Curtiss King: Why The King of DIY Took His Music Off Streaming Platforms

There used to be a time where you had to kiss and play politics to get on the platform. Now you get to have your own platform. People are like, you can't do that. You gotta disrupt the listener experience. You know who doesn't care about that? Coca-Cola and Sprite when they pop up on your Spotify ass. Replace the word branding with reputation and replace content with how do I get visibility? Be f***ing good. If I have a 10-track album, I have a hundred pieces of content. I start it myself because nobody's coming to save me. There's nobody in the music industry who embodies the DIY or do-it-yourself movement more than Curtiss King. While some may just see a rapper on the surface, this guy's actually touching every aspect of both the creative and business halves of his career. We're talking about recording, producing for himself, mixing, mastering, filming, editing, marketing, admin work, sales, accounting, everything in between. He's there. He's even named his community of supporters, the DIYers, and reps them proudly on his shirt in today's episode. We kept the conversation revolved around why an artist should actually consider the DIY approach, the actual systems and tools that he uses to accomplish all these jobs and wear all these hats.

And why the hell he made the bold decision to take all his music off of streaming platforms and completely embrace this direct to consumer approach. It's wild, but it's working. And it could work for you. If you're the type of person that's groaning and miserable about every new job that you have to do, this might not be for you. But if you enjoy taking on new adventures and you like being in control of your own narrative, you might just be a DIYer. Let's get it started. High level, you said treat your music like it's not for everybody and watch how you start creating music that attracts the right bodies. Right. Just like that. Like there was more to the clip, but that was like the bar that, you know, came in high. That was all I had to hear to be like, all right, this might be worthy of going on our page. Yep. well, hundreds of thousands of other people thought the same because they viewed it. Um that was really good to see because I'm a fan of his work and what he does. Mike shared it. Okay, that was the Mike shared too.

Okay, sweet, sweet. So can you break that down? Like, I I do want to just elaborate on that clip because it was so popular, not only for your audience, but also for ours. Let's like, just let's digest that. Let's let's let's break it down a little bit. Right. So I made this comment about, you know, your music is not meant for everybody. Uh, but if you're making the best version of that, uh, it will attract the right bodies. I I thought about this as I was returning to reprioritizing my music over content because I've been an artist for now, artist and producer for 20 years. And even the majority of my content was leaning in on, you know, things that I was that I did as an artist and producer, and then my new career became content. But as I came back to it, just to give you context, I started to recognize how many lies that I felt like I've been told by execs, how many lies that I feel like I've been told by my peers, how many things I just chose to believe because I thought it was a normal thing. And one of those was you know, you need a million fans to really make a legitimate living at this.

Uh, you need to make music for different segments of group if you want to be strategic and competitive. And the question that I felt nobody was asking in that moment was competitive with whom and to achieve what? And as an independent artist in 2024, there's so many things at arm's length, right? There's so many tools, even through the utilization of like ChatGPT, which I use all the time, uh, that give me what they told me was my biggest handicap, which was if you don't have a team, you can't succeed. Well, now with Canva, now with ChatGPT, uh, I have freelancers. I have, you know, uh those that I pay a subscription for, and those are pretty much part of my team, my team members for whatever my needs are graphic design for strategic planning of social media. I have that. So then that came back to the music. So then ultimately, who are you making the music for? Well, when I think about it, then it's like, well, of course, first of all, it's you, because you're the first person that is going to judge it and filter it.

But when you make the best version of what you can do and not your best impersonation of what's popular, the people who need to come to you, whether that audience is ultimately capped off at 5,000 people, I think too many people are underestimating that as independence of what that could mean. Right. Um, I'm sure we'll talk about this, but I I did a project when I first decided to take my music off of streaming and went direct to consumer. I did it through even. And 135 people accounted for $4,000 worth of sales. How many streams would you need for that? A million. Oh man. For real. I mean, I don't even have the number in front of me, but uh I think it was a million. It was a million. It was a million and something. Yeah. But that's when it dawned on me. I'm like, first of all, not everybody is supposed to be playing the same game. That is programming. And second, if your needs are very different from this independent artist's needs or this artist's needs, you get to play a different game. And if you get to play a different game, you get to set different rules.

So my thing is, I've always been about the art first. And what I found is that I didn't, I never built a fan base. Right? You know, it's not like Build-A-Bear. You you create art. And the people who say, that is really cool. I've never seen it that way, or I'm glad somebody's doing this style. Whatever the case may be, they come to you. And then from there, you nurture and you grow with this this smaller audience. And it grows because they can't stop talking about you because of how outstanding, you know, your customer service is, how outstanding your communication is, how outstanding your content and your music. To me, that feels so much more aligned with my brand of independence. Yeah, I mean, you are Captain DIY. Absolutely. I think he's the leader of the DIYers. Did you know he dropped an uh an EP, a DIY called DIY? How long ago was that? Uh that was uh DIY 2, it was a few years ago.

The first one was 2012. I was gonna say, I know he had two volumes of it. First one, yeah, but he had the vision that it was gonna be like this. He might have made up the acronym DIY in the in the music space at least, bro. No, you know what? No, I got a bone to pick with you guys now that you said that, all right. Oh shit, okay. Shout out to LaRussell, that's my guy, right? But uh the first thing I saw in that interview, King of the DIY himself. Oh shit. I never forget that moment. I saw him when we talked. I saw that and I did a reaction video, I was like, wait a minute. Wait, wait, what? I haven't seen it. Have we ever been called out? Have we ever had our interviews used against us? I don't know. This is the first. This is the first, man. But hear me out, hear me out. I I say that with all due respect to you guys and to LaRussell because uh I had an opportunity to go to the pergola and I interviewed him, and I saw, you know, although it's dope because it's community-based, it's his friends, uh, it's his family that's involved, he got a team. He got he's got a team, bro. He's

got a damn team. Trust me. Show he hit in San Diego. I was like, oh, so Tiara's picking up the camera and and and this person's passing it to this person. Oh, that's a that's a team. Yeah. I'm truly a DIYer, and and I don't, I'm not, I don't say that to, you know, uh throw shade to anybody, but like it really is me on this team. And I have to be the one that figures out what the hell is an F stop on the camera? What the hell is a light? I'm the one that's hands-on editing these music videos and and he's and putting the captions and figuring out ways to automate this process, learning OBS, learning streaming. That's why I'm able to now also uh teach it to so many different creators because not everybody's meant to be the head of a corporation or the head of a team. Some people are better solopreneurs, and I think it's I think we need to normalize that. But I had to bring that up because Yeah. For sure. No, I appreciate you calling us out for sure. I'm interested in like, we talk to people who have felt that they get spread too thin simply by even just being like artist and producer.

Sometimes even that, having those two rules, uh roles, can be like overwhelming, or it can one can cloud the judgment of the other. You have that times what five or ten or something like do you ever feel spread too thin picking up all these jobs? I do, and I have more so in the past because I didn't understand how what that what that balance looked like and whether I should have been trying to achieve balance or achieve harmony. Oh. Right? Big difference. Yeah. When when someone defined for me that balance in some of these environments is is near to impossible, right? Like, for instance, how do you balance an hour with your I have a son, right? With my son versus an hour making a beat. Those are not the same type of energy. You know what I mean? Like, you know I feel you. It's limited to an hour, that's not the same amount of energy being exerted. So is that balance that I've achieved?

No, no, no. Ultimately, what I want to achieve is harmony so that one doesn't hinder the other. And so what I've done as a producer and an artist is I've learned that I work better in seasons, right? So this season may be Curtiss King, the artist and the part-time producer that handles the responsibilities when needed. That may mean calling in a bunch of my buddies who produce and saying, hey, I would love to work on a new project and get some production. And then it may be saying, like, hey, you know, who else is going to create something like, you know what? I'm going to employ Curtiss King to be the one to do this, right? To do this production or this job. But I do, I have been overwhelmed only when I don't, when I'm not conscious of what season I'm in. And right now I'm in a season of my real name is Duan. My professional name is Curtiss King. Your nickname is Baby Sinbad. Baby Sinbad. Been doing your research.

