone has said this where it's like the reason why maybe this younger generation doesn't study as much right of kind of what's come before them is because they want to kind of feel free from the I guess restraints of like knowing what's happened before so that it could like constrict their creativity. I don't know.

That's cute and very American to say yeah that is not how it works. No okay you don't like true freedom comes with structure um by studying what has been you will not do what has been you'll mash it up in a way that can be new I I don't I think that people think they're very different but they're not um I think my favorite artists that do things that are new like Teezo Touchdown for example his fusions are new because he's very well studied he knows exactly what he's like. Tyler the creator very well studied. Yeah um so I I I'm a firm I'm a nerd I'm a student um I do think there's something to be said by not knowing like your ignorance can be one of your greatest gifts because you didn't know you were doing it wrong. So I'm not like a purist like that I grew up chopping up samples to make beats, you know. I didn't learn guitar.

I I had I learned everything after I sampled. And so I you know you teach yourself as you go, but I don't I don't think like entering into anything like there's a basketball hoop outside, right? If I didn't know how to play basketball and you're like, there's this game called basketball, and I didn't study basketball, I'll be looking like a caveman trying to figure out how to get the ball on the hoop. I think I'll be a lot better if I study tape, if I study what people today, from Anthony Edwards back to Jordan back to Chamberlain, what they did. Um, so yeah, I'm I'm not a fan of that, but I do think ignorance can be a gift as well. Yeah, it's interesting. I I don't know, man. Like, just so many people have said that, but I love I I think if you if you talk to all of the people who are operating at the highest level, if they that's it. Yeah, you're talking to people, no offense. These people that have this opinion, you're talking to other people who in my mind, like, yeah, they might have had like a viral moment or something, but like you're talking, I'm talking about career artists. I'm talking about the Tyler's, the Billy's,

The freaking the best of the best, y'all. Like, they're not gonna sit here on an interview and say Billy Eilish is like, yeah, no, I don't listen to nobody. I don't listen to nobody. I just listen to myself. You just sing like that, Billy. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's weird. Yeah, that's wild. Okay, so um, let's talk about kind of the content side of of the house. Because I feel like I mean, you in particular have been, you know, witness to Kennedy, who like I said, has you know has been on the podcast. She's been crushing the content game for sure. Have you been picking up like things from are you a part of that or are you learning from like her team? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, no, what role do you play in like the content world and like I guess what have you learned about what makes successful content for music? Yeah, no, I'm a part of it. Yeah, so I know you're in the videos, but I'm like, yeah, I don't know if he's just being filmed or if he understands like what's going on here. Well, the main person who is killing it there is Kosh. Yeah. Kosh is killing it. He's doing amazing there. And I don't want to take credit for anything that he's doing. But I'm also a part of it.

So this is a very small team, and I'm learning. I'm also I'm learning and also inputting uh what the content should do. So like there's times I'm like, oh, we should do this, and it just we do it, and stuff like that. So we always go back and forth. So when it was time for uh this, I kind of already knew the play. Yeah, I was like, oh yeah, we did this before. This is easy. This is it's the same thing. Yeah, yeah. As well. Some of my favorite content is just the simple, it's just in studio stuff that is happening during sessions, which like everyone stresses about like what type of content should I make? It's like do what you're already doing and just turn the camera on, you know what I mean? And then maybe you have like a giant block of stuff where there's nothing that that's that's that good. But if you hit one thing, you know, that could be like an interesting little tidbit, like the chair squeak. Oh, I know clip. Yo, the comments dying, bro. The comments were going crazy. I love that post. Yo, They're telling me to get a booth, they're telling me to get some WD 40. I'm like, bro, bro, that means it's working though.

Yeah, I was so into it. It's remarkable. You're able to make a remark. Yes, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, that was what remarkable means. Yeah, right. last time I checked, yeah. I'm actually today years old, finding out that's the meaning of remarkable. when you think about it, it doesn't just mean great, like exactly able to be remarked on. I thought it did. So, how are I mean, like, were you on board with content, or were you uh so last year I dropped the album, bro? I didn't promote it, nobody heard it. Um, I was not on board last year. Okay, I I was fresh off a major label. I'd taken two years to get off, feeling empowered as an independent artist. I was like, yeah, no, I'm off the plantation. Look what I'm gonna do. Look what I'm everybody's gonna love it. Man, I didn't know how to do none of that shit. Uh and I so what I did this year, I was very keen on learning and figuring out how I was gonna do content. And so my contribution, I think Swanky's been great because he's taught me via Kosh, via Kennedy, and via his own channel how to do some of the content that I quite frankly don't enjoy, which is it is the studio content.

