He Turned Millions of Views into Millions of Dollars ft. Futuristic

So is this the best or the worst time to be an artist? It's both. See? A million views today is like a thousand views in 2015. My sister accidentally got a million views and called me, like, what do I do? I'm like, yo, nothing. When I was coming up, you shot one music video, and hopefully that music video did really well. Now it's like take that song and shoot 75 reels to it. Bro, you're still making music. You're still managing successful artists. How do you do it all? I have whiteboards for everything. There's a revenue stream whiteboard. There's a Michael Minnelli whiteboard. I think at the root of it, every artist has the same dream. I want to live off of my music. Period. On this episode of the One More Time Podcast, we're joined by Futuristic, an artist, a manager, a CEO, who's literally turned millions of views into millions of dollars. Back in 2015, one viral video, Nerd Raps and Compton, took him from tiny little shows to selling out bigger venues to making $60,000 a week off a single song and eventually building a thriving and lucrative independent career. Back then, a million views changed his life.

Now, a million views is what your little cousin accidentally does on TikTok. In this episode, we get into how it's both the best and the worst time to be an independent artist. How to actually capitalize on a viral moment, the systems and whiteboards he uses to keep shit moving, and real strategies for turning attention into actual money. Cash, Moolah, Cheddar. If you loved our Nic D episode for the content and execution sauce, or the LaRussell episode for the high level business game, this one sits right in the middle and it's a motherfucking banger. And now for the full conversation with the one and only futuristic. So is this the best or the worst time to be an artist? Because I feel like I hear like arguments for both sometimes. I have my own opinions, but like I want to just get, you know, uh yours right off the bat. Yeah, best or worst time to be an artist, it's both.

See, and that's what I was afraid of. It's kind of how I feel too, though. I mean, I get it. Yeah, there's no there's no right answer because it's easier to have a moment, but it's harder to maintain that moment, and it's harder to monetize that moment like we used to, because I mean, just to jump into it, you asked me about finances or whatever, but like I always go back into when I popped off in 2015, one million views changed my life and made me a millionaire. Where like now everyone's cousin has a TikTok with a million views. Dude, somebody's grandpa got a million views. You know what I'm saying? It's just like a million views doesn't mean anything. A million views today is like a thousand views in 2015, where it's like anybody can get a million views. My sister accidentally got a million views and called me. Like, what do I do? I'm like, yo, nothing. You don't do anything. Yo, inflation. Go back to your job is what you do. Inflation has really hit everything. It's insane, even views.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I would say like it's dope because it's easier. Everything's easier, right? Like, you can film videos on your phone, you know, you could social media is just like you can go viral, but as far as like really building a fan base, sustaining, maintaining, and getting paid off of it, you really, really gotta do 10 times the work because when I was coming up, content didn't exist. It was you shot one music video, and hopefully that music video did really well, and that was the promotion to your song. You shot one piece of content, it was a music video in 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, and you hoped that blogs picked it up, and you hoped that people saw it on YouTube, and now it's like, yeah, no, take that song and shoot 75 reels to it. So I mean, yeah, we just interviewed uh the SVP of marketing uh at Create Music Group, a guy named Chris Hirsch. He's been in the you know system for uh two decades. He started off at RCA Records, I think, and he was talking about how they used to spend a million dollars on a Christina Aguilera music video and then beg MTV to play it for free.

Exactly. That was the model. But just in general, like now that just doesn't happen. Even at the major labels, they're not spending a million dollars on a music video, like no shot. Absolutely not. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, I figured that's what you're gonna say. So another thing I wanted to make sure I got your you know opinion on is I feel like the term independent artist gets very like loosely thrown around, and I myself feel like there's different buckets of indie artists. Um, I want to get your take. Like, how do you define an independent artist? I mean, independent artists is anybody that's not signed to a label, but even in that regard, it's kind of crazy because I feel like there's artists that are signed to labels that still call themselves independent artists if they're not on majors. That's what I mean. Like, exactly. Cause there's indie labels. So, like that already did, you know, disproves your definition. So Yeah, there's so many indie labels. Like, there's definitely it's just tears.

There's the there's the guy who shoots all his content in the bedroom that records himself, mixes masters, makes the cover art, does everything himself. Like that's as indie as it gets, right? Yeah. And then you start to get a little traction, and now maybe you have a manager, and then now maybe you have social media person. Now maybe you have an indie deal. But yeah, most people are are signing indie deals and getting even getting advances and having a team, but they're still independent artists if they're not on Universal Republic, Atlantic, Sony, um, on the major scale. Like basically, if you're not Cardi B, J. Cole, or Drake at this point, you're still claiming you're an indie artist. Yeah, well, and I feel like definition is different. Yeah, and I feel like some people define it as like, you know, master ownership, right? And but then it's like, but some of those people literally have distribution deals with major label distributors. Right. So it's like they're distributed through a major, but they're indie because the major doesn't, you know, own any of the records, they're just participating in the distribution of the records and obviously royalties from that. So I don't know, man.

I just like feel like it's a fucked up term at this point. I like to think it's more about like what level of work are you having to put in yourself. You know, if you have a machine that is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for you, right? I think that makes you a little less independent. Whereas the crazy thing is, I I think why why the uh definition has changed a little bit too is because when people do sign, they're still expected to do everything themselves for the most part, until something pops. So what I've noticed is like, you know, I've managed a lot of artists that have signed deals. And at no part were we like, yeah, let's announce our deal and let's let's, you know, it's like, no, they still wanted to claim independence, and even within that label structure where there might be an advance, where there might be a marketing team, the marketing team is calling us and asking us what we want to do, and then we're doing it, and then they're just spending money where they feel like they should spend the money to market what we've already done as the independent team. So I think that even when people have the machine, the machine ain't really machining, you know? Period.

Um yeah, it's very, it's very tough. Everybody that signs still feels like they're independent because it's not what it used to be in that regard. Yeah, honestly, the clip that we just posted from the from the LaRussell interview, someone in the comments had a very good point about like, even if you're indie and then you get signed, nine times out of ten, you're gonna have to continue to do all the work, basically, from like at least a social media content creation marketing perspective that you were doing pre-getting signed. Like none of that really falls off of your plate. You know what I mean? Which is super frustrating if I'm being honest. They expand what you're doing. They clearly have an infrastructure and people, you know, globally, if you're with a major that can add fuel to your fire. But you're not gonna be able to do that. But it doesn't actually take anything away. It's like you have to keep doing what you were doing, they just can do more. Yeah. But it's like you still have to do exactly the same amount of work. I mean, ideally, right, that you were doing. because that's what got you to the point to do all the same work. It's just a matter of like once you hit a certain threshold, now they can open up the doors to get you to the next level, right? They can get you the looks that you want to get, they can pay the publicist to get you on every platform.

They can pay now for clipping and have everybody talking about you. They can get you on radio, they can get you TV appearances, they can get you on Kai Cenat's live stream, things that you might not be able to do yourself. But most of those things you still can do yourself. It's just you need an influx of money and you need an influx of resources and the right people to believe in you that have those connections. So there's actually been a lot of people that have left major labels that are now servicing indie artists and taking them to those levels. Um, but I think no matter what, there'll always be a little bit of an of a monopoly to get to the top tier. And these artists that you see at that top tier, a lot of them do have old label people that have left labels to now work for them. So you're such an interesting like case study, man, if I'm being honest, right? Because you you mentioned already kind of alluding to the fact that you've managed artists, you still do manage artists today, right? Yeah, so you you manage artists, you are yourself an artist, you are involved and like have started, you know, other companies and businesses, right?