That's hilarious. I didn't I didn't do enough research, apparently, bro. That's throwback. Yeah. The reality of it is this. In in December is when I realized, and I suggest this to anybody that's entrepreneur. Would your government name person, whatever that name is, how would they work for the for the for the entertainment you would Duan work for Curtiss King and be happy right now? No, Duan is beat. Curtiss King has been abusing his uh Duan's sleep, his time, you know what I mean? His his sometimes his scattered brain ideas that cause Curtiss King to have to cut the cost, excuse me, Duan to have to do all kind of crazy editing. If I worked for Curtiss King, I would quit. I'm gonna spit water on our podcast. So with that epiphany, I said, you know what? I need to understand that there are ceilings and limitations to being a DIYer. You know, we can even talk about the origin of that, but the original goal of being a DIYer wasn't just to do it myself.

It was that I wasn't good enough for certain people that I reached out to, and I was tired of waiting on other people who were unreliable. So instead of me complaining about them not helping me, or man, there's no support, no unity out here. Why don't I just start it myself? Because if I started myself, I'll be able to educate myself to a level to when when I'm talking to a graphic designer, I can speak their language. Hey, you know what? I I don't like the font, right? Having an understanding of typography psychology that just doesn't match with with the, the the theme and the vision for the project. It's like a relief off of their back when you're able to articulate to them what exactly you want. So this has been a great tool for networking, but for the most part, it's something that uh I don't have to wait on anybody to get up and do these projects and I design my own album artwork and all that stuff. It it if anything, it's more of a freedom than it is uh overwhelming.

So the season thing, man, yeah. I mean, it's just it's powerful for sure. But I'm not gonna lie, we have a lot of people in our community who really do kind of pump their chest and brag almost about the fact I do it all. I do it all, record myself, I'm the artist, Produced myself, mixed it myself, mashed it myself, shot the video myself, everything myself, right? And the shit doesn't sound or look good. And a lot of times. Not every time, but it themselves. It's like you did it yourself. Yeah. I can tell. but yeah, but I mean, as someone who obviously has become, I mean, you've gotten very proficient at doing the things that you're doing, right? Your content looks, I mean, we just commented before we hopped on the stream. Your your your crystal clear video quality right now, the audio is crisp, your music obviously sounds like it's well mixed, well produced, like, you know, well performed. You you've got the graphic design stuff going in Canva, like you're doing all these things at a pretty high level, right? But let's be honest, something that I talked to our community about, and I'd love to get your input is like there are experts in all of those fields that I would assume you could probably humbly say, like someone might be quote unquote better than you at each individual task.

So why go the DIY route knowing that like you've built a business, you could, you know, employ a team of people who are specialists in all those things. You could go pay to get production from whoever, probably. You could, you know, pay an engineer to record you, you could pay a graphic designer to on salary to be on your team, whatever, right? Like, why go the DIY route? I'm glad that you said this because I don't believe that it's for everybody. Like it's there, there's a certain brand of of lunatic that I know that that that is in inside of my work ethic and what I do. But I I'll tell you this this is the same questions I asked when I first went to college. What classes do I take? Well, I took everything that was of interest to me, plus what was required. But you take all these classes to understand what you're really, really good at. Because you may come in here and in one route and say, I want to be a rapper, then figure out, like, damn, your engineering is actually better than your rapping. My production was better than my rapping for a long time.

And that's what ultimately got me to working with Absol and Kendrick and uh, you know, Glass Malone and all the folks from out here was my production. My rapping wasn't opening that door. But because I tried it, I I had an opportunity to see what were closer aligned with my God-given gifts. So there are people who go out here, and I'm not one of those who pump my chest. And I noticed many times where I'd be like, Yeah, yeah, you know I directed that too. Like, no, that's I know people who are significantly better than me at every single thing that I do. Better than rap, better at rapping. I saw it when I was at the TDE studios, better than producing. I saw it around my guys like uh oh gosh, Leota Sanabian. Um, you know, better than me at video directing. Shout out my guy CB4 and and, you know, I've known so many geniuses that even when I elevate a little bit, they're gonna quickly bring me back down and humble me by letting me know, like, this is how you really make it look good. Stop shooting these damn videos in 60 frames per second, Curtis.

Why is that a problem? Because it's looking choppy, Curtis. Don't do that. Like, so I say that to say I two things. One, I expose myself to opportunities because as Steven Pressfield once said in the uh The War of Art, you know, sometimes we're living in our shadow careers, right? Where there are shadows of what we were supposed to actually be doing. And rapping exposed me to so many different outlets, including now making content. Uh, that's one, and then two, uh, you know, give yourself an opportunity to expose what may be your God-given gift to yourself. And you won't find that unless you go hands-on and experience these things. There's far too many people walking around here pushing their chest out for half-assed efforts at everything. And that's just not what the DIY culture stands for. At least not my tribe. My tribe says, uh, I do it, I start it myself because nobody's coming to save me. I start this myself because I don't have the budget for it.

But I'm going to finance this, and by any means, I will get my my goals accomplished. Uh, that's the real heart of it, you know. And then also if you can get some help, but somebody does something better than you, if you don't go spend that money and do it. That's ultimately my message is you don't have to be, DIY. but some of us work faster and more efficient when it falls on our shoulders. Yeah, see, for me, I think two of the things you said are huge, right? Number one, being able to speak the language of the people that are doing all the things. We, you know, we talk about artists who can't even talk to their engineer properly, right? Because they don't even have a very basic understanding of like what recording and mixing engineering entails, and like the just just the high-level terms, right? So you can at least have an intelligent conversation where they can maybe understand what it is you're looking to change, right? Graphic designer, you mentioned that. Same thing.

You get someone to do your cover art or get someone to do some promo assets. And if you don't have that basic level of understanding of like the the like lingo that maybe a graphic designer speaks, it's gonna be tough for you to get the job done. So I think that's key, right? So getting your hands dirty with like all the different things to at least be able to like speak the speak when you do hire other people. Understand the job you're hiring for. Exactly. That's something you're huge on. And I think Henry, he's I mean, shout out to him. He's one to really get involved in all aspects of it. I mean, this guy touches pretty much other than like a bunch of the like more, you know, I don't know, salesy related. things. Sales-y, I was going to say. That's all Ben. Uh yeah, it that's more me, but like he'll touch the audio production, video production, content creation, graphic design, like just you know, the the you know the marketing ideas, whatever. Like he'll kind of touch all facets of the business. That's that's one. And then I I love what you said, man, about like you might not find what it is you're actually good at if you don't try the other things. Like, I thought forever I wanted to be a professional basketball player, obviously, right?

I mean, I use that as a sound effect for that. Yeah, I mean, I use it as a funny example, but it's like if you don't try other things, and even in let's just use the music industry as an example. I thought forever I wanted to be a manager, right? And I still think that I could do uh talent management well, right? I think I am built for it in some ways, but running this business and being like an entrepreneur in that sense, right? And being more in control of my own destiny, building what we're building with one more time, is way more fulfilling. And I think I'm honestly better at it, right? And I would have never found that out if I would have just been like, no, I'm not gonna do the podcast. I'm gonna just manage talent because that's what I'm gonna do. And that's it, right? Like being it's it's almost like closed-minded, right? Um, and so I I really love that approach to what the DIY culture can bring someone, right? Um can I mention one last thing about that? Sure, you brought up a good point in that I think the difference between people who do DIY at a really high level, and the difference between people who suck at everything that they choose the DIY is that it's the psychology switch. The people who feel like I have to do this versus I get to do this, the I get to do this tend to be the high, the people who it doesn't matter where you put them on God green God's green earth, they're gonna be the guy that knows how to fix your car, how to skateboard and do all kind of crazy Tony Hawk tricks.