It is like the lo-fi, the it is what TikTok eats up. Um, but what I wanted to contribute was the AI generated content. Um, so we all the comic book stuff we we we edit manually as well, but it's a lot of it, probably 90% of it is AI generated. And sometimes the photo photo realistic content that looks like fans are not actual fans. And so we generate those people too. Um so everything from like artistic stuff to uh things that look like TikTok or look like influencers down to the comic books, which I I think that's our favorite. The comics are fun. The comic books, the comics are are great. Um so that's that was my I I started it because of that mid-journey, and then I like got in a rabbit hole. I was like, Swank, we gotta do this, we gotta use it. Whoa. So what platform are you using to generate the comic book stuff? Um runway. Um I we've used a lot.

Uh I'd say runway, uh Pika Labs at one point, Luma, uh Dream Machine, but mostly runway these days, I'd say. And then we use Premiere or CapCut or both sometimes. Um, there's some benefits to CapCut and benefits to Premiere for sure. After Effects, uh, you know, the whole thing. So, what do you input into the you know first few platforms you mentioned? Like, you know what I mean? Like, just walk through from a prompt engineer. like what's the process to get the type of clip that we see as the end result? So it starts with like say we had a um a style that we really enjoyed um from I don't know, we looked at uh uh teenage mutant ninja turtles or some comic like that. Sure. Um you can go on mid-journey and put backslash describe, and it will like deconstruct what the elements of that style is. And then you take those words.

So it'll, you know, it might say 2D vector art, you know. Um, I'm not gonna give I I don't even know what I would say with a teenage mutant ninja turtles. But you take those words and then you input it, and maybe you say two guys in leather jackets, and then you use those words from the aesthetic to prompt, and you get a still a bunch of four still images. You don't really like them, so you vary them, and you keep varying until you get an image. And from there, you take that into runway and you animate that still image so it moves, but you prompt how it moves. So two leather guys or two leather jacket wearing guys with berets sitting on a couch. Now they're they are holding a microphone and moving back and forth. And then you run that like 10 times, take that, upscale it, which just means to make it uh crisper and more clear, because it's usually blurry because it's animating a still image. And then that's just one clip. You do that over and over again until you have a 30-second clip.

Yep. Put the voice over, we act out all the voices with our own voices. You throw a voice in 11 Labs, which is another program that can change your voice. Like I can sound like you and you can sound like him if you want, or we can sound like women if we want. And so we we do voiceovers, lip sync them to all the characters, and voila, we have like a 30-second piece. So it's a lot of work. How much time goes into let's say a 30-second clip, would you say? Bro, it depends on the complexity. Let's talk about just the most complex one you've done. How about the how about the Spotify um, I forget what it's called, but with the little like canvas? Yeah, the canvas. Oh, that's pretty quick. Yeah, that that that's like five seconds or something. Yeah, that that'll be in under an hour now. Like that's easy. Okay. Um, because it's like what, eight seconds? Yeah, eight or something. That's easy. But to make a 30-second clip, um, I've I've done that in like a day, but I've also taken like a week. Or sometimes if you don't sit down at that computer and just go in, it can take you weeks.

Yeah. But it's also it's also art too. So like it's subjective, and you can constantly be making it better and better infinitely, and you gotta just call it done at some point, right? And there's also a moment where you work on it all night. Yeah, we were talking about that earlier. You work on it all night, and you're like, this is perfect. And then you wake up and then you wake up in the morning. Oh no. And that shit is ass. Well, you send it to people and they don't respond. Isn't that the worst? Oh my god. When you send something and no one oh no one texts you back. Left on read. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that hurts. Hurts us. We do it because we love it. Yeah. Uh we enjoy it. We've always wanted to be in the field of animation. We love anime and animation and and comic books. I love comic books. this is our, you know, our like novice entry point. But I'm taking an AI animation course with Curious Refuge in December. So I'm learning how to animate more, I guess, better than I than I am now. Yeah.

So how's AI playing into the music at all? We have used it to score some of the comic books. So like we'll take our original song and put it in Suno or Udio and it'll we'll remix it. So say we want it to be like uh Bitch I'm Handsome, for example. We took that and put it in and made it a dub reggae version of it, and then we put that under a clip that we had. So we're using it more to kind of remix and score. Okay, so we know Jidenna's like Captain AI, but just from your perspective, right? How are you open to it from like a music creator perspective? How do you feel about it when it comes to actually making the music? That's a good question. I mean, if it's coming to make, I don't feel the type of way. I feel like people should use the resources that they can to make the music that they want to. I don't, I'm not a stickler when it comes to like, oh, you should only use this, you should only use that.