Um, I I you know, I just I'm trying to understand like how do you really characterize yourself, right? Like if someone asks you like what you do, you know what I mean? Because it's like if you're just an artist, it's very easy. Like you're at like a dinner party, you'd be like, Yeah, I'm an artist. But it's like, how do you even self-describe like what you got going on? It depends on what room I'm in, right? Like, I just I just got back from Hawaii where I was managing my artist Michael Minnelli. Love him, Michael's girl. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So anytime somebody asks me, like, what do you do? I'm like, yeah, I manage this guy. You know, so that's my answer for the for the five days I was there. And it's always interesting because the people that know me know me, and the people that don't don't. So as I'm like taking pictures for him at his meet and greet and taking pictures of all these fans with him and stuff and selling merch and doing whatever else, people are coming up to me and asking me for pictures, and then the people that don't know me are like, why are they taking pictures with the camera guy? Why are they taking pictures with the merch guy? That is fucking amazing. The picture in my head is beautiful right now.

Yeah, it's a very interesting dynamic, but I think for me, it's like when you can remove the ego from things, you can do anything you want. Do you think artists should like most artists should have some other aspect beyond just making music and releasing it? Not necessarily. I think that the reason why I was able to blow up was because of my business brain. Um, and because of like the ability to try new things and not feel weird about it and not feel corny or whatever anybody may say, right? Like at the time, the things that I was doing hadn't been done before. Like when I blew up off doing nerd raps in Compton, like that was the first rap prank. And a lot, I remember I was talking to labels and telling them that this is what I want to do, and they're like, no, that's not cool. That won't work. And then I'm like, okay, stupid, watch. And then they got egg on their face. You know, and then I'm like, yo, because I realized early on, YouTubers, at that time they were Vine stars. Like I was, there was Vine stars that were getting a lot of views, and then they started to convert to YouTube, and I started realizing like, yo, these YouTubers are getting more views than rappers, even the biggest rappers in the world.

So I'm like, how can I? It's a way easier to try to be cool with a YouTuber than two chains. So let me start hitting these YouTubers and try to infiltrate that world. And then that's when everything blew up, and the labels didn't get it. And then even after I had the case study of making a lot of money doing it and a lot of sales and a lot of fans doing it, I presented them like, okay, my next album is gonna be called As Seen on the Internet, and every video is gonna have all these famous YouTubers. I'm chilling with Logan Paul every day and Jake Paul and Amanda Cerny and King Batch and all these huge people. I'm like, look at the numbers, and they're like, no, we want to get you a feature with Wale and Waka Flocka. And I'm like, you guys don't get it. You know, so um, yeah, I think it's just to do other things, I guess to go back, right? To do other things, you have to kind of be, you have to have the open mind to do it. You have to know that what your skill set is, and you have to think about what you want for your actual real life. And I think for me, I always helped artists from the beginning of my career. Before I was anybody, I was throwing local showcases, I was booking bigger artists to come out here and I was opening up for them.

I was putting my homie Devon on, or I was helping Kyle's manager submit to blogs in 2010 and 11. You know, so like I've been always helping other artists and being able to remove my ego and see when another artist is dope and is probably gonna be bigger than me, and just be like, let me help you get there. Um, but for some people who are meant to be superstars and are meant to, you know, and they love that lifestyle, and that's what they want to do, then do it. I think any decision that you make should be based off what makes you happy. And so for me, I think that my life is just kind of I've had these really cool seasons of my life that have led me into the next season of what I wanted to do. So I knew when I wanted to stop touring, I knew when I didn't want to be famous, I knew what I wanted to do next, so it allowed my decision making to be easy to kind of like shift lanes and use what I created as a case study to help others. Um but I don't think every artist should do that because you'll spread yourself thin.

If that's not what you want to do, if that's not the goal, because there's no real such thing as a side hustle. Everything takes a lot of time to make it be great. Your side hustle, if you give it too much time, will become your main hustle. And then the thing that was your main hustle will now be the side hustle, which is where I'm at. Music is a side hustle, and educating is my main thing. So you gotta be careful with that. And if your goal is to continue to get bigger as an artist, then you should present yourself as an artist and only be an artist. But how do you do it all, right? Because yeah, music's your side hustle, but like, bro, you're still making music that still is streaming and selling, and people are tapping into it. You're still managing successful artists that have a lot going on, you're still launching fucking universities, like membership universities to educate and empower indie art. Yeah, like how do you do it all? Because I think a lot of artists that are just doing artists, they have a lot going on. They get overwhelmed just with that.

You gotta make the music, you gotta shoot the content, you gotta fucking do the admin shit, register your song. Like, how do you give us some sauce, bro, about like how you manage it all? Uh I live off of my to-do list. Okay. I'll say that. Like, I have a to-do list that every week I'm old school. Like, well, here, I'll even kind of I don't oh, I'm moving my it's it's it's on the camera, so I can't do it. I have whiteboards for everything. Everything. Okay. There's literally a whiteboard here of like, there's a revenue stream whiteboard, there's a Michael Minnelli whiteboard, there's an Indie Amplify whiteboard, there's a release schedule whiteboard, there's a daily posting whiteboard, right? That's a lot of whiteboards, bro. Send us pictures of those. Yeah, so we can pop them up right now. Yeah, I'll I'll send those. Um, and then I have like my to-do list where it's like all the companies and the to-dos for that company. And um, I just live off of that and I go through, I go through thing by thing. It's like, as the boss, if other people have to go do work for you, you check in with them in the morning and you send them on their way to go do their work. And then anything that takes me just a little bit of time, like, oh, this is a 10-minute job, bang out all my 10-minute jobs.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, go down the list, right? And then when it's if it's a thing that requires me to like sit down and think or like an overarching idea of how I'm gonna do what or you know, it's like, let me go to my whiteboard and turn into you know DD and Dexter real quick and figure this out. Um, but yeah, it's really just I think people waste a lot of time in their day. Long story short, people waste so much time. And I think once I had kids, I started to value my time so much that everything is micro focused time block where it's like, I'm not taking meetings before this time, I'm not doing this at this time, I'm turning my phone off at this time, and I'm I'm laser focused at this time. And then two, it's like batch recording. Find what works for you. For example, like the Step to the Mic series. We shoot 15 of those in a day. Oh, you know, so it's like 15. You have to figure out, you have to get ahead of yourself. You have to plan your work and work your plan.

You know, that's that's one of my favorite quotes. Plan your work and work your plan. And if you do that, and if you batch film everything and you set your day up for success, you'll win. I think people like frown upon scheduled creativity, but for me, scheduled creativity is better than just leaving every door open and whatever floats in can come in. It's like, no, I have boundaries of this is when I'm doing this, leave me alone. I think boundaries force you to get more creative. I almost think it's harder to be creative when you could do it anytime with any tool. It's it's tough. But um, I I wanted to add a little gem onto that from my dad. I want to pass this one along. He shared Jim, Jim's coming in the episode. Jim's making the episode. Let's go, Jimbo. He shared a book with me called Eat That Frog. Frog. And basically, the core concept of it is every day you wake up and there's typically one very daunting task, right? There's one thing, it's like the probably the most important thing you need to do today. It's probably the hardest thing, might take the most time. And it's the one that we typically put off the longest.