They all of a sudden have a killer three-point shot. This is people, they're just human beings who are meant to do uh, you know, meant to be great at multiple things. I think it is a personality trait, but I think it also is uh that psychological switch that says, I get to do my own content, I get to be my own platform. Shout out to Cato, he made a great point. He said there used to be a time where you had to kiss ass and you had to play politics to get on the platform. Now you get to have your own platform. So true. So what are we complaining about making content for when you could be going on an interview where somebody is misconstruing what you say, and then that goes viral, and then you get canceled and kills your career, and you have to play catch up or somebody is not you know playing around with your interviews and it's not going live. Like we live in a time where uh you get to control the narrative on your own platform. All you gotta do is show up uh or align the team around you to do it.

So if you did have to pick one thing, right? You had to quit being DIY and like spreading yourself across all these different roles, right? Like, what role would you play if you had to give up everything else? Diabolical question. If I had to choose one, yeah. It would likely be rapping. So just be a rapper. Yeah, that's what I came in doing. Um that's your love. Yeah, that's what I love ultimately I love expressing myself. I get to do that through my live streaming and my content like now, but uh that's ultimately what I fell in love with with was the the was the written word. And uh I used to thrive in English class because of uh, you know, my ability to write certain stories and whatnot. But uh if I had to choose, it would be that that would make me the happiest. But you know, then we gotta financially talk about the time we're living in. So somehow I had to find my way back to content. Yeah, I mean, let's talk about it. So if I want to be a musician, like if I told you today, like Curtis, I'm really thinking about being an artist, man.

Like, I want to be, I want to be a musician, right? I want to make, I want to make music, I want to make music for a living. What would you say to me? I'd tell them to go watch that episode of Shark Tank. Where uh there was a band that went on there and wanted to get an investment, and all the investors laughed at them. Okay, okay. For those that didn't see the episode, can you give us the cliff notes on like what they what the sharks were saying? Yeah. To give you a tidbit, this guy who's managing a band, I believe, went on Shark Tank some years ago and was basically asking them to invest into this music project. His band is doing really well, they're selling out shows. Everybody on that panel was cracking up at the idea of investing money into music. Mark Cuban was laughing the loudest. Matter of fact, he doubled down on that laughing in a recent interview with Shannon Sharp, where he's like telling you, like, how bad of an investment are investors, musicians end up becoming, or athletes end up becoming when they buy record labels. And I had to ask myself, take your feelings aside from that.

Why would somebody who makes money say this about music? That's when I started to question the infrastructure that we're currently under when it comes to streaming, when it comes to the payout system, when it comes to why the payout system is structured that way even today, even though they've been paying out 0.03 for however X amount of years, Spotify just flipped the profit, and it wasn't because of the music. It was because of them getting into podcasting and now pushing for content creators. Everybody who makes money off of music is making money off of the devaluing of music as a company. One, and two, they're making money off of all the different avenues that music can uh can introduce or you know, bring the road down to. So you as an artist have to really ask the question how am I going to make a legitimate living doing this? If you want to get in the music business, there's a difference between the music business and the record business.

I had this gem given to me from from Claude's Malone. Malone, uh well-known uh West Coast artist, and he's obviously been really vocal during this Kendrick versus Drake situation. But he told me, he said, Curtis, there's a difference between the record business and the music business. The record business is what you see when you go see the Whitney Houston movie, where there's writers that as soon as she got signed, there were writers, there were, you know, people who were talking about her image and talking about the way that they're gonna brand these things. And it's more so about the vanity and about the illusion and the look so that it attracts money. The music business, we're still selling CDs. We're still finding digital ways to distribute our music, whether it's the USB cards or you know the uh the NFC uh uh CDs, the little small CDs. We're in the business of selling music. They're in the business of selling image and selling brand and selling all these things that are very surface level. When I had that difference be explained to me, I said, Oh, I've been in the music business, but playing record business or living by record business standards, and that's what has me in a wrong, wrong place.

So then when I said I'm in the music business, I said, Well, if I was to run this business the same way that I've been running my YouTube business successfully, what wouldn't make sense? Streaming doesn't make sense. Why in the hell would I give access to this exclusive product that I spent so much time on that it has so much value, why would I allow you to rent it on another platform? This is just me speaking for me. Why would I let you rent it on another platform if I could bring you to a band camp or even better, my website, and give you the option to buy my product, which just happens to be music. If you're someone that doesn't think music is valuable, you wouldn't think that the music I make is valuable, and and there's a connection there. So I don't even worry about you. What I'm concerned about is that smaller demographic that we talked about earlier. If you make the right music, it'll attract the right bodies, and not everybody. That's what I'm concerned about.

And what I found is that um when you operate business in that way and you set yourself up to where people have to come to your website or your band camp, the margins are so much better. The margins are so much better. Streaming is it if I did what I did in the last six months on streaming, it would I would have still been years behind the money that I made going direct to consumer. I had to, because this is a real legitimate business. Also, how the hell do we call ourselves business human beings or businessmen and women in music, and we don't have any effing emails? Yeah. You mean to tell me I'm going to give Spotify all of this traffic that I'm driving? Because they're gonna pay me my 0.003 in collection, and I can get it. I'm telling you, there's a lot of money there, guys. Come on. I'm gonna give you all that traffic when they themselves would pay a significant more amount of money for a marketing agency to drive traffic to their website. Because traffic is valuable.

Why drive it there when if you understand how to make a landing page or a legitimate, you know, build a legitimate business, you know how to talk to people via email. Why would you invest any of that energy into building their business when they ultimately, and it came to pass, have the ability to tell you, mm-hmm. We think those streams are fictitious. Hey, good luck. We own the ISRCs too. Good luck with that. Um, maybe it'll work better next time, even though you have no access to the playlist that you were on that were helping you generate streams, even though all that work you invested you can't do anything about. Um I I feel like I feel like Suge Knight when I say come to death row, come to that, come to direct to consumer if you're looking at this and the margins don't make sense. Direct music directors, I'm not going on a long rant, I'll stop here, but music directors don't stop asking for the amount of money they're asking for. Record. Studio time is still studio time if you don't have your own. Uh the graphic designers still want their money on for the work that they do. It feels like the average rapper nowadays, like it feels like a very unwise place to go if you're not ready to conduct actual music business.

When I had that switch, light bulb moment, and uh I didn't give a damn what any person of influence had to say about my decision uh because I knew what I had to do for my DIY business. So, do streaming platforms play any role in in your strategy now? Are we like cold turkey, no streaming, We're going D to C only? Like what role do streaming platforms play? I'm now looking at streaming platforms no different than Instagram and no different from Twitter and no different from YouTube to a certain degree, in that their purpose is promotion, their purpose is organic reach, their purpose is to a certain degree visibility. And that's the same way that I justify putting up free posts on Instagram to build my audience up there and my listeners up there just to send them off of the website. It's moved from the bottom of the funnel to the top. Exactly.

So now that I'm and I know some people look at, you know, uh they look at the direct to consumer audience as being, you know, people who have made it through a funnel and whatnot, and I've got I know that's how they look at it, but the the the reality of it is when you set up shop and you say to the people, you send them the message. Like I love the stuff that I hear from Mac Homie and he and and and the messages he puts out there, and that from the jump, I know the value of what I am doing. The same way a small business knows the value of their product. Now the market may tell them something different and they have to make readjustments, but at least you're operating in the marketplace and not allowing the unpredictable direction that Spotify seems to be going at times, the unpredictable way that streaming seems to be going, at least you're now in control of not only just the payouts, but your customer data. So that no matter what happens on any of these platforms, you always have communication, right?