You know what I mean? Just do what you want to do and make things that feel authentic to you. Like I is it it kind of reminds me of how people talk about Splice. Yeah, They'd be like, I don't want to use Splice. Like, bro, just make the things that feel cool and do something that's authentic to you, and that's fine. Yeah. I don't care about how you make it. Just make it. Yeah, I think my, you know, I guess comparison would be like, oh, really? You don't like technology? Then why don't you get a live session player to play the drums? Yeah, and record record to tape and go back. The keys, The strings that you are. so- Did you record that snare yourself? Exactly. Did You play it. Yeah. Right. So that's kind of where I go immediately. Is like, let's not like be on this holier than thou tip. Well, there's also like the issue of ethics. So there's a bunch of visual artists not getting paid. There's a bunch of musicians not getting paid. I've generated things in Udio, and I'm like, yo, that's my voice. It'll just pop up in the middle of, you know, a prompting, and you hear your voice, which is a trip. That's crazy.

Like if you if you try to make an Afrobeat song right now, nine times out of 10, Burna Boy's voice is gonna be somewhere in there. That's crazy. So that is he getting paid? Not yet. Will he? Yes. We have the same issue with samples. So early hip hop, like we loved it. Like we go back and listen, we're like, wow, but guess what? Them samples were not cleared. No. But it was a great genre. And now it now they're cleared. So I think we can sort through the ethics, and I believe in that. You kind of have to take a leap. Same thing with like uh people talk about um uh the it then it hurts the environment because each generation uses so much energy from the earth. I don't love it. But the first computers, you had to walk in an a building to use it. It was a building. Yeah, that's the first computers. Now it's you know in your pocket. So we can figure out how to make this a more efficient system. Um, but we have to use it and then we'll get better and smarter as humans. By the way, what's the sample in in Bitch I'm Handsome?

And there's like a background thing I know I've heard before. Isn't there no? I don't remember. No samples in there? I don't think maybe they're like, you talking about like the little sound effects or something in the background, like a higher tone. Yeah. I don't know, you having all them little Yeah, I don't know if I sample it. Did you just fucking put them on blast? Just say yes. Well, no, it's probably like a a sound like a sample pack. Maybe maybe that's what It's not a it's definitely not like sample from a song? No. No. No. We don't we stay away. Yeah, too much money has been taken away. I feel that. yeah, they'll take it off. 50%. I know I was about to say the same thing. Wow for the hi hat. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's crazy. Wow. Let me take a moment to interrupt this episode and tell you about our friends over at DistroKid. DistroKid is easily the best DIY distributor on the marketplace. Let me tell you why. It's only $23 a year. That's less than two bucks a month for you to upload unlimited music to all of your favorite streaming platforms on the planet.

It's so easy that it takes me like five minutes per upload, and that's when I'm multitasking, dealing with my two-year-old son. Hands down, my favorite part about DistroKid is how easy it is to add credits to an upload. I don't know what distributor you're using, but with DistroKid, it's super easy. You can put the artist, the producer, the songwriter. I'm pretty sure you can put like the junior associate engineer of a song. And me, I I want to know who's on the record. And if you sign up using this link, you're gonna get 30% off an already insanely low price, and you can finally start adding your collaborators because they are checking. They will notice when their name's there and they will thank you for doing it. Let's get back to the episode. What do you think? Okay. How are you feeling specifically? Because like you mentioned obviously being in like the major label deal and then coming out of that, and then now you know, launching this project. Like, like there's gotta be some level of just like feeling rejuvenated and like excited to like just know last year. I wanted, I was like, Man, I missed the majors. At the end of the day, I was like, Okay, so what did you miss?

Uh money, um that's fair. Yeah, uh exposure. Like you release and people see it. It's like it felt more guaranteed that like you're you were gonna at least reach some people. It's not like you're gonna win, but you'll reach. But what I love now is the amount that I make per the per dollar. Like, I I feel like before it was like 40 cents per dollar. I mean, now it's much higher. Double probably it oh, yeah. Yeah, it's easy, like I and we do a lot of work ourselves, so we're not hiring a bunch of people. I told them very early, like labor fees are so expensive. Um, so as much as we can do ourselves, and we do most of the most of the work ourselves, alongside Gillian, who I mean, Gillian Williams, she's amazing. Got Gillian in the building. She's an A&R God, like so many people would be lucky to have her. She's done so much work.