And people that can train their brains to wake up and just eat that frog, right? It's it's do the thing you don't want to do first. Like get it out of the way, get it done, take just bite the head off. Um, these people end up being like a lot more successful. So great book. I recommend checking that out. Yeah. And honestly, man, I'm I'm so glad you said the thing about you know having kids because I feel like you've asked me so many times how do I stay as productive as I am? Because I've got a lot going on, including two young children, two years old and three and a half. And a job. Yeah, and a day in a full-time day job, and it's like, you know, just a lot of shit going on. And I think it's it really does help you, man, like to just stay focused because it's like you these are people that rely on you. Like you can't not be, I mean, you can if you're a deadbeat, but like if you're trying to be a good dad, like you have to be there. So then if you want to do these other things, it like it almost does really like force you into that like super efficient mode where it's like I'm gonna have laser focus. You gotta have systems in place, and I think that's where you excel a lot.

You guys seem like you have a lot of systems in place that just help everything run smooth. No, for sure. I mean, even look at like a like a Connor Price and a Nic D. It's like both of them have kids and they're crushing, right? I would imagine they have crazy systems in place of how they're getting down, you know. So with the with the nerd raps in Compton uh series, that was your first time going stupid viral, correct? Correct. Okay, and so was that a planned thing? Did you expect it to work? Or like how well, okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, we knew it was gonna work. Um basically I saw this dude, YouTuber, and I realized he lived in Arizona. This dude named Big Dawes. And I think at that time he had like 800,000 subscribers. I saw him on the news eating junk food at the gym. And I'm like, that's the gym I go to. I need to hit this dude up. I hit him up, he was already a fan, so we just linked and started working, right? So there was two pranks that came before that, but neither of them were music related. I did one called Awkwardly Staring at Strangers.

Very awkward. Sounds horrible. It was the worst, but I'm like, bro, how do you do this? But he dropped it on his channel and he put my YouTube video, he put my music video at the end of it. My music video skyrocketed. And I'm like, oh, imagine if we can flip this into rap. Like this will be crazy. So yeah, we did that two times, and I just saw the growth when he posted my video at the end. So then we knew that like if we did a rap-based one, it would go crazy. And so we held it. We held it until I went on tour, and he was very anxious to put it out. I'm like, do not. Uh we held it. Um and actually a girl leaked it. One of the girls I rap to leaked it, and it went viral on Facebook, and the song wasn't out, and I'm I'm cursing Facebook out. She doesn't have permission. Oh no. Get it out of here. So we knew that it was gonna go viral. Um, so we dropped it the first day of my tour. And so I posted it in one other thing that happened was I realized that Facebook was promoting, they just launched video.

This is how old I am, right? They just launched video for the first time where you could upload video and they were prioritizing it. So he posted the YouTube link, and I said, yo, tomorrow, Bro, just upload the video. Don't upload the YouTube link, upload the video, which was like very frowned upon, because of course they make their money on YouTube. Yeah, he was not about that. And I'm like, just do it, bro. And I did the same thing on mine. And so I posted it in the hotel room. I kid you not, This is my first show of the tour. I posted it in the hotel room. By the time I got to the venue, it had like 30,000 likes. 15-minute car ride. Wow, yeah. And I'm like, oh yeah, we're up. Over with. And so yeah, posted in the hotel room, get to the venue, and I'm just at sound check, like, you know, rapping and just watching these views roll in and knowing that like my life is about to change. And every single show that was at like 50 tickets, 250, 300 tickets. Like in the matter of days, you know, and like from a money standpoint, it was like that song made $60,000 because people like that week, because people were buying the single.

So it was iTunes Days. So people are buying the single, and not only that, they're buying all my other songs. So one thing that I always tell everybody is like, yo, like for a lot of people, that was their intro to me, but I already had three albums out. I had already been touring for two, three years, four years. So your content is like Netflix where people want to binge watch it. So once that came out, I had three songs in the top 10 on iTunes for months and months after that. Catalog. And you know, the pre-order for my album went out the next week, and then the album comes out and it sells mad copies. And so it was just like this crazy snowball effect of this one video that tied into everything. And we were ready to capitalize. That's why I told him, hold off until the song is mixed and mastered and on iTunes. Let's drop the music video in the prank the same day and link them both together. So if you look, they're both at almost like the exact same play count. It's like 30 million views for this video, 30 million views for this video. And then the virality of like everybody else posting it, Lil Wayne and all these different people, World Star.

So yeah, it was a crazy thing, but we knew we knew that that was gonna be the moment. So we did an episode recently, kind of talking about like how to react to going viral. And it and I feel like you were very strategic even back then, right? Um, about like, no, no, no, I need this that I know is gonna work to be posted in conjunction with me starting to tour, and then you already, to your point, like had the pre-order for the next thing ready. So, like when you're working with not only your own artistry, right for yourself, but then also when you're managing, you know, you know, Michael Minnelli or whoever else you're working with, how do you recommend they maximize like viral moments? Because I know you said like your cousin or sister or whatever went viral, and like, yeah, everyone can go viral, but if you do go viral, it is still like an opportunity, right? Like, let's don't downplay the fact that, like, especially if you go re you know viral for the right reason and like your song is in it and it's like a it's tied to your music, like it can make a little bit of you know momentum spark, right? So, how can people uh properly react to that?

Because you know, we had some ideas around it, but I want to get your take too. Going viral or just reacting to viral. I think if you go viral, right? Because that's a you know, how to go viral as a whole maybe we can dive into that too. Maybe yeah, this is more like all right, I posted this thing, it's going crazy. Like, what should I either have already had in place or what can I now scramble to fucking do to how do we avoid being one of those, you know, viral gone, you know, today, gone tomorrow type people that we see all the time now. I hate to interrupt this episode, but guys, I got one thing on the mind right now, and it's data. I can't stop thinking about it. All the artists in 2024 are winning because of data. They know who their fans are, they have access to their fans. Do you? Spotify is not telling you who your fans are. Apple Music ain't telling you who your fans are. But our friends over at DistroKid created a feature called hyperfollow. Every single release, you can set up a pre-save campaign with a HyperFollow and get access to every single fan's email address. Now you can let them know when you have a show coming up, when you're dropping exclusive merch, when you're going live.

And without the data, you're just bound by the algorithms of TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. No more relying on those platforms. We're going straight to our fans. DistroKid is the best DIY distributor. You can upload unlimited music for a ridiculously low rate. And you're gonna have access to features like hyperfollow. OMTDistro.com, you're gonna get 30% off when you sign up for DistroKid, and you can start collecting your fans' data today. Henry, let's get back into it. Yeah, it's the easiest and hardest thing to do as a creator is drop everything and do the same thing over and over again. It's not that complicated. If you, if you go viral doing one thing, this is where everybody messes up. They go viral doing something, and they're like, oh, I'm gonna throw all my other stuff at this. I'm gonna make something way better than this, and people are gonna love that. No, they're not. They love that. They're not gonna love that. They're gonna hate it. They're gonna want you to do exactly what they saw you do the first time for 10 more times, 15 more times. Yes.

In Michael Minnelli's case, 200 more times. Yes. And that's a great segment. I I just gotta, I'm very passionate about this because I just yelled at one of my homies who just had a viral moment the other day, and I said, dude, don't do anything else. Just do this, upload it now. Who cares? Like, schedule it for three days from now. Upload it now, make 10 more pieces of content exactly the same to the same thing, and do it over and over again. And then the next song you release, it was a cover. The next thing you it better be a cover. He covered a Disney song. Cover another Disney song and cover another Disney song and cover another Disney song. And when you drop your original music, whatever content you are, you're gonna go try to shoot a big crazy music video. Don't make your original song have the same feel as your cover and roll it out just like you would roll out your cover in the same style format. Don't switch until everything literally falls off. Until the right until the wheels fall off.