You always have an opportunity to take them where you have your digital footprint, your website. You know, these are things that if you ask any business owner outside of music, these are the basic things. You ask somebody in music, you would have thought that I that I told them I wanted to hurt their dog. It's like, bro, you're not operating business. You're you're you're you're throwing a bunch of traffic at a website that could kick your ass off anytime they want to. And uh to me, that's not a sustainable business model. You use these social media platforms, you use the Spotifies. I started doing something called a strip it. What's that? Since they want to pay fractions of a penny per stream, why don't I just put a fraction of a song on the platform? Even better. Even better, right? Since you want to you call it snippets, I call it strippers, right? You call it strippers. okay. How about on top of that, I add a uh call to action in the beginning? CurtisKing.com. How about in the second verse of one of the songs I did called DIYers Versus

Everybody, I said, soon as the first uh the chorus was over, a bomb comes in, and it's like, damn. I would originally let you listen to that second verse, but uh streaming platforms are not paying what they should be paying. However, if you would like to get more of this in if you would like to support your artist directly, and if you would like to get the full song, come over to CurtisKing.com. People are like, you can't do that. You're gonna disrupt the listener experience. You know who doesn't care about that? Coca-Cola and Sprite when they pop up on your Spotify ads. They do it all the time. No, it's actually genius, marketing. It's so good. It's amazing. I love that. So these are the things that I'm looking at that people, the biggest argument folks had about direct to consumer when I was doing it the way that I was doing it, by burning the boats and taking over the island, is that music listening is so passive now. It's you know, everybody people just are not that active into it. They're uh hypnotized by the platforms.

Okay, well, if that's what it is, don't you think it's my job to be a disruptor? Imagine that pops up on your playlist, bro. Yeah, yeah. CurtisKing.com, I'm all of a sudden listening. Yeah. What is this? All of a sudden, and I felt that was the best way to disrupt what's going on because now you're if you're listening to a playlist and it's like an hour long, you're brainlessly doing your your job, right? But if I tell you, hey, a listening experience with me, this is gonna be a little bit different because this is a promotional platform, but everybody else is using it as if, you know, uh it's their platform. I think the more that we think of ways to disrupt it, uh, they'll have to readjust, and a lot of them already are readjusting. I I logged into to and I know that's not the same thing, but I logged into DistroKid, and they were pushing direct to consumer options to me. And I said, This is interesting. Yeah, that is.

Wow. I'm I'm sure their uh DSP partners are super happy about that. That'll this would be a good place to put our ad for DistroKid right now right now. Yeah, you do. But no, no, shout outs. you know, I've been a good I had a great relationship with them for a very long time. So you know, I and I feel I feel I to I feel bad for them to a certain degree. I know they got a lot of stuff going on right now, but I feel bad for them because the writing is on the wall that to me the the UMGs want to ultimately be that kind of a platform. They already talked about uh uh uh about uh the possibility of becoming competitive in that market because if they can't sign the artists, the independent artists, if they no longer want to deal with signing the independent artists, the best case scenario is to still get your $20 a year. Hands off distribution. Yeah. From distribution, and you don't even have to know that it's a UMG distribute distribution-based company. So I hope you guys are enjoying the conversation. I want to take a quick moment to tell you about our pals at DistroKid. You can't get your music onto streaming platforms without a distributor, and DistroKid is an excellent choice to handle that for you.

For the ridiculously low price of $23, you can upload unlimited music for an entire year that is less than $2 a month. I tripped on $2 walking down the street earlier. They have countless features to help you out on your musical journey. One of my favorites is splits. Instead of my collaborators hitting me up all the time saying, Where's my fing money? I can input everyone's percentage when I upload the music, and DistroKid will handle it. I've personally used DistroKid for many years and can genuinely recommend them as a great tool to get your music out into the world. And if you sign up at omtdistro.com, you'll get 30% off an already insanely low price. This is absolute peanuts for unlimited uploads yearly. We wish you the best with your creating. Let's get back to it. I want to talk a little bit about like the tools and systems that you use, right? To like execute against all this, you know, DIY strategy that you have in place. So you talk about obviously like you know, you mentioned landing pages, and you know, you start talking about all these different things. Like what systems or like tools are you using on a daily basis, right?

Like walk us through, you mentioned Canva before, right? Like just mentioned even. Yeah, just just tell us about like some of the different tools that you're using and how you're using them. I use these tools that I'm gonna mention all with a goal to eventually bring those to CurtisKing.com. So that's the that's the that's the goal. The ultimate goal is to bring all this to CurtisKing.com, right? But there's certain websites, and I've learned that sometimes I could be a little bit uh uh ahead of myself in in my entrepreneurial journey. And I'm like, I just don't have the the uh the capital or the team to accomplish certain things. So what I do is I utilize these third-party websites like um a band camp. Uh, you know, and and it we I did one project with even, but uh to me, it opened up a line of thinking that has affected my business, and that I don't need someone else in front of me to go direct to my consumers. And that's no disrespect to their business model.

I think they do a lot of great things for a lot of independent artists, but for me, I need to control the data at CurtisKing.com. For me, I need to have hands on access that can't be you know moved if I don't pay a subscription or whatever the case may be. So the way that it's set up right now, specifically for my music, like we can take the content off to the side, but my music, uh, there's band camp is for the listening experience only because they have an app. Uh the plan is always to to create an app for myself, but in the process I've been slowly building this month uh all of my music out on my website so that you can stream it directly from a landing page. Now, it can get a little clunky if you don't have an app for that. So these are just steps that I'm going through right now, where I use Bandcamp as my store for right now. If you want any of the music from Curtiss King, it's CurtisKing.Bandcamp.com. Anytime you want to purchase physical, you can purchase it from there.

I'll deliver it directly to them. I'm using a website called Kanaki to actually print up my vinyls, to print up my CDs, uh, and I'm able to send it straight from their distribution center to whoever in the world makes an order, right? I just take the information, put it there, they'll mail it out for me with my branding and all that stuff on it. So that's part of the process. When it comes to How about like email marketing? Email marketing. So I'm using Flowdesk. Flowdesk. I've used MailChimp, I've used, you know, uh uh Weber. I've A Weber, I've used a few of these, and uh the thing that I didn't like was it felt like a full-time job. Dude, I'm just getting out of the terminology. I'm just getting into MailChimp. Like Henry doesn't even know. Like I don't want to know. It's a it's a fucking lot, bro. Like $400 if you got a list of 30,000 plus. Oh, I know. I I told Henry, I'm like, you know, we have a small audience right now as far as the contacts that we have in there, but good God, it's gonna get insane, bro.

So can I offer this as just, and this is not an ad, they don't sponsor me anything like that, but I came across Flowdesk $38 a month for unlimited email lists. Wow. Shout out to Flodesk. Oh. I might switch tonight. And for some people, they'll look at it and say, well, it's it's like a content creator geared uh uh email service. It doesn't look as professional, it doesn't have all the the bells and whistles. What I love about it is this simplicity, and I think that appeals to me as a creative in that I don't want to get in here in this is not my art. Some people, email marketing, this is their art form. They want all of the they want to be able to put in Zapier and have it do all these automation tricks and whatnot. For me, Flowdesk allows me to just make emails that look appealing, don't get into the spam folder and go straight to the people that I want to talk to. You can segment it and all these different things. Uh I've had it to where people can choose what they want to get emails, like what segment they want to be a part of. The emails are beautiful, the the fonts and everything looks it looks like you're you're you're uh a pleasant reading experience.

And it's just like it's just like making music when you restrict yourself, you're kind of forced to be more creative. When you have let if you have just every tool and every plug-in and every instrument in front of you, you kind of freeze up. You know, it's almost too much sometimes. It's nice to just have like a a limited tool set and you can kind of work with what you got. Save your money, man, because I'm telling you, I can't uh I can't imagine, you know, I've had to really um tighten up my business to operate with so many different hats, but also to run multiple businesses. I had to tighten up where my money was going. Because money is always coming in, but then money's always going out for a subscription for your software. Because I'm not I'm still not stopping the work that I do as a producer, which that's a whole full-time job in itself in terms of the stuff you can buy. So I really tightening up has allowed me to see, yeah, I know that this website is better than Flowdesk, but is it necessary for my type of business? And that's a question that I feel like a lot of people don't ask because they're always in a um constant pursuit of more.