Uh Cree, Cree, Aaron, uh, Mikhail, Zane. So we have a great team. Um, but they they know that we also put in a lot of work ourselves to eliminate costs. But I love controlling my life, commanding my destiny, controlling my time is the most valuable asset that humans have and life forces have, and I get to have it as an independent artist. If I was on major right now, it's like just nonstop running, don't even know why I'm places, money going out the door. You don't know why the labels spending money on different things. So I love that. So now doing the kind of like independent thing, right? Like, do you think that there are some artists who are you know really cut out for the major label system versus those that can do what you're doing now? Yeah, I think I I think that some are better on labels. I think that most of the major label artists could not be independent. Yeah. Mm. Um, they've been pampered. Um, I know the life.

Like, they they have no idea what it takes to be independent. Um, I have so much appreciation for some of the actually, I was just with him recently, James Blake, who is is independent now, and every literally every group or company that we meet with, James has been there. They're like, oh, I just saw James like a month before. So he's really running that that track and trying to be a better uh independent artist, and I respect him. We had a few beers um in LA um a while back, and he was just saying how how much he's he's he's so much happier and content now. And I think that that's probably the thing that I feel the the is the greatest gift for me. I'm content. I had a lot of success and I was not happy. Um and he knows even being jaded uh last couple years, so I'm very happy to find contentment. Yeah, James did the big like kind of direct to consumer, direct to fan model. He seems to be a big, yeah, exactly.

You know, he seems to be a big proponent of that. Right. How do y'all feel that's gonna play into your you know business model, right? Because I know Kennedy seems to be pretty up on like the direct to fan engagement and business models. That's something y'all are gonna adopt as well. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And and it's even there's another layer to it where we're just we just want to connect with the people. Uh I don't we don't want to be too cool. We don't want to do the whole so We want to really be with the people and really like give it to them, you know what I mean? Like give them, give them uh the music. Poke them. You know, that's the first thing I thought about when I said that. I thought I saw you freeze. Poking. It's because I thought of the Facebook shit. Callback exactly. That's why. I mean, that's the only thing you should think. I don't know why else you'd think of poking someone. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. Nah. So what does connecting with the people look like in practice, though? Right?

Because I think that's like community building, engaging with the fans. These are all like very theoretical. Nonprofit terms. I mean, it's just shit that like a lot of people say, even like these music business gurus and shit, where it's like Connect with the person. Yeah, connect with the fans, build around. But like, what the fuck does it look like? Right? Like, how are you doing it? Because I think that's another thing. We're even trying to figure out how we can do a better job of that, right? Because I mean, you know, it goes for podcasters too. Any any person trying to build a brand, like, you gotta do that, right? But so what are y'all doing specifically, you think to execute against that kind of high-level um strategy? Spikey was very a big proponent of the IG channel that you set up for us um with the Bashmen to talk and DM and update fans. So there's some tools already built into things that we use. Is that the broadcast? Yeah, the broadcast channel. Thank you. Um, you can see I didn't set it up.

Um, but there's a there, there are a few platforms right now that allow you to to be even more engaged. They're escaping my mind because we haven't used them yet. Um you don't remember them either. No, that's why well, we're gonna call the Russell after and we'll get back to it. Yeah, yeah. But on a lower level, it's uh what I've been experiencing is just actually talking to people. Like DMs, yeah. Like, like if you're commenting, just comment back. Just talk to the people who appreciate you and like appreciate your work. It's the smallest things. And I trust, bro. I be I respond to a lot of comments, and I'll be up for hours. And I'm just in it, like, thank you. I appreciate that. And I really do mean that. And I really do want to interact with people because the support is amazing. You know how privileged it is that you get to put a song out and one person listened to it. Just one person. That person has so many options of things to do. Exactly. And that's what that's what exactly what I was about to say. Think about it.

Someone turns on the, someone stopped listening to Kendrick Lamar. Yeah. To listen to you. Yeah. That's that's that's someone stopped listening to Taylor Swift to listen to you. This is this is why I'm happy I'm here because I he helps me, he reminds me of that. Yeah. I'm not thinking that. I've never felt, you know, when the teacher's like, even if you change one life, it's enough. Yeah. That side is bullshit. Fucking bullshit, bro. I still feel that way, to be honest. Like, hell the fuck. No, that's not what I was built for. Yeah. Reach one person. What kind of motherfucker am I? I'm I'm here to reach billions. I so I never felt that. I've always had the the desire and ambition to reach billions, and I wasn't grateful enough. That's the reality. So being around Swanky has helped just ground me and be like, bro, this is amazing. This is a moment. People like it. Look at this.

