LaRussell: The REAL Cost of Being Independent (Money, Marketing & Mindset)

The larger you get as an indie, the more you need. Like imagine feeding a chihuahua versus feeding a bear. Generally on a label, all of your ads are being consumed within the marketing budget. When you're indie, my ads come out of my budget that I spend to live. What's your thought process around funding the business? Spend whatever it takes to win. When we did MI Musty with Marshawn, I spent $30,000 in digital. If everyone's already loving it organically, this is the smartest thing I can do. That's what you put gas on. I never play the guessing game with ads. Yes. Like, do you feel spammy right now with the song? No. I have 1.8 million followers. Everybody can't see that. No. Some artists are literally only showing their art, which is why they can only build fans. I don't build fans. I build community. All right, so we were talking off camera about how, like, you know, your career has changed.

Like you're you're more recognized when you go out in public. You can't go to an event without a lot of people kind of, you know, raiding you for questions and answers, right? Going like this. You know, he doesn't have the headphones out, but there's people cheering right now. I can hear, I can hear that. Yeah. So, you know, as your career has grown, like, has it been harder and harder to stay independent? Or like, what does it look like, you know, as far as how the business has changed? Because you talked about just like the social aspect of it, kind of right. But how is the business being impacted by the growth? I wouldn't say it's harder to stay independent, but the desire to shifts more. Um, I'm yeah, difficulty is is tough. I don't know if harder is the word, but it definitely um the larger you get as an indie, the more you need. It's not like you become larger and you need less. Now you become larger and you need more to maintain that size.

Like imagine feeding a chihuahua versus feeding a bear, right? Like when you're a chihuahua, it's like, hey, get some kibbles, and you can get one bag of food and he's good for months. But when it's a bear, you know, you start to run out of salmon and berries and and everything. So you um your desire to be independent shifts a bit because you're like, man, I need this resource, I need this resource. Your access changes. When I was doing 250 cap venues, I never had a problem getting a venue. When you want to do a thousand cap, live nation owns this, AG owns this, another planet owns this, you have to use access ticket. You gotta use ticket. You the infrastructure is different because you're now playing a different level of ball. Oh, and it was designed that way. They wanted to control it for certain, you know, like for certain. and you know, you know what's crazy? Um, as like monopolistic as everyone makes it seem, I don't think that was the full intent. That's just like a product of the dream.

Like, if I'm building a live nation, just like I'm building my company and I acquire things and I start building my repertoire, and as you do that, you go from 10 to like, man, we got a thousand, you know, and that was their dream. We want to be the biggest. We want to throw the biggest shows we want to do, and that that's what happens, you know. They're they're Steve Jobs of what they do. Yeah, people love to just throw shade at live nation. Yeah, right. And just like paint them to be the devil. No, and but I think as an entrepreneur, it's a business. And and they grew and scaled their business in the way that they had to, and and their dream, right? You gotta think like people don't understand people like them, your dream becomes grander than your original vision. Like Amazon, like Bill Graham. Bill Graham was like one of the first, and he's from the Bay Area that was throwing concerts and, like, I'm a charge this and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna get venues. He never envisioned what it became.

You know, you can't you can't fathom that. You just start Live Nation started as as promoters, you know, and and it became that. Yeah. So specifically, is it is it the access to capital? Like, is it the funding side of things that gets more difficult as far as like how much money you do have to spend to do all the things, or like what specifically is, you know, because I like the analogy of like the chihuahua and the bear, but like let's get a little more, you know? capital and level of resource, right? So when you go to team, when you when you go to a label, this label employs thousands of people regionally and internationally that works your records. Yeah, when you're independent, you have your team working your records. Maybe if you have a publicist, maybe a digital art, but all of you have whatever whoever you can acquire and whoever you can fund and pay, right? And then you have to run your ads, You're generally on a label, all of your ads are being consumed within a budget, within the marketing budget. When you're indie, my ads come out of my budget that I spend to live as well, and to pay my team and to pay my mom, pay my mom to all of these things.