And did he fight you? Did he fight you on it? We're we're we're probably six days removed and he hasn't done anything that I told him. Oh no! God damn it, bro. I'm yelling at him right now. I'm not gonna say your name, but I'm yelling at you. Well when you see this interview, I'm gonna tag you in it. We'll we'll clip this and we'll all DM. You tell us who it is off camera, we'll DM it to him as well. Damn it, man. Because it's this it we've had it happen, yeah. 100%. We went viral on TikTok for drafting rappers, okay? We drafted our favorite Atlanta rappers first. We did the same fucking thing, drafted our favorite New York rappers, went millions of views, drafted our favorite Chicago rappers, millions of views. Fucking female rappers, old rappers, young rappers, short rappers, tall rappers, fat rappers, skinny rappers, whatever the fuck version of it, we did it. And it all worked. It all went crazy. Literally all we could not fucking miss, bro. And but I get it kind of from like the creative standpoint, like it it feels not creative. But I almost think like get creative to figure out how you can like put a slight spin on this already proven to work thing, right?

Because I mean, dude. You make it its own thing. Yes. That's what we did with with Michael Manelli, right? That's like it was he did a thing, and then now it's a show, it's a series. So Michael Manelli can be Michael Manelli, but his series is Step to the Mic. to the mic. So while he doesn't want that to be his whole brand identity as an artist, well, now it's its own identity as the step to the mic show, where that's the only thing that step to the mic show posts. And his step to the mic show has I want to say 800,000 followers on TikTok in less than three months. Oh my god. The fourth video got 30 million views. Oh my God. So it's like another thing too is people don't realize all these platforms incentivize new creators because they want to get them hooked. So if you have something that's gold and you start a new page, all that's gonna happen is TikTok is going to boost it. So if you create this thing that worked for you and you don't want that to be your brand identity, then make it its own identity, do it over and over again there. And if you want to collab post it with your page, you can, but realistically, it living on its own thing could crush, or you flip it where like, yo, okay, we really wanted to do this podcast, but look, yo, rap drafts is our thing.

So the page that you got known for as rap drafts, just make that rap drafts and then switch that make a new page for all of the. other stuff. We did that. We literally did that, dude. I'm so glad we just got reassurance. Yeah, that makes me feel way better. And the other thing that we were thinking about, oh, that just connected with us on a deep level. Yeah, we're there we go. well, we can just hint at it. We're launching a new series. It may or may not even be out actually by the time that this is dropping. If it is, go watch that shit. We're gonna put it in the description. But um, but yeah, I mean, we you know, we think it should also be kind of its own thing, just because like it doesn't exactly, you know, we don't want it to be the main thing on this, right? This is all about like how to kind of further your music careers, and that's just like a little bit, you know, different, right? Um, but how hard was it for not only maybe you but also like even just using Michael as an example? I feel like a lot of artists are scared to have the new thing be the main thing. Yeah, like what if that gets bigger than me? Exactly.

And is that does it go back to just ego? It's that's just your ego. Yeah, that's what I think, too. It's really it's really just your ego because if I think at the root of it, every artist has the same dream. I want to live off of my music. Period. At the root of it, that's every artist dream. Sure, you you might want to win Grammys, you might want to do this, you might want to do that. I think at the root of it, the first thing that every artist wants to do is live off their dream. So if this thing can get you there, it could either end up being the thing that stays with you forever, or it could be the thing that boosted you into that next season of life. And it's your job to either keep doing it or not, but it's it's an ego-driven decision, or it's a goal-driven decision, right? If if if you really don't want that. I was there the day, talk about so Justina Valentine from Wild 'N Out, right? Justina Valentine used to open up for me every tour I did. This is once again back 2012, 13, 14.

Um, not to put her business out there, I think she actually bought on, she paid to be on the tours back then. Sure. Um, some of them until it's Statute of Limitations at this point. I mean, you know, you can you can say it. It's been over 10 years. So I remember having the conversation with her because one of our homies was on Wild 'N Out out and invited us to go, and she went. And her whole thing was I don't want to be known as the wild and out girl. She almost did an audition, and it's like, yo, no matter what, you getting on TV is going to get more people to listen to your music than not. You don't go and do Wild 'N out, you're gonna be in the same place, right? You go do Wild 'N out, it can either be a season where you're on there, and hopefully it brought people to your music, or it could be forever, you know? And I think that even that, like, look at the people that do American Idol. They do American Idol, and a lot of them come back and completely fall off, right? Others take it to the max.

Her, she's still on Wild 'N Out 12, 13 years later, longest female running castmate, and her main identity is not being an artist, but her music does get more streams than it used to get, and she does make a lot more money now. So it's just like when you could flip that switch and be like, okay, cool, I'm touring. You're doing all the same things you would have done just in a different light, and maybe that was God's plan for you the entire time. You just had to get there. Bro, I think one of your biggest strengths, and something I wish more artists have is like you genuinely don't give a fuck what people think about you. And I think that is so powerful. I'm just like trying to think some of our like cool rapper friends. Oh my gosh, so many come to mind, right? Trying to pitch to them, like go be like go pretend to be a nerd and rap in front of people, and how immediately like shut down that would be. Like, is that everybody? I mean, is that something you're born with? Like, is it something people should try and get more out of their comfort zone? I really think comfort zones are hurting people out here. Or do they just need to be okay with?

Cause like one friend of ours in particular who I think you probably know who I'm thinking of. Same one. Uh yeah, he he, he's okay with. He almost like accepts that like he knows if he posted more content and did certain things, he like knows he would be bigger and or knows that more people would listen to his music, which is obviously his goal. So it's like he knows that it would, but then he still doesn't. Like, I don't really, I just it doesn't make any sense to me, to be honest. It's a fear of failure and a fear of rejection and a fear of not looking cool. It's like, yo, I I have a homie who's really, really cool. We play basketball together. Got a cool homie. He will not play defense because he's so scared to get crossed. He's so scared for somebody to make a three in his face and look stupid. I'm like, we're gonna look real stupid when we lose the game. Play defense, bro. Put your hand up. And especially this younger generation, like my little brother, another basketball reference. I spotted him like eight or nine points in a game to 11.

And then I played very, very intensely. And he's like, man, I hate you. You're a try hard. And it's like, yeah, I'm going to try hard. I'm trying to beat you. There's there's something on the line here. I'm trying to get somewhere. So at the end of the day, I'm a try hard. However hard I gotta try, whatever I gotta do to get there that doesn't compromise my morals, I'm going to do it. I'm going to try it, and I'm gonna try it for a long enough time to actually have a real case study of if it works or not. Your homie, tag him in this too. Your homie is your homie is either egotistical or insecure. One of the one of the two, dog. Like you can't be scared. Little column A, little column B. You can't be scared to fail. You can't be. You can't be scared to fail, and you can't be scared to be judged. Another bro, people hated Jesus. People hate. People would say Eminem sucks. Yeah.

No matter what you do, people hate on you. What's that about? What is that about? What's up with all the Eminem hate, bro? He's big. And if you're if you're big, anyone that gets big enough is gonna have people don't like you. No matter how cool you are, people are going to hate you at a certain point. So why do people hate Gandhi? Like, what the hell? Wrong with him. So just just jump jump out, bro. Get out, like you said, get out your comfort zone, try new things. Obviously, don't do things that don't align with who you are. That's it. You have to do something new. If if it's the definition of insanity, if you want a different result and you keep doing the same thing, it's that's literally the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Yeah. So you have to go do something different. Yeah, see, for me, it's always like people know that we're like the content guys. Like, we do think content is a very effective tool to get your music heard. Like, we do think that, and to grow a fan base. So, you know, all cards on the table, we're those guys. We we do think that. But like, none of us have ever said, like, do something that like you don't support. But it's like, I don't think you're trying hard enough.