So how are you using email marketing? Like, what are you saying in your emails? How frequently, like, talk to us about your email marketing cadence. This is maybe selfishly for one more time. He just wants to figure out what to stand out. I need a little bit of help here. No, but I do think it's underrated, right? I mean, you mentioned the fan data side of things. Most artists, if I were to ask them, hey, do you have an email list? The answer would probably be more times than not, no. No. Why what do you mean? How would I get them? Like, what are you talking about? Well, to be fair, you know, Spotify ain't giving it to them. Exactly, right? So I I think there's a shift that's happening, and I'm really excited about it. I think you're not the only one who's uh become a big proponent of the D2C um model, right? Like going direct to your fans. So I think we're gonna see more of this, but I think, you know, not to make artists do more than they're already doing, but I think owning your fan data, it's like, what do I do with it, right? And email marketing is obviously a part of what you're supposed to do with it. It's how you stay in front of your audience.

So, how are you using emails today? What are you saying? How often, et cetera. So uh to be transparent, I I'm I'm under construction right now. So like I'm always under construction. I'm always kind of like tweaking around things and figuring out how to maximize what I'm doing because I've gone through uh, you know, the the funnel boot camps. I've I've gone through having these uh these welcome email sequences that expose them to different parts of my business. I've gone through the marketing side of that, but now as an artist in an audience that I feel like my audience, and probably like a lot of folks, they don't want to be talked at. They want to be talked to. So the moment that they start, I've had people email me. The moment that I start getting into my marketing spiel and start hitting pain points, they're like, my guy, just talk to me. So that's a lot of people who've said that because they feel like they know me through my video content. So to me, I feel like that same warmth needs to exist within my emails.

This shit for me, I don't want it to be. If I was on the other side as a consumer, I would not want to uh get these brain-dead marketing emails that you know ChatGPT made. So my thing is this now, depending on what list you are you're you're on, you're asking for the emails that are going to come. Uh depending on what I'm currently promoting, there are emails that are already automated. For instance, I always have a welcome sequence for an email that I plan on selling something to. So if I plan on selling the music, I want to thank them for first of all signing up to the email list. Um I want to expose them to the different platforms that they can go ahead and check out. So then that way when I'm sending out multiple emails throughout the year, I don't have to keep stacking all these links inside of my email because that can get you put in a spam folder in Gmail. So I'm using it as an introduction to a reintroduction to what they're signing up for. When I have a project coming out, every single week I'm sending out at least one or two emails, uh, giving them behind the scenes clips of what's going on. Uh, giving them, you know, asking them questions, I think is a really good one because that really helps.

Last but not least, this is the one thing I do miss about MailChimp. And you can have access to it if you don't have MailChimp. SurveyMonkey. SurveyMonkey and any kind of platform that allows you to survey your audience is the most valuable thing you could ever do with your customer or fan data. Cause if you don't know who you're talking to, what their needs are, uh, maybe even what their financial status is, you'll be selling products to people who will never buy or have the money to buy. So I asked them questions about, you know, uh, are they mothers and fathers? I asked them questions about, you know, uh, what was the last project that you bought? What format did you buy it on? Because these are things that I'm thinking about before I'm launching a vinyl campaign or before I'm launching a CD campaign. Am I talking to a demographic that has never owned a CD? How do they view a CD? So, really, my emails are twofold. One, I'm I'm I'm using them to inspire, motivate, inform, but I'm also using them as an opportunity to get to know my audience so that I can be better prepared when it is time to aggressively launch on a campaign.

Yeah. But that that's I I try to keep that simplistic because as a DIYer, um, I can be very obsessive about one hat, and that can hinder other hats if I if I am like that. Right. Yeah. I mean, when I saw the survey function, I mean MailChimp, like well, I am seeing like there's a reason why it is one of the most popular. Like there is a bunch of cool things you can do. You better be using them features that you're paying for it. I know, it is expensive as shit. But like, but yeah, I mean, you can like drop a survey into the email like pretty easily, right? And so I've I've been already thinking about like ways that you can do that. Because yeah, I mean, this is something we just talked about with like the Spotify rap that just came out, right? Like, I made a video about how you know, use this as an opportunity to do some market research on your fans, right? Like, who are your super fans listening to, right? Like when they're sharing the fact that you're in their top five to their Instagram story and they tag you or whatever, like who else is in the top five? Yeah, like your song is in their top five songs.

What other songs are in their top five songs, right? Like, go click on their profiles. What do they look like? What are they wearing? What are they, you know, into, right? Like, what are their interests? Um, so I think that understanding, and this is where like I I feel for artists, right? Because becoming like expert marketers isn't what they thought they signed up for when they wanted to start making music. But I think that for sure, if you want to be a DIYer, whether that's by necessity or by choice, right? These are things that matter, like they're just so important, man. Like, I love the example of are you trying to sell a product to someone who will never buy it, right? Like, if your whole audience has never bought a vinyl in their life, the chance that you're gonna just you're not gonna convince them to buy a vinyl, they gotta get the player exactly. My music is fire. I believe I have a feeling inside of me that tells me this is that that has to die off. And that's something that I'm I try to, in the midst of me, selling, not selling, in the midst of me, like like speak speaking the good word of the right to consumer. I know that a lot of these folks are like they're not prepared for that conversation.

So I try to make sure that I put the vitamin in the brownie. And that in all of this good news that you see that's happening, the vitamin is get your systems in order. Automate as much as you can. Because even my content creation process, uh, I don't have to use an SD card anymore. I I literally set up everything through my camera that I'm using right now. Uh the LUTs are already on OBS. The I have to just basically put myself in in the frame. And by the time I hit record on OBS and I'm finished, that video is ready to go. All it needs is captions. So being able to just speed up the process a little bit more. Right? So that's what I'm saying. Like, even as you guys are making content, like I learned this not from being an artist, I learned this from being a content creator. Because I have to figure out how to batch content. So yeah, I there's more efficient ways to do it. Uh I would just say for somebody who does feel overwhelmed and that they're trying to understand that world of email marketing.

Um don't look at it as marketing. Don't look at it as content, don't look at it as branding. Replace those words. I heard it in a book called uh Seducing Strangers that was about marketing. It's one of the greatest marketing books I read. Uh, the author said, replace the word branding with reputation and replace content with message and see if that doesn't inspire new ideas. What is the message that I want to create? Not what content I want to create, right? How do I build up my reputation? Not how I build my brand. These don't mean anything to an artist or a producer. But if you say build your reputation, there's a lot of ways you can do that. There's a lot of mediums, there's a lot of styles that you can do that in. So um That's huge. Use your greatest asset and your creativity and bring it to business. Nobody said business is not creative. Business does require a level of creativity to uh, you know, get yourself going. Bro, I think even just those two simple mindset shifts on those two words, it's just a huge even me being able to because shit, we talk about like branding a lot on here, right?

Like just either amongst ourselves, with our community, on the show, doesn't matter. We talk about branding a lot, but I think like sometimes it is a very like theoretical word, and a lot of people don't really even understand what it is that you're saying, right? Like they think of a brand just as like a name of a company, maybe or something, right? Like, oh, that's the brand. They don't really understand the elements that play into it. And I think like reputation, because that literally means like, what are you known for? What do people think of when they think of you? Literally, yeah. What are you known for? Like, that's what reputation means. And yes, that is what a brand essentially like is all about, but it's just that simple change of like term. We gotta read that book. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Send us a link to that. And What? Yeah. Of course, I got you. But then even with, even more, even marketing. email marketing, don't call I wouldn't call the email marketing if I'm a rapper. If I have fan data, to me, all that means is that I have a full phone of uh uh of people to talk to and communicate with that want to be communicated with. And they want to, they want they want to feel like you sent them a special email, even though they know that you spent it sent a blast out.