You feel me? So the infrastructure changes. So capital and just the level of resource, the public, the publicists and publicity you can get as an indie differs from the publicity you get when you partner with a major who works with television and works with TV. The sync opportunities change, the brand opportunities change. Everything is at a different magnitude because they have a relationship already. Like if I'm indie, I'm probably doing business with you for the first time. But with a label, I've been going to radio for a hundred years. They're golf buddies with fucking the senior executives. Beyond the capital is just the level of resources completely different. Yeah, but so how are you viewing like reinvesting into the business, right? Because that's a subjective dollar amount, right? If you're making a million dollars a year, right? Uh deciding how much to reinvest and where to reinvest it, like that's going to be subjective depending on who you talk to. So, like, yeah, how are you making those decisions?

What's your thought process around funding the business? I've really been for the past years, spend whatever it takes to win, you know, and that's why I've gotten this big because I haven't regulated myself how a typical business would. Where a certain business is like, no, use this budget, don't go over 10%. I'm like, fuck that. You don't have a board of investors, you have to appease exactly. If I need, if I believe in it and I'm like, it's worth it. Like when we did M.I. Musty with Marshawn, I spent $30,000 in digital. You feel me? You may not have got that if you went through the label and had to convince them, you know. But that was me saying, no, I believe in this, I think it's worthy. It makes me smile. I want everyone to see it, you know? Sure. So he didn't have to show a profit this quarter necessarily. He can go for it, you know? Yeah, for sure. But then, but then where does that end? Right? Yeah. Because yeah, sure, you can go spend all the money you want, and then you won't make any money.

Right. So there is a balance. And so where's that in? Like for me, how I gauge it, I spent 30,000 on M.I. Musty, right? Um, I've probably done 50 plus shows this year. Every show I've done, they request that song. I get bookings. My booking fee right now is anywhere between 25,000 to 75,000. Yeah. So if I get a couple shows, I made my money back. So it's like, yeah, you can't, you can't literally see the end, but if I spend 30,000 over the span of 30 days, and within that 30 days of me spending it, I get a few offers for shows. I get some feature offers, I get an offer to do interviews pay. I think it's worthwhile. And sometimes to tell, it's longer. Sometimes, I spend it 30 that month, and I don't see it back until four or five months. But I'm in a position independently where I could take that risk and know that it there will be at some point it does come back through another means, you know? Sure.

So when you say you spent 30,000 on digital, can you break down kind of like how you allocated that? Like at least at a high level, because I feel like these, you know, artists are always trying to figure out even if they only have $500 or $1,000, right? It's like, how should we be spending the bread? For MI Musty specifically, I did $5,000 in YouTube and I did $20, $25,000 in IG and Facebook ads. Okay. I didn't even do no TikTok. And so where what were you trying to do? Convert them to go stream the song or watch what were you doing? I just wanted them to see it. Just awareness, which is pure awareness. Which are cheaper. I don't care. It's way cheaper. And if you like what you see, you'll go do all the other things. I don't have to direct you to Spotify, direct you to this. If you like what you see in here, you'll go there by yourself. Because it's hard to get people off platform. They're on the platform for a reason. And that's never my goal. You know, my goal is to just make sure you had the experience. What you do after the experience is up to you. You meet them where they are.

So, like on the on the $25,000, let's say on Facebook, you know, meta and you know, Instagram ads, right? How many people saw the video? What is that shit ad on IG? Probably like damn near 20 million. 18 million. So 18 million views on Instagram alone, and the impressions is usually like four or five. Yeah, it because I think four or five times that? Yeah, four or five X that so a lot of people seen it. Wow. And a lot of people know that song. Like when I go do shows and I say, What do y'all want to hear? That song never not comes up. Did you do any? We go places and people like, yo, the thing you did with my, you know, people, it lives in their head. Yeah. Did you do like testing? Did you post, you know, a bunch of stuff for the song organically first and saw one do well, or did you just know? Um, we were already working in my musty through hella other visualizers with dancer. As soon as I made that song, I released it very shortly after.