Look at how they last night. We did an amazing show at El Malo, and Swanky had a great set for Channel Orange. Um, shout out to DJ Hourglass. The goat. So we we were out there and he's like, yo, do you want to see the clips? I usually don't. I'll be I'm that guy. Like, I don't want to engage. I don't want to be on social media. I have social anxiety on social media. It's just a sea of envy that I feel, and I'm like, it's too much. But he's been helping me really just get over those humps and those hurdles so I can connect, so I can't appreciate now. So thank you, man. It sounds like you guys do a great job of kind of balancing each other out, right? Like where he might lack, you kind of pick up the slack and vice versa. Yeah. What are some things that y'all like have disagreed on throughout this process? Because I think it's not gonna be all sunshine and rainbows, right? Especially when you're talking about like a creative business endeavor. I mean, we get into it. I mean, like it some of our best conversations have like our arguments to the outside.

Yeah, for sure. So, like, what's an example of something y'all kind of not seen eye to eye on? Obviously, I'm sure it's respectful, right? But just in general, what's something y'all kind of disagreed on recently? First off, you're trying to break us up, and I see it. So we already broke up like five minutes into this. Yeah, you're trying to do it twice. I don't know why you why are you doing this? Um I just said that y'all balance each other out really well. I think what's really interesting about our relationship is that anytime we disagree with something, we actually like talk through it. So like there's like this time sometimes there's like it's a strategy thing. And what I do appreciate about you, because you said something nice about me, so now I'm gonna say something nice about you. Thanks. Is that it never feels like there's like a hierarchy of some sort in our group. We just actually just talk it out, and he's very open to changing his mind. Even if you feel strongly about it, you're like, but and I talk through the strategy. I'd be like, but nah, I I hear you, but let me tell you all these things, and I'll bring up all these examples. He's like, This, okay, that's fair.

Yeah. Hey, I what I uh what I appreciate about you is that you're not, I know I can come off uh strong sometimes, strong willed. I'm a Taurus, I definitely have a bullhead. And but it actually, I don't think that I'm right. I just want you to argue that you're that there is a right way. You want to be convinced. I want to be convinced. That's a better way of saying it. If if I say we should go left, the winds are pushing west. The current is going west. It's the easiest way to get west. And you're like, no, no one's going east, so there'll be no traffic. Okay. You're right. Yeah. And that's kind of our relationship. And then, and then what the biggest thing is is that we understand that our intention is to succeed. That's key. So regardless if we disagree on a strategy. There's a north star. I don't want to see him fail. He doesn't want to see me fail. Yeah. Yeah, because there's also not a right answer. Exactly. Right, right. If it was, y'all would have already got the course, bought bought the course, bought the book. Everyone would be doing it.

Exactly. So it's also like that's what we get into it. We're like at the end of it, we're like, I don't actually fucking know what's right. This is just why, to your point, just explaining where you're coming from, right? So that then we can be like, all right, you know, you can have this one, that's fine. Sure. You know, I'll get the next one, maybe where like we might not be seeing on the exact same page. Yeah. I think one thing specifically, because I know you want the juice. You want it to be juicy. Juice. Yes. We need flicks. It would. I think recently it was just like we we talked about speed of releases. Yeah. So like I wanted to do a Rust model and like early Rust, where he's just like dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping. And I think you were like, let's give some space for the song and give enough content per song. Right. Um, and I think you were right about that. So we gave enough space for the first single. Now we're releasing the second one. Um, and I also realize realize realized this, and I think it's important. Sometimes you want to do with a with a group what you should just do alone. Maybe that's my 2025.

I mean, maybe that's what I do with my song. Yeah, Jidenna is dropping every week. Jidenna is dropping every week cause he didn't drop enough for the last nine years. Well, finally, Jesus. Maybe we can hear more of them. and hear why people like him. And and for you, you're like, nah, man, space, space, space. So I that's I think a huge lesson that people don't know when they get into group settings is man, that's you. That's your idea. That's not for the group. Just go on and do that, you know, uh yourself, and you'll feel a lot better. You know what I mean? Than like trying to force something that that's not gonna work with the group. Yeah, for sure. That's fire. Well, Bashman, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Oh shit. Oh. My favorite segment. Oh no. Starting. Uh-huh. I don't know. Oh, I'm sitting there. I kind of like it. Oh. It is gonna demand the full attention. This is the rapid fire rampage.