I try to make sure every one of those emails read, not as hello, DIYs. I'm taking first names, I'm taking last names, and I'm making sure that it does the uh the automation process within Flodesk where it, you know, gives the C name or whatever they call that, and I'm able to address it to that person. And I want them to read that email and feel like that email was wrote for them. And I'm I I do write those. So don't even think about email. Just think about like, I want to let my friend know that I have new music, and why wouldn't my friend want to support what I have going on? Unless they don't have the funds. But get to know your friends, get to know your audience. That's why also I've took it off of just email and I re-embraced Patreon in a different way. Because between my Patreon and my private Discord, I don't I'd never do a public Discord ever again. See my private Discord, big difference because now I'm looking at the folks, like right now, they're having conversations going crazy about topics. And I'm like, if I satisfy this core, that 300,000 subscribers that I have, they'll be fine.

But if I satisfy satisfy this core, uh, especially those who are there for the music and I see the things that they value, I have a more focused plan when going into making music next. It's not about man, how do I crack the billboard charts? What if my audience doesn't give a shit about the billboard charts? What if they care that I'm making music that is helping them get to the fourth quarter of the year? I just love the what if my audience doesn't give a shit about insert whatever, right? Like we had Z on, who's the co-founder of Audio Mac, right? So we had uh Z on the podcast, and he and we talked about the whole like singles versus albums like debate, right? And he was like, What if your audience doesn't give a shit about albums? Why do you care about an album then? What why are you gonna spend all this like blood, sweat, and tears on this, you know, body of work that is an album if no one in your audience is even demanding it or cares to listen to a full length album? Like, what's the point, right?

Unless you like just creatively have your heart and soul set on it, and he was like, That's fine, whatever. But if you don't expect to drop off in streams by the end of it, yeah, but also, but it's just if you don't, then like don't beat yourself up over it just because you think that like people need to drop albums because that's what they've done for the last fucking however many years, right? Like, I have a important question. I think it's important anyway. Um, it is so on. You've been uh confidence, bro. I'm trying, you're interrupting me. As usual, this motherfucker, just be confident, bro. I'm butting in. I'm you're still talking no pussy shit around here. Jesus, man. Should I excuse myself? I'm Curtis. Yeah, give us a minute, Curtis. We'll be back. We'll be right back. Curtis, you've been doing this for like 20 years. You have your credentials, you built up an audience before you took your music off streaming, went like you know, fully independent. You were with, I think, even a couple, you know, independent labels at one point. Is the DIY fully like the vision that you have doable for like our audience who might be early very earlier in their game?

Because I'm just picturing like some of these artists that don't have lots of fans and are still just getting started, taking all their music off streaming, putting up something for sale on their website and getting $0 from it. So, is there a threshold? Is there any advice you'd have to people that are just super early on this? To counter that most of them are already making $0 on streaming. Facts, bro. That's my point. There's only upside, dude. Even if you have one person pay you $10, dude. At least people can see me making $0. Exactly. At least they can see my four monthly listeners on Spotify. Like, is the discovery though? Is there is there any reason why you know I hear what you're saying because you know, I think that we have been um we've all been programmed to a certain degree to that this is the way to do it the same way you were mentioning about albums, but even I give that a little bit of pushback. Z is a genius, Z is probably one of the most intelligent people I know speak on. But as a create as an artist myself, I push back on that because I feel like ultimately your value is going to be your ability to create a full body of work.

I feel like singles feel to a certain degree teasers, and at some point you're going to be asked, hey, hey, what does this look like? Like, if I've never heard you before and I just saw you kill a show, yo, what is the body of work that I can get most of this song, most of these songs at? It's gonna be a question that's gonna be asked. I saw that at live shows when I was doing nothing but pushing singles, thinking that was the direction things were going. People want to see how do you like to me, it's like you say you're a movie director, but you only put up Instagram reels. Eventually, somebody's gonna want to see what a full-length movie looks like. But the only way that you become better at full length mute, or one, I shouldn't say the only, one of the ways you become greater at the full length is practicing the full length. So I think there's artists right now who are going to practice through the means of putting out a bunch of songs and become better at making music, which is dope. That's one great skill to be better at, obviously. But when it comes to creating an album, it's just gonna be an album full of singles because they don't know how to put that together.

Yeah, but bro, what if these kids don't watch full length movies? What if they only scroll TikTok and only watch YouTube videos? What they don't even give a fuck about a movie. That's the that's the equivalent of them not giving a fuck about an album. I get you, but they're still creating their own versions of albums called playlists. So when I look at it, I'm like, no matter where we go, because I understand the points. I've heard all of these points that have been made and valid points. My thing is they're gonna ultimately want a place where all these things are in one place. Instead of having to go, especially you're talking about passive listeners, they want that place to all be there. I'm saying there's a convenience that is in place when somebody does create an album and they know how to create this. I also think there's skill sets that people are not embracing as artists. When you sit there and you theme together these projects the way that you do, it creates a skill set that I've only heard Chance the rapper talk about, where he said at one point he had to make a pivot and where he put all of his album making energy into a song. And he said, What could that be?

So now when you're getting all these transitions, all these lush arrangements, that's because he flipped a switch that said, if I gave an energy, if I gave an album energy worth if I gave an album's worth of energy into a song, this is what it would sound like. I just think there's things to be learned from either side. But um, could you remind me of your question one more time that you did you ask? I know I kind of teeter off to the album. Yeah, just basically do you think that anyone could start the the DIY route if they are built for it, like we said, it's not for everybody, but if they're super early on, is it realistic for smaller artists? Yeah. Right. Well, this is what I would challenge them. If you want to be in the music business, this is your job, is to figure out how to gather an audience, how to attract an audience, get into ads eventually, right? Communicate through content or excuse me, through a messaging content. This is your job. So when I see people like you streaming as a crutch, like, well, how am I going to get new people at the top of my funnel? And I'm like, dog, that's your job when you chose to make this a business.

And I think a lot of folks are using these crutches, not calling them crutches, because they don't, they just it's the time period we're living in. But the reality of it is that mom and pop shop that opens up shop on the corner where you live at started with zero customers. I was, dude, I'm so glad you said that. I was like, how do you think the pizzeria sells their first slice of pizza? Like they market, they message. Exactly. Like they they put themselves in the places where pizza eaters are, and then someone's eventually gonna be like, I want to try new fucking slice of pizza. Yeah, but are they ignoring the main places where the pizza eaters are, i.e. the DSPs? That's the difference here. Or are the people on social media, which is free. Well, then, and so to your right, like I'm not sure. They're not going to a pizza eating, like if I can't try I can't even try a full slice before I gotta like maybe you do the this this strippets. it's like maybe maybe, you're not gonna let that pass. You think you can walk into a new restaurant and ask them for a free slice?

Exactly, bro. Never happened. I'm saying I should be able to I should be able to eat a slice before I gotta like pay for a subscription to your monthly pizza box. Dude, I don't know. I think I think we've been to Curtis's point, I think we've been so brainwashed into thinking that like we have to do this streaming thing that like no one will pay initially without like hearing my album's worth of discography for free forever, basically, right? Like, but to your point, strip this is why I want to utilize strippets more. This is why I do still feel like there's a uh uh a value in social media. Had it not been, I'm gonna tell you this: had it not been for Instagram, had it not been for TikTok, less TikTok because they don't really do well in terms of converting, but uh at least for me. Uh if it's not been for Instagram, that part of that campaign, I wouldn't have sold nearly the amount of amount that I sold. Right? I can't attribute that all to just email marketing. Email was just an opportunity for me to talk to them in a way that was unique from everybody else trying to get their attention on social media. Yeah.

But if not for social media and the people utilizing tools to share my music, my sales look dramatically different. So, with that said, I do the same thing that a new business has to do. And that visibility is one of your biggest assets. How do I get visibility? Be fucking good. Show up. Stop complaining about, oh, I gotta make this content. Batch the content. Get yourself up 30 pieces of content. Um I could break it down. Like, Doug, you got a 10 album. This is another reason why I encourage albums, at least on my end as a DIYer. If I have a 10-track album, I have a hundred pieces of content. How? Whoa. 10, how about this? 20 pieces of those content, I have 20 pieces of content from that 10-track album. If I do a video for each verse, if I have two verses on that, that's 20 pieces. Another 10 pieces of content come from if I choose to do the chorus and do shorter versions of that. I'm just talking about vertical videos.