I think um, when did we shoot that Marshawn clip? I don't even remember the song released in like November. December. The song released in November. We did a bunch of visualized dancers and was working it, and then we got up with Marshawn that month after, and it went like when I posted that clip, it started moving so fast. It was like this is if everyone's already loving it organically, this is the smartest thing I could do. That's what you put gas on. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, I never played the guessing game with ads. Yes, yeah. Yes, and okay, so you know, having or not is the most recent, or I guess you've even dropped since then, haven't you? Yeah, you have the one with Montel Jordan. God damn it, he's too quick to fast man. Yeah, literally, since I've prepared for this, he's already dropped another song. God damn it. Um, but so you know, the having or not record with Lil Jon, I feel like, and I don't know if this is just the algorithms doing their work, feeding me all the content, but I feel like you've posted more content about that song than you have any other song. Is that accurate? And so kind of piggybacking off what you said, like what about that? You know what I mean?

Like, is that abnormal for you because you saw it moving, or just because it's Lil Jon? Or like how did you decide to post it? Really abnormal. Generally, we just post, you know, all the catalog, but I had a conversation with Lil Jon, and he was like, you know, you move on to the next thing so fast. Like, I I want to make sure people see it. Like, this is how we used to do it in the old days. And I'm like, nah, but this is the new time. So we just I tried to find a middle ground for him. So I told myself, I'm like, we'll shoot a bunch of content for it, and I'll just like leak it out. I'm a try it for the first time. I'm a do a hundred pieces behind one thing and see if I can see a difference. So it's really been me like testing how it reacts. Am I am I doing more streams on this because people are seeing it more? Do people ask for this song more? Do they know this song more? So this was my first attempt at doing usually when I shoot 20 visualizers, it's across possibly 20 different songs. So this is the first time I did it across one to just see how it sticks with people more. And and so what are the results?

Is it working? Um I certainly have seen it more. I I I have as well. Yeah, I believe it's working. Um, it is streaming really well and it's and it's streamed more, but I also like I knew it would work because anything that someone sees more, they would they will consume more. You feel me? So it wasn't, it wasn't like unproven theory, but I just wanted to make sure. Because my thing is like, you just gotta test formula. You know, like if we did this much and it wasn't moving, but then again, you know, I have some songs where I haven't done as much and they do as well, you know, because the the moment of it. So I I don't know. You know, I don't know if it's working. I don't think I'll know until until the time kind of like it's still fairly new. Yeah. But but for me, even you just saying, like, well, it was obvious that if I posted more about it, more people would see it, more people would stream it. I'm like, yeah, then fucking post more about all your songs.

Like, not I'm talking to like our community too. It's like you literally just said it's a no-brainer that it's how literally a no-brainer. It's like, oh, if I see a lot of ads for fucking coke, I'm gonna buy more coke. You know what I mean? Like, that's just how it works. If you've seen it every day, every other day, like you would just you would be more familiar with it. Like, I know some songs from artists that I'm like not a fan of, but I know the song because I've seen the content. Yes. Time and time again, you know, like that's how it works. Are you feeling annoying? Like, do you feel spammy right now with the song? No. Okay. Good. No. Because that's how most artists that's watching. Especially because um I'll look at comments and there's new people still finding it. Yeah, there's new people like, man, you got up with Lil Jon. It's like, I have 1.7, 1.8 million followers. Everybody can't see that. No. You feel me? And even if they did, it's like, so what? If you like a song, I don't mind. And you know, a good gauge is a Lil Jon song, I've had to edit over 25 pieces. So I hear it the most.

And I told myself, when I get tired of it, then I'll be done. But I'm still, you know, when I'm editing, I'm like, bro, this shit is still going. Oh my god. Not to mention that content isn't even necessarily shown to your followers. Like people, when you're scrolling your feed, you're not seeing shit from people you follow. Especially if it goes viral, you're you're going into a whole different world of discovery, you know? Yeah. It's not social media anymore as much as interest media. Yes. We're Seeing shit that we're interested in. Discovery media. Yes, for sure. So you're arguably, I mean, even this morning, like you were playing pickleball, yet somehow posts were going up on social media. I feel like you're like on the court posting. Like, I don't even know. You're aware that planners exist. I know, but well, but that's what I want to get into. Like, how do you stay so consistent? What kind of systems or like tools are we using, right? Because you mentioned you're even editing still like 25 pieces of content for this song. What what are the weekly like systems and processes and and tools you have in place? 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. I use Munch. There's a there's a site called Munch that busts down like long form content. So for like interviews, free games, vlogs, I'll put it into Munch, and Munch will give me a bunch of pieces to say, do you like this?