If there's there's no version of content that you think is cool. There's nothing you want to share. There's nothing that you like. If you only like rapping, just rap and all your videos. Exactly. You know, in studio, vlog. just look cool and rap. Like that's still content. Like, yeah. I don't know, man. So that's Literally, look, look cool and rap and do it very well. Yeah. Do the shit out of it. in my university the other day. Like, one thing I do is I'll go through everybody's reels and their content and try to identify which one, even if like all your reels have 200 views, but this one has 500, right? Why does this one have 500 and all your other ones have 200? And weirdly, the thing with him, he doesn't look cool when he moves too much. He's very good at standing still and rapping and like just having a face, right? But anytime he walks, it gets less views. Well, you look goofy walking. So just stand there and look cool and rap. More views every time.

Wow. Every time it did better. Wow. So like it could be something that's that small of a tweak, is like, yo, your walk is a little peculiar. How did he respond? How did he respond to that? He was like, yo, no way, dog. He's like a very lyrical dude. I'm like, I'm like, dog. I'm scrolling through your page. When you walk, I hate it, bro. When you stand here, when you stand here and it's framed up and it's just a slow zoom, like Coda the Friend is a great example. When Coda the Friend just stands there and it zooms in, Coda might have a funny walk. I was about to say, does Coda walk funny, bro? He might have a funny walk. We'd still love to have you on the podcast. Big fan. He's good in that way. Just don't move on the pod. It's all branding. That's your brand. You look cooler doing that than doing that. Me, somebody who's animated or like my artist Pertinence when I was managing him, you know. Oh, I love Pertinence, dude. I love Pertie, bro. He's great. And and look how animated he is. Oh, he like skips and hops and fucking.

Right. It doesn't look as cool if he just stands there necessarily. Yeah. Doesn't look better when he moves. Yeah. What is it? Because he's like so lanky or something. I don't know what it is. Just tall and lanky, maybe. But animated. He's just animated. Yeah. So what's the name of the university, by the way? I want to make sure we. Indie Amplify University. Okay, so it's it's through Indie Amplify, right? Okay, so Indie Amplify obviously is kind of the artist's empowerment, education, services, uh, you know, side of your your overarching business. For sure. I also know that you, you know, you kind of mentioned that you do a lot of music reviews uh via Nero. Uh you know, we've also used Nero. Shout out to Eddie and and the, you know, I guess the Nero team. Shout out Nero, man. Yeah, Great platform, man. You're one of the you know, um, big early supporters. Are you are you like officially involved with Nero? Or okay, awesome, cool. Yeah, Love, love the platform. So I think it would be beneficial to kind of walk through what are some of the most common points of feedback that you give during the music reviews. Because I think we've given a bunch of feedback on music reviews, you know, using Nero as well.

And there were some like common themes to stuff that we talk about. Would love to know, you know, some of the most like recurring things that you might say. Everybody's mix is trash. That's our that's a top three. Top three for us as well. Goodness gracious. You know, I think that um I say it a lot. I'm like, yo, Russ got everybody's head a little messed up, where or maybe the economy does, right? Too. Where you're like, so many times I see people say, I produced it, I mixed it, I mastered it, I wrote it, I performed it, I sang on it, I rapped on it. It's like, yeah, that sounds cool until I play it and it sounds terrible. You're you are Ben, like his favorite thing to say. He sounded so much cooler saying it though. Oh, yeah, way cooler. I know. Yeah, that all you're telling me is that you prioritized me listening to your music more than you prioritized going and getting a decent mix because you paid $50 to super skip, and you could have gave that to an engineer to make your song actually sound good. And now that I'm telling you that, you come back next week with another song that sounds the same.

It's like your priorities, you know. So I've seen that a lot. I've seen that a lot where it's like the mixes aren't good. Um weirdly, I've seen that people's, and this is maybe nitpicky, people's syllable counts be weird. People will drag words to try to make them fit in like a phrase where they don't fit. And I don't know why, but that that one to me, every time I'm like, there's one quality of somebody who I could tell that is amateur, and it's the dragging of the words to fit the syllable count, if that makes sense. Or squeezing an extra one in. Or squeezing an extra one in. It's one or the other. Yeah. And then um just authenticity. Just like people not having a story in their music and not being authentic to them, because I think that, you know, in a world where there is 200,000 songs uploaded every single day, there's when people ask me what I'm looking for, I'm like, I'm looking for something unique. I just listened to 500 songs this month. So you have to have a unique story, you have to have a unique sound, you have to have unique production, you have to have a unique voice, you have to have a unique flow. One of those things, if not all five, to really stand out, if you're not just like overly just amazing, right?

Like uh like somebody who has an amazing voice, it's like it don't matter what they do and their voice is is crazy, right? You have to be unique and you have to be authentic to yourself. And so so many people feel like carbon copies of other people, and it's like the Ray Charles movie. It's like, yo, Ray, you could sound like anybody in the world, but what is Ray sound like? You know, you can imitate all these other artists, but like, what's what is Ray Charles sound like? So what do you sound like as an artist? What's your identifying quality? And then the last thing I'll say is I usually dive into like when I hear somebody that's really good and I go to their Spotify and they have 12 monthly listeners, I'm like, what are you doing? You're not trying It's not marketing themselves. You're not trying. They're not making content, they're not doing any of the things that it takes. And the music at this point is 10% of your success. 10 10%. Wow. I would I would okay, let me not be dramatic. No, I mean, if that's what you I don't I just want to make. 20% Because at the end of the day, just another hoop analogy, you could be the best basketball player in the world, but if you only go to the park and shoot around, that's not gonna get you nowhere.

So recording music ain't gonna get you nowhere until you market it. Yeah, damn. I want to add to that too. Like my biggest probably feedback when we do the reviews is just believability. Like someone might even have a cool story and a cool beat and a cool all that. And I'm but like the tone, it's the tone of the boy. I do not believe that you mean what you're saying. And that kills me. It could be a great song otherwise, but if I'm just not if I can't buy into it, it's a confidence thing, I think for sure. Confidence in the delivery. A lot of people lack that. A lot of people haven't found their voice yet, which it takes time. So, you know, some people are submitting and it's like their fifth song. And then the believability and like, I think believability and authenticity, like, yo, I don't want to hear about your Rolex. I don't want to hear about like even if I believe you. Yeah, because if if yeah, you might not be submitting to my stream if you really have all of these things that you're talking about. Probably you should be at a nice dinner right now. Yeah, but but so, you know, kind of piggybacking off of the uh the story, narrative, authenticity side of things, right? Um, you know, having that be unique.

Is it possible to have a unique and compelling story no matter who you are, or do you think that some people just have like naturally more interesting storylines about them, right? Because I feel like that's like a huge thing that we agree is important, but I I think it's it's missing from so many artists, you know, brands, and I'm scratching my head as to why, right? And I think their reasoning is that like, well, it's just like I don't know what's interesting about myself. So, like, is it that it's just like natural for some and not for others, or like how do you feel about that? No, I think it's it's once again, like even that could be an insecurity, right? Where it's like you've had a, you know, you've had a maybe you've had a privileged life, you haven't really gone through much, right? Well, there's still billion millions of people that have gone through that same life as you. What you have some sort of tension in your life somehow, right? Some way, or and it doesn't have to be around tension, it could be about how blessed you are.