Sure. That's 10 more pieces of content just for that. Uh, if I choose to do any of them twice again, that could be 40 pieces of content in itself. If I choose then to do behind the scenes of how I made the instrumentals, that could be another that's that's 60 now, 50 or 60. If I choose to now do lyric breakdowns on every one of those, that's 70 pieces of content. If I now choose to take a piece of content that already did well and change the scenery up again, that's another 80, 70, 80. This is a game that continues to go. And the thing is, what I've learned through content creation. When you create content, you solve a problem and you create a problem. Look at the audience to let them see, to see what problem you created. Oh man, this is so dope. I really want to know how I really want to know how you did those snare rolls. You just gave me content. Let's extend this another 90 just based upon doing Q and A content. Then I do a Q and A talking about the album with uh with guests that were on the album.

That's another 10. We're already talking about 90. The last 10, I could do literally one live stream. And you're not even talking about being on podcasts, but if I'm on a podcast, I'm clear over that 100 that easy. So many clips in this one No, no, I just want to know it's a hundred pieces of content for an album, and that's what it that's it. I'm just literally like, this guy just gave us such a good such a good clip. I love that. I was gonna say there's a ton of clips, but that was definitely one of them, not for sure. No, yeah, I just meant like the hundred. Yeah, just like people are gonna be like, what? Yeah, right. You can have a hundred pieces of content for an album. He's already seeing like the title text in his head. My brain as I'm telling you it's that's why you kept going. Most people would have stopped at like 40 and been like, you get the idea. It's like, no, no. Thank you for finishing that. You better fucking finish the hundred, but I was gonna make him finish it. I swear to God. Um, I think they feel like they have to do original content, and it's like, dog, you've already done the pro you've already done the hard work. That's why I I that's why I'm such a you know, to a certain degree, uh an album purist, because that 10 track album gives me so much that I can do. I did a project called Extended Warranty.

Oh my god, if I wanted to now today, that project came out in January. I could do an entire new run of a hundred more pieces of content because of that. This can be a part of this content now. The reason why my project extended warranty uh sold up to $7,000 worth of direct to consumer uh uh uh physicals. This is the content I create. This is my promotion strategy. So then that becomes a long form video on YouTube that I can now cut and take back to short form. So, like that is only skills that I learned by embracing content creation and realizing like I get my own platform and two, I ultimately get to determine what is content, and my audience is gonna embrace it because they've already, they've already said, look, I'm here, I'm here for what you got. And whatever they attract more to, cool. If they don't, it's like missing a basket and being a professional basketball player. You run back down the court and play defense and come back and do it again.

Yeah. All right, I gotta ask this question. How well does YouTube pay these days? Uh it's it's good if you stay consistent. I mean, you're pretty you're pretty consistent. So you want to know actual numbers of where it's I mean, I just like think it's interesting for people to know like any artists or producers who are considering like you know, having YouTube be like an actual part of their strategy, like you have. I am curious if there's any sort of you know, 10,000 views on average is getting me X, Y, Z, right? Because I know it, I know it differs by vertical, right? So like finance related videos might make X dollars for 10,000 views, you know, music related videos might make whatever. So I mean, if there is any sort of like general statistics that you're willing to share, if not, we can obviously or higher level wisdom for anyone that's thinking about it. You know what I mean? I'll tell you where where it got the craziest this year was um during that Kendrick versus Drake content spree that I went on when you know covering that back and forth. I'm still actually, you know, to a certain degree covering it.

Uh I'm taking December off, but it got to like the $7,000, $8,000 range per month for just sitting in front of a like my system. I literally do one live stream a week. And I sit down for about an hour and a half, and it comes off like a podcast, but it's not. It's like my version of uh independent and hip hop culture news that that is relevant to me. And your streams are fire, there's like camera switches and then there's like zoom ins, he takes pauses. Shit is actually super high high quality. Like I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm gonna do that hour and a half or two hours stream, and I got three pieces of content from there, just long form pieces of content. I take those three and I go Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And so I've uploaded three videos, uh at least three videos a week, um, every single week, except for December, right? I've taken December's off. But that's that's just water. Like, thankfully, I have a video editor now.

So uh he really helps that process. But truth be told, I could probably still do very similar numbers if the videos were unedited because of the flow of the live stream and how we kind of you know give information. But um, yeah, like on average, you're probably looking at closer to about 5,000 a month for where my channel was at. I changed, I did something that is so rare, and that most people, when they get to 200,000 subscribers, they're sticking with that niche and they're not going anywhere. I got stuck at 230 while I was only covering producer-related content, and I really wanted to get back to my rapper-based content. I really wanted to talk about topics that were bigger than just kicks and snares. And so I pivoted. And I stayed stuck at 230,000 subscribers for almost three years. Wow. No exaggeration. And then I started doing just the news, reaction to things that were interest of of interest to me. And uh pushed it all the way to 300,000 in less than a year and a half.

How hard, how hard of a decision was it to pivot? Easy. I was sick and tired of that content. Oh, really? Okay, so you weren't, so you weren't like, you know, you're like your little like voice on your shoulder wasn't saying like, hey man, stuck. Fuck. Yeah. Well, I I think also, too, you when you get to know your environment and your niche, and you see who are like the the top players and where they're occupying in terms of views, you start to see a ceiling. Even subscribers, you start to see where the ceiling could potentially be. Uh that was definitely something I thought about. Secondly, you know, I think because, and this is gonna be a very general statement. Producers are usually in the background as they kind of make their way to making more content and being the front-facing brand. Uh, some people are doing it a lot better than others. Some people are very, very awkward. Some people need controversy as the only way that um they they get some motion. That's not me, right?

In terms of just the producer stuff, like this is something I actually love doing. I love producing and love rapping. So now, man, that was an easy decision because I wanted to talk about more stuff outside of just 808 roles and you know, the the nerdy stuff that I couldn't even talk to my cashier at the supermarket about. Like I couldn't tell her about none of this stuff. Hell yeah. But if I say if she but but it's funny because now that I've done all this Drake and Kendrick stuff, I got people that haven't seen me since I was a baby that said, I was watching your content and had no idea that you was Rochelle's son. And it's like, oh, that means I'm reaching a whole different audience than I've ever reached. And uh this last year, nine, almost 10 years of doing YouTube. These are the largest numbers I've ever had in a 10th year. Yeah. Right? Oh, I can I can tell. a live stream. Like, what are we talking about? So I I see the pivot. I'm being embraced by some of the best music journalists in the world. And uh I'm understanding that this is very much a part of my ultimate dream of being able to uh continue to do music however, whenever I want, but you need some money and you need some funding, you need some consistent funding. And uh last this year I learned a very valuable lesson about spreading myself out too thinly financially, because um although the majority of the projects I did I profited on, one of them I took a loss.

And it was probably the best embrace project that I put out put out there critical wise. Um, but it just didn't, the margins didn't didn't make the same sense. So next year moving forward, I'm realizing okay, double down on content, increase that ad revenue, uh, increase the products around it in terms of online courses, uh, my coaching and all these things that I know that are going to be consistent streams of revenue, and funnel that into whatever creative projects I want to do as an artist and as a producer. And I'll have the ultimate freedom to do it at my own pace. Hell yeah. Henry, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Dude, I knew this would be good, but this has been amazing. Really good. Nah. I had such high hopes. Curtis, man. I'm sad. I'm sad we couldn't make it happen in person, though. Yeah. No, that's my apologies too, guys. It it got tricky.