Do you like this? Right. And I'll pull pieces from that. And then there's some videos I'll go in myself, like shows, and I'll cut out all the pieces that I love, all of the clips that I love from it. After I get all of those clips, I do caption and phase, all of that, et cetera, et cetera. After I get all of those clips, I make this Excel sheet. My Excel sheet says Monday through Sunday, every day of the week. And then it says 6 a.m., 8 a.m. 10 a.m. 12 p.m. 2 p.m. 4 p.m. 6 p.m. I try to fill out I try to fill out as many slots as I can with all of these clips and I vary it. So in the morning, it may be something motivational, quote-ish. 8 a.m. It might be a stroll or something that just gets you excited. 10 a.m. is usually a visualizer, 12 p.m. is an interview clip, 2 p.m. is a live performance clip, 4 p.m. It could be like a show promotion or flyer, 6 p.m. It could be a photo from that or a piece of merch that you may be interested in buying. So I vary what that content is, but I just try to fill out that calendar.

So once I do it on Excel, I go into Hootsuite, and Hootsuite lets me set everything to schedule for TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. Once it's on there, upload it to YouTube, and it just flows. You write your caption on there and everything, right? It's just all automated. Bro, so many artists just like jumped off tall buildings like hearing his schedule and being like, wait, you're posting more content in one day than I'm posting in a month. And you know what's crazy? I had a moment where like I I just stopped. You know, I wasn't in the flow and in the mood, and I couldn't find the time to like go. Like I'm busting down content now from months ago and I'm like man this was so good it would have been went viral and grew my platform you know but I just wasn't in a space. So I get when artists don't but when I'm in that space I literally have seen there was a point my um viewership like was at 80 million like my monthly reach it said 80 million and I just watched it dwindle when I wasn't doing that work and wasn't doing it and now it went all the way down to like 10 or 11 and now I've been posting consistently again it's at like 18 right now and just climbing. Just in the past week I've probably done a couple million I've had a few clips really go you know so and for me when I don't want to do it I don't do it.

When I feel good and I'm like man I just want to share and raise awareness on what I'm doing in my stuff there's no wrong in that artist who like man you post too much like bro I'm sharing what matters to me. That's it all you know that that's how I look at it I'm I'm not just spamming or putting shit up just for the sake of posting like I really go through I go through every clip myself and I say does this make me feel good how does this make me feel why do I want to share this what you feel me I go through that myself except like collabs from brands and stuff but even them I try to regulate as much as I can but every post I put up is something I chose to share it it was something for me. So so you said some artists say that you post too much like you know artists like artists like in general you feel me like there's some and not just artists, managers but there's a lot of people that think you can post too much. Well, what is their rationale ever? Saturate oversaturation or pollution, you know?

Okay. But I always. And I and I understand both. I think that it is very possible. I don't think you should pollute the air. You know, I think if you're just posting for the sake of posting, like, man, I just need to get something up, then it's pollution because when it gets received on the other end, people care as much as you cared about it. But when it's like That's huge. this matters to me, and I want to share this, I don't give a fuck what nobody thinks. You feel me? I'm not sharing it for them. I'm sharing it because it means something to me. Yeah, but see, I I think where you're correct and the likes of like Gary Vee, who posts arguably, of course, more than you do, even, right? If everything is unique and it's sharing a different message, even if it's like a similar message, but if it's shared in a different way, and he he would probably say the same thing that you are about like he genuinely feels that this message needs to be shared with the people. And that's what people don't, and that's why I mix it. Like for having or not, you've probably seen it 20 times, but you've never seen the same clip.

No. Yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah. It's if and if it was, unless I went back and found it, to watch it specifically. If it was the same thing, I wouldn't do it. You know, because I understand that. Like that's just lazy. I don't want, I wouldn't do it. But the fact that I've done different ones and each one feel different and make you feel something, is why I'm able to share that much. So yeah, so a lot of artists probably think like, well, he's LaRussell and he's got more this, more that, and that's why, like, true. Do you well, but do you but I mean the type of content you're sharing, man, like I don't think there's anything other than of course, like you're performing in front of 60,000 people at Outside Lands Festival. Like, like sure, I'm performing in my backyard. I'm working with Lil Jon. I'm making some of those Montel Jordan, my mama is in it. Sure, but there's a version of that that fits everybody. Anyone could do. I just don't, I don't I don't like this. Yeah, as long as you're telling your story, you know, I think that is all prevalent and relevant. Yeah, because that's my that's when I get really like just frustrated with our you know artist friends is when they think that they can't do it because they don't live this like incredibly interesting life or something on the regular. And it's like Man, and that's the thing is like if you're a singer, you could just get on every day and sing.

And and eventually you will grow a base and a following based on that. Like when I first started, I didn't have a range of content. I was just rehearsing in the garage. I take clips from our live streams and rehearsals, and I would post those. Then I finally got to a point where it's like, man, I'm gonna do an interview run and I'm gonna do at least seven so I could just pull clips from all seven. So I got an interview piece for every day. And then I start filling the interview pieces, and it was like, oh, we film the shows, let's start taking pieces from the show. Okay, I'm gonna do that. Then we start shooting visualizers. Well, let me take a piece from each visual, you know. Like, you could really bust the even visualizers now. Like, I'll shoot one visualizer that I'm able to bust down into four different clips because you know, ours is moving. There's different moments that each moment goes viral, and then it get, you know, like it just depends on how much you want it. I was telling Splash and them the other day before I flew to Atlanta, I was at home all day. I was at the computer prep for probably six hours working. Uh I we did a free game with BFB the Pac-Man.

Yeah. And I pulled like 22 clips from it that were like good. They made me smile, made me laugh, or I learned something. It took me six hours to go through that hour and a half interview and pull in 22 clips, bust them down, get them into the right dimensions, do captions. And I I told Flash, I said, Man, if a nigga didn't want it, they'd never be able to do this. Because for me, that's so hard right now. Henry's like, six hours, I have to be like, man, out of this 22, something gonna change my life to make that six hours worth it. And a lot of artists, they not gonna, you know, they just want to make music. And I understand that completely. But today it's like the game we in. We're not in a you just if you do just want to make music, you need to go sign or you need to get with a team that can help you do that in a way that becomes conducive where you can grow your brand. Yeah. So I feel I feel like it's super cliche. Like, artists need to be the CEO of their business. Like, I feel like we've we've said it ad nauseam, and our guests have said it all the time.

Like, how do you differentiate between like LaRussell the artist and like Russ the CEO? You know what I mean? Of good company and just like your artist business, right? Like, do you feel like you're wearing those hats at different times, or are you always wearing both, or how do you deal with that? I treat a lot of my deals like art, so I'm kind of always in the center of it because I'm not just LaRussell the artist. Like, that's one branch on my tree, and I'm not also just LaRussell the businessman. That's one branch on my tree. I'm LaRussell, so I'm really always here. And I put those hats on when I need to. So I'm not, I'm not the guy who's just walking around like, man, I'm an artist, and that's all I want to do and all I do, because that's not. That's just some shit I like to do. I love to make music, I like to make dope songs, but I also enjoy to do a lot of these. I I throw shows and festivals and I book talent and I curate events, you know, like these are all branches on on the LaRussell tree. And and so why do you do all those different things?

Is it just to have a multi-revenue stream business model, or is it because you think it's gonna elevate the LaRussell artist brand? Like, what's your mind? Like, what's the I love it all? Okay, I love it all. Um, I've done all these things before I made money from them. So the revenue is the revenue's new. You feel me? The revenue. It's rather new. You feel me? And still, like I'm not some of these things I'm not even making revenue from. Like this year I did a series called In Good Company Wit, where I just brought out I've got Mike Jones, I did a show with Webby, I did some shit with like Jennings. I've been bringing out my legends and just building musical experience around there, and a lot of them have been going viral. Juvie, yeah, juvenile. I lost, I don't I don't get favors. I paid every single one of them. Every single one of them I lost. We didn't sell uh nearly enough tickets to cover at any of those the travel to lodging. I lost money on every single one of those. I went into the red.