It could be whatever the case may be, like, you have a story. You you're the only one with your story, like your exact story, but it relates with millions no matter what it is. So yeah, everybody has a story to tell, no matter what. So if so you just gotta figure out a way to tell it. Yeah, and and if so, if I'm an artist and I I don't feel like I'm doing a great job at conveying my story, is there some like exercise I could be doing, or you know what I mean? Like just how it feels so theoretical of like, well, figure out your story, but it's like what what are some examples or like things I can do to hone in on it and like make sure it is compelling. I'll say maybe it's the type of music that you're making that doesn't relate with your story, right? Okay. Like, yeah, matching it up, like making it make sense. There's comedy rappers, like I was I was talking with uh Anderson Burroughs, Anderson Burroughs, Anthony Burroughs. he's a battle rapper. Okay, right?

Super, he kind of looks like you, to be honest. Uh an amazingly good-looking white gentleman? No. Precisely. And then he goes into these battles and he's just overly white. Okay, thank you. If he tried to go into this and had a whole bunch of gun bar schemes and everything else that everybody else does, it wouldn't work, right? He don't have a story other than like he is a basic white guy. So he plays up his basic white guyness in his rap battles, because he's huge. So like at the end of the day, it might not be that you're that you're not telling your story. It's maybe you shouldn't be telling that story over a trap beat. You know, like maybe you shouldn't be telling that story with this style of content. Maybe you should be in a Chick-fil-A outfit, bro, because that's where you work. And that's your like my pleasure.

My pleasure. You know, like maybe your hit single should be called My Pleasure. Yeah, and it should be over. Damn. It's a good idea. Super smart. He's cooking. Yeah. I think it's that. I think it's sometimes if your story isn't resonating, then change the format in which you're telling your story. Yeah, I mean, that's actually something we've talked about a lot, too. You know, it's like someone will have a look that looks all like kind of like folksy, but they'll be fucking rapping like lyrical miracle, and it's like, why do you look like that? Like, this is a I can't even put two and two together right now, bro. You're confused. Yeah, that's oh my god, that's interesting. So, do you see yourself more like as a CEO right now or more of an artist at this point? I'm a retired rapper for sure. Okay. It still releases rap music and punk pop punk music as well. Yeah, yeah. I would argue that my pop punk music is is it's one of my favorite albums. My pop-punk album is one of my favorite albums for sure. Top three.

Um, yeah, I'm a basketball guy, so I'm gonna hit you with one more basketball now. Hey, I'm here for the hoops analogies, bro. You know, I might look like a basic white guy, but I'll I'll definitely see you on the court, bro. Let's go. Corner jump shot. That's all it is. Literally, I post up in the corner, bro. Yeah, perfect. I'm dialed in, perfect form. Don't play with me. Yeah. Um, I see why rappers have publicly retired. No rapper that's publicly retired is actually retired, right? Jay-Z's not actually retired. Logic, it's sure as hell is not actually retired. But you lose this competitive drive to want to be the biggest artist in the world or want to be like whatever. You don't want to be that no more. You're not trying to win the championship. You're not trying to whatever. I'm like a retired hooper, where a retired hooper is gonna go to LA Fitness and still be the best player there, right? They're still gonna go crazy, they're still gonna put 50 on your head. They're just not balling in the league no more.

So for me, it feels like that, where it's like, I'm always gonna make music to the day I die. But like that competitive edge to try to get to a new place with my music is not what fills my cup. It's not what makes me wake up every day excited. Where back in the day, it's like I'm gonna write a verse today that's getting somebody out of here. Where now it's like, yo, I'm gonna wake up today and like I'm gonna drop gems on this podcast, it's gonna change somebody's life. I'm gonna get on this music review and convert somebody. Like, I'm gonna teach, I'm gonna Michael Manelli, like I'm waiting for the next brand deal for hit. Like, I'm gonna go get that brand deal. I'm gonna go get the best artist to go on step to the mic. Like, I'm going to make plays for everybody around me and cultivate something that's gonna be the next wave, and that's what gets me excited. Not making a song. I did like a song in 10 minutes? Did that soft retirement like just alleviate a bunch of pressure too? Do you just feel like freer? You think?

Yeah, for sure. I think everyone like feels like they have to be a Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar level artist when like you can you definitely don't have to be that big to like make a living, and maybe in some ways, these insanely lofty goals. Like, like sure, like if you know, if that's what you want, shoot for the moon, but like more people can I think be more realistic with themselves and maybe be happier and achieve their goals quicker if we level set a little bit. For sure. And I think you have to like you have to really think about yourself. I was having a conversation with somebody at a retreat the other day, and he was like, yo, he was telling me how much anxiety he had. He was telling me how he's literally bedridden sometimes. He can't get out of bed because he's so anxious. For two weeks at a time, he can't leave the crib. And then he's telling me he wants to be the biggest artist in the world. And I'm like, no, you freaking don't, bro. You don't want to be the biggest artist in the world. Imagine, imagine having that anxiety, walking out of your house and getting Justin Bieber with seven camera people at your doorstep, or you're trying to close your garage and you have your Kanye moment, bro, you're gonna have a nervous breakdown. You don't want to be that artist.

So stop tricking yourself and giving yourself more anxiety, thinking you want to be that artist because you don't. You want to make money off your music and you want to stay in your crib. So do that. Stay in your crib. Stop trying to scale to these crazy places and get these interviews and do this and do that. Bro, you don't even like leaving your house. So just make great content in your house, make it have a message, talk about your anxiety in the music, film things that feel moody in your crib and relate with people through that story, and don't try to. If you end up getting all these views and all this stuff, which he is doing, he has over a million monthly listeners already. So he's doing well. I'm like, you're already there. You already achieved it, bro. Just keep doing what you're doing and start loving yourself and loving your life instead of thinking that you want something that you don't actually want. Because when you get there, you're gonna be miserable. So I think a lot of artists need to think of like, what do you actually want? What what makes you the happiest and pursue that instead?

Bro, self-awareness is like, it makes its way into so many episodes, but I I love it because I just think it's so important, man. People really got a deep dive into the soul. And the goals. I mean, yeah, which goes hand in hand with goals. Yeah. It's like, well, what is your actual goal? And then does it actually fit with who you are, right? Because I mean, to your point. Soul goals. Yes, soul goals. Soul goals. Did we just come up with that? Is that yeah? I said I say we, but I'm gonna sit by my man's right there. We're gonna do soul goals starting next week. Y'all heard it, it's in the description. Let's go. Link to soul goals down below. That's great. So, you know, I know through Indie Amplify, obviously there's a ton of resources, right? Um, and so one thing I wanted to get your, I guess, take on. Um, the latest thing is that like the waterfall approach doesn't work, right? To release strategies, and there's all these things about like popularity scores from Spotify and so on and so forth. I've seen multiple videos about that. So if that's true or not, no idea. I just will have to assume it is.

But what's your guidance to indie artists as far as like release strategies, right? Like, you know, everything from like consistency to everything from like how many pieces of content should we post, how long should we be posting about a song, right? Should we just be doing singles right now in the early? Singles out, like just kind of your general philosophy for maybe yourself, but also even the artists you work with, right? Like, how should we be releasing music moving into 2026 right now? Depends definitely depends on the level that you're at, but we'll just like start at the floor, right? Like, if you have any sort of following, I would just say go off the metric that your song only stays on release radar for three weeks. Which tells me that Spotify expects you to release a new song every three weeks, right? So every three weeks should be the metric, which means if you're posting five times a week, that means that song should have at least 15 pieces of content, right? Five times a week. 15 pieces of content for a song, uh post all of them organically, drop that song. If one of those pieces does well, that should become an ad, right?