Oh, coming to you live. It's usually with one person, so I've kind of customized it to work. with both of you gentlemen. Oh, that's very nice with both of you gentlemen. It's a three-part rampage. The first part is just some short answer questions. I'll indicate if it's for one of y'all, either of y'all, or both of y'all. Okay. Let's start with the short answer section. I love the Archers. You caught the first one. That comes from Archer. Oh, yeah. Fucking student of the game. Love me some Archer, though. Thank you, man. It's such a good show, bro. Hello. No one's ever, I think. recognized. A Class acts. Thank you for that. This first one is for either of y'all on a scale of one to ten. Rate Ben as an interviewer. Oh, 11. Let's realistically, though. Why not? Well, it was on a scale of one to 10. That's the first reason. Wrong. All right. Well, yeah, eleven. Eleven it is. Yeah, we're gonna stop there. Eleven. We're gonna stop there. We're not gonna go to Swanky's answer. He was looking at me. like. Let's keep it there. That was kind of bullshit. I was getting critical here.

I'm not gonna lie. I was like, hmm. He was like, I've studied Zane Lowe. This isn't on Apple Music. I love that. Um, this I'd love to hear an answer from both of y'all. What is something early on in your careers that clicked and then things really started moving? What was a moment that happened? Oh, yeah. You looking at me? Okay, cool. Uh uh for me, what clicked was um be memorable in in how you dress and just be have a signature style uniform. That's it. Sorry. Rock a uniform, it'll cut through the hodgepodge nature of IG. Huge. Uh, I would say mine is building and not chasing. Ooh. Yeah. That I unpack that a little bit for a long time. Like, okay, so I remember, and I got this advice from actually Nana Nana Kwabena, who is a fire producer, and also is your exact who is executive producer. I see.

You see, I wasn't gonna downplay at that time. Executive produced mad. Was he on the birthright trip? Was he on the board as well? He was on, he was actually, yeah, no, but as executive producer for many of your projects. Yes. And he was a mentor of mine, actually. Yes. Um, and he was talking about this idea of building, not chasing. And I think for a lot of producers specifically, you try to always get the big placement. Like, oh, I need and you you hear it all the time as producer, and you're a producer as well. So you know, hey man, Rihanna needs a song. You need to send 10 songs, and they go to a folder that no one knows, and she's never gonna hear it, and she's gonna work with the people that she's been working with before. So imagine if you could just build that for yourself and you like lock in with an artist and you're like, yo, let's create something together. It's way more sustainable. And so, like, I I prefer building, and that's what my whole career is about. If you see my what I've done, it's with the same people. Yeah, I haven't actually done much more out of that, and like that, that's been like really helpful. And the moment that I stopped doing that, changed my whole mom.

I like this rapid fire segment. This is good. I have another one. This is nice. I have another one. No, they're giving us time. I like the space. I want to give you one more, and it's what someone something that Mark B said to me. Fuck with people who fuck with you. Fuck you mean you don't know DJ Mark B. You know what I'm saying? That's that's that those are the two. Those are two. Yeah, but but so on on like the you know, build not chase. How do you I feel like it gives me anxiety to think like you're really hedging your bets here for sure? Like, so what did you see in the people that you're committing? hold on? Can I get it's literally my next question? Oh, it is. Can you just that's my second shit. Moving on. See, same same team here. Same team. This next question is for Swanky. Okay, that's me. And it's already written down. I'm not making this up. Uh, what do you look for in artists? Slash what can artists be doing to find dope producers to really lock in with. Yeah, okay. First off, I want to say that Ben asked that question. Oh, yeah, exactly.

So that was that was very unprofessional. The 11 out of 10 interviewer. I mean, I'm just wow, I don't know what your number is now. Not 11. I think I try to find anytime I work with people, I try to find interesting things that I would listen to and like, and just like, and it doesn't matter to me, like their numbers or all those different things. Cause even when I met Kennedy, Kennedy had 500 followers. She wasn't, I mean, even when we interviewed her, she had maybe had like one viral moment at that point, and like so she was, you know, had more than 500 followers. But when she sang to me, I was like, this is Amy Winehouse. Yeah, I love Amy Winehouse. And so it's like those little things where you can find interesting things in people, and then also I listened to people's stories, and I tell myself, can I convey? Can I be the mirror to them to convey the story the most the proper way? Because there's times that there's artists who are really dope, but I can't tell your story, and I know I can't, so I'm not gonna do that. Right.