But I told myself it's like this moment was worth it and it's building on top of it to where one day I'll be selling 5,000, 6,000 tickets to these events, and it will make sense. You know, like I have uh a show coming up in the city with me, E40 confunction, baby bash. I had to get 40 a lot of money. You feel me? It's like I'm losing money doing these things, but what I'm gaining is in like communal support and brand building, and one day that'll be worth all the money I lost. Damn. So um on the live shows, right? Like, I think something you've done really well is be an active member, like in your community, right? And you've really taken community building offline, right? And you've treated it more or you've done a great job of kind of bridging the gap between IRL and digital, right? How important do you think that is to your success as a brand as an artist, right? Because I feel like a lot of people think that it can live in a silo online.

Everyone's pushing like social media, like post TikToks every day, you know, go viral, whatever. That's kind of like this this like talk track over here. And you're kind of proving that not wrong because you're going viral all the time, but you you're proving that the IRL stuff is still key. Is that like intentional or is that because you just like to do that? I do more in real life than I could ever show online, especially in my community. Yeah, you know, like I just go on walk sometime and it's it's I'm blessing people throughout, you know. Like, um, for me, that's just I for me, it's important to show online who you are, you know, and a lot of people skip that. You know, it's even some people like, you know, I don't like showing my charity online, everything ain't for posting, but it's like you got bitches and money and cars in your music videos. Like, you don't think that's you know, this part is definitely worth sharing if we're gonna share the bullshit. You feel me? Um, but I think it's necessary to display all sides of you online. And uh some artists are literally only showing their art, which is why they can only build fans.

I don't build fans, I build community. You know, we just had a convo with someone, and they was like, for as big as you are and as many people know you, you should be streaming more. And I said, No, my streams are real. My stream, I don't I don't get playlisted and all that. My streams are from people who choose to go stream me personally. Everyone who know me ain't a fan of my music. I just walked around in Vest Fest and I got I couldn't take one step without getting flooded. They not all listening to music. Some of them is like, my daughter put me on a you. I love you. I love what you stand for. I love some people love me as a human. You know, you can't look at that and think they should all be streaming. Some of these artists, they just have fans, fanatics, not community, not culture, not people who kids is like, no, I know LaRussell, he gave me a hug. He did this with me. He showed up for my school. It's different. You feel me? So it depends on what you're trying to cultivate. Yeah.

So outside of the backyard shows, what's something we can look forward to as far as like, you know, that community vibe and that community building. Any like ideas on the horizon? I'm working on a fest for next year. Um, that's like is it the one you pushed out to next year because you want to do it right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's smart idea. The backyard's gonna, it's gonna be like the backyard, but 10 at, you know, this year we did me and Juvenile and Richie Rich at Great America. Yeah. And it was like so dope. And then we got to ride rides after with our kids, and you know, it was really special. Um, and next year I'll I want to do uh a fest similar that just for people that have fun, like bro, come come have fun. Like we did a show at the fair at my hometown, Vallejo County Fair, and after I performed, we went and roll rides with all the kids, and I gave out free vouchers for rides to everybody who was coming in. Like, it's stuff like that. That's you'll never forget that. You know, that people have experiences with me as their favorite artist that they will never get with any other favorite artists they have in their life. For sure, man.

Well, we gotta send him uh on the road right now. He's late for another. We're at 3 p.m. on the dot. Yep, I'm punctual, my friend. Appreciate you blessing us. man. Hey, I gotta come back. We always have fucking great interviews. I always got great questions. This is really, it really is one of my favorite podcasts. That's love, man. I appreciate you not. trying to. When I'm on it, though. That's the only time I watch it. Us too. I'm surprised he didn't try and cancel us. And he's got the shirt. Let's end this right now before he tries to I do, I do, I gotta get up out of here. Before he tries to say anything negative about us. Cut it now.