That way, as you move on to the next song, that ad is still cooking for the last song and bringing people in, and that song continues to be the biggest song. If nothing hits for the next song, don't run an ad on it. It means it didn't work, right? 15 pieces of content, none of them hit, cool. Maybe you can come back and post them later. If they work, then run the ad then. Then the last piece of your formula should be automations. Anybody that's coming to your page that comments on something should get an automation. They should get a DM as soon as they comment, whether it be comment this word and get that, or just the regularly triggered automation where whatever they comment, they get something. You can do that through mini chat, or you could do it through us, which will be coming probably not when this drops, but in a little bit. Just join the university or follow your boy. Um, but yeah, so it's it's organic content releasing every three weeks. Um, obviously having the organic and real authentic story. And then as you grow, I think the formula has never really changed, if if I'm being real, right? Like the formula has never changed for sustainably having all the pieces to your puzzle, right?

First, make sure you're registered everywhere so you're collecting everywhere. And then as far as what you should be doing, you should be dropping merch probably quarterly or around your big project. And that's where you're gonna make your money back on the ads is when you can sell a product with it after you do those types of things. Um, and if you can tour, you should tour, you should open for artists until you have a big enough fan base to headline. So if it's opening and then headlining. So that's like that formula has never changed. Like merch drop every year, album every year, singles every three weeks, tour if you're if you're big enough to tour. Um still an album. So still an album. Still an album because it's gonna be your biggest revenue gainer, right? Like if you can sell a vinyl and you can sell a hundred vinyls at $50, you know what I'm saying? If you can, and it's the connectivity, it's it's the it's still your story. So people I think still do crave an album eventually, right? Like Connor Price just dropped an album.

He's the single king, right? But he dropped an album and he was so excited to drop it because he knows it further tells his story. So when you get to that point, sure. But yes, singles every three weeks, um, and run it that way. Damn. I like it. Yeah, good blueprint. I still love who was it, Z from Audio Mac, I think, about like no one should try and like stifle your creativity and your like desire to drop an album, but it's just like being okay with until you reach a Connor Price's level, like it might not be as efficient. As you know, as effective too, right? It's like it might not work. Like the songs at the very end of the album are likely gonna have shit streams, you know what I mean? It just kind of is what it is. It depends on how diehard your fan base is, right? Like LaRussell, you just had him on. This dude has dropped 50 albums dang near in the last however many years. But he's he's dropping them on on even biz and he's making mad bread. He's doing a show in his backyard and making 200k in a week. That was nuts, by the way.

We didn't even talk about it. We haven't even talked about that. That's wild. But like, if you have a die hard fan base of even a hundred people, that album could still make you more money than all your streams put together if all hundred people buy it via even biz or via hard copy or via a piece of merch with a QR code or or whatever, right? And then another thing too is people that have an overflow of music are also now starting memberships. So like there's no there's no real like this is for sure what you should do because I think everybody's trying to do everything, and that's why everybody's burning out. You have to figure out the things that you artistically are drawn to and that you feel like you would love to do, and then add those into your revenue stream, right? Like not everybody can do music reviews as an artist. Some people can. Not everybody can have a membership because they don't create enough to have extra content. But if you do, you can have a membership.

So I think it's like the streaming thing to me, where that used to be like the most important thing, I think if we're talking about living off your music, it's all the things that tell your story around that. And then you just hope that you strike gold with the streaming. So hopefully you have this passive revenue coming eventually. Um yeah, the last thing I'll say is Spotify has an algorithm, and that's where people are getting the game twisted a little bit. Um, somebody like me, I've seen it, right? for me collaborating with so many people as music is not my main focus, it's really crippled my release radar compared to what it used to do because people aren't listening to my songs as much if I'm a primary artist and I get on a song with somebody who's not that great, right? Um so what I've seen from artists like Pertinence and some other artists that you don't even really have social media, pertinence has a social media following, but there's artists that don't have social media followings that are crushing on Spotify. Yeah.

And it's because Spotify has an algorithm. They make the same type of song, they collab with other artists that share that algorithm, and when that song gets played, it starts to crush on radio. Starts to crush on Spotify Radio and all these algorithmic Spotify playlists. So keep in mind that the music you make and the niche that you have and the way that you drop that music is still going into an algorithm, just like your Instagram and your TikTok. And if you mess your algorithm up, it's gonna be hard to recover. So make sure that you're making music that aligns with the previous music that you made. Because if you catch a good wind on Spotify radio, which I've seen happen, you could be making so much money and not even have a social media follow. Yeah. Now I do think people they sleep on the idea of a Spotify algorithm, you know what I mean? And positioning yourself and your music correctly. is kind of an afterthought sometimes. And then also something you like touched on that I think is super important, is a lot of artists maybe are a little too focused on the like traditional artist model, which again is like streams, streams turns into album sales, album sales mean you go on tour, touring means you sell merch, and that's like just the kind of standard way to do it. But like doing music reviews or building other communities or doing content series like step to the mic.

I mean, these are all viable business like models and like different levers you can pull to make money to then fund the music. There's so many ways to get it. You know, so so many ways, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we were gonna make something, I think, right? About like, you know, creative ways to monetize your music or something, right? And it's like That aren't streams. Yeah, that aren't streams. We all seen what Spotify pays, we've all seen the royalty checks for a dollar seventeen cents. Like, yeah, it can make it work, but there's a million other ways. It might not be your main thing. No, facts, and all these artists that are doing everything by themselves, it's like, why are you doing it for you and making zero dollars off doing it for you, why don't you do it for all of your artists, homies that don't know how to do it and make some money doing it? You know? So that's that's kind of like for me. I mean, that's that's all management is, right? It's like, yo, I don't really want to tour anymore. I don't really want to do this, but I know how to do all this, so let me help y'all do it so y'all can go do it. You know, it's just like, how can you use your skill set that you built so you could be an artist, but your artistry isn't paying you, so how can you give that to the world and monetize it? So do you think that um your ability to manage is because I don't know, I I'm always kind of weary of like artists managing other artists or artists signing to other artists' labels.

Do you think it's working because you're not as focused on your own music? Because like, you know, yourself, you know, alleged retired or whatever, right? Like, is that why you think it's working, or can it just work in general? Even if you were super focused on your own music, could it still work? It can and it can't, right? Like, um, I think it just depends on the person, but I think where most people they sign to another artist, and like, unless you really know me, you don't necessarily know that I manage Mike. Most people didn't know that I manage Pertinence. Most people had no idea. Like 2022 or Buffalo Farm or Chris Calico or whatever the case may be, because I wasn't implementing myself into like publicly implementing myself into their stuff. Where most artists they try to sign an artist and then use their influence to blow that artist up, and you're basically low broing them at that point where they're always kind of under you until they're not. Right.

And that's what most artists don't like. So if you are gonna take on that role, you're taking on a behind-the-scenes role. A label and a manager is a behind-the-scenes role. It's not a public role. You know, so take that role behind the scenes. You know, I'll talk about it in a podcast, but you're not going to see me Diddy and dancing in in the videos necessarily, you know. So it's just like, I think that's one thing. Um, and then I think it's just a time frame where, like, if you're an artist, do you have the time to do that? And so for me, because my artistry is secondary, if Mike called me right now, I'd bang it on y'all. You know, if he was like, you know, if he's like, yo, I need you right now, this is da-da-da-da-da. Can you handle this? I gotta hang up and go do that, you know. So don't call right now, Mike. He's in the middle of the one more time podcast. We're almost done, Mike. So it's just a priority thing, and I think that that's the tough part. So when I was taking my artistry a little bit more seriously when I started, because I've been managing artists for five or six years now. Um, I had a partner.