So it's like, can I tell your story? And can I convey it in a way that's beautiful and that people can that's interesting and fun? And then also like I I enjoy listening to you, and I enjoy like what you do. So be yourself, yeah. No, for sure. It's not about the quality of the mix, no, or the numbers. Not really, I don't care. So so what would you say Kennedy's story is that you're helping her tell right now? I think it's it's just about healing for her, right? It's it's it that's what all it is. It's it's it's a journey of healing and growing into the person that she wants to be. For a long time, she was in an abusive relationship, yeah. And you know, her confidence was down. If you told the first session that I had with Kennedy, she I don't want to get too personal because I want to protect her in that way. Sure, but there it was very emotional, and it was very hard to get over the first hurdle of just recording, right? And so, like, I had to create that safe space that she can like open up and like really get the songs out, and now we built something that is always safe and it's always like a great environment to do it in. But it's just like those are the things that like I want to be very intentional about and like be like, okay, I think I can tell your story because I I believe you I believe you and I believe what you're saying, and that mattered to me.

Yeah, man. So good. so good. So you're yeah, you're definitely looking for authenticity too. For sure. yeah, I mean it's gotta be oozing out almost. Yeah, because I and also I don't want to make songs that everyone else is making this boring. True. I like I like different perspectives. Yeah. Well, this next one is for Jidenna. What is your best piece of advice for newer artists to kind of level up their music? Like, what are some problems you're seeing? How can they make the music better? I think the goal of great artists, I can't speak to like good artists, I'm not really a fan, but great artists um and are always on the search to create something that didn't exist before. Um, so just ask. Ask not your friends, ask just haters, ask strangers, ask people on the internet. Is this something new that has not existed before? And I think that's how you get great. Um, it'll suck at first, but it'll be great ultimately. You have some thick skin for yo, heavy on the don't ask your friends part, yeah.

Yeah, oh I never trust it. Yeah, Swank it out, we'll talk about it. I'm Like, who would you play it for? Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, I because like they mean well with their non sincere answers, but it's not helpful. It's not this next one's for either of y'all. Describe the typical order of operations for making a song. Are we doing lyrics? Are we doing beat? Are we starting from scratch? How are these songs coming about? Um usually it comes from moments. Like for for like I'm just like, even for bitch, I'm handsome. I'm walking in Chicago and I'm like, I'm gorgeous. Cause I am. It's true. You are. And thank you. That's why he gets 11. You see, this is why I agree too. This is why you get to the biggest. But you're you're slow. See how quick I was too. You're damn right. Yeah. But it just comes from moments. Like you live life. I think to be a proper artist, and I'm saying proper in a dance hall form. Um it's just it's about living life.

You have to live life and tell the stories. Like go outside, kiss the girl, smell the flowers. But then so that specific that moment happened and that created an idea for a hook. Yes. Where to go from there now? You have a hook. Are you you go to the beat next? Yes. So usually, usually for uh if I'm writing the song, it's usually lyrics, then beat. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But also like I be hearing music in my head sometimes. So like the beat is kind of already in there. Mm-hmm. And I'm just it's already being fleshed out, and I'll be walking the street like mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. and then I make those noises and then it kind of like slowly forms. Yes. Yeah. I I think so I produce as well. I didn't produce on this project, but I produced a lot of uh records, some of the records that people know me for, I was one of the hands in on the wheel, especially right next to Nana. Um I think what we've done is we have a list of song concepts and just like a long ass list. I've sent you this multiple times of just song concepts and song titles, and then I just make beats and I throw the paint at the wall.

So if we if it if the song concept is like two men on a couch, you know what I mean? I don't know, that's what I came up with. It's right there, yeah. Two men on a couch, right? And I just got it. I'll make a beat Now, I'll actually make like five beats and just throw the phrase two men on a couch on on a beat, and usually it sticks on one of them. Yeah. I actually wanted to stop you there because you are underselling. I am because you did produce on the project. On this one? Yes, you sure did. You produced on a lot of the songs. I did. Jidenna is a talented producer. Has he heard the final album yet? So I just wanna catch him on that. What songs are coming up? Oh, you're right. He's a very talented producer, and he also was very influential on all the Sonics on the project. Yeah. So I did. I forgot. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Thank you. That Fez is too tight. I can't beat the Fez. You can't beat the Fez. This next one is for both uh the Bashman can choose any one artist and any one producer, alive or dead, to do a collab album with. I think maybe we'll have you choose the producer and you choose the artist.