It got really tricky. Thank God your virtual setup is fucking fire and looks incredible. But also, you're on our very short list of people that when we and if we ever decide to do repeats. Yeah. If you do come, we can figure that out in the city. You gotta come down, man. I'm there. I'm there for sure. So this is the Rapid Fire Rampage. There's gonna be three parts. Let's just start with part one. It's gonna be some short answer questions. Let's get into it. Starting with on a scale of one to 10, how likely are you to recommend the one more time podcast to aspiring musicians? Damn. Okay, that was just a little that was a little plug. Let's start. Okay, now we start for real. Thank you. I knew you'd like that. We started. We started for sure. We're keeping that one. What would you say are the three quickest and easiest ways for artists to just start acquiring new fans right now? If you had to fire them off. Content, content, content. Oh god.

They don't want to hear it. They don't want it. They're so sick of it, man. They don't want to hear it. What do you think music is? Like I know they don't want to believe, I know we don't want to believe that music is content. It is. Music is content. It just happens to be the one that we favor and hold so near and dear to us. But content, content, content. It just has melodies and bass lines. Dog, Everybody ain't gonna like your music, but damn it, I'm getting calls that I never would have got through music because I make content. Yep. Wow. There it is. Curtis, you can put any two artists alive or dead together to make a collab album. Who are we putting together? Ooh. Um. And maybe if you want to throw in a producer. No, no, no, no. Hey, get just I I have the power to mute your mic right now. This is my section. Andre 3000 and Sade. Ooh, see? That's an interesting one for a question we got later? Um just not playing a flute.

Shout out to him. I love I love the flute music, but I want him rapping on that one. We all do. We all do, yeah. No, for sure. Uh this next one, kind of deep, but I think you're the perfect person to ask this. How do you balance staying true to your artistic vision while also handling business? I don't look for balance, I look for harmony. Shit. Harmony, man. You should have known what the answer was based on the earlier conversation. How do you? I should have said, how do you harmonize? Yeah. No. too bad. Too late. Yeah, it's too late. He already served your ass. I didn't know this was this was tennis. What are we doing? It's not. It's not. Ben's if it is, it's game set match on Henry right now. Ben gets uncomfortable when I do my section because he's used to talking all the time. So please uh forgive him. Um anyway, besides uh taking your music off streaming and obviously everything that you stand for and the stuff that we have talked about. Do you have a controversial music take right now?

Something we can use for some good quick old-fashioned clickbait. Some you haven't made. Something you maybe haven't discussed as much, but you've been thinking about lately. Anything in the industry. Um I got you. I got you. Yes, it's gonna be good. AI music is always what the music industry wanted. They were working human beings like machines, but now they finally have machines that can tell what to do. So for those of you that are still pursuing wanting to be signed, they found better robots. Embrace your independence. So dark. I want it. I guess There it is. Uh what do y'all think about that? Drop a comment down below because we will be making a clip out of that. Um, invent a genre.

And just describe it a little bit. But also name it. I've heard TBE say this one time, and and I wish it would have got pursued more. Human music. Oh. Human music. Uh, music that is not restricted by instruments, not restricted by um, you know, uh uh purist beliefs, but human music that is meant to help fellow humans. I know there's a lot of music that kind of falls into that, but music that is not compromised by you know what would really make this sound good, you know what would really put this on the billboards? If you put some models on it, human music wouldn't do that. Human music would say use your human voice and speak it from a very human place. So, yeah, if I had to do a genre, like if I wanted to pursue a genre, it is human music. That right there feels real. Damn. I think about Rick and Morty, the human music, and that is not very it's a little different, a little different. Never got into Rick and Morty.

Curtis, you have just entered a cage match with Daniel Ek. What is your weapon of choice? Pow. Oh, I'm playing. I'm playing. I'm playing. You know what I mean? No, that's like fists. My weapon of choice? Yeah. Some ninja samurai CDs and vinyls. That's hard. I like that. Yeah. I like that. Oh no. I don't know. He has a streams. Are you going to hurt me with a stream. What are you doing? Yeah. That sounds crazy. I don't know. Death matches with CEOs given the United Healthcare situation right now. Yeah, I'm a little bit, yeah. That's what I thought about. Yeah. Yeah, we should. That's why it's a theoretical, guys. Okay. Well, if something happens to Daniel Ek, Curtis will be literally, like, top of the FBI's list. He'll be on a list for sure. Curtis, last one of the short answer. What is your favorite? Curse word. Fuck.

Part one. There it is. It has so many uses. It's just so many. Why you got so many necklaces? There's so many uses in it. You know, I was like, ugh. That is everyone's defense of fuck. And I still maintain that I think shit has more uses. I think emotionally I'm more attached to shit. That sounds crazy, but I tell you. I am as well. For sure. Like I say it probably a lot more, but I I think the functionality of uh fuck has a lot more, but yeah, shit feels primal. If we're going for everyday use, it's like, yeah, shit is up there. But fuck, maybe it hits harder. So anyway, part two is the this or that. Very simple. I'm gonna give you two choices, and you get to pick one. Here we go. Starting with drums or melodies. Drums, hooks or verses. Versus. Rapping or producing. Rapping. Outcast or Tupac? Outcast. Studio or stage. Studio.

Blogs or podcasts? Podcasts. Discover new artists or binge your favorites. Binge my favorites. Inspirational quotes or memes? Inspirational quotes. This one's kind of a troll, but vinyl or digital. Vinodal. No. Oh. Vinyl for sure. For sure. No, you know what? No, I'm gonna take that back. This is gonna be a surprise. You say as a troll, I'm gonna go ahead and embrace digital. I enjoy it. But you selling as a listener, just not selling my music on it. But you also go to the thrift shop. You also sell your music digitally, too, right? You're not close to that. Yeah, I thought you did more of streaming, but yeah, yeah, digitally, Yeah, I I prefer the I prefer the manual labor to vinyl. Because you have to really get your ass up and listen and be very in tone. So yeah, definitely vinyl. I like it. Only a couple more here.

Hashtags or no hashtags? No hashtags. And finally, work full time for a major label or leave the music industry forever. Leave the music industry forever. It's over. Didn't even think about it. Crap. Crap. That was the easiest one. It's Not happening. It's just not happening. He'll figure it out somewhere else. Last part is the word association. Curtis, I'm gonna say one word, and I just want you to give me the first word that you think of off the top of your head. There are no correct answers. You are only judged on speed. Starting with music. Shit. I'm playing. I told you shit is good. Goes everywhere. That worked. Air. I like that. Spicy. No, thank you. That's not one word, huh? That's fine. A phrase, like a quick phrase is, you know. Quick phrase. No point.

No points at all for that. Spicy. No thank you is good. No thank you is good. Or sounds are good. You know? Yeah. It's not a word. Freedom. Time. Penguin. Nah. Sounds are still good. Pro Tools. Nah. Texas. Roadhouse. Fentanyl. Damn. Yeah. Jesus Christ, Henry. Damn is pretty versatile as well. Tempo. Pace. Music industry. Shit. Gen Z. Yeah. I didn't know if he was going that way. Couldn't tell. Bitcoin. Buy. Spotify. Ass.

Lil. Cardi. Do it. Yourself. Let's fucking go. Yo, what a brand. Lil Cardi. Lil Cardi. Appreciate Lil Cardi coming on the podcast. Let's go. This has been Lil Cardi King. Yeah, the real king of the DIYers. Sorry, LaRussell. We got it wrong in the first place. Maybe he we'll give him king of organic. You know? We'll figure it out. We'll talk about it. later. We'll figure out what we're gonna call. He's going to Accomplish so many things that I could only dream of. He's already doing it. But when I heard that, I I I I was funny because I stopped the video. I'm gonna send you the clip. I stopped the video. I said, am I just chopped liver? Yeah. Fuck, man. I just went out there. I was like, he got he he he got a team. I'll just say, he has an amazing team. Yeah. Shout out to him. I want to see that clip. As always, please like, comment, subscribe, follow us on Spotify Podcast, follow us on Apple Podcasts. We're here each and every week. Until next time, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Peace, y'all.