So I knew that I needed a partner then, where if I was out doing my stuff, he could, he was like day-to-day, and I was business management. I was closing deals, I was giving big picture ideas and and resources, and he was day-to-day management where they knew call call him. But now it's just like this is my main priority. So music is secondary. Damn. Well, futuristic, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. My friend. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Like, comment, and subscribe if you're finding value out of this episode. I forgot to say it during the episode. I know it's like we gotta do that better, bro. Like, comment, subscribe because we forgot to say it way earlier in the episode, and you feel bad for us, and we brought you some value, and futuristic brought you some value. Anyway, this is the final section. This is the rapid fire rampage with Futuristic. It's gonna be three sections. I'll explain to them as we go. We're just gonna start with some short answer questions. Let's get into it. When are we getting the future and futuristic collab? Nebuary 15th. Oh man.

Just thought that would be pretty cool to see. Like I agree. Throw that out there. That response doesn't sound like it's pretty cool. I don't know. Your little cousin, by the way, I've been using like little cousin in these questions a lot. I don't know, it might be a recurring. Anyway, your little cousin just started his music career. What are the first three pieces of advice that you give him? Be yourself, make sure you're happy in real life, not just on the internet. And be and be relentless in your pursuit of this, or it's not gonna work. I love those, man. Those are great. That's just life. Yeah. And anything you want to do. Really is. What is a recent bar, maybe anything you wrote in the last year that you're proud of? Or maybe even a Michael Barr or an artist, another artist. Like, what's a bar that from your camp that you're like, that was a bar. What do I say? Uh I'd have to listen to it. Basically, it's it's a bar. It's all my music is Christian now. I've been growing in my faith a ton.

Um, and the bar is basically like you think different when you realize that the beginning is at the end. You know, when you start to realize that there's there's more to life than than what we're doing right now, and you start to realize like you're a vessel, and the beginning, your life starts at the end of it, right? it's a bar about that. But yeah, uh there's been a lot of faith bars in all my music. My album finally found and all them things. Like it. I like that one. What is the last work call that you made, and what was it about? Last work call that I made? Well, I had a consulting call right before this, and then 15 minutes between Sunreal called me and was asking me about music reviews and BeatStars purchases and do those work. Sunreal music reviews coming soon? Yeah. Sunreal music reviews coming soon. You heard it here first. Big fan of Sunreal. I love the new uh I love the new song him and Nic D just dropped. Really, really good. Yeah.

Beautiful record. Yeah. You've just been appointed supreme leader of the music industry with the power to do absolutely anything. What is the first move that you make? The power to do absolutely anything in the music industry. I would change, I would change all the algorithms back to chronological. Ooh. Or find a way to like implement the chronological system more because I feel like it's very unfair for people to build fan bases for only two percent of their audience to see the content that they make. So make it more follower-based and chronological. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about uh the Gary Vee? Like he wants to do a platform where you can only post like, was it once a day or just once a week? You only get one post. You know what I mean? So it's very like, you gotta be conscious kind of about it. And then you I think that's kind of an interesting idea. If it works in that format where it's chronological and it's follower based, I think it could actually be really cool and and almost function as like a membership where it's like, yo, like this is the thing. This is my post the weekly yeah, yeah.

What's his post gonna be this week? It's almost like You almost look forward to it. Yeah, it's almost like a TV episode or something. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it could work. Yeah, I do hate the like, I hate when I see a post that's like three weeks old and it's just mixed into just you know, everything else. I checked the date on it, and it's like from September and I'm so late. Yeah, or I'm like, oh yeah, I just thought that this just happened, and like it's someone's birthday or something. It's literally three weeks old. Love it. Uh what is one non-music skill that every artist should learn? I think, like you said, like self-awareness and work ethic and scheduling. Like it's mentality, honestly, like just focus focusing on on your mentality and building your mentality. I don't know if that's a it is a skill actually. I think it's a skill. It's definitely a skill, yeah, because everything else will crumble at some point if you don't have your your morals and your mentality down. Last one of the short answer. You've just lost your entire fan base and social media accounts and have to start completely over from square one. And let's assume that you're still artist first in this scenario.

Yeah. What is your first 24 hours of rebuilding look like? Identifying my niche, probably doing a cover of some sort, a remix of some sort. Um, probably batch filming. Like if I still had all my like if I have all my music, we'll say you have music. Boom. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm just making a ton of content, starting a new page on every platform, making sure the back end of everything is set up, and then I'm just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, rolling out like the best type of content over and over again. And but I'd I'd probably start with like remixes. I would just body the most current songs, but niche them out. Like if if Kendrick Lamar was Christian, if Taylor Swift was Christian, if whatever, you know, if Jelly Roll's new single went Christian rap, like that would be all of my things I would do right away. That's fire. Love that. Bro, not enough people do that whole like remix and cover thing, man. It's a way to it's a very like people have mixed reviews on it, man. Because people are scared of something brand new, but you also need to give them some of you. So it's the perfect split of like, you know, you know Taylor Swift, you like Taylor Swift, but it's my twist on it.

So they feel comfortable enough to start watching it, and then they get the you infused. Anything that people like, you just have to figure out a way to put your spin on it. Right before we got on this call, actually, I watched a piece of content where dude was taking like viral interviews, like cringe worthy stuff. People said, like somebody was like, Don't job your love, love your job, don't love your job, job your love, or something. And he had that, and then he took the comments, let the comp turn the comments into lyrics and played heavy metal guitar over it, and that's his thing. It's crushing. Like everything has a million likes. So you just have to take what's working in the world and figure out a way to remix it one way or the other. Wow. All right, part two is the this or that. I'm gonna give you two choices. You just gotta pick one. Y'all gonna get me in trouble with that. Hooks or verses. Mmm. Hooks. Singles or projects. These are tough. Singles. TikTok viral or Spotify editorial playlist. TikTok viral. Ice bath or sauna?

Sauna every day. I'm in there. Early music access or exclusive merch drop. Mmm. I'm gonna go with merch. Unwavering consistency or elite quality? Consistency. Crocs or slides. Slides. Global superstar or Forbes level CEO. Forbes level CEO. And finally become a full-time folk singer or leave the music industry forever. Me personally. Christian folk. Uh full-time folk singer or leave the music industry forever. Nothing in the related to music ever again. There it is. I'm going to get a bandwagon right now. It doesn't surprise me. honestly. I know. I was hoping it would go. Maybe do it. Maybe or no, like drop a never mind. Anyway. Going on to the description, chat. Leave that here. My new folk album is out there. Christian folk album. Futuristic folk by futuristic and Suno. Yeah, there you go. There it is. Last section is the word association. I'm gonna say one word, and you just gotta give me the first word off the top of your head. There are no correct answers.

You're only judged on speed. Starting with music. Review. Viral. Sensation. Breakfast. Lunch. Auto-tune. Brand deal. Vinyl. Collection. Money. Power. Live stream. Review. AI. Allen Iverson. See what you did there. Skirted that one real quick. God. Is everything. Podcast. I'm on it. DIY. Yourself. Roach. Roach. Roach. Infestation. Arizona. The greatest. Bitcoin. Sold. Haircut. Taper. Nerd? Raps and compliments. Let's go. What an interview. Appreciate you coming on the podcast, man. Thank you, man. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe if you fuck with this interview.

We're here damn near every week. We're getting back up there to weekend. Yeah, we're up there, man. But not putting the pressure on ourselves at the same time. So thank you, man. Appreciate you coming on. So many people right now. I know. Everyone's dead. Until next time, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Peace, y'all. Peace, y'all. Peace, y'all. Peace, y'all!