Go ahead, bro. Yeah. Producer, artist. Alive or dead? That's a good question. I know. Alive or dead, huh? Anybody. Quincy's in the mix. Rest in peace of legend. You know, I was thinking, uh oh, okay. I know. Producer, Neptunes. Ooh. Can we give him a group? That's fine. Okay. Oh, Neptunes. Ooh, that's tough, man. Who's the artist? Dude, does it have to match match with the Neptunes? I actually would prefer if it didn't. Bob Marley. Okay. Bob Marley over the Neptunes. Oh. What would that be? That's nasty. The world might be a better place. That would be crazy. That would be Crazy. That sounds like a good prompt for uh GPT. Mid-Journey or whatever. Yeah. Yo, Bob Marley on the Neptunes? Yeah. I like it. I like it. This next one is for either of y'all. Who would win in a fight? Jeez. That's tough. You're really trying to break his up for real.

Yeah, that was a legit attempt. Swanky, Swanky used to actually box. Yeah. Ooh. So I might give it to him. I wouldn't put hands on him at all. Because I'm not familiar. I know. Yeah. Theoreticals, guys, theoreticals. But yes. But you can't. But I'm I used to box. But I'm here. That was funny. I love it. Well, okay. All he said was I used to box. That was his way of not commenting. And then I said he used to. Yeah. Yeah. Come in. So this last one I need an answer from both of y'all. Last one of the short answer. What is your favorite curse word? Fuck. It's so agile. It's so beautiful. Moves around. Yeah. Bumbleclap. Ooh. Part one. Part one. Part one. Wasn't too rapid, but these next parts will get a little more rapid. This is the this or that section. I'm gonna give one of y'all two choices. You just have to pick one.

I'm gonna do a little back and forth here. We'll start with Mr. Swanky. Just because sometimes those short answers need a little bit of, you know. What I mean? Well, especially if you're here. Well, I know, but you love to add to the juice. Can I get the juice? You're right, you're right. If the juice is flowing, I'm not gonna stop the juice. Don't stop the juice. I could never. So here we go. Starting with drums or melodies? Drums. Hooks or verses. Hooks. Stock plugins or third party. Third party. Morning session or night session? Night session. Discover new artists or binge your favorites. Binge. Meditate or skydive? Skydive. Ego by Kennedy Ryon or B I H by The Bashman. Motherfucker. B I H by the Bashman. Gotta do it. 85 to Africa or the Chief? Ooh, 85 to Africa. Cats with hats or dogs with shades? Dogs with shades. Permanently speak in all permanently type, excuse me, in all caps forever, or permanently speak with auto tune. Ooh, permanently type with all caps. Either way, he's like that annoying guy.

Yeah. Part two. Bro, you were going so fast you couldn't even keep up with yourself. I know. It was the fastest part two ever. I almost nailed it. That was beautiful. You were killing it. You were on a run, bro. There's no room for context. I'm not gonna lie, my anxiety raises literally I was just like we've done 220 plus episodes. That was the most intense of a part two rapid fire. I started pinching my left thigh. No, Seriously. When you run it back, I was just pinching. I think I held my breath the whole time. I didn't breathe that whole time. Well, the best part is that the last section is probably the most anxiety-ridden section of all. It is word association. I'm gonna go back and forth again. I'm just gonna say one word, and y'all are gonna give me the first word that you think of off the top of your heads. Out starting with swanky. Sorry, your word is music, communication, music, language, bass, hard, microphone, sing, Jamaica. Where am I from Fire. Nigeria, Lagos, Politics, TikTok.

Wow. Yep. That works, yeah. Absolutely. Kush. Orange. juice. Great mixtape. Rolex. Watch me now. Love. Love. Gen Z. Millennial. Goat. Me. Cryptocurrency. Not Doge. Cartoon. Wolverine. Lil. Jadena. And this last one is for both of you. Stay. Rude. Let's go. What a rampage. What a rampage. Your favorite Bashmen. That was hard. Man. Appreciate y'all coming on the podcast. Really excited to see where you guys can take this project together. So uh I'll be on the lookout for all the singles rolling out in the full length project. Yes.

Which we can expect top of the year. What are we doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Top of the year. Let's go. 2025, baby. There it is. One more time podcast, The Bashman. Like, comment, subscribe, do all that shit. Let's go. Till next week, Henry. What are we doing? Getting out of here. Getting out of here. Peace, y'all. Stay rude, bro. Stay